1818-1830 I was born at Neuilly-sur-Seine, on the outskirts of Paris, on the 14th of August, 1818. Immediately after my birth, and as soon as the Chancellor of France, M. Dambray, had declared me to be a boy, I was made over to the care of a wet nurse and another attendant. Three years later I passed out of female hands, earlier, somewhat, than is generally the case, for a little accident befell my nurse, in which my eldest brother's tutor, an unfrocked priest, as he was then discovered to be, w

1830-1833 [Illustration: Boy waving flag and shooting a gun.] The Revolution of 1830 broke out during my schooldays. I was twelve years old—too young therefore, by far, to estimate its character, political or social, correctly. I only remember that it filled me with the deepest astonishment. Never having witnessed any kind of disturbance, I had not the faintest notion what a revolution might be like. I had always seen the King and the Royal Family treated with a respect which, indeed, they have

1834-1836 My technical education recommenced more vigorously than ever when this journey was over. It had been decided that before being definitely placed on the Navy List I must pass my public examination as a first-class pupil at Brest. So I was prepared accordingly, and received those successive doses of instruction which the English designate by the characteristic word "cramming," for which the only French equivalent I can find is "gaver." My mathematical teacher held a class for a limited n

1837-1838 After the wedding festivities I went back to sea, a lieutenant still, on board the Hercule, 100 guns—Captain Casy. Captain, petty officers, crew, all hands in fact save a few officers, were Provencal. Before a week was out I caught myself talking with their accent! We were bound for South America Gibraltar was our first port, and our reception by the governor, Sir Alexander Woodford, Lady Woodford, and their charming children was of the kindest. I have a recollection of it which I trea

1838 Before six weeks were out, I was at sea again, on my way to Mexico. My orders to sail reached me at Luneville, where my brother Nemours had taken refuge, with a cavalry command, from the desperate endeavours of the grand-parents to get him married, and whither I had followed him with the same object. Thanks to my brothers, my memory is crowded with recollections of Luneville and the camp there, beginning with that of an unlucky captain who ruined his career by stopping his squadron at gallo

1839 Scarcely had I landed from the Creole when I received the distressing news of the death of my sister Marie, Duchess of Wurtemberg. It was the first mourning in our family, the first break in that numerous circle of tenderly attached brothers and sisters. I adored my sister, who was a most remarkable woman, witty, as passionate in her antipathies as in her affections, an artist to the very tips of her fingers. Her death was a deep sorrow to me, and it saddened my short stay among my own peop

1840-1841 I left Constantinople with a farewell glance, full of pleasant memories, over its forest of minarets, over the Bosphorus and the smiling Princes Islands, and at the snowy peak too of Mount Olympus, which, with my taste for mountaineering, I had climbed but a short time previously. An interesting ascent it had been, first of all through that Eastern Switzerland around the pretty town of Broussa, and then over the snow and rocky debris to the summit, whence a matchless panorama is to be

1841-1842 I left Cherbourg for Newfoundland on May 19th, 1841. It had been arranged that I was to go by the North Sea, to put into the Texel, and to go to the Hague to pay my respects in person to the King of the Netherlands. Almost as soon as I had disembarked at the Helder, I went on board the royal yacht, which was to take me to Alkmaar by the Noord Holland Canal. This yacht, commanded by a very pleasant fellow, a naval lieutenant, M. Dedel, was really charming. She had been built in the seve

1842 As the squadron was to go into winter quarters at Toulon, and as the BELLE-POULE had to repair a great many damages, I went back to Paris towards the end of January, 1842, and plunged joyfully into that most precious of all possessions amidst the storms and vicissitudes of politics, my home life. This notwithstanding, the pleasures of the gay world, then a fairly brilliant one were by no means indifferent to me. There was a numerous succession of festivities. My brother, the Duc d'Orleans,

1843 The canoe manned by four paddlers in which I had crossed the bar at Guet-n-dar was carried high up on the sand on the crest of a huge wave. A crowd of blacks rushed forward before the wave could come back, lifted me out, and put me down, with loud shouts of "Petit roi pas goutte d'eau" (Not a drop of water on our little king), at the feet of Bobokar, King of Guet-n-dar, a tall negro, dressed in a striped cotton gown, and with a laced cocked hat on his head, which had seen better days on a g

1844 I had hardly got back to Paris when I was shot on to the Admiralty Board. A great honour it was, no doubt, for a junior like myself to be associated with such veterans in the profession as numbers among its members were. But this gathering of experienced men was merely a body of advisers placed at the disposal of the Minister of Marine, to assist him with its counsel on any questions he chose to submit to them. The committee possessed no initiative of its own, and I felt myself misplaced up

1844-1848 There were great festivities at Naples, towards the end of 1854, in honour of the marriage of my brother Aumale and his cousin, the charming daughter of the Prince of Salerno. During the civil marriage, which took place at the palace, the King never left off tormenting the syndic of Naples, who figured in a full black Spanish suit in seventeenth-century style, and a wig with long floating curls. At the religious ceremony, numbers of lovely women in court dress, and men bearing great an