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CONTENTS PREFACE. AT RHEIMS. 1823-1838. RECOUNTED BY EYE-WITNESSES I. THE EXECUTION OF LOUIS XVI. II. ARRIVAL OF NAPOLEON IN PARIS. March 20, 1815. VISIONS OF THE REAL. I. THE HOVEL. II. PILLAGE. THE REVOLT IN SANTO DOMINGO. III. A DREAM. September 6, 1847. IV. THE PANEL WITH THE COAT OF ARMS. V. THE EASTER DAISY. May 29, 1841. THEATER JOANNY. March 7, 1830, Midnight. MADEMOISELLE MARS. FREDERICK LEMAITRE. THE COMIQUES September, 1846 MADEMOISELLE GEORGES. October, 23, 1867. TABLEAUX VIVANTS AT THE ACADEMY. Session of November 23, 1843. October 8, 1844. 1845. AN ELECTION SESSION. March 16, 1847. April 22, 1847. October 4, 1847. December 29, 1848. Friday. March 26, 1850. Tuesday. AN ELECTION SESSION. March 28, 1850. LOVE IN PRISON. I. II. III. IV. V. AT THE TUILERIES. 1844-1848. I. THE KING. * June, 28, 1844. July, 1844. August 4, 1844. August, 1844. August, 1844. September 5, 1844. September 6,...
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This volume of memoirs has a double character—historical and intimate. The life of a period, the XIX Century, is bound up in the life of a man, VICTOR HUGO. As we follow the events set forth we get the impression they made upon the mind of the extraordinary man who recounts them; and of all the personages he brings before us he himself is assuredly not the least interesting. In portraits from the brushes of Rembrandts there are always two portraits, that of the model and that of the painter. This is not a diary of events arranged in chronological order, nor is it a continuous autobiography. It is less and it is more, or rather, it is better than these. It is a sort of haphazard chronique in which only striking incidents and occurrences are brought out, and lengthy and wearisome details are avoided. VICTOR HUGO’S long and chequered...
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It was at Rheims that I heard the name of Shakespeare for the first time. It was pronounced by Charles Nodier. That was in 1825, during the coronation of Charles X. No one at that time spoke of Shakespeare quite seriously. Voltaire’s ridicule of him was law. Mme. de Staël had adopted Germany, the great land of Kant, of Schiller, and of Beethoven. Ducis was at the height of his triumph; he and Delille were seated side by side in academic glory, which is not unlike theatrical glory. Ducis had succeeded in doing something with Shakespeare; he had made him possible; he had extracted some “tragedies” from him; Ducis impressed one as being a man who could chisel an Apollo out of Moloch. It was the time when Iago was called Pezare; Horatio, Norceste; and Desdemona, Hedelmone. A charming and very witty woman, the Duchess de Duras, used to say:...
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There were certain characteristic details connected with the execution of Louis XVI. that are not recorded in history. They were recounted to me by an eye-witness* and are here published for the first time. The scaffold was not, as is generally believed, erected in the very centre of the Place, on the spot where the obelisk now stands, but on a spot which the decree of the Provisional Executive Council designates in these precise terms: “between the pied d’estal and the Champs-Elysées.” What was this pedestal? Present generations who have seen so many things happen, so many statues crumble and so many pedestals overthrown do not quite know what meaning to give to this very vague designation, and would be embarrassed to tell for what monument the mysterious stone which the Executive Council of the Revolution laconically calls the “pied d’estal” served as a base. This stone had borne the...
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History and contemporaneous memoirs have truncated, or badly related, or even omitted altogether, certain details of the arrival of the Emperor in Paris on March 20, 1815. But living witnesses are to be met with who saw them and who rectify or complete them. During the night of the 19th, the Emperor left Sens. He arrived at three o’clock in the morning at Fontainebleau. Towards five o’clock, as day was breaking, he reviewed the few troops he had taken with him and those who had rallied to him at Fontainebleau itself. They were of every corps, of every regiment, of all arms, a little of the Grand Army, a little of the Guard. At six o’clock, the review being over, one hundred and twenty lancers mounted their horses and went on ahead to wait for him at Essonnes. These lancers were commanded by Colonel Galbois, now lieutenant general, and who...
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You want a description of this hovel? I hesitated to inflict it upon you. But you want it. I’ faith, here it is! You will only have yourself to blame, it is your fault. “Pshaw!” you say, “I know what it is. A bleared, bandy ruin. Some old house!” In the first place it is not an old house, it is very much worse, it is a new house. Really, now, an old house! You counted upon an old house and turned up your nose at it in advance. Ah! yes, old houses; don’t you wish you may get them! A dilapidated, tumble-down cottage! Why, don’t you know that a dilapidated, tumble-down cottage is simply charming, a thing of beauty? The wall is of beautiful, warm and strong colour, with moth holes, birds’ nests, old nails on which the spider hangs his rose-window web, a thousand amusing things that break...
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I thought that I must be dreaming. None who did not witness the sight could form any idea of it. I will, however, endeavour to depict something of it. I will simply recount what I saw with my own eyes. This small portion of a great scene minutely reproduced will enable you to form some notion as to the general aspect of the town during the three days of pillage. Multiply these details ad libitum and you will get the ensemble. I had taken refuge by the gate of the town, a puny barrier made of long laths painted yellow, nailed to cross laths and sharpened at the top. Near by was a kind of shed in which some hapless colonists, who had been driven from their homes, had sought shelter. They were silent and seemed to be petrified in all the attitudes of despair. Just outside of the shed...
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Last night I dreamed this—we had been talking all the evening about riots, a propos of the troubles in the Rue Saint Honoré: I entered an obscure passage way. Men passed and elbowed me in the shadow. I issued from the passage. I was in a large square, which was longer than it was wide, and surrounded by a sort of vast wall, or high edifice that resembled a wall, which enclosed it on all four sides. There were neither doors nor windows in this wall; just a few holes here and there. At certain spots it appeared to have been riddled with shot; at others it was cracked and hanging over as though it had been shaken by an earthquake. It had the bare, crumbling and desolate aspect of places in Oriental cities. No one was in sight. Day was breaking. The stone was grey, the sky also. At...
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The panel which was opposite the bed had been so blackened by time and effaced by dust that at first he could distinguish only confused lines and undecipherable contours; but the while he was thinking of other things his eyes continually wandered back to it with that mysterious and mechanical persistence which the gaze sometimes has. Singular details began to detach themselves from the confused and obscure whole. His curiosity was roused. When the attention becomes fixed it is like a light; and the tapestry growing gradually less cloudy finally appeared to him in its entirety, and stood out distinctly against the sombre wall, as though vaguely illumined. It was only a panel with a coat of arms upon it, the blazon, no doubt, of former owners of the château; but this blazon was a strange one. The escutcheon was at the foot of the panel, and it was not...
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A few days ago I was passing along the Rue de Chartres.* A palisade of boards, which linked two islands of high six-story houses, attracted my attention. It threw upon the pavement a shadow which the sunshine, penetrating between the badly joined boards, striped with beautiful parallel streaks of gold, such as one sees on the fine black satins of the Renaissance. I strolled over to it and peered through the cracks. * The little Rue de Chartres was situated on the site now occupied by the Pavilion de Rohan. It extended from the open ground of the Carrousel to the Place du Palais-Royal. The old Vaudeville Theatre was situated in it. This palisade encloses the site on which was built the Vaudeville Theatre, that was destroyed by fire two years ago, in June, 1839. It was two o’clock in the afternoon, the sun shone hotly, the street was deserted....
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They have been playing “Hernani” at the Théâtre-Français since February 25. The receipts for each performance have been five thousand francs. The public every night hisses all the verses. It is a rare uproar. The parterre hoots, the boxes burst with laughter. The actors are abashed and hostile; most of them ridicule what they have to say. The press has been practically unanimous every morning in making fun of the piece and the author. If I enter a reading room I cannot pick up a paper without seeing: “Absurd as ‘Hernani’; silly, false, bombastic, pretentious, extravagant and nonsensical as ‘Hernani’.” If I venture into the corridors of the theatre while the performance is in progress I see spectators issue from their boxes and slam the doors indignantly. Mlle. Mars plays her part honestly and faithfully, but laughs at it, even in my presence. Michelot plays his resignedly and laughs at...
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In her last illness Mlle. Mars was often delirious. One evening the doctor arrived. She was in the throes of a high fever, and her mind was wandering. She prattled about the theatre, her mother, her daughter, her niece Georgina, about all that she held dear; she laughed, wept, screamed, sighed deeply. The doctor approached her bed and said to her: “Dear lady, calm yourself, it is I.” She did not recognise him and her mind continued to wander. He went on: “Come, show me your tongue, open your mouth.” Mlle. Mars gazed at him, opened her mouth and said: “Here, look. Oh! all my teeth are my very own!” Célimène still lived....
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Frédérick Lemaitre is cross, morose and kind. He lives in retirement with his children and his mistress, who at present is Mlle. Clarisse Miroy. Frédérick likes the table. He never invites anybody to dinner except Porcher, the chief of the claque.* Fredérick and Porcher “thee-thou” each other. Porcher has common sense, good manners, and plenty of money, which he lends gallantly to authors whose rent is due. Porcher is the man of whom Harel said: “He likes, protects and disdains Literary men.” * A band of men and boys who are paid to applaud a piece or a certain actor or actress at a given signal. The applause contractor, or chef de claque , is an important factor in French theatrical affairs. Frédérick has never less than fifteen dishes at his table. When the servant brings them in he looks at them and judges them without tasting them. Often he...
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Potier, having grown old, played at the Porte Saint Martin towards the close of his life. He was the same in the street as he was on the stage. Little boys would follow him, saying: “There is Potier!” He had a small cottage near Paris and used to come to rehearsals mounted on a small horse, his long thin legs dangling nearly to the ground. Tiercelin was a Hellenist. Odry is a connoisseur of chinaware. The elephantine Lepeintre junior runs into debt and lives the life of a coquin de neuveu . Alcide Tousez, Sainville and Ravel carry on in the green room just as they do on the stage, inventing cock-and-bull yarns and cracking jokes. Arnal composes classic verse, admires Samson, waxes wrath because the cross has not been conferred upon him. And, in the green room, with rouge on his nose and cheeks and a wig on his...
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Mlle. George came to see me to-day. She was sad, and elegantly dressed in a blue dress with white stripes. She said: “I am weary and disgusted. I asked for Mars’ reversion. They granted me a pension of two thousand francs which they do not pay. Just a mouthful of bread, and even that I do not get a chance to eat! They wanted to engage me at the Historique (at the Théâtre Historique). I refused. What could I do there among those transparencies! A stout woman like me! Besides, where are the authors? Where are the pieces? Where are the roles? As to the provinces, I tried touring last year, but it is impossible without Harel.* I don’t know how to manage actors. How do you think I can get on with these evil doers? I was to have finished the 24th. I paid them on the 20th, and...
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In the year 1846 there was a spectacle that caused a furore in Paris. It was that afforded by women attired only in pink tights and a gauze skirt executing poses that were called tableaux vivants , with a few men to complete the groups. This show was given at the Porte Saint Martin and at the Cirque. I had the curiosity one night to go and see the women behind the scenes. I went to the Porte Saint Martin, where, I may add in parentheses, they were going to revive “Lucrêce Borgia”. Villemot, the stage manager, who was of poor appearance but intelligent, said: “I will take you into the gynecium.” A score of men were there—authors, actors, firemen, lamp lighters, scene shifters—who came, went, worked or looked on, and in the midst of them seven or eight women, practically nude, walked about with an air of the most...
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CHARLES NODIER.—The Academy, yielding to custom, has suppressed universally the double consonant in verbs where this consonant supplanted euphoniously the d of the radical ad . MYSELF.—I avow my profound ignorance. I had no idea that custom had effected this suppression and that the Academy had sanctioned it. Thus one should no longer write atteindre, approuver, appeler, apprehender , etc., but ateindre, aprouver, apeler, apréhender ? M. VICTOR COUSIN.—I desire to point out to M. Hugo that the alterations of which he complains come from the movement of the language, which is nothing else than decadence. MYSELF.—M. Cousin having addressed a personal observation to me, I beg to point out to him in turn that his opinion is, in my estimation, merely an opinion and nothing more. I may add that, as I view it, “movement of the language” and decadence have nothing in common. Nothing could be more distinct...
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Salvandy recently dined with Villemain. The repast over, they adjourned to the drawing-room, and conversed. As the clock struck eight Villemain’s three little daughters entered to kiss their father good night. The youngest is named Lucette; her birth cost her mother her reason; she is a sweet and charming child of five years. “Well, Lucette, dear child,” said her father, “won’t you recite one of Lafontaine’s fables before you go to bed?” “Here,” observed M. de Salvandy, “is a little person who to-day recites fables and who one of these days will inspire romances.” Lucette did not understand. She merely gazed with her big wondering eyes at Salvandy who was lolling in his chair with an air of benevolent condescension. “Well, Lucette.” he went on, “will you not recite a fable for us?” The child required no urging, and began in her naïve little voice, her fine, frank, sweet eyes...
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During the run of M. Ponsard’s “Lucrece”, I had the following dialogue with M. Viennet at a meeting of the Academy: M. VIENNET.—Have you seen the “Lucrece” that is being played at the Odéon? MYSELF.—NO. M. VIENNET.—It is very good. MYSELF.—Really, is it good? M. VIENNET.—It is more than good, it is fine. MYSELF.—Really, is it fine? M. VIENNET.—It is more than fine, it is magnificent. MYSELF.—Really, now, magnificent? M. VIENNET.—Oh! magnificent! MYSELF.—Come, now, is it as good as “Zaire”? M. VIENNET.—Oh! no! Oh! you are going too far, you know. Gracious! “Zaire”! No, it is not as good as “Zaire”. MYSELF.—Well, you see, “Zaire” is a very poor piece indeed!...
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Thirty-one Academicians present. Sixteen votes are necessary. Lamartine and M. Ballanche arrive at the end of the first ballot. M. Thiers arrives at the commencement of the second; which makes 34. The director asks M. Thiers whether he has promised his vote. He laughingly replies: “No,” and adds: “I have offered it.” (Laughter.) M. Cousin, to M. Lebrun, director: “You did not employ the sacramental expression. One does not ask an Academician whether he has *promised* his vote, but whether he has *pledged* it.” M. Empis is elected. The election was decided by Lamartine and M. Ballanche. On my way out I meet Leon Gozlan, who says to me: “Well?” I reply: “There has been an election. It is Empis.” “How do you look at it?” he asks. “In both ways.” “Empis?—-” “And tant pis !”...
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At the Academy to-day, while listening to the poems, bad to the point of grotesqueness, that have been sent for the competition of 1847, M. de Barante remarked: “Really, in these times, we no longer know how to make mediocre verses.” Great praise of the poetical and literary excellence of these times, although M. de Barante was not conscious of it....
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Election of M. Ampere. This is an improvement upon the last. A slow improvement. But Academies, like old people, go slowly. During the session and after the election Lamartine sent to me by an usher the following lines: I replied to him by the same usher:...
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Yesterday, Thursday, I had two duties to attend to at one and the same time, the Assembly and the Academy; the salt question on the one hand, on the other the much smaller question of two vacant seats. Yet I gave the preference to the latter. This is why: At the Palais Bourbon the Cavaignac party had to be prevented from killing the new Cabinet; at the Palais Mazarin the Academy had to be prevented from offending the memory of Chateaubriand. There are cases in which the dead count for more than the living; I went to the Academy. The Academy last Thursday had suddenly decided, at the opening of the session, at a time when nobody had yet put in an appearance, when there were only four or five round the green table, that on January 11 (that is to say, in three weeks) it would fill the two...
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I had arrived early, at noon. I was warming myself, for it is very cold, and the ground is covered with snow, which is not good for the apricot trees. M. Guizot, leaning against the mantelpiece, was saying to me: “As a member of the dramatic prize committee, I read yesterday, in a single day, mind you, no fewer than six plays!” “That,” I responded, “was to punish you for not having seen one acted in eighteen years.” At this moment M. Thiers came up and the two men exchanged greetings. This is how they did it: M. THIERS: Good afternoon, Guizot. M. GUIZOT: Good afternoon, Monsieur....
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M. Guizot presided. At the roll call, when M. Pasquier’s name was reached he said: “Monsieur the Chancellor—” When he got to that of M. Dupin, President of the National Assembly, he called: “Monsieur Dupin.” M. Nisard is elected. To-day, September 12, the Academy worked at the dictionary. A propos of the word “increase,” this example, taken from the works of Mme. de Staël, was proposed: “Poverty increases ignorance, and ignorance poverty.” Three objections were immediately raised: 1. Antithesis. 2. Contemporary writer. 3. Dangerous thing to say. The Academy rejected the example....
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BESIDES misdeeds, robberies, the division of spoils after an ambuscade, and the twilight exploitation of the barriers of Paris, footpads, burglars, and gaol-birds generally have another industry: they have ideal loves. This requires explanation. The trade in negro slaves moves us, and with good reason; we examine this social sore, and we do well. But let us also learn to lay bare another ulcer, which is more painful, perhaps: the traffic in white women. Here is one of the singular things connected with and characteristic of this poignant disorder of our civilization: Every gaol contains a prisoner who is known as the “artist.” All kinds of trades and professions peculiar to prisons develop behind the bars. There is the vendor of liquorice-water, the vendor of scarfs, the writer, the advocate, the usurer, the hut-maker, and the barker. The artist takes rank among these local and peculiar professions between the writer...
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The murderer is a flower for the courtesan. The prostitute is the Clytia of the assassin sun. The eye of the woman damned languourously seeks Satan among the myrtles. What is this phenomenon? It is the need of the ideal. A sublime and awful need. A terrible thing, I say. Is it a disease? Is it a remedy? Both. This noble yearning is at the same time and for the same beings a chastisement and a reward; a voluptuousness full of expiation; a chastisement for faults committed, a recompense for sorrows borne! None may escape it. It is a hunger of angels felt by demons. Saint Theresa experiences it, Messalina also. This need of the immaterial is the most deeply rooted of all needs. One must have bread; but before bread, one must have the ideal. One is a thief, one is a street-walker—all the more reason. The more one...
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Whosoever witnesses this kind of anguish witnesses the extreme of human misfortune. Dark zones are these. Baleful night bursts and spreads o’er them. Evil accumulated dissolves in misfortune upon them, they are swept with blasts of despair by the tempest of fatalities, there a downpour of trials and sorrows streams upon dishevelled heads in the darkness; squalls, hail, a hurricane of distress, swirl and whirl back and forth athwart them; it rains, rains without cease: it rains horror, it rains vice, it rains crime, it rains the blackness of night; yet we must explore this obscurity, and in the sombre storm the mind essays a difficult flight, the flight of a wet bird, as it were. There is always a vague, spectral dread in these low regions where hell penetrates; they are so little in the human order and so disproportionate that they create phantoms. It is hardly surprising, therefore,...
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Prostitution is an Isis whose final veil none has raised. There is a sphinx in this gloomy odalisk of the frightful Sultan Everybody. None has solved its enigma. It is Nakedness masked. A terrible spectacle! Alas! in all that we have just recounted man is abominable, woman is touching. How many hapless ones have been driven to their fall! The abyss is the friend of dreams. Fallen, as we have said, their lamentable hearts have no other resource than to dream. What caused their ruin was another dream, the dreadful dream of riches; nightmare of glory, of azure, and ecstasy which weighs upon the chest of the poor; flourish of trumpets heard in the gehenna, with the triumph of the fortunate appearing resplendent in the immense night; prodigious overture full of dawn! Carriages roll, gold falls in showers, laces rustle. Why should I not have this, too? Formidable thought! This...
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Oh! if they could, the unhappy creatures, if they could put from them their hearts, their dreams, harden themselves with a hardness that could not be softened, be forever cold and passionless, tear out their entrails, and, since they are filth, become monsters! If they could no longer think! If they could ignore the flower, efface the star, stop up the mouth of the pit, close heaven! They would at least no longer suffer. But no. They have a right to marriage, they have a right to the heart, they have a right to torture, they have a right to the ideal. No chilling of their hearts can put out the internal fire. However cold they may be they burn. This, we have said, is at once their misery and their crown. This sublimeness combines with their abjection to overwhelm them and raise them up. Whether they will or not,...
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The King told me that Talleyrand said to him one day: “You will never be able to do anything with Thiers, although he would make an excellent tool. He is one of those men one cannot make use of unless one is able to satisfy them. Now, he never will be satisfied. It is unfortunate for him, as for you, that in our times, he cannot be made a cardinal.” A propos of the fortifications of Paris, the King told me how the Emperor Napoleon learned the news of the taking of Paris by the allies. The Emperor was marching upon Paris at the head of his guard. Near Juvisy, at a place in the Forest of Fontainebleau where there is an obelisk (“that I never see without feeling heavy at heart,” remarked the King), a courier on his way to meet Napoleon brought him the news of the capitulation...
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“Marshal, do you remember the siege of Cadiz?” “Rather, sire, I should think so. I swore enough before that cursed Cadiz. I invested the place and was forced to go away as I had come.” “Marshal, while you were before it, I was inside it.” “I know, sire.” “The Cortes and the English Cabinet offered me the command of the Spanish army.” “I remember it.” “The offer was a grave one. I hesitated long. Bear arms against France! For my family, it is possible; but against my country! I was greatly perplexed. At this juncture you asked me, through a trusty person, for a secret interview in a little house situated on the Cortadura, between the city and your camp. Do you remember the fact, Monsieur the Marshal?” “Perfectly, sire; the day was fixed and the interview arranged.” “And I did not turn up.” “That is so.” “Do you know...
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“One of my embarrassments at present, in all this affair of the University and the clergy, is M. Affre.” * “Then why, sire,” said I, “did you appoint him?” “I made a mistake, I admit. I had at first appointed to the archbishopric of Paris the Cardinal of Arras, M. de la Tour d’Auvergne.” “It was a good choice,” I observed. “Yes, good. He is insignificant. An honest old man of no account. An easy-going fellow. He was much sought after by the Carlists. Greatly imposed upon. His whole family hated me. He was induced to refuse. Not knowing what to do, and being in haste, I named M. Affre. I ought to have been suspicious of him. His countenance is neither open nor frank. I took his underhand air for a priestly air; I did wrong. And then, you know, it was in 1840. Thiers proposed him to me,...
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A month or two ago the King went to Dreux. It was the anniversary of the death of the Duke d’Orleans. The King had chosen this day to put the coffins of his relatives in the family vault in order. Among the number was a coffin that contained all the bones of the princes of the House of Orleans that the Duchess d’Orleans, mother of the King, had been able to collect after the Revolution, when the sepulchre was violated and they were dispersed. The coffin, placed in a separate vault, had recently been smashed in by the fall of an arch. The debris of the arch, stones and plaster, had become mingled with the bones. The King had the coffin brought and opened before him. He was alone in the vault with the chaplain and two aides-de-camp. Another coffin, larger and stronger, had been prepared. The King himself, with...
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Yesterday, the 15th, after having dined at M. Villemain’s, who lives in a country house near Neuilly, I called upon the King. The King was not in the salon, where there were only the Queen, Madame Adelaide and a few ladies, among them Mme. Firmin-Rogier, who is charming. There were many visitors, among others the Duke de Brogue and M. Rossi, who were of the dinner party at which I had been present, M. de Lesseps, who lately distinguished himself as consul at Barcelona, M. Firmin-Rogier and the Count d’Agout. I bowed to the Queen, who spoke to me at length about the Princess de Joinvile, who was delivered the day before yesterday, and whose baby arrived on the very day the news of the bombardment of Tangier by its father was received. It is a little girl. The Princess de Joinvile passes the whole day kissing her and saying:...
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The King rose, paced to and fro for a few moments, as though violently agitated, then came and sat beside me and said: “Look here, you made a remark to Villemain that he repeated to me. You said to him: “‘The trouble between France and England a propos of Tahiti and Pritchard reminds me of a quarrel in a café between a couple of sub-lieutenants, one of whom has looked at the other in a way the latter does not like. A duel to the death is the result. But two great nations ought not to act like a couple of musketeers. Besides, in a duel to the death between two nations like England and France, it is civilization that would be slain.’ “This is really what you said, is it not?” “Yes, Sire.” “I was greatly struck by your observation, and this very evening I reproduced it in a...
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“What makes the maintenance of peace so difficult is that there are two things in Europe that Europe detests, France and myself—myself even more than France. I am talking to you in all frankness. They hate me because I am Orleans; they hate me because I am myself. As for France, they dislike her, but would tolerate her in other hands. Napoleon was a burden to them; they overthrew him by egging him on to war of which he was so fond. I am a burden to them; they would like to throw me down by forcing me to break that peace which I love.” Then he covered his eyes with his hands, and leaning his head back upon the cushions of the sofa, remained thus for a space pensive, and as though crushed....
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“I only met Robespierre in society once,” said the King to me. “It was at a place called Mignot, near Poissy, which still exists. It belonged to a wealthy cloth manufacturer of Louviers, named M. Decréteau. It was in ninety-one or two. M. Decréteau one day invited me to dinner at Mignot. I went. When the time came we took our places at table. The other guests were Robespierre and Pétion, but I had never before seen Robespierre. Mirabeau aptly traced his portrait in a word when he said that his face was suggestive of that of ‘a cat drinking vinegar.’ He was very gloomy, and hardly spoke. When he did let drop a word from time to time, it was uttered sourly and with reluctance. He seemed to be vexed at having come, and because I was there. “In the middle of the dinner, Pétion, addressing M. Decréteau, exclaimed:...
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“M. Guizot has great qualities and immense defects. (Queerly enough, M. Guizot on Tuesday had made precisely the same remark to me about the King, beginning with the defects.) M. Guizot has in the highest degree, and I esteem him for it profoundly, the courage of his unpopularity among his adversaries; among his friends he lacks it. He does not know how to quarrel momentarily with his partisans, which was Pitt’s great art. In the affair of Tahiti, as in that of the right of search, M. Guizot is not afraid of the Opposition, nor of the press, nor of the Radicals, nor of the Carlists, nor of the Legitimists, nor of the hundred thousand howlers in the hundred thousand public squares of France; he is afraid of Jacques Lefebvre. What will Jacques Lefebvre say? And Jacques Lefebvre is afraid of the Twelfth Arrondissement. * What will the Twelfth Arrondissement...
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The State carriage of Louis Philippe was a big blue coach drawn by eight horses. The interior was of gold coloured damask. On the doors was the King’s monogram surmounted by a crown, and on the panels were royal crowns. The roof was bordered by eight little silver crowns. There was a gigantic coachman on the box and three lackeys behind. All wore silk stockings and the tri-colour livery of the d’Orleans. The King would enter the carriage first and seat himself in the right hand corner. Then the Duke de Nemours would take his place beside the King. The three other princes would follow and seat themselves, M. de Joinville opposite the King, M. de Montpensier opposite M. de Nemours, and M. d’Aumale in the middle. The day the King attended Parliament, the grand deputations from both Houses, twelve peers and twenty-five deputies chosen by lot, awaited him on...
41 minute read
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....
1 minute read
“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.”...
1 minute read
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...
2 minute read
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....
18 minute read
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...
1 minute read
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...
2 minute read
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...
3 minute read
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...
8 minute read
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...
1 minute read
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....
1 minute read
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....
45 minute read
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.”...
41 minute read
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....
58 minute read
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....
23 minute read
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...
39 minute read
At daybreak, from my balcony, I see advancing a noisy column of people, among whom are a number of National Guards. The mob stops in front of the Mairie, which is guarded by about thirty Municipal Guards, and with loud cries demands the soldiers’ arms. Flat refusal by the Municipal Guards, menacing clamours of the crowd. Two National Guard officers intervene: “What is the use of further bloodshed? Resistance will be useless.” The Municipal Guards lay down their rifles and ammunition and withdraw without being molested. The Mayor of the Eighth Arrondissement, M. Ernest Moreau, requests me to come to the Mairie. He tells me the appalling news of the massacre on the Boulevard des Capucines. And at brief intervals further news of increasing seriousness arrives. The National Guard this time has definitely turned against the Government, and is shouting: “Hurrah for Reform!” The army, frightened at what it did...
21 minute read
During the morning everything at and in the neighbourhood of the Mairie of the Eighth Arrondissement was relatively calm, and the steps to maintain order taken the previous day with the approval of M. Ernest Moreau appeared to have assured the security of the quarter.* I thought I might leave the Place Royale and repair towards the centre of the city with my son Victor. The restlessness and agitation of a people (of the people of Paris!) on the morrow of a revolution was a spectacle that had an irresistible attraction for me. * On the evening of the 24th, there had been reason to apprehend disturbances in the Eighth Arrondissement, disturbances particularly serious in that they would not have been of a political character. The prowlers and evil-doers with hang-dog mien who seem to issue from the earth in times of trouble were very much in evidence in the...
7 minute read
On February 24 the Duke and Duchess Decazes were literally driven from the Luxembourg. And by whom? By the very denizens of the palace, all employés of the Chamber of Peers, all appointed by the grand referendary. A rumour was circulated in the quarter that during the night the peers would commit some anti-revolutionary act, publish a proclamation, etc. The entire Faubourg Saint Jacques prepared to march against the Luxembourg. Hence, great terror. First the Duke and Duchess were begged, then pressed, then constrained to leave the palace. “We will leave to-morrow. We do not know where to go. Let us pass the night here,” they said. They were driven out. They slept in a lodging-house. Next day they took up their abode at 9, Rue Verneuil. M. Decazes was very ill. A week before he had undergone an operation. Mme. Decazes bore it all with cheerfulness and courage. This...
6 minute read
The Orleans family in England are literally in poverty; they are twenty-two at table and drink water. There is not the slightest exaggeration in this. Absolutely all they have to live upon is an income of about 40,000 francs made up as follows: 24,000 francs a year from Naples, which came from Queen Marie Amélie, and the interest on a sum of 340,000 francs which Louis Philippe had forgotten under the following circumstances: During his last triumphal voyage made in October, 1844, with the Prince de Joinville, he had a credit of 500,000 francs opened for him with a London banker. Of this sum he spent only 160,000 francs. He was greatly amazed and very agreeably surprised on arriving in London to find that the balance of the 500,000 francs remained at his disposal. M. Vatout is with the Royal Family. For the whole of them there are but three...
4 minute read
There entered my drawing-room in the Place Royale one morning in March, 1848, a man of medium height, about sixty-five or sixty-six years of age, dressed in black, a red and blue ribbon in his buttonhole, and wearing patent-leather boots and white gloves. He was Jerome Napoleon, King of Westphalia. He had a very gentle voice, a charming though somewhat timid smile, straight hair turning grey, and something of the profile of the Emperor. He came to thank me for the permission that had been accorded to him to return to France, which he attributed to me, and begged me to get him appointed Governor of the Invalides. He told me that M. Crémieux, one of the members of the Provisional Government, had said to him the previous day: “If Victor Hugo asks Lamartine to do it, it will be done. Formerly everything depended upon an interview between two emperors;...
1 minute read
In the evening of the day following that on which Jerome, recalled from exile, returned to Paris, he had vainly waited for his secretary, and feeling bored and lonely, went out. It was at the end of summer (1847). He was staying at the house of his daughter, Princess Demidoff, which was off the Champs-Elysées. He crossed the Place de la Concorde, looking about him at the statues, obelisk and fountains, which were new to the exile who had not seen Paris for thirty-two years. He continued along the Quai des Tuileries. I know not what reverie took possession of his soul. Arrived at the Pavillon de Flore, he entered the gate, turned to the left, and began to walk up a flight of stairs under the arch. He had gone up two or three steps when he felt himself seized by the arm. It was the gatekeeper who had...
15 minute read
The insurrection of June presented peculiar features from the outset.* It suddenly manifested itself to terrified society in monstrous and unknown forms. * At the end of June, four months after the proclamation of the Republic, regular work had come to a standstill and the useless workshops known as the “national workshops” had been abolished by the National Assembly. Then the widespread distress prevailing caused the outbreak of one of the most formidable insurrections recorded in history. The power at that time was in the hands of an Executive Committee of five members, Lamartine, Arago, Ledru Rollin, Garnier-Pages and Marie. General Cavaignac was Minister of War. The first barricade was erected in the morning of Friday, the 23rd, at the Porte Saint Denis. It was attacked the same day. The National Guard marched resolutely against it. The attacking force was made up of battalions of the First and Second Legions,...
2 minute read
The insurgents were firing throughout the whole length of the Boulevard Beaumarchais from the tops of the new houses. Several had ambushed themselves in the big house in course of construction opposite the Galiote. At the windows they had stuck dummies,—bundles of straw with blouses and caps on them. I distinctly saw a man who had entrenched himself behind a barricade of bricks in a corner of the balcony on the fourth floor of the house which faces the Rue du Pont-aux-Choux. The man took careful aim and killed a good many persons. It was 3 o’clock. The troops and mobiles fringed the roofs of the Boulevard du Temple and returned the fire of the insurgents. A cannon had just been drawn up in front of the Gaité to demolish the house of the Galiote and sweep the whole boulevard. I thought I ought to make an effort to put...
10 minute read
Chateaubriand is dead. One of the splendours of this century has passed away. He was seventy-nine years old according to his own reckoning; according to the calculation of his old friend M. Bertin, senior, he was eighty years of age. But he had a weakness, said M. Bertin, and that was that he insisted that he was born not in 1768, but in 1769, because that was the year of Napoleon’s birth. He died yesterday, July 4, at 8 o’clock in the morning. For five or six months he had been suffering from paralysis which had almost destroyed his brain, and for five days from inflammation of the lungs, which abruptly snuffed out his life. M. Ampere announced the news to the Academy, which thereupon decided to adjourn. I quitted the National Assembly, where a questor to succeed General Négrier, who was killed in June, was being nominated, and went...
14 minute read
What had to be determined before the Assembly and the country was upon whom devolved the heavy responsibility for the painful days of June. The Executive Committee was then in power; ought it not to have foreseen and provided against the insurrection? General Cavaignac, Minister of War, and, moreover, invested with dictatorial powers by the National Assembly, had alone issued orders. Had he issued them in time? Could he not have crushed the riot at the outset instead of permitting it to gain strength, spread and develop into an insurrection? And, finally, had not the repression which followed victory been unnecessarily bloody, if not inhuman? As the time for rendering an account approached Cavaignac became thoughtful and his ill-humour was manifest even in the Chamber. One day Crémieux took his seat on the ministerial bench, whence he approved with an occasional “Hear! Hear!” the remarks of the orator who occupied...
4 minute read
In February, 1849, in the midst of the prevailing sorrow and terror, fetes were given. People danced to help the poor. While the cannon with which the rioters were threatened on January 29, were, so to speak, still trained ready for firing, a charity ball attracted all Paris to the Jardin d’Hiver. This is what the Jardin d’Hiver was like: A poet had pictured it in a word: “They have put summer under a glass case!” It was an immense iron cage with two naves forming a cross, as large as four or five cathedrals and covered with glass. Entrance to it was through a gallery of wood decorated with carpets and tapestry. On entering, the eyes were at first dazzled by a flood of light. In the light all sorts of magnificent flowers, and strange trees with the foliage and altitudes of the tropics, could be seen. Banana trees,...
11 minute read
The men condemned to death in the Bréa affair are confined in the fort at Vanves. There are five of them: Nourry, a poor child of seventeen whose father and mother died insane, type of the gamin of Paris that revolutions make a hero and riots a murderer; Daix, blind of one eye, lame, and with only one arm, a bon pauvre of the Bicetre Hospital, who underwent the operation of trepanning three years ago, and who has a little daughter eight years old whom he adores; Lahr, nicknamed the Fireman, whose wife was confined the day after his condemnation, giving life at the moment she received death; Chopart, a bookseller’s assistant, who has been mixed up in some rather discreditable pranks of youth; and finally Vappreaux junior, who pleaded an alibi and who, if the four others are to be believed, was not at the Barrière de Fontainebleau at...
5 minute read
Antonin Moyne, prior to February, 1848, was a maker of little figures and statuettes for the trade. Little figures and statuettes! That is what we had come to. Trade had supplanted the State. How empty is history, how poor is art; inasmuch as there are no more big figures there are no more statues. Antonin Moyne made rather a poor living out of his work. He had, however, been able to give his son Paul a good education and had got him into the Ecole Polytechnique. Towards 1847 the art-work business being already bad, he had added to his little figures portraits in pastel. With a statuette here, and a portrait there, he managed to get along. After February the art-work business came to a complete standstill. The manufacturer who wanted a model for a candlestick or a clock, and the bourgeois who wanted a portrait, failed him. What was...
5 minute read
The working men who sat in the Luxembourg during the months of March and April under the presidency of M. Louis Blanc, showed a sort of respect for the Chamber of Peers they replaced. The armchairs of the peers were occupied, but not soiled. There was no insult, no affront, no abuse. Not a piece of velvet was torn, not a piece of leather was dirtied. There is a good deal of the child about the people, it is given to chalking its anger, its joy and its irony on walls; these labouring men were serious and inoffensive. In the drawers of the desks they found the pens and knives of the peers, yet made neither a cut nor a spot of ink. A keeper of the palace remarked to me: “They have behaved themselves very well.” They left their places as they had found them. One only left his...
1 minute read
Odilon Barrot ascends the tribune step by step and slowly; he is solemn before being eloquent. Then he places his right hand on the table of the tribune, throwing his left hand behind his back, and thus shows himself sideways to the Assembly in the attitude of an athlete. He is always in black, well brushed and well buttoned up. His delivery, which is slow at first, gradually becomes animated, as do his thoughts. But in becoming animated his speech becomes hoarse and his thoughts cloudy. Hence a certain hesitation among his hearers, some being unable to catch what he says, the others not understanding. All at once from the cloud darts a flash of lightning and one is dazzled. The difference between men of this kind and Mirabeau is that the former have flashes of lightning, Mirabeau alone has thunder....
1 minute read
M. Thiers wants to treat men, ideas and revolutionary events with parliamentary routine. He plays his old game of constitutional tricks in face of abysms and the dreadful upheavals of the chimerical and unexpected. He does not realise that everything has been transformed; he finds a resemblance between our own times and the time when he governed, and starts out from this. This resemblance exists in point of fact, but there is in it a something that is colossal and monstrous. M. Thiers has no suspicion of this, and pursues the even tenour of his way. All his life he has been stroking cats, and coaxing them with all sorts of cajolling processes and feline ways. To-day he is trying to play the same game, and does not see that the animals have grown beyond all measure and that it is wild beasts that he is keeping about him. A...
1 minute read
M. Dufaure is a barrister of Saintes, and was the leading lawyer in his town about 1833. This led him to aspire to legislative honours. M. Dufaure arrived in the Chamber with a provincial and cold-in-the-nose accent that was very queer. But he possessed a mind so clear that occasionally it was almost luminous, and so accurate that occasionally it was decisive. With that his speech was deliberate and cold, but sure, solid, and calmly pushed difficulties before it. M. Dufaure succeeded. He was a deputy, then a minister. He is not a sage. He is a grave and honest man who has held power without greatness but with probity, and who speaks from the tribune without brilliancy but with authority. His person resembles his talent. In appearance he is dignified, simple and sober. He comes to the Chamber buttoned up in his dark grey frock-coat, and wearing a black...
1 minute read
Changarnier looks like an old academician, just as Soult looks like an old archbishop. Changarnier is sixty-four or sixty-five years old, and tall and thin. He has a gentle voice, a graceful and formal air, a chestnut wig like M. Pasquier’s, and a lady-killing smile like M. Brifaut’s. With that he is a curt, bold, expeditious man, resolute, but cunning and reserved. At the Chamber he occupies the extreme end of the fourth bench of the last section on the left, exactly above M. Ledru-Rollin. He usually sits with folded arms. The bench on which Ledru-Rollin and Lamennais sit is perhaps the most habitually irritated of the Left. While the Assembly shouts, murmurs, yells, roars, and rages, Changarnier yawns....
1 minute read
Lagrange, it is said, fired the pistol in the Boulevard des Capucines, fatal spark that heated the passions of the people and caused the conflagration of February. He is styled: Political prisoner and Representative of the people. Lagrange has a grey moustache, a grey beard and long grey hair. He is overflowing with soured generosity, charitable violence and a sort of chivalrous demagogy; there is a love in his heart with which he stirs up hatred; he is tall, thin, young looking at a distance, old when seen nearer, wrinkled, bewildered, hoarse, flurried, wan, has a wild look in his eyes and gesticulates; he is the Don Quixote of the Mountain. He, also, tilts at windmills; that is to say, at credit, order, peace, commerce, industry,—all the machinery that turns out bread. With this, a lack of ideas; continual jumps from justice to insanity and from cordiality to threats. He...
2 minute read
Prudhon was born in 1803. He has thin fair hair that is ruffled and ill-combed, with a curl on his fine high brow. He wears spectacles. His gaze is at once troubled, penetrating and steady. There is something of the house-dog in his almost flat nose and of the monkey in his chin-beard. His mouth, the nether lip of which is thick, has an habitual expression of ill-humour. He has a Franc-Comtois accent, he utters the syllables in the middle of words rapidly and drawls the final syllables; he puts a circumflex accent on every “a,” and like Charles Nodier, pronounces: “ honorable, remarquable .” He speaks badly and writes well. In the tribune his gesture consists of little feverish pats upon his manuscript with the palm of his hand. Sometimes he becomes irritated, and froths; but it is cold slaver. The principal characteristic of his countenance and physiognomy is...
1 minute read
Blanqui got so that he no longer wore a shirt. For twelve years he had worn the same clothes—his prison clothes—rags, which he displayed with sombre pride at his club. He renewed only his boots and his gloves, which were always black. At Vincennes during his eight months of captivity for the affair of the 15th of May, he lived only upon bread and raw potatoes, refusing all other food. His mother alone occasionally succeeded in inducing him to take a little beef-tea. With this, frequent ablutions, cleanliness mingled with cynicism, small hands and feet, never a shirt, gloves always. There was in this man an aristocrat crushed and trampled upon by a demagogue. Great ability, no hypocrisy; the same in private as in public. Harsh, stern, serious, never laughing, receiving respect with irony, admiration with sarcasm, love with disdain, and inspiring extraordinary devotion. There was in Blanqui nothing of...
1 minute read
During the session Lamartine came and sat beside me in the place usually occupied by M. Arbey. While talking, he interjected in an undertone sarcastic remarks about the orators in the tribune. Thiers spoke. “Little scamp,” murmured Lamartine. Then Cavaignac made his appearance. “What do you think about him?” said Lamartine. “For my part, these are my sentiments: He is fortunate, he is brave, he is loyal, he is voluble—and he is stupid.” Cavaignac was followed by Emmanuel Arago. The Assembly was stormy. “This man,” commented Lamartine, “has arms too small for the affairs he undertakes. He is given to joining in mêlées and does not know how to get out of them again. The tempest tempts him, and kills him.” A moment later Jules Favre ascended the tribune. “I do not know how they can see a serpent in this man,” said Lamartine. “He is a provincial academician.” Laughing...
1 minute read
M. Boulay de la Meurthe was a stout, kindly man, bald, pot-bellied, short, enormous, with a short nose and a not very long wit. He was a friend of Hard, whom he called mon cher , and of Jerome Bonaparte, whom he addressed as “your Majesty.” The Assembly, on January 20, made him Vice-President of the Republic. It was somewhat sudden, and unexpected by everybody except himself. This latter fact was evident from the long speech learned by heart that he delivered after being sworn in. At its conclusion the Assembly applauded, then a roar of laughter succeeded the applause. Everybody laughed, including himself; the Assembly out of irony, he in good faith. Odilon Barrot, who since the previous evening had been keenly regretting that he did not allow himself to be made Vice-President, contemplated the scene with a shrug of the shoulders and a bitter smile. The Assembly followed...
2 minute read
Dupin has a style of wit that is peculiar to himself. It is Gaulish, tinged with the wit of a limb of the law and with jovial grossness. When the vote upon the bill against universal suffrage was about to be taken some member of the majority, whose name I have forgotten, went to him and said: “You are our president, and moreover a great legist. You know more about it than I do. Enlighten me, I am undecided. Is it true that the bill violates the Constitution?” Dupin appeared to think for a moment and then replied: “No, it doesn’t violate it, but it lifts its clothes up as high as possible!” This reminds me of what he said to me the day I spoke upon the Education Bill. Baudin had permitted me to take his turn to speak, and I went up to the presidential chair to notify...
1 minute read
Upon his arrival in Paris Louis Bonaparte took up his residence in the Place Vendome. Mlle. Georges went to see him. They conversed at some length. In the course of the conversation Louis Bonaparte led Mlle. Georges to a window from which,the column with the statue of Napoleon I. upon it was visible and said: “I gaze at that all day long.” “It’s pretty high!” observed Mlle. George. September 24, 1848. Louis Napoleon appeared at the National Assembly today. He seated himself on the seventh bench of the third section on the left, between M. Vieillard and M. Havin. He looks young, has a black moustache and goatee, and a parting in his hair, a black cravat, a black coat buttoned up, a turned-down collar, and white gloves. Perrin and Leon Faucher, seated immediately below him, did not once turn their heads. In a few minutes the galleries began to...
55 minute read
Louis Bonaparte ascended the tribune (3.15 P.M.). Black frock-coat, grey trousers. He read from a crumpled paper in his hand. He was listened to with deep attention. He pronounced the word “compatriots” with a foreign accent. When he had finished a few cries of “Long live the Republic!” were raised. He returned leisurely to his place. His cousin Napoleon, son of Jerome, who so greatly resembles the Emperor, leaned over M. Vieillard to congratulate him. Louis Bonaparte seated himself without saying a word to his two neighbours. He is silent, but he seems to be embarrassed rather than taciturn....
1 minute read
While the question of the presidency was being raised Louis Bonaparte absented himself from the Assembly. When the Antony Thouret amendment, excluding members of the royal and imperial families was being debated, however, he reappeared. He seated himself at the extremity of his bench, beside his former tutor, M. Vieillard, and listened in silence, leaning his chin upon his hand, or twisting his moustache. All at once he rose and, amid extraordinary agitation, walked slowly towards the tribune. One half of the Assembly shouted: “The vote!” The other half shouted: “Speak!” M. Sarrans was in the tribune. The president said: “M. Sarrans will allow M. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte to speak.” He made a few insignificant remarks and descended from the tribune amid a general laugh of stupefaction....
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There were present MM. de Rémusat, de Tocqueville, Girardin, Leon Faucher, a member of the English Parliament and his wife, who is ugly but witty and has beautiful teeth, Mme. Odilon Barrot and her mother. Towards the middle of the dinner Louis Bonaparte arrived with his cousin, the son of Jerome, and M. Abbatucci, Representative. Louis Bonaparte is distinguished, cold, gentle, intelligent, with a certain measure of deference and dignity, a German air and black moustache; he bears no resemblance whatever to the Emperor. He ate little, spoke little, and laughed little, although the party was a merry one. Mme. Odilon Barrot seated him on her left. The Englishman was on her right. M. de Rémusat, who was seated between the prince and myself, remarked to me loud enough for Louis Bonaparte to hear: “I give my best wishes to Louis Bonaparte and my vote to Cavaignac.” Louis Bonaparte at...
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The proclamation of Louis Bonaparte as President of the Republic was made on December 20. The weather, which up to then had been admirable, and reminded one more of the approach of spring than of the beginning of winter, suddenly changed. December 20 was the first cold day of the year. Popular superstition had it that the sun of Austerlitz was becoming clouded. This proclamation was made in a somewhat unexpected manner. It had been announced for Friday. It was made suddenly on Wednesday. Towards 3 o’clock the approaches to the Assembly were occupied by troops. A regiment of infantry was massed in rear of the Palais d’Orsay; a regiment of dragoons was echeloned along the quay. The troopers shivered and looked moody. The population assembled in great uneasiness, not knowing what it all meant. For some days a Bonapartist movement had been vaguely spoken of. The faubourgs, it was...
20 minute read
Louis Bonaparte gave his first dinner last evening, Saturday the 23rd, two days after his elevation to the Presidency of the Republic. The Chamber had adjourned for the Christmas holidays. I was at home in my new lodging in the Rue de la Tour d’Auvergne, occupied with I know not what bagatelles, totus in illis , when a letter addressed to me and brought by a dragoon was handed to me. I opened the envelope, and this is what I read: The orderly officer on duty has the honour to inform Monsieur the General Changarnier that he is invited to dinner at the Elysee-National on Saturday, at 7 o’clock. I wrote below it: “Delivered by mistake to M. Victor Hugo,” and sent the letter back by the dragoon who had brought it. An hour later came another letter from M. de Persigny, Prince Louis’s former companion in plots, to-day his...
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The first month of Louis Bonaparte’s presidency is drawing to a close. This is how we stand at present: Old-time Bonapartists are cropping up. MM. Jules Favre, Billault and Carteret are paying court—politically Speaking—to the Princess Mathilde Demidoff. The Duchess d’Orleans is residing with her two children in a little house at Ems, where she lives modestly yet royally. All the ideas of February are brought up one after the other; 1849, disappointed, is turning its back on 1848. The generals want amnesty, the wise want disarmament. The Constituent Assembly’s term is expiring and the Assembly is in savage mood in consequence. M. Guizot is publishing his book On Democracy in France . Louis Philippe is in London, Pius IX. is at Gaete, M. Barrot is in power; the bourgeoisie has lost Paris, Catholicism has lost Rome. The sky is rainy and gloomy, with a ray of sunshine now and...
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At Odilon Barrot’s ball on January 28 M. Thiers went up to M. Leon Faucher and said: “Make So-and-So a prefect.” M. Leon Faucher made a grimace, which is an easy thing for him to do, and said: “Monsieur Thiers, there are objections.” “That’s funny!” retorted Thiers, “it is precisely the answer the President of the Republic gave to me the day I said: ‘Make M. Faucher a Minister!’” At this ball it was remarked that Louis Bonaparte sought Berryer’s company, attached himself to him and led him into quiet corners. The Prince looked as though he were following Berryer, and Berryer as though he were trying to avoid the Prince. At 11 o’clock the President said to Berryer: “Come with me to the Opera.” Berryer excused himself. “Prince,” said he, “it would give rise to gossip. People would believe I am engaged in a love affair!” “Pish!” replied Louis...
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Although he is animated with the best intentions in the world and has a very visible quantity of intelligence and aptitude, I fear that Louis Bonaparte will find his task too much for him. To him, France, the century, the new spirit, the instincts peculiar to the soil and the period are so many closed books. He looks without understanding them at minds that are working, Paris, events, men, things and ideas. He belongs to that class of ignorant persons who are called princes and to that category of foreigners who are called êmigrês . To those who examine him closely he has the air of a patient rather than of a governing man. There is nothing of the Bonapartes about him, either in his face or manner. He probably is not a Bonaparte. The free and easy ways of Queen Hortense are remembered. “He is a memento of Holland!”...
2 hour read
BRUSSELS, September 1.—Charles* leaves this morning with MM. Claretie, Proust, and Frédérix for Virton. Fighting is going on near there, at Carignan. They will see what they can of the battle. They will return tomorrow. September 2.—Charles and his friends did not return to-day. September 3.—Yesterday, after the decisive battle had been lost, Louis Napoleon, who was taken prisoner at Sedan, surrendered his sword to the King of Prussia. Just a month ago, on August 2, at Sarrebrück, he was playing at war. To save France now would be to save Europe. Shouting newsboys pass, with enormous posters on which are the words: “Napoleon III. a Prisoner.” 5 o’clock.—Charles and our friends have returned. 9 o’clock.—Meeting of exiles at which Charles and I are present. Query: Tricolour flag or red flag? September 4.—The deposition of the Emperor is proclaimed in Paris. At 1 o’clock a meeting of exiles is held...
31 minute read
February 14.—Left yesterday at 12.10 P.M. Arrived at Etampes at 3.15. Wait of two hours, and luncheon. After lunch we returned to our drawing-room car. A crowd surrounded it, kept back by a squad of Prussian soldiers. The crowd recognised me and shouted “Long live Victor Hugo!” I waved my hand out of window, and doffing my cap, shouted: “Long live France!” Whereupon a man with a white moustache, who somebody said was the Prussian commandant of Etampes, advanced towards me with a threatening air and said something to me in German that he no doubt intended to be terrible. Gazing steadily in turn at this Prussian and the crowd, I repeated in a louder voice: “Long live France’!” Thereat all the people shouted enthusiastically: “Long live France!” The fellow looked angry but said nothing. The Prussian soldiers did not move. The journey was a rough, long and weary one....