While we were talking a few persons came, among others M. Duclerc, the
ex-Minister of Finance of the Executive Committee, an old woman in black
velvet whom I did not know, and Lord Normanby, the English Ambassador,
whom the President quickly took into an adjoining salon. I saw Lord
Normanby taken aside in the same way by Louis Philippe.
The President in his salon had an air of timidity and did not appear
at home. He came and went from group to group more like an embarrassed
stranger than the master of the house. However, his remarks are _a
propos_ and sometimes witty.
He endeavoured to get my opinion anent his Ministry, but in vain. I
would say nothing either good or bad about it.
Besides, the Ministry is only a mask, or, more properly speaking, a
screen that hides a baboon. Thiers is behind it. This is beginning to
bother Louis Bonaparte. He has to contend against eight Ministers, all
of whom seek to belittle him. Each is pulling his own way. Among these
Ministers some are his avowed enemies. Nominations, promotions, and
lists arrive all made out from the Place Saint Georges. They have to be
accepted, signed and endorsed.
Yesterday Louis Bonaparte complained about it to the Prince de la
Moskowa, remarking wittily: “They want to make of me a Prince Albert of
the Republic.”
Odilon Barrot appeared mournful and discouraged. To-day he left the
council with a crushed air. M. de la Moskowa encountered him.
“Hello!” said he, “how goes it?”
“Pray for us!” replied Odilon Barrot.
“Whew!” said Moskowa, “this is tragical!”
“What are we to do?” went on Odilon Barrot. “How are we to rebuild this
old society in which everything is collapsing? Efforts to prop it up
only help to bring it down. If you touch it, it topples over. Ah! pray
for us!”
And he raised his eyes skywards.
I quitted the Elysee about 10 o’clock. As I was going the President said
to me: “Wait a minute.” Then he went into an adjoining room and came
out again a moment later with some papers which he placed in my hand,
saying: “For Madame Victor Hugo.”
They were tickets of admission to the gallery of the Garde-Meuble for
the review that is to be held to-day.
And as I went home I thought a good deal. I thought about this abrupt
moving in, this trial of etiquette, this bourgeois-republican-imperial
mixture, this surface of a deep, unfathomed quantity that to-day
is called the President of the Republic, his entourage, the whole
circumstances of his position. This man who can be, and is, addressed at
one and the same time and from all sides at once as: prince, highness,
monsieur, monseigneur and citizen, is not one of the least curious and
characteristic factors of the situation.
Everything that is happening at this moment stamps its mark upon this
personage who sticks at nothing to attain his ends.