CHAPTER XI

Breakfast on deck--Saint-Nazaire--A thing husbands

never think of--Noirmontiers--Belle-Ile--I leave the

two Paulines--The rope-ladder--The ship's boat--A total

immersion--The inn at Saint-Nazaire--I throw money through

the window--A batch of clothes--Return to Paris

While these manœuvres were being put into execution, I rejoined our

young married couple.

"Well, monsieur," said the bride to me, "the moment has come for you to

return to land and to leave us."

"Not yet, madame," I said.

She fixed her gaze on me.

"Not yet?" she repeated.

"No, madame; I have obtained permission from the captain not to leave

you till the very last minute.... I am to lunch with you, and we shall

still have several long hours to spend talking of France."

"Thank you, monsieur," the husband replied.

But now everybody who had come on board, either for business matters or

for affairs of the heart, bade their adieux, got down into the boats,

and went away from the ship. The anchor was drawn out of the water and

catted, and _la Pauline_ began to obey the motion of the outgoing tide

and the breeze. Slight as the movement was, it was enough to bring on

a fresh paroxysm of grief in the case of the bride. I went back to the

captain.

"Captain," I said, "I believe you would give very great pleasure to

your passengers--to two, at least, among them--if you ordered lunch to

be served on deck."

"Why so?"

"Because over there is a young wife who desires to take in every bit of

France she can before she leaves it, which she cannot do if she is on

the between-decks."

"It would be easy enough," said the captain, "for I only have five

passengers at my table."

"Then you agree?"

"I agree."

We were now off Saint-Nazaire, which rises sadly out of sand and

heather, with not even a tree to rest the eye. But the young woman's

gaze hugged the bare landscape with as much eagerness as though she

were looking upon some Swiss meadow or Scotch loch.

"Madame," I said to her, "I have come from the captain to tell you

luncheon is ready."

"Oh! I cannot eat anything," she replied.

"Allow me, madame, to tell you that I am certain of the contrary."

She shook her head.

"Seeing," I continued, "that we are not going to have luncheon

between-decks but here on deck."

"You asked the captain to do that!" she exclaimed, with as much fervour

as though I had realised a desire which she had not even dared to let

herself dwell upon.

"Why, yes, I did!" I answered, laughing.

"Oh!" she said, turning to her husband, "how good monsieur is, dear!"

"Upon my word," he said, "you should be most grateful to him; I had not

even thought of such a thing."

How is it that even the most devotedly loving husbands, even those

just married, never think of things that strangers do? I leave this

reflection to the wisdom of any psychologists who may chance to peruse

this book.

The table was set on deck; the young woman ate little, but she did not

lose sight for an instant of the two banks of the Loire, which were now

growing wider and wider apart. As we approached the sea the colour of

the water changed from yellow to greenish; then waves began to foam on

its surface. When we had doubled Saint-Nazaire, we found ourselves in

the angle of a kind of gigantic V, which, at its widest end, displayed

to our gaze the limitless horizon of the sea. This was the first time

the young woman had seen the sea she was to cross; it was evident

that the vision caused her profound terror. The sea was rough without

being actually stormy; but it was not its roughness that impressed the

melancholy voyager, nor was it the white-crested waves which made her

turn pale--it was the idea of its infinity, the feeling of immensity

of space that the sight of the ocean always gives. About two o'clock

in the afternoon we reached the open sea. Then, on our left lay the

isle of Noirmontiers (_nigrum monasteriuni_), which derives its name

from a Benedictine monastery, founded there in the seventh century by

Saint Philibert, and destroyed in the ninth century by those Normans

whose appearance saddened the last years of Charlemagne; on the right

lay Belle-Ile, the isle of Fouquet, which was to give its name later

to the heroine of one of my comedies; and, later again, was to become

the scene of action of my triple epic _The Musketeers_, and to provide

a tomb worthy of my poor friend Porthos. At the time of which I am

writing, these various names struck my ears indifferently; but they

stayed in my memory none the less, and were to reappear one day decked

in all the framework of the dream-fancies of my imagination; floating

isles of Delos, which will stop in more or less advanced positions in

the realms of the future. In front of us stretched the sea, with its

indented crests, merging towards the horizon in a sky dark with clouds,

in which the sun was beginning to enshroud itself. We were nearly three

leagues from harbour, off the reef called les Pitiers; the bad channels

were passed, the wind was south-south-west, and freshening. The pilot

announced that his task was done, that he handed over the command to

the captain, and that he should return to land. I must say I looked at

the means of descent from the ship to the skiff with some disquietude.

It was nothing more than a rope-ladder fixed to the round sides of the

ship. And, moreover, the ship was making its seven knots an hour.

For a moment I wished I need not get off before reaching Guadeloupe.

Fortunately, the captain understood what was going on in my mind, and

came to the conclusion that a short delay of ten minutes was of no

account in a voyage of six weeks.

"Come," he said to me, "go and pay your adieux whilst I lay to the

ship."

Then he shouted--

"Down with the helm!"

Instantly the sails quivered: they were doing for me the same as is

done when a man falls overboard.

"Clew up the mainsail," continued the captain, "and haul in the sails

to the mainmast!"

The ship stopped, or very nearly so. The pilot was already in his boat.

I went up to the poor exile; tears were silently streaming down her

cheeks.

"You will be sure and fulfil my commission, will you not, monsieur?"

she said in a broken voice.

I bowed my acquiescence.

"You will embrace my mother for me?"

"I promise you I will do so, madame."

"But," said the husband, "if you want monsieur to kiss your mother for

you, you ought first to give him the kiss."

"Oh yes, certainly!" exclaimed the young wife effusively; "with all

my heart." And she flung her arms round my neck. Here was an unusual

situation! That woman and I had never seen one another till the night

before, and in the morning we were still strangers to one another; at

starting we were merely acquaintances; by luncheon we had developed

into friends; parting made us seem like brother and sister. Oh!

mysteries of the heart, misunderstood by the crowd at large, but which

turn those to whom God has revealed His secrets into beings destined

for suffering. I had greater difficulty in leaving these friends of

a day than it would have given me pleasure to see friends of twenty

years' standing.

"You will not forget my name, will you, monsieur?" the young wife said.

"Try and read the next books that I shall write, madame, and I promise

you you shall find that name in one of my very first novels."

There was also, perhaps, underlying the attraction for the ship, my

anxiety at the prospect of the more or less perilous descent to which

I was about to subject myself. Luckily, I had plenty of spectators to

witness my gymnastic manœuvres, and you know how the feeling of being

looked at redoubles one's courage. So I went bravely forward towards

the ship's side; I caught hold of the main shrouds as well as the

ladder, which the pilot, afraid, perhaps, of my falling into the sea

before I had paid him his crown, had, to make my descent easier, held

taut with one hand, while with his other, by help of a rope fastened

through a port-hole, he kept the skiff within reach of the ship. I had

not descended two rungs of the ladder before the wind blew my hat off.

I did not even try to catch it, for I more than needed both hands to

clutch fast hold of the ladder. At last, to my great satisfaction, and

without displaying too much clumsiness, I reached the bottom of the

skiff. That was one of the happiest moments of my life. I was scarcely

seated on one of the seats in the boat before the pilot let go both

ladder and rope, and we were thirty feet away from _la Pauline._ I

could soon hear the captain's voice shouting--

"Let go the main-sails!"

And instantly the sails stopped quivering and the ship resumed her

course. Our two young people stood astern, he waving his hat and she

her handkerchief. Meanwhile, the pilot was trimming a little sail; I

noticed that it was set by the skiff suddenly heeling over, so if I had

not held on to the opposite side of the boat I should have been spilled

right into the sea. The joke soon began to appear rather less funny to

me--all the more so since the pilot, who could hardly speak any French,

and who was chary of using what words he did know of our language, kept

staring at the horizon with a fixedness that troubled me. The fact

was that the nearer we approached the coast the rougher grew the sea.

Night, too, was rapidly coming on. I could still see the three-master,

because its pyramids of sails stood out against the purple horizon of

the setting sun; but it was evident that they could no longer see us,

or that, if they did see us, we must have looked like a gull hidden

among the waves. Those who have ever found themselves in a frail boat

over a watery abyss, with a moving wall to right and left, immensity

of sea before and behind and a stormy sky over their heads, alone know

what the wind has told them, as it drives through their hair soaked

with foam. In half an hour's time the pilot was compelled to lower his

sail. He took to the oars, but they did not grip the waves properly.

Here and there we saw high white waves fling their broken crests up

into the air, which the wind carried to us in fine, ice-cold rain.

These were the places where the waves broke against the rocks. Luckily

the flow was carrying us landwards; but at the same time that the

flowing tide served us, the wind blew us past the mouth of the Loire

and drove us along the coast of Croisic. I myself had no notion where

we were. Night came on faster and faster, and the circle of darkness

contracted more and more, until we only had about twenty paces of

horizon.

I made up my mind to hold on tight to the bottom of the boat, and to

trouble about nothing else except preventing myself being pitched

into the sea; but, seated at the bottom as I was, I was half soaked

in the water we had shipped when we were sailing. Two hours went by

in this fashion, and I must say they seemed the longest hours I ever

lived. Once, when I rose to look about me, I saw the pilot make a quick

movement, and next instant the barque bounded up as though it were gone

crazy; we passed under a sort of cataract which came from the dark

crest of a rock. I thought all was over that time; the water ran down

the collar of my shirt and streamed right through to my gaiters. I shut

my eyes and waited; at the end of five minutes, as I still felt I was

in the boat, I opened them again. We were neither better nor worse off

than before, and nothing had changed except that we could now hear the

noise of the surf against the shore; we were evidently not farther off

than the length of a couple of cables. The pilot held on to the helm

and, driven by the flowing tide, left all the work to the sea; his sole

task (and no easy one it seemed to me) being to steer us through the

rocks. Suddenly he got up and shouted to me--

"Hold on tight!"

The advice was more than useless; I was holding on to the seat tightly

enough to have left my finger-prints on it. I felt a violent shock, as

if the bottom of the boat had raked a bed of shingle. The pilot passed

rapidly across me and jumped into the sea. I did not in the least

understand this evolution, but, on getting up, I caught sight of him

standing up to his chest in the water, dragging the boat towards him by

a rope. Fifteen paces from us was the cliff. I had a great mind to jump

down beside my man, but he realised my intention and sang out--

"No, no; stay still!... We are just in."

Indeed, the first wave pushed the boat so near to the strand that it

ran aground.

"Now," said the pilot, coming towards me, "get on to my back."

"What for?"

"To prevent your getting wet."

The precaution was good, but came a little too late in the day seeing I

was already soaked through like a sponge.

"Thanks for your thoughtfulness," I said, "but you need not take the

trouble." And I leapt into the sea.

At that moment came a wave which went right over my head.

"Capital!" I said, "now my bath is complete!... Oh! what a confounded

idiot I am to take such trips as this when there is no occasion to do

so at all! Oh!..."

The last exclamation was wrung from me by the satisfaction I felt at

being once more on _terra firma._

We had landed in the little creek that lies between Saint-Nazaire

and le Croisic, a league and a half nearly from either of these two

towns. So I had my choice. But le Croisic was a league and a half out

of my way, while Saint-Nazaire, on the other hand, was just so much

nearer. There was no need for hesitation, and I decided immediately

upon Saint-Nazaire. As to the pilot, he remained with his skiff. The

wind was whistling as harshly as upon the Elsinore stage just when

the ghost of the King of Denmark is to appear. I had only one way of

warming myself, which was to keep moving as hard as I could. I held out

five francs to the pilot, instead of three as I had promised him, and

with bare head, my hands tucked into my pockets, with not a rag on me

dry, soaked with that delightful sea-water which never does dry, I set

off at a quick trot to follow the coast-line. I reached Saint-Nazaire

an hour later, and knocked at the door of the only inn of the place,

which made all kinds of difficulties in the way of opening its doors

and receiving, at eleven o'clock at night, a man without a hat. The

dialogue that took place with a view to my gaining an entrance being

prolonged endlessly, and not promising to end to my satisfaction, I

conceived the idea of throwing a five-franc piece through the window

on the first storey, out of which the landlord was leaning to talk to

me. The host would then be certain of payment for my bed. The coin rang

on the wooden floor of the room, and the innkeeper picked it up, lit a

lamp, and, making sure that my money was good metal, decided to let me

in. Ten minutes later I stood quite naked in front of an immense fire

of heather, which roasted me without warming me thoroughly; but I was

so delighted to feel the earth under my feet that I forgot all about

the extreme cold I had suffered, and paid no attention to the other

extreme of heat. The host had now grown as amiable as at first he had

been crusty. He offered me a shirt of his own, which I accepted; warmed

my bed himself, and carried my clothes away to be baked in the oven.

He had been baking bread and flat cakes that day, and the oven was

still warm. My cast-off garments were put in it on an iron oven-plate,

and, thanks to this idea, I found my clothes were as dry next day as

tinder. At eleven o'clock I was back at Paimbœuf, by night I was at

Nantes, and the next day I reached Tours, where I duly delivered to

Madame M---- her daughter's messages.

The same day, I found a disengaged place in the mail coach and engaged

it. I was sick of the Carlist language that I had heard for six weeks

and wanted to see my July sunshine once more and my revolutionary Paris

and my buildings all riddled with shot. When I arrived, it was pouring

in torrents; M. Guizot had become Prime Minister and they were scraping

the front of the Institut!

BOOK V

CHAPTER I

Confidential letter from Louis-Philippe to the Emperor

Nicholas--The Czar's reply--What France could do after the

Revolution of July--Louis-Philippe and Ferdinand VII.--The

Spanish refugees--Reaction in the Home department--Scraping

of the public monuments--Protest

The last sentence in my previous chapter virtually shows how far the

reaction in Paris had progressed at the moment I returned there after

my absence of six weeks or two months.

The conversation between the lieutenant-general and the Republicans on

the night of 3 July will be recollected, and how Louis-Philippe had

then revealed his system of _juste milieu_, a system which had been so

repugnant to our young men that Cavaignac had exclaimed--

"Oh! if that is how things are going to be, Monsieur, we need have no

anxiety, for you will not hold out for four years!"

Cavaignac was not mistaken in his prophecy, although he was wrong as to

the date--merely a chronological error, after all. Moreover, a letter,

made public by the very man to whom it had been addressed, a prince,

whose aristocratic and hereditary pride took pleasure in humbling a

king sprung from a Revolution, had published, far more clearly than the

light words of a conversation, the programme of the new reign. Copies

of this letter actually sent from St. Petersburg were in circulation:

it was from the King of France to _Monsieur, his brother_, the Emperor

of All the Russias. M. Athalin had brought it by special courier;

but it was to be delivered separately from the official letter which

announced the lieutenant-general's accession to the throne: this was

the letter intended only to be read by the Emperor of Russia, but was

naturally the only one of the two that was read by the whole world.

It seemed inexplicable to men who for the last fifteen years had

followed the policy adopted by the Duc d'Orléans towards the Elder

Branch; to those who were acquainted with his conduct towards Charles

X. and the young Duke of Bordeaux, during the days which preceded his

nomination to the lieutenant-generalship, and those which followed;

also to those who knew the part the Palais-Royal had played in that

great _mise-en-scène_ of the expedition to Rambouillet, which had ended

not exactly in the flight (Charles X. maintained his dignity safe and

sound as far as Cherbourg), but in the departure, of the Royal Family.

The staunchest of King Louis-Philippe's friends denied that the letter

was written by him; they said it was apocryphal altogether.

As I ought to explain the charges I have brought against the Government

of King Louis-Philippe, in my capacity both as an ordinary citizen and

also as a man of letters, for the benefit of friends past and present,

who were surprised at it, I may perhaps be permitted to continue to

enumerate my reasons for my political repugnance, which led to my

sending in my resignation to the king at a time when my interest--if

self-interest had been allowed to triumph over my conscientious

scruples--should have rather incited me to make up to the princely

fortunes when they advanced to the estate of kingship.

I have mentioned the impression made on me by the letter from the Duc

d'Orléans to King Charles X., that had been carried by M. de Mortemart;

I have told how the handshaking, the singings of the _Marseillaise_

and the forehead bathed in perspiration, had driven me out of the

Palais-Royal at the very moment when the young Duc de Chartres was

making his entry into it; I have also described the shame that had

glued me motionless before the placard wherein the Duc d'Orléans laid

claim to being a Valois, ignoring the most elementary historical facts,

and, renouncing Saint-Louis for an ancestor, claimed François I. as

head of his House--of all our kings the most debauched, impolitic and

faithless to his word. Furthermore, the three sons of the king, the Duc

d'Orléans, the Duc d'Aumale and the Duc de Montpensier, well knew that

my defection was honourable and disinterested, that I never boasted, by

calling them my friends, although they more than once did me the honour

to call themselves mine. It will be seen when I shall have occasion to

speak of them (and it will happen frequently in the course of these

Memoirs) how faithful I am to them in their misfortunes, and that the

memories which flow from my heart and pen, as we follow the exiles in

their retirement, are reverently given.

But to return to the king's letter to the Emperor Nicholas. It may

sound absurd to say it, but it was a real grief to me, just as the

czar's reply caused me feelings of shame. I think that if a country

is to be truly great and generous and strong, each individual citizen

belonging to it ought to be in a measure a nerve in the general

organisation, and feel individually any impulses given to it as a

nation, or to its glory or honour.

Here is the letter. Long though it be, we will follow it with the

reply, our only commentary being to italicise certain passages.

"MONSIEUR MON FRÈRE,--I have to announce to your Majesty my

accession to the throne, by a letter that General Athalin

will present you, in my name; but I wish to speak to you

with complete confidence in regard to the sequel to the

_catastrophe that I would so gladly have averted._

"For some long time past I have had to deplore that King

Charles X. and his Government did not follow a policy better

calculated to fulfil the expectations and the wishes of

the nation; I could not in the least foresee the momentous

issues that have come to pass, and I even thought that, but

for want of being able to obtain a frank and loyal spirit in

the tone of the Charter and of our institutions, it would

only have needed a little more prudence and moderation to

enable the Government to have gone on as it was for a long

time to come; but, since 8 August 1829, the composition of

the new Ministry had alarmed me greatly. I could see how

far its attitude was disliked and suspected by the nation,

and I shared in the general feelings of disquiet as to what

measures we might expect from it. Nevertheless, fidelity to

law and love of order have made such progress in France,

that resistance to the Government would certainly not

have expressed itself in such extreme forms, had not the

Government itself, in its madness, given the fatal signal

by its audacious violation of the Charter, and _by its

abolition of all the guarantees of our national liberty_,

in defence of which there is scarcely one single Frenchman

who would not be willing to shed his blood. No excesses have

followed that terrible struggle.

"But it was difficult to prevent some shaking in our social

condition, and that very exaltation of spirit which deterred

the people from excessive disorder carried them at the same

time towards experiments in political theories which might

have precipitated France and, perhaps, even Europe into

terrible calamities; it was under this state of things,

sire, that all eyes turned on me: _the very vanquished party

itself felt me to be necessary to its salvation_; I was the

more necessary, probably, in order to prevent the conquerors

from taking immoderate advantage of their victory; I have,

therefore, accepted this noble and painful task, and I

have waived aside all personal considerations which arose,

urging me to refuse the crown, because I felt that the

least hesitation on my part might compromise the future of

France and the peace of all our neighbours. The title of

Lieutenant-General, which left everything unsettled, excited

dangerous mistrust, and it was imperative to hasten to get

rid of the provisional state, as much to inspire necessary

confidence as to save the Charter. It was essential to

preserve this, the importance of which our august brother

the late Emperor realised thoroughly; and it would have been

sorely compromised if people's minds had not been promptly

satisfied and reassured.

"It will not escape your Majesty's perspicacity and great

wisdom, that, in order to attain this salutary end, it is

most desirable that affairs in Paris should be seen in

their true light, and that Europe, doing justice to the

motives that have guided my actions, should uphold my

Government with that confidence to which it has the right

to look forward. May your Majesty not lose sight of the

fact that, so long as King Charles X. reigned over France,

_I was one of the most submissive_ and faithful of his

subjects, and that it was only when I saw the action of the

laws paralysed, and the exercise of royal authority totally

annihilated, that I felt it my duty to defer to the national

vote by accepting the crown which was offered me. It is to

you, sire, that France is looking: she loves to think of

Russia as her most natural and powerful ally; the guarantee

of such an alliance lies in the noble character and the many

qualifications for which your Imperial Majesty is noted.

"I beg you to accept the assurance of my great esteem and of

the unalterable friendship with which I remain your Imperial

Majesty's affectionate brother, LOUIS-PHILIPPE"

A letter so full of tender protestations, so humble and obsequious as

this, deserved, indeed, a polite reply.

Here is that sent by His Majesty of All the Russias:--

"I have received from the hands of General Athalin the

letter of which he was the bearer. Events, ever to be

deplored, have placed your Majesty in a position of cruel

alternative; and you have adopted a determination which

seemed to you the only means left of saving France from the

greatest calamities. I will not pronounce judgment upon

the considerations that have directed your Majesty; but I

will pray to Providence to bless your intentions and the

efforts you are about to make for the welfare of the French

people. In concert with my Allies I accept with pleasure

your Majesty's expressed desire that peace and friendship

should be maintained between you and all the European

states; _so long as these relations are based upon existing

treaties, and with a firm resolution to respect the rights

and obligations and the conditions of territorial possession

which those treaties have ratified_, Europe will find in

them a guarantee of peace very necessary to the tranquillity

of France herself. Called upon in conjunction with my Allies

to cultivate these conservative relations with France under

her present Government, I, on my part, will give them all

the careful consideration they demand, _and am pleased to

offer your Majesty the assurance of my good disposition, in

return for the sentiments you have expressed towards me._

"I beg you at the same time to accept the expression of my

kind feelings towards you. NICHOLAS"

That was all Louis-Philippe got in return for his fraternal

outpourings! Nicholas might just tolerate his position if he respected

the treaties of 1815, and he offered him his _dispositions_ in exchange

for the sentiments he had put forth in his letter. Now here was exactly

where his new situation proved embarrassing. We have spoken of the July

Revolution as being the last flash of Waterloo; and, indeed, as soon

as the Revolution was an accomplished fact, every generous-hearted

mind in France turned its thoughts towards Belgium and Italy and

Poland. Belgium, in those days, was still, it will be remembered, a

part of Holland, as annexed territory. Italy was then, as it is still,

groaning under the tyranny of Austria. Poland was divided up between

Prussia, Russia and Austria, and had not even the consolation left it

of gathering its scattered members together in the same shroud.

Now, kind-hearted people were asking for a remodelling of Europe: they

wanted to give to the flocks which are called nations pastors chosen

by themselves; they refused to recognise those butchers, with whom

the heartless diplomatists, who sat at the green-covered table at the

Vienna Congress, had divided a hundred million bodies and souls, almost

at haphazard. But this was just what Louis-Philippe did not want. He

represented the bourgeoisie, which was made up of lawyers, men of

business, bankers, money-brokers and financiers; and the bourgeoisie

has its own god all to itself, which has no sympathies in common with

the god worshipped by great minds and noble hearts.

The situation was so lofty that the blinking eyes of that bourgeoisie

lowered, utterly dazzled, before they could raise themselves to such a

height. For, indeed, after the Revolution of 1830 France could fling at

kings the defiance of an unbounded ambition; it could not only act on

its own individual strength, but also, by allying other peoples with

it, it could increase its power and neutralise that of kings. What was

necessary for this? It is enough to look at the general condition of

the European monarchies; at Russia, with its vulture of the Caucasus

and its gangrene in Constantinople; to Austria, with its twofold cancer

of Italy and Hungary; to Holland, with its hostile Belgium; to England,

with its unsubdued Scotland and its starving Ireland, to see that if

we did but raise our voices a little louder we should not merely be

masters at home, but could extend our supremacy over the whole of

Europe. At one time, it seemed as though France was going to adopt this

wide and splendid policy towards Spain. It is true, though, that the

motive which moved Louis-Philippe in his action with regard to Spain

was an entirely personal feeling. As stupid, almost as despicable

as his grandfather, Ferdinand of Naples, who would not recognise

the French Republic in his day, Ferdinand of Spain did not wish to

recognise the Revolution of July, or, at any rate, he wished to ignore

the prince who had just inherited the throne after that Revolution, in

almost as mysterious a fashion as he himself had succeeded the last

of the Condés. So, on the first impulse of anger, King Louis-Philippe

received a deputation of three of the members of the Spanish Committee,

MM. Loëve-Weimars, Marchais and Dupont, introduced by M. Odilon Barrot;

he treated his brother Ferdinand in scurvy fashion and all but offered

a rope with which he hoped to see him hanged.[1] He went even farther,

and placed a hundred thousand francs at the disposal of La Fayette to

support the enterprises of the Spanish Revolutionists. From this side,

at all events, they believed themselves safe from political reaction.

M. Girod (of l'Ain), Prefect of Police, openly distributed passports

to the Spanish refugees who were on their way to the Pyrenees; the

_impériales_ of every public conveyance were reserved for these exiles,

who returned to their homes in the face of all the world; and, all

along the road, besides these specially privileged travellers, bands

of fifty, a hundred and a hundred and fifty men were to be met with,

with beating drums and flying banners, marching towards Bidassoa.

Finally, M. Guizot (a native of Ghent), in other words a Reactionary,

declared quite openly that "when, in 1823, France won back Spain to

its Absolutist ideas, she committed a political crime; she therefore

owes Spain reparation. Such reparation should be given, signal and

complete!" M. Guizot said these words to M. Louis Viardot and asked him

to publish them broadcast.

It will be seen that we do not grope in the dark--that we are not

making accusations recklessly: we quote not only the words that were

said, not only the men who said them, but also the men to whom they

were said.

Thereupon all those victims of Ferdinand VII., such as Mendizabal,

Isturitz, Calatrava, the Duke of Rivas, Martinez de la Rosa, the Count

of Toreno, General Mina, Colonel Moreno, Colonel Valdès, General

Torrijos, General Chapalangara, General Lopès Baños and General Butron

all raised their hands to Heaven and cried _Hosannah!_

Arms were sent so publicly by MM. Guizot and de Montalivet, that the

Spanish Ambassador, M. d'Ofalia, took note of the fact diplomatically.

Now, we have remarked that Ferdinand VII. of Spain was as stupid and

almost as cowardly as his grandfather Ferdinand IV. of Naples; we

should really have said that he was more cowardly, for at the mere

sound of arms in France, at the mere cries of liberty which were echoed

in the South, at the mere roll of drums approaching the frontier, he

made the _amende honorable_ and received Louis-Philippe with every

expression of regret at having held back so long. And, although the new

king had, as we have said, almost offered the rope wherewith to hang

him, he really preferred the sinner's repentance to his death. Without

saying anything to them, he withdrew the hand he had held out to the

Spanish refugees and, left to themselves, or, rather, delivered over to

the vengeance of Ferdinand, they were killed, some on the battlefield,

and others, sad and painful and shameful as it is to tell, were chased

as far as the frontier and taken and shot down on French territory!

Oh! sire, sire, was it not the shades of these martyrs which appeared

to you on 24 February, frightening you into the inert and fugitive

king who fell down on the place de la Révolution, at the foot of the

Obélisque, on the very spot where the head of King Louis XVI. had

fallen?

And Italy, stirred up by promises given her by La Fayette, promises

which the old general thought he could keep; Italy, who, in order to

carry out her revolution, only asked for an Army Corps to be stationed

on the Alps, looked in vain towards the West; for the route taken by

Hannibal and Charlemagne and Napoleon remained unoccupied.

As for Poland--we know M. Sébastiani's famous saying: "Order reigns at

Warsaw!"

In domestic legislation, reaction was just as obvious. First, they

had chosen M. Talleyrand as Ambassador to London, that political

Mephistopheles, who had watched the Republic, the Directory, the Empire

and the Restoration perish in his hands beneath his skeleton smile.

The abolition of the penalty of death had miscarried in the Chamber.

Lastly, orders had been given to efface the bullet marks of July from

the front of all public buildings. Certainly, this latter Ordinance did

not pass without raising opposition. Upon my return to Paris the walls

were still pasted with a protest, which I may be permitted to quote, as

the tone of the times is clearly shown in the few lines of which it is

composed; and, further, because the chief merit of these Memoirs should

be the preserving intact and reproduction of the character of the

times in which I lived, for the benefit of the future, which is always

inclined to become hazy. This is it:--

"REVERENCE FOR MONUMENTS

"Each glorious epoch of our history has its own special

trophies and monuments: the hero has his bronze statue and

his Arcs de Triomphe; but what living witness will there be

to teach the races to come the doings of that cycle of the

Three Days and its immortal people? What pages of history

will tell future ages at what a cost the monarchical system

of a thousand years, ancient in despotism, was destroyed?

What monument will teach our posterity that there, behind

these mutilated columns, their fathers fell in defence of

liberty? Is our Charter, patched up in a day, a fitting

monument to the sovereignty of the people? We have nothing

to show but our tombs and the traces of the bullets on

our walls and the marks made by grapeshot which adorn the

pediments of our palaces. Those are our bas-reliefs and

inscriptions, our celebrations of that great week; in them

the People read their triumph and the King sees there the

lessons he ought to learn. On those blackened walls, the

temples of Science and of Art, the bullets of Charles X.

have written, in ineffaceable characters, the love and

gratitude and impartiality we might have looked for in

a Bourbon! There, if the imprint had been religiously

preserved, we might, perhaps, have discovered the traces

of the balls of yet another Charles! What Vandal hand,

then, has dared to attack these noble reliques? Some

sacrilegious order, given by I know not what authority,

would efface those sublime breaches! If they disappear, it

will soon be forgotten that thousands of victims fell for

a principle, and that their blood flowed for an ephemeral

liberty which only shone upon us for three days! Are they

friends? Can they be brothers who dare thus to insult our

deeds? The Austrians, Russians and Prussians paid respect

to our Column, our Arcs de Triomphe, and shall the shameful

insignias of the conqueror of the Trocadéro still soil the

Arc-de-Triomphe of the conqueror of Austerlitz?

"_Courage, men of the morrow! Courage! Continue your heroic

work!_ Tear down those wooden crosses, those tricolour flags

that adorn the tombs of our brothers, and then you will have

succeeded in effacing every last trace of our Revolution!

"_(Signed)_

LANNOY, student of the École polytechnique;

PLOCQUE, advocate;

TH. MASSOT, advocate;

GUYOT, medical student;

ÉTIENNE ARAGO;

CH. LOTHON, student of the École polytechnique."

You see these poor July fighters did not make any great demands; they,

who had seen the Republic snatched from them, who had been enclosed

in the treaties of 1815, to whom a king had been given, the son of a

regicide, who had renounced the Convention, only asked that the bullet

marks of the Swiss and Royal Guards imprinted on the façades of their

public monuments should be allowed to remain intact. Their demand,

as in reason bound, was judged exorbitant and refused accordingly.

Thus, just as I said before, when I returned to Paris, M. Guizot was

Minister, and they were scraping the Institut.

[1] Here are King Louis-Philippe's very own words:-- "As for Ferdinand

VII., they can hang him if they wish: he is the biggest blackguard that

ever lived!"

CHAPTER II

The drama of Saint-Leu--The bravery of the Duc d'Aumale--The

arrest of MM. Peyronnet, Chantelauze, Guernon-Ranville and

Polignac--Madame de Saint-Fargeau's servant--Thomas and M.

de Polignac--The ex-ministers at Vincennes--The abolition

of the death penalty in the Chamber--La Fayette--M. de

Kératry--Salverte--Death to the ministers--Vive Odilon

Barrot and Pétion!

But, before returning to these patchings up of damaged walls (which

played an important part, as we shall see, in due season), let us

finish with the dark tragedy of Saint-Leu, and with the last of the

Condés, who was found one morning hanging, like an old rusty sword,

from the catch of a window. I say _let us finish with the dark tragedy

of Saint-Leu_, because, in the preceding chapter, I believe I alluded

to the _mysterious_ death of the Prince of Condé. Now that death was

certainly very mysterious; but my reader must not interpret this

epithet in any other sense than the one I give to it. One of my most

intimate friends (the same who, on the morning of 17 August 1847, on

coming out of the sleeping-chamber of Madame la Duchesse de Praslin,

had breakfasted with me, after washing his hands a second time from the

bloodstains of that unfortunate woman, and who that morning had said to

me, "I swear to you that the Duc de Praslin killed his wife!")--this

friend, the celebrated Surgeon Pasquier, as skilled as Dupuytren and as

honest as Larrey, repeated many times to me the following sentence:--

"I took the body of the Prince of Condé down from the window; well, on

my soul and conscience, I declare he hanged himself there!"

I questioned him the more insistently upon this subject, because I had

known the poor prince at Villers-Cotterets, I had dined at the same

table with him at M. Deviolaine's, and he had been kind to me, when

I was quite a boy, and a stranger and totally unknown to him. Well,

upon my word of honour, I, too, in my turn, believe implicitly what

Pasquier told me many times; which he repeated again exactly in the

same terms when, less than a couple of years ago, we both crossed the

Channel together to pay our last respects to the dead king at Claremont

(a respectful duty, which, from some unknown family susceptibility

or other, I regret I was unable to pay personally). I believe that,

if the king had not also died before his time, as many of my friends

have died, as the one to whom these Memoirs are dedicated has died,

I would invoke his testimony, which would be devoid of all affection

towards that Royal Family of which he often had reason to complain to

others, including myself; his testimony, I say, would not fail me. And

I believe it is right to say and write and print this, and to swear

to it by the dead man, as I should have done were he alive, when the

rumour reached me in the retreat I had voluntarily chosen in a foreign

land, that they were going to raise a doubt as to the question of its

being suicide. However, it matters little. Had Madame de Feuchères been

accused and convicted of the crime of which science and the law have

declared her innocent; had Madame de Feuchères confessed this crime;

had Madame de Feuchères been condemned to expiate it on the scaffold;

had Madame de Feuchères, in a last confession, accused of moral or

material complicity those whom vile hatred has tried to stain with this

complicity; had Madame de Feuchères uttered this monstrous lie; had

she published this dastardly slander; even then, for all noble minds,

for all honest hearts, no shadow of suspicion could ever have attached

to those whom she tried to reach--cursed be the parties which make use

of such weapons for attacking their enemies! As in the case of the

dauphin, when he tried to snatch the sword from the Duc de Raguse, they

only wound and stain their own hands with blood! The author who writes

history is bound to tell the truth, and I believe I have ever done so:

it is cowardly for such as wield the pen, and write for the public,

not to contradict calumnious statements. I therefore emphatically deny

this one. It would certainly have been finer and nobler of the Duc

d'Orléans, who was already rich in his own rights as a prince, and

also drawing wealth, as king, from the civil list; it would have been

a grand act, I repeat, if the duke had renounced the fatal succession,

and handed over the vast legacy to a benevolent institution, a

foundation in the cause of art, in aid of a national misfortune at that

time or in the future. But those who have read these Memoirs know how

miserly the king was, and if they may have blamed me for publishing the

fact, they will understand what I now wish people to infer. Well, then,

the prince's character being realised and his temperament admitted, we

declare that it would have been altogether beyond the power of the man

who could cover six pages with figures to discover a bonus of sixty-six

centimes, to renounce a legacy of sixty-six millions at the moment when

that long-wished-for and expected inheritance came, as it were, of its

own accord into his hands.

But now let us pass quickly from this subject, as we said at the

beginning of this chapter it was our intention to do, and let us be

particularly careful not to fix the responsibility for this fortune,

which was left him, on the young and noble hero of La Smala.

Alas! so many calumnies, so much indifference and forgetfulness follow

exiles that it is, indeed, necessary that some voices should, from time

to time, recall to the country that produced them the names of those

beloved sons who were worthy of her love!

An officer who had received his first epaulettes from the Duc d'Aumale

once replied to me, when I was praising the bravery of the poor exiled

duke in his presence--

"Brave? Why, he was no braver than anybody else!"

No braver than anybody else! As to this, I heard Yousouf, whose own

courage I hope nobody will dare to dispute, tell what I am sure he will

be ready to repeat:--

"When we found ourselves with only our two hundred and fifty men face

to face with the forty thousand souls that composed La Smala, I asked

the prince, 'Monseigneur, what are we to do?' He replied, 'Go in, by

Jove!' When he said it I thought I must have misunderstood him, so I

repeated my question, and when he again said, 'Go in, I tell you!'

_I began to shudder._ I took up my sword, of course, because I was a

soldier, but I said to myself, 'Then that will be the last of us, for

we shall all be lost!'"

No braver than anybody else! though Charras (whom nobody ever accused

of Orléanist leanings or of knowing fear, being one of those rare

natures who love danger for its own sake, _un soldat de nuit_, as

connoisseurs term them)--Charras himself said to me, in speaking of

that same taking of La Smala--

"To go as the Duc d'Aumale did, with two hundred and fifty men, into

the midst of such a population as that, one _must either be but

twenty-two years of age with no knowledge of the meaning of danger, or

else have the very devil inside one! The women had only to stretch the

tent ropes in front of the horses, in order to throw them down, and to

throw their slippers at the soldiers' heads, to exterminate them ally

from the first to the last!_"

No, indeed! the Due d'Aumale's courage was of a different order from

the rest of the world's: he was braver even than the bravest of men.

In due course I will relate what he himself told me about it at this

period, the first time I saw him after his return.

Now let us return to the re-plastering of the walls, from which we

have been turned aside by this digression on the death of the Prince

de Condé and the bravery of the Duc d'Aumale; I write, I repeat, as I

feel, and, above all, from conviction; and I proclaim with an equally

impartial voice the avarice and scheming of the father and the courage

and loyalty of his children. Moreover, the discussion which arose as to

whether the walls of Paris should remain in their mutilated condition

or not; whether they should bear the immutable impression of the

dates of 27, 28 and 29 July; or whether those dates should be effaced

from the stones as it was hoped they would be effaced from people's

hearts; this discussion, we say, had a far more significant meaning

than the scrapers of houses and restorers of buildings were ready to

acknowledge. It was really a question of the saving of the heads of the

ex-king's ministers, which were violently imperilled by this public

prosecution. Four of them had been arrested: these were, in the order

of their arrest, MM. de Peyronnet, de Guernon-Ranville, de Chantelauze

and de Polignac.

Let us give a few details concerning these different arrests; the

papers of their day duly register the facts and they are talked of,

discussed at the time and then gradually forgotten; only the cruel,

stupid fact remains; then history steps in, which limits itself to

stating the mere fact, robbed of all its details and of its picturesque

side.

What does it matter to history?--does it not represent the 1 bare bones

of events and nothing more? ...

Well, we much prefer a living being to a mummy, and a mummy to a

skeleton. Consequently, we will always try to write living history, and

it shall not be our fault if it appears in the dryasdust form of mummy

or skeleton.

M. de Peyronnet was the first to be arrested at Tours. On Monday, 6

August, at two o'clock in the afternoon, a post-chaise, passing through

that town, having awakened suspicions, was surrounded by the National

Guard. There was but a single person in the chaise, who affected to

speak no language but German. He first of all represented himself to

be a courier from the House of Rothschild and refused to answer the

questions put to him, pretending he did not understand them; but, when

his postillions were questioned, they declared that a second traveller

had got out of the carriage a kilometre's distance before they reached

the first houses probably with the intention of going round outside

the town. Two of the National Guardsmen were at once sent off in

the direction of the Bordeaux road and they soon caught sight of a

man walking with long strides over the rising ground by Grammont.

A gamekeeper, who had just passed the man, was signalled to by the

Guardsmen and accordingly arrested him. Ordered to say who he was, the

stranger showed a passport giving the name of Cambon; but they searched

him and the letter P embroidered on his handkerchief and snuff-box

awoke doubts on the subject of his identity. Two other persons coming

up, one of whom gazed attentively at the stranger, declared that he

recognised him to be M. de Peyronnet. The ex-minister was unlucky: the

new arrival, who had recognised him, happened to be an ex-magistrate

whom he had deprived of his post. The other, without knowing him

personally, had had dealings with him connected with a young man

of Tours, called Sir jean, who had been sentenced for a political

offence; he had asked M. de Peyronnet to pardon the young man, or, at

all events, to lessen his punishment, and he only received a brutal

refusal in return. So both these people had a particular hatred towards

M. de Peyronnet, and, seizing him by his coat collar, they took him

into the town. Taken to the prison at Tours, without the insults and

ill-treatment he had been subjected to in the least affecting the calm

expression of his countenance, M. de Peyronnet had been put into the

cells.

Another arrest was made at Tours that same day: that of MM. de

Chantelauze and Guernon-Ranville. The day previously, they had

presented themselves at the top of the embankment of Barthélemy; but,

learning that carriages and travellers were being searched, they

withdrew. The following morning, peasants came across two men in the

country who seemed to have lost their bearings, and arrested them,

taking them to a little village called la Membrole and handing them

over to the police, who took both of them bound to Tours. It was

not until after some time of hunting that they found the Prince de

Polignac; it was believed he must have crossed the frontier, when it

was discovered, from a telegraphic despatch on 18 August, that he had

just been arrested at Granville. This was how the arrest was made. He

was travelling with the Marquise de Saint-Fargeau, passing for her

servant, and was clad in livery. When they reached the neighbourhood

of Granville, he put himself under the protection of a gentleman named

M. Bourblanc d'Apreville, who hid him in a seaport inn. In spite of

his disguise, perhaps even because of it, suspicions were aroused and

were increased by the fact of his landing in the night. When he was the

least expecting to be recognised, two of the National Guards suddenly

entered his room. The prince turned away when he saw them and hid his

face in his hands.

"Have you your papers?" they asked.

"By what authority do you put such a question to me?" the prince

responded.

"Have you your papers?" the men asked a second time and more

imperatively.

"No."

"Well, in that case, you must come with us to prison."

At that moment, Madame de Saint-Fargeau, who had been warned of

what was happening, entered the room, laid claim to her servant and

protested against the rude treatment to which they were subjecting him.

But M. de Polignac was arrested in spite of the marquise's protests,

bound and taken to prison in the town. Next day, he confessed to the

mayor that he was the Prince de Polignac. He was taken under an escort

of the National Guard that same day away from Granville. His journey

through Coutances and his arrival at Saint-Lo were very nearly fatal

to him: the population threatened to tear him in pieces; and, for a

brief period, it seemed as though the efforts of his guards, who tried

to defend him, would prove useless; arms were stretched over the guard

of soldiers and policemen, endeavouring to hook him out from their

ranks; one man even managed to get a pistol put to his throat and would

probably have fired if, by good fortune, someone had not held up his

arm. The prince was very pale, but whether from fatigue or terror could

not be told. From Saint-Lô, M. de Polignac had written to the Minister

of the Intérieur to protest against his arrest and to plead his rank

as a peer of France, which allowed him the privilege of not being

arrested except by an order from the Chamber of Peers itself.

By a strange chance, I happened to be able to give details of M. de

Polignac's journey that no one else received, and probably I, and the

principal actors, are the only persons now who recollect them.

The prince was placed in the care of Thomas. When I say Thomas, my

readers will know quite well to whom I refer. He was that brave

and loyal friend of Bastide who, like Bastide, risked his life and

sacrificed his fortune for the cause of liberty. He had promised to

take the prince safe and sound to Paris, at the price of his own life

if need be. From that moment, the prince could rest easy, for he knew

he would either reach his destination safely with his conductor or

neither of them would do so. The carriage which took the ex-minister

of France to Paris started in the dark. But, although Thomas had

undertaken to conduct M. de Polignac safe and sound to Paris, he had

no intention whatever of letting him escape on the way thither. And

this was the dialogue that took place between prisoner and conductor.

Thomas, with that astonishing _sang-froid_ which never deserted him,

whether he was threatener or threatened, drew forth a dagger and pistol

from his pocket and showed them to the prince.

"You see, monsieur, I have taken my precautions: if you were to try to

escape, I should kill you, it's my duty. But, as I do not desire to

restrict your liberty at all during our journey, nor to humiliate an

unfortunate man like yourself, whom I respect, give me your word of

honour that you will make no kind of attempt to escape and you shall be

as free as I am."

"I give it you, monsieur," replied the prince, who believed he was

safer in Thomas's hands than fleeing alone across country.

From that moment, the prince could get down from the carriage when he

liked, walk up the hills on foot, and wander about at his own pleasure.

The conversation, of course, was likely to turn upon one topic only,

namely, the events that had just transpired, in which these two actors

had each played his own part--one in the high quarters of the palace,

the other in the streets. Replying to Thomas's conscientious and

somewhat severe reflections upon what he looked upon as the _crime_ of

the Ordinances, which had led to the fall of Charles X. and the arrest

of the prince, M. de Polignac replied, with a sigh--

"Oh, my poor Thomas, who would ever have thought things would have come

to such a pass and ended in such a wreck as this?"

And once, the prince, who knew his Corneille, followed this melancholy

expression with these lines:--

"Chimène, qui l'eût dit?

Rodrigue, qui l'eût cru?"

The prince sighed at the thought of the lot that awaited him, but

resignedly: he wore more the expression of a Christian martyr than of a

vanquished general. He interrogated Thomas as to the probable issue of

the great trial that would ensue.

"Good Heavens!" replied Thomas, "the whole matter depends on the type

of jury that is summoned to judge your case. If you are tried by a

jury, both you and your colleagues will be condemned to death; if you

are tried before the Chamber of Peers, you will be merely sentenced to

imprisonment."

"That is exactly my own opinion," M. de Polignac calmly replied.

After this coincidence of ideas, silence fell between the two

travellers, during which time daylight began to lighten the darkness

that had enshrouded the first portion of their journey.

Thomas was struck with the sight of the ex-minister's long, easily

recognisable profile, sharply defined against the increasing light as

the horses' feet rattled on the pavement of a town where the shops

were being cheerily opened, and the citizens were leisurely standing

in little groups in the square, eager for any fresh news that might

be going about. Thomas thought their carriage was the object of some

attention. He was, however, obliged to change horses at the hôtel

de la poste, which was situated in the square, and, short though

their halt was, it might prove quite long enough for the prince to be

recognised and for the news to create a sensation throughout the town,

with what result it was impossible to calculate. Thomas wore a cap with

a broad peak; he threw this over the prince's aristocratic face and

wrapped his comforter round his neck. Thomas called this proceeding

_extinguishing_ his prisoner. When the inquisitive townsfolk came and

looked in at the door of the carriage and saw, by the side of Thomas's

round, open, cool face, a bonneted figure shrouded in a neck-wrapper,

no suspicion was aroused in their breasts, and the carriage started

off with fresh horses at a tearing pace. This manœuvre was repeated

at nearly every place of relay. When Thomas related these incidents,

it was with a certain degree of melancholy. He did not forget that

prison, and perhaps even death, awaited his travelling-companion at

their journey's end, he who on more than one occasion, indeed, was to

confront in a court of justice the alternative of death or imprisonment.

On 28 August, the three prisoners from Tours and the one from Saint-Lo

reached Paris almost simultaneously. They were all four shut up in

that portion of the château of Vincennes that was called the Queen's

pavilion (pavillon de la Reine). Three of them were new men. Indeed,

they were scarcely known to anybody before the fatal day of misfortune

that overtook them. They had gained their notoriety, or, rather,

their unpopularity, by the printing of a hundred thousand copies of

Barthélemy's and Méry's verses, and by the oral skits recited against

M. de Peyronnet in particular, by the celebrated Chodruc-Duclos. We

shall have occasion, later, to speak of this modern Diogenes (we

allude, of course, to Chodruc-Duclos and not M. de Peyronnet), who,

for seven or eight years, troubled the galleries of the Palais-Royal,

where, at all hours of the day, he displayed his unbuttoned coat, his

hardly decent trousers, his waistcoat fastened together with string,

his sandal-shoes, his battered old hat and the thick growth which

covered the lower half of his face, which had earned him the nickname

of _the man with the long heard._ Then, as we have said, apart from

these verses of Barthélemy's and Méry's, and the Bordelaisian legends

made up by Chodruc-Duclos, MM. de Chantelauze, Guernon-Ranville and

de Peyronnet were almost unknown. It was very different in the case

of M. de Polignac: apart from the claim of his family that they had

descended from the same stock as Sidoine Apollinaire, the Polignacs are

of historic celebrity.

In the first place, they were old conspirators: Cardinal Melchior

de Polignac, the author of l'_Anti-Lucrèce_, had plotted against

the regent at the beginning of the previous century; Prince Jules

de Polignac had conspired against Napoleon in the beginning of the

present one; and their women had played their part during the French

Revolution: the Comtesse Diane and the Duchesse Jules, those two

inseparable friends of the queen, will both be remembered; the Duchesse

Jules in particular, to whom Marie-Antoinette gave a _layette_ of a

hundred thousand crowns and a duchy worth a million and a half.

Comte Jules de Polignac, the promoter of the Ordinances, was her second

son: he was made prince in 1817 or 1818, by Pius VII., a prince of

Rome, of course.

Having emigrated in 1789, he had returned to France in 1804, together

with his eldest brother, Armand, on purpose to take part in the

conspiracy of Cadoudal and Pichegru; he was about to be condemned,

or was, I believe, even condemned, to death, but the persistent

intercession of Josephine saved his life.

All these facts went to magnify the importance of the prisoner, whose

trial was soon to take place. After an exile of twenty-six years,

including imprisonment, ambassadorship, peer-age and ministry, he

returned in 1830, under the incubus of a second fatal accusation, to

the same dungeon at Vincennes where he had been incarcerated for the

same cause of Monarchism in 1804. The order had been issued for the

transference of the prisoners from the pavillon de la Reine to the

dungeons. M. de Polignac was the first to leave it.

I have seen him several times at the house of Madame du Cayla: he was

an extremely fine-looking man, with his white hair and lordly bearing,

his haughty manners and a pre-eminent air of distinction. But it should

be admitted that none of these qualities impressed the people very

much: they are often a reason for condemning a person: in the first

Revolution, a fine skin and beautiful linen were quite sufficient

grounds for sending a man to execution.

There were several courts to pass through before you could get from

the pavillon de la Reine to the dungeon, and these courts were crowded

with soldiers of the Gardes Nationaux and from the garrison. M. de

Polignac appeared bare-headed, between two grenadiers: there was some

slight disorder in his dress which was not usual; when he reached the

staircase, his strength, if not his courage, failed him: he reeled

and kept himself from falling by leaning his hand on the end of a

grenadier's gun. The bearing of M. de Peyronnet was quite different:

extremely brave, he sometimes made the mistake of extending his courage

to the point of insolence; he also kept his hat on and looked to left

and right disdainfully as he went. A low man out of the crowd took aim

at him, crying--

"Down on your knees, you who ordered the people to be fired upon!"

M. de Peyronnet shrugged his shoulders, remained with folded arms and

never either hastened or slackened his pace. M. de Chantelauze looked

ill and pale and downcast and seemed overcome by the gravity of the

situation. M. de Guernon-Ranville showed a nervous courage and ill

temper.

The three commissioners appointed to examine the ex-ministers were MM.

de Bérenger, Madier de Montjau and Mauguin.

From 17 August, directly the arrest of the ministers was known, the

abolition of the death penalty was proposed in the Chamber by M. Victor

de Tracy and supported by La Fayette. On the 6th of the following

October M. de Bérenger, charged with the report of the examination of

the prisoners, asked for the adjournment of the proposition. Then La

Fayette rose a second time, and, with that weighty personal bearing

which men who have seen, and done, and suffered much acquire, he

exclaimed--

"It is proposed to adjourn the question of the abolition of the death

penalty, gentlemen; but, doubtless, those who propose to do so have

never had the misfortune to see, as I myself have seen, their families,

friends and the leading citizens of France dragged off to the scaffold;

they have not, I say, had the misfortune of seeing unfortunate persons

sacrificed under the pretext that they were _Fayettists._ I am entirely

opposed to the death penalty, especially for political offences. I

therefore implore the Chamber to take M. de Tracy's proposal into

consideration."

M. de Kératry immediately mounted the tribune and, with that eloquence

which is more remarkable for heart than head, made the following

speech:--

"I attest before you all that, were it possible to assemble the parents

and friends of the courageous victims of July in this building and to

ask them 'Do you demand blood for blood? Decide!' the silent jury would

shake their heads in token of refusal and return to their noble griefs

and deserted hearths.... If I am wrong, I will appeal in spirit to the

manes of the noble victims themselves; I will call upon them to reform

this unworthy sentence; for I know that brave souls, who risk their

lives for a sacred cause, do not shed blood except during the conflict."

These two speeches, of which I have only given the most salient points,

roused such enthusiasm in the Assembly, that it was decided, there and

then, to send an address to the king, to propose the suppression of the

death penalty in cases laid down by the Commission. That same evening,

a special sitting was held and the address was read and sent.

But it must be mentioned that the enthusiasm which had carried away the

Chamber did not lay hold of the people, nor move the Republicans in

the very slightest degree. Now, why did the people, usually generous,

why did the Republicans, thoroughly interested in the abolition of

the scaffold on which the heads of some among their number might

easily fall, declare in favour of the death penalty? Because they knew

very well that this Augustan clemency was artificial, that it would

be proclaimed loudly as long as it might be useful to the political

situation of the moment; but that they would soon return to following

the old track from the place de Grève and the place de la Révolution.

Because, with gloomy looks and pressed lips, they said to themselves

what Eusèbe Salverte alone had had the courage to say in the Chamber:--

"A man urged by hunger and misery, by the sight of his wife and

children without bread, a man who has not eaten anything for three

days, attempts to steal and is taken in the act, kills in order to

escape the galleys and is condemned to death and executed. Then Society

cries out, 'Bravo, quite right! the man was a thief, an assassin and

an infamous wretch; he deserved the scaffold: long live the scaffold!'

But a statesman in cold blood orders the massacre of ten thousand of

his fellow-citizens, on purpose to climb to his ambitious ends across

their heaped up bodies. Such a man inspires you with pity and not with

horror. You would say to him, 'You wished to have our heads chopped

off, but to keep your own on your shoulders, and go into a foreign

country to enjoy the riches you have amassed. Time will look after

such a theft, passions will die down, public and private grievances

be appeased; the history of our troubles, written on our walls by the

print of bullets and grapeshot, will no longer be legible; then, public

compassion will rise up against the length of your exile: it will

demand your respite, and, for the third or fourth time, you will bring

your country to the edge of the abyss, into which you will finally

succeed in flinging it.' Why should such a distinction be made? Unless

it is, because, not having had the courage to strike down your victim

yourself, as the poor starved wretch did, you pay soldiers and make

them the instruments of your crime!"

This is what M. Salverte had said; this is what the people and the

Republicans were saying.

Now, as they are soon going to begin again to fire upon the people

and the Republicans; as they are going to begin July over again with

diametrically opposite results; as for eighteen years it is the

conquerors of the Three Days who are going to be the conquered, it is

good to draw the dividing line very distinctly and not merely to state,

as they did--

"The Chamber and Royalty of July desired the abolition of the death

penalty, but the people and Republicans would not agree to it."

You are mistaken, they did wish it; but, as a principle which should

safeguard humanity at large, and not as a means of delivering a few

privileged guilty people from justice. What they did not want was that

as exceptional tribunals are created for the purpose of punishing,

there should not be established, this time, exceptional tribunals for

absolving. They wanted the people to be looked on as a sovereign power,

and that those who had caused them to be shot down, should be dealt

with in the same way as those who, later, were to fire on the king.

Why, therefore, should a greater indulgence be granted to MM. Polignac,

de Peyronnet, de Chantelauze and de Guernon-Ranville, who killed or

wounded three thousand citizens, than to Alibaud, Meunier and Lecomte,

whose plot fell through, when firing on the king, and who neither

killed nor wounded a single person? It will probably be argued that

the difference in punishment arose from sentence being delivered by

different tribunals. But this was not so: the sentence which condemned

some to prison, and others to the scaffold, came from the same

jury--the Court of Peers.

The people were right, then, after seeing Maréchal Ney condemned to

death, to complain loudly when they knew the ministers were going to

be let off. They did not wish their heads to fall, guilty though they

were; no, the people wished they should do in 1830 what they failed to

do in 1793. They wanted their condemnation and that they should appeal

against the sentence to the people direct. Then, as M. de Kératry said,

they would have received pardon. But they were not even consulted:

it was the king, who owed his crown to the Revolution, his civil list

of eighteen millions of income and ten or twelve royal castles, who

pardoned them, and not the people who had been shot down, assassinated

and decimated.

Thus an undertone of discontent spread over the city, whilst the anger

that was settling in the base of the social scale began to rise to the

surface in hot bubbles.

On 18 October the walls of the Luxembourg were covered in the night

with menacing placards. Two or three of those bands of men, only to

be found during ill-omened seasons, came out of the catacombs, so to

speak, and spread through the town singing _La Parisienne_ and crying,

"Death to the ministers!" Some even went further and carried a flag on

which the above bloodthirsty wish was written in huge letters.

This band started from the Panthéon, crossed the Pont Neuf and went in

the direction of the Palais-Royal.

The ministers held counsel together. At these rumours and cries and the

uproar which filled the square, as on the day when they carried the

head of the Princesse de Lamballe on a pike, the king and M. Odilon

Barrot advanced to the edge of the terrace. The people never uttered a

single cry of "Vive le roi!" but shouted "Vive Odilon Barrot!" at the

top of their voices.

M. Odilon Barrot was greatly embarrassed by this popularity, which was

thus contrasted publicly with the unpopularity shown towards the king.

But Louis-Philippe laughed.

"Oh!" said the king, "don't heed their cries, Monsieur Barrot; in 1792,

I heard the fathers of these very people shout, 'Vive Pétion!' as now

these men are shouting 'Vive Barrot!'"

CHAPTER III

Oudard tells me that Louis-Philippe wishes to see me--Visit

to M. Deviolaine--Hutin, supernumerary horse-guardsman--My

interview with the king about la Vendée and the policy of

_juste milieu_--Bixio an artilleryman--He undertakes to get

me enrolled in his battery--I send in my resignation to

Louis-Philippe

It was in the midst of all these troubles that I had arrived; and

what I have just told in the preceding chapter and the very want of

method in my telling it, depict plainly enough the strange state of

exasperation which people's minds had reached. I had handed my report

to General La Fayette and he, no doubt, had sent it to the king; for,

five or six days after my return, I received a letter from Oudard

asking me to go and see him. I therefore at once presented myself at

the Palais-Royal; in spite of all that the old head of my office had

done to me, I had a real affection for him. My conviction was that,

like M. Deviolaine, he had thought me stupid, and that, under this

delusion, he had set himself to oppose my work.

"How is it," Oudard asked me, "that you have been back in Paris eight

or ten days and we have not seen you sooner?"

"But, my dear Oudard," I said, "you know very well I no longer regard

myself as a member of these offices."

"Allow me to reply to this, that, so long as you do not send in your

resignation, we look upon you as belonging to us."

"Is that all?" I said, picking up a pen and paper. "Then it won't take

long to alter it!"

"There!" said Oudard, stopping my hand, "you always find time to commit

some foolish act or other.... At all events, I should be much obliged

if you would do it somewhere else than in my office."

I laid down the pen and resumed the seat I had been occupying in front

of the fireplace. There was a moment's silence.

"Do you not wish to see the king?"

"What for?"

"Why, if only to thank him for the pardon he granted you for your false

money-coiner."

"It was not for me that he did that, it was for you."

"You are mistaken: your letter was laid before him and on it he wrote

'Granted.'"

"You shall thank him for me, dear friend: you know much better than I

do how to address crowned heads."

"Bah! You were very particular as to how one should address Charles X."

"Ah! that was a different thing! he was a king of the old order with

the tradition of his race.... He was a Bourbon and not a Valois."

"Chut! Don't say such things here!"

"Because they will cause shame or, perhaps, feelings of remorse?"

Oudard shrugged his shoulders.

"You are incorrigible!" he said.

Another short silence intervened.

"So," said he, "you have no desire to see the king?"

"None whatever."

"But suppose he wants to see you?"

"The king? Go along, you are joking!"

"Suppose I was commissioned to settle the hour for an audience with

him!"

"You know, of course, my dear fellow, I should not have such bad taste

as to refuse.... But I do not believe you have received any such

commission."

"Then you are wrong again: the king expects you at eight o'clock

to-morrow morning."

"Oh! my dear fellow, how disagreeable the king will find me!"

"Why?"

"Because I am a perfect bear when I am made to get up at such early

hours as that."

"Will you dine to-day with me?"

"With whom beside?"

"Lamy and Appert.... Will that please you?"

"Excellently well."

"Then at six o'clock to-night."

We shook hands and separated. I took advantage of being at the

Palais-Royal to pay a series of calls. I went first to see Lassagne,

who was as good-natured and amusing as ever; then I saw Ernest, who had

risen a peg higher; then my friend de la Ponce who, from my old habits,

thought I had come to ask him to put on his coat and hat; then, lastly,

on M. Deviolaine. I entered his room, as usual, unannounced. He was

as short-sighted as a mole and was writing with his face close to his

paper, effacing the letters that he traced with his pen with the hairs

of his nostrils. At the noise I made as I approached his writing-table,

he lifted his head and recognised me.

"Ah! there you are," he said, "Monsieur Bully!"

"Here I am, true enough."

"I advise you to return to Soissons!"

"Why?"

"Because you will get a warm reception there."

"Bah! have they become wicked there?"

"I wonder you weren't ashamed to cause such a scandal in your own part

of the country."

"By-the-bye, I have something to ask of you."

"For yourself?"

"God forbid!"

"Then for whom?"

"For my fellow-companion on that occasion."

"Which? There were three of you."

"Hutin."

"What do you want for him?"

"I want a place as supernumerary in the Horse Guards!"

"Good! Do you think such posts are given away like that!"

"Of course!"

"What has he done to deserve such a favour?"

"Done? Why, you know he went to Soissons with me."

"A fine recommendation, indeed!"

"What will you bet that you will give me the post for him?"

"What will you bet?"

"Twenty-five louis."

"Did one ever see such a rascal as you are!"

"Let us bet...."

"Why? You may put a pistol to my head, as you did to the commandant of

Soissons."

"Oh dear no! I know well enough such a method would not succeed with

you."

"That is a fortunate thing for me."

"But I shall get someone to ask you for the favour whom you will not

care to refuse."

"Who is that?"

"General La Fayette."

"General La Fayette! He has something better to do than to draw up

petitions!"

"You are right; I will ask it direct from the king."

"From the king?"

"Yes; I shall see him to-morrow."

"Have you asked for an audience?"

"I?"

I shook my head.

"If you have not, how can you see him?"

"I shall see him because he wishes to see me."

"The king wishes to see you?"

"At least, so he has sent me word by Oudard."

"What does he want to see you about?"

"I have no idea.... To converse with me, I suppose."

"To converse with him! Good heavens, what an incredible cheek the

fellow has! What shall you tell the king if you do talk to him?"

"What he is quite unaccustomed to hearing ... the truth."

"If you think you will make your way with such principles as that, you

are greatly mistaken."

"My way is made ... and you know better than anybody else in the world

that neither you nor he helped me to make it."

"Oh! by the gods! I feel as though I were talking to his father once

more."

"We might be more unlike, you will admit."

"I thought your friend Hutin was well off."

"Ah! we are coming back to him?"

"Why not?"

"He is rich, since he is asking for a place as supernumerary."

"A runner after young ladies!"

"What the devil else should he run after? After boys?"

"A poacher!"

"I have heard you say a score of times that it was good poachers who

made good keepers."

"We will see. Send him to me the first time he comes to Paris."

"I will bring him along myself."

"Nothing of the kind! You have such a way of getting round me...."

"Ah! yes, say that to _Henri III._ and _Christine_, and you will see

what they will reply!"

"What are you doing now?"

"Nothing."

"Idle fellow."

"But I shall soon be at work again in all probability."

"What will you do?"

"I shall fight."

"Fight against whom?"

"Against the powers that be: there!"

"Be off with you, and the quicker the better! I never heard such a

thing--Fancy coming to talk such treason to me!"

"_Au revoir_, cousin!"

"I your cousin? It is a lie; I'd rather be cousin to the devil!

Féresse! Féresse!"

Féresse appeared.

"Do you see this gentleman?" M. Deviolaine said, pointing at me with

his finger.

"Yes," replied the astonished Féresse.

"Well, when he presents himself at my office, you can tell him I am not

at home."

"I don't care a ---- for Féresse! I shall enter without his leave!"

"You would enter without asking him?"

"Most certainly."

"Well, then, I shall fling you out of the door!"

"You?"

"Do you suppose I should hesitate to do so?"

"You?"

"Would you like a sample now?"

"Upon my word I should!"

"Ah! you dare me to it? Then look out."

M. Deviolaine got up and flew furiously at me. I threw my arms round

his neck, and kissed him on both cheeks. He stopped short, and

something very like a tear glistened on his eyelid.

"You can go, Féresse," he said.

Then laying his hand on my shoulder--

"What troubles me is that with such a character as yours, you will die

in a garret like your father before you! ... Come, Hutin shall have his

post--off with you. I must get to work."

But before I left the building I had posted a letter to Hutin telling

him to come to Paris as fast as he could, and telling him the news

which he was not expecting. Let us say at once, that three months

later Hutin was made a supernumerary, and eighteen months later he was

_entered on the lists_, which in bureaucratic parlance means that he

received a salary.

Next day I was at the king's palace as eight o'clock was striking. I

had donned my riding uniform of the National Guards for this important

occasion. Whether by chance or by premeditation, the king received me

in the same chamber in which he had given me audience the day before

the first representation of my _Henri III._, when he was Duc d'Orléans.

I did not find him changed either in looks or manner; he had the same

affectionate smile and good-natured expression that were so difficult

to resist; the smile which had won him Laffitte's fortune, Casimir

Périer's health and M. Thiers' reputation.

"Good-day, Monsieur Dumas," he said to me.

I bowed.

"So you have returned from la Vendée."

"Yes, sire."

"How long were you there?"

"Six weeks, sire."

"I have been told that you made a very exhaustive study of the country,

and one deserving enough to be brought under my notice ..."

"By General La Fayette, doubtless?"

"Precisely."

"I thought he had done more than that, and had himself presented my

report to you, sire."

"Quite true.... But I find a lacuna in that report."

I bowed in token that I was waiting to hear more.

"You were sent by General La Fayette," the king continued, "to study

the possibility of establishing a National Guard in la Vendée, and you

hardly mention either the possibility or impossibility of such a thing."

"True, sire, on the ground that the study of the locality convinced

me that the establishment of a National Guard in the departments of

la Loire-Inférieure, Maine-et-Loire, la Vendée and Deux-Sèvres would

for the time being be ruinous to the middle classes of society, which

have their business to attend to as notaries, drapers, cloth-weavers,

locksmiths, joiners, barristers,--trading either wholesale or retail,

in a word,--but have no time for horse exercise and drilling. It would,

moreover, be a dangerous measure for this reason: the citizens who

wore the uniform would become _Blues_ again, and those who did not

wear it would be _Chouans._ That is why I have nearly abandoned the

idea and laid stress on the opening out of roads, on the furthering

of communication, to act, as they say in medicine, as a species of

dissolvent, rather than by revulsives: let the Vendeans get away from

the influence of the nobles, and their women from the influence of the

priests, and no more Vendean insurrections will be possible."

"Well, Monsieur Dumas, I am of a different opinion from yours. I

believe that a Vendée is no longer possible, because there are no

Vendeans left. Tell me where are the Elbées, the Bonchamps, the

Lescures, the Laroche-Jaquelins and the Charettes?"

"Sire, where they were in 1789.... However, la Vendée need not be

feared, now, or in the immediate future; I would go further still, and

say that it would never again rise by itself, but somebody might throw

himself into la Vendée and cause it to rise."

"Who? Not the dauphin--he has not energy enough for that; nor the Duc

de Bordeaux--he is too young; nor Charles X.--a king would be out of

place at the head of a handful of rebels."

"The king knows general history too well not to be acquainted with the

history of Hungary: _Moriamur pro nostro rege Maria-Theresa!_"

"The Duchesse de Berry?"

"She is much talked about."

"You are right. I have myself thought so often; but, remember carefully

what I tell you, Monsieur Dumas: there will be no Vendean rising

without England, and I am sure of England."

I did not urge on the king that there might be a terrible, implacable,

fierce Vendean outburst, like that of '92 and '93; I did not tell him

that there might, perhaps, be twenty, thirty, or forty thousand men in

arms as before; nor that there would be disastrous, fatal and deadly

battles, such as those of Ponts-de-Cé, Torfou and Antrain; I did not

tell him that the rising of the west would be supported by a rising in

the south and by a foreign invasion. I said that there was a chance, a

probability and almost a certainty of fighting, and that men would be

killed, that fresh hatreds would be born out of the renewed bloodshed,

and that the king would be too careful of the spilling of French blood

not to set himself in opposition to such proceedings as far as he had

means in his power.

The king smiled.

"I tell you, Monsieur Dumas, that I have put my finger on the pulse of

la Vendée.... I am a bit of a doctor, as you know."

I bowed.

"Well! there is nothing going on there, nor will there be."

"The king will allow me not to attempt to combat his opinion," I

replied, laughing, "but to remain of my own way of thinking?"

"Of course! You know that my influence does not extend over people's

opinions, unfortunately, or I should have tried to modify yours and

those of some other friends of yours."

"Meanwhile, as the conversation has fallen on this subject, your

Majesty may wish me to say what I think?"

"On the disposition of la Vendée?"

"And on the policy of the king...."

"Tell me what you think of both."

"Well, I think that a foreign war, upon the Rhine or in Italy, would

be a popular one at the present moment; that the king does not care to

bring about such a war, and that he is not sorry to have an excuse for

not doing so."

"Ah! indeed!"

"La Vendée would offer him such an excuse."

"How so?"

"No doubt, as the king said just now, he is a doctor; when he has to

answer those who talk of the Belgian, Italian or Polish nationality, he

will say: 'Pardon, messieurs; before busying ourselves with the affairs

of other peoples, France has first to cure herself of an internal

inflammation.' When they turn their gaze in the direction of la Vendée,

and hear the sound of firing and see the smoke of battle, no one will

have anything to reply, the king will then only concern himself with

people of his own nationality and even the most fiery propagandists

will see that we have not taken upon us the responsibility of foreign

bloodshed."

The king bit his lips; I had evidently hit home.

"Monsieur Dumas," he said, "politics are a melancholy profession....

Leave it to kings and governors. You are a poet; attend to your poetry."

"Pardon me. I do not follow."

"I merely mean that, being a poet, you see things as a poet." I bowed

again.

"Sire," I said to him, "the ancients called their poets _Vates._"

The king signed with his hand, implying, "Monsieur Dumas, your audience

is at an end; I know what I wanted to know from you and you can retire."

I understood the sign, and I did not wait to have it repeated. I

went out as far as I could backwards, so as not to shock those ideas

of etiquette of which the Duc d'Orléans had tried hard to give me a

lesson one day when King Charles X. had come to the famous ball at the

Palais-Royal.

I met Oudard on the staircase.

"Have you seen the king?" he asked me.

"I am just leaving him," I replied.

"Well?"

"Yesterday we were only half at variance."

"And now?"

"To-day it is otherwise; we are wholly so."

"Blockhead!" he muttered.

I waved him an adieu with my hand, and ran laughing down the stairs.

As I was returning home I met Bixio on the Pont des Tuileries; he was

clad in a blue military coat with red epaulettes and forage cap and

had a ball of red horsehair on his shako with stripes of red down his

trousers.

"Hullo," I said, "what are you in?"

"In the artillery."

"Is there an artillery, then?"

"Certainly."

"Of whom does it consist?..."

"Of all our Republican friends: Grouvelle, Guinard, Cavaignac, Étienne

Arago, Bastide, Thomas and myself, etc...."

"I should like to join it too."

"That will be difficult because of your position near the king."

"Mine? I have broken off with him completely!"

"Then you are free?"

"As free as air! Besides, there is another way of making myself freer

still...."

"Which is?"

"To send in my resignation this very day."

"If that be the case, I will undertake to get you admitted. ... I

believe they are one or two men short in the 4th Battery; you haven't

any special preference, have you?"

"No."

"Besides, it is mine."

"In that case, I have a preference; have me received into the 4th

Battery."

"I will mention it to-night to Cavaignac and Bastide."

"Is it agreed upon?"

"Rather, yes!"

"_Au revoir._"

"_Au revoir._"

I went home; took paper, pen and ink and wrote the following letter of

resignation:--

"SIRE,--My political opinions being entirely out of harmony

with those your Majesty has the right to insist upon in

persons who compose your Household, I beg your Majesty to

accept my resignation of the post of Librarian. I have the

honour to remain, yours respectfully, etc.,

"ALEX. DUMAS"

I apologise for the style, which was that of the period. Then I put a

short note to Bixio in the post containing this one line:--

"_Alea jacta est!_"

We shall see later how, as my letter never reached the hands of the

king, I was obliged to send in my resignation a second time, which was

inserted in the papers and repeated in the Preface to _Napoleon._

CHAPTER IV

First performance of _la Mère et la Fille_--I have supper

with Harel after the performance--Harel imprisons me after

supper--I am sentenced to eight days' enforced work at

_Napoléon_--On the ninth day the piece is read to the

actors and I am set at liberty--The rehearsals--The actor

Charles--His story about Nodier

On the same table upon which I had just written my letter of

resignation lay a letter in a handwriting that I recognised as Harel's.

I opened it in fear and trembling that he was going to speak to me

again about the wretched _Napoléon_ drama, which had become quite a

nightmare to me. But nothing of the kind: he sent me a box for the

first performance of _la Mère et la Fille_ and an invitation to supper

with him afterwards. I sent my ticket to Marie Nodier, keeping one

place for myself. I had neglected my dear friends of the Arsenal for a

long time and was very anxious to see them again. I reached the Odéon

by eight o'clock.

I have previously expressed my opinion upon _la Mère et la Fille_: it

is one of Mazères' best plays, and quite Empis' best. Frédéric was

sublime in his artless, poignant grief, his restrained despair. The

other parts were, in theatrical parlance, _bien tenus_--well sustained.

Marie and Madame Nodier wept, and so did Madame de Tracy; the authors

won a triumphant ovation in tears.

Lockroy, Janin and I reached Harel's house by midnight, when we

congratulated him on his success. Harel received our compliments

rubbing his hands together and stuffing snuff up his nostrils with

never a word about the _Napoléon_ play. I could not tell what had come

over him, and began to think that he had given the play to another to

write. This silence seemed all the stranger to me since M. Crosnier

was making fabulous sums with his _Napoléon à Schoenbrünn._

The supper was in the style of those sumptuous delightful ones that

Georges was wont to give us. She made a glorious queen at such feasts,

as she dispensed the finest fruits from Chevet with her beautiful,

goddess-like hands. When Harel, Janin and Lockroy were present, there

was the very finest flow of wit imaginable. At three in the morning we

were still at table. Notwithstanding all this, there were signs in the

atmosphere which savoured of some conspiracy: glances were exchanged,

smiles returned and significant words bandied about. When I asked for

explanations, everybody gazed in astonishment; they laughed in my face,

and I felt as though I had just come from Carpentras. True enough, I

had come from Quimper, which was nearly the same thing. We all rose

from the table, and Georges took me into another room with the excuse

that she wanted to show me something extremely beautiful. What was it

she showed me? I cannot say: but, whatever it was, it was fascinating

enough to keep me from returning to the salon for over a quarter of an

hour. When I returned, Lockroy and Janin had disappeared and only Harel

remained. It struck half-past three, and I thought it about time to

retire; I picked up my hat and was preparing to depart the way I came,

when Harel said--

"No, no, everybody has gone to bed.... Follow me this way."

I followed him unsuspectingly.

We went through Georges' room again, then through a dressing-room and

finally passed into a room with which I was unacquainted. Two candles

were burning on a table which was piled up with books and papers

of all sizes and dimensions, with pens too of every description. A

comfortable bed was resplendent in the gloom with its purple eiderdown

in striking contrast with its white sheets and counterpane. On the

bearskin rug by the bedside lay slippers all ready to put on. On one

side of the fireplace was a velvet sofa, and on the other a great big

tapestry-covered arm-chair.

"Well," I said, "what an invitingly comfortable-looking room! Anybody

ought to sleep and work well in such a one."

"Ah!" said Harel, "I am indeed enchanted that it pleases you."

"Why?"

"Because it is for you."

"How for me?"

"It is yours; and as you will not leave it until you have written me my

_Napoléon_, I had to make things as comfortable as I could for you, to

prevent your being in a bad temper during your imprisonment"

A shiver passed over me from head to foot.

"Harel!" I exclaimed, "don't let us have any foolish tricks, my friend!"

"Exactly so. You made a big mistake in not starting the work when I

first asked you.... And I made just as stupid a mistake in not giving

it to someone else to write ... but I had spoken to you; and I keep

my word. I therefore think we have both shown ourselves quite stupid

enough for two men of intellectual attainment, and it is high time we

came to our senses once more."

"Come now! you cannot be thinking what you are doing! I have not even

the very faintest plan drawn up for your _Napoléon_."

"You told me you re-wrote _Christine_ in one night."

"I should need all kinds of books: Bourrienne, Norvins, _Victoires et

Conquêtes..._"

"There is _Victoires et Conquêtes_ in that corner, there is Bourrienne

in another and Norvins is on the table."

"I should want the _Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène._"

"There it is on the mantelpiece."

"My son...."

"He shall come and dine with you."

"And my mistress?"

"Ah!" said Georges, who now came into the room, "you have just done

without her for six weeks, you can surely do without her for another

fortnight."

I began to laugh.

"At least you will tell her what has happened?"

"She has been told."

"By whom?"

"By me," said Harel, "and she has already received her reward."

"What was it?"

"A bracelet."

I seized hold of Georges' lovely hands, and addressing my remarks to

Harel, I said--

"Upon my word, my dear friend, you do things in a way it is impossible

to get round.... To-morrow I will set to work on your _Napoléon_ and in

a week you shall have it."

"You are in a great hurry to leave us, my dear boy!" Georges said,

curling her queenly lip.

"Good!" I said. "The play will be finished when I say it is

finished.... It is Harel who is in a hurry, not I ..."

"Harel will wait," said Georges in her grand Cleopatra and Medea style.

I bowed; I had nothing further to say.

Harel pointed out a toilet table and its fittings, and observed that

my room had no other means of access than through that belonging to

Georges; then he went away with her and shut me in. They had even gone

so far as to send to my rooms for my trousers. That same night, or

rather morning, I set to work and thought out the part of the spy, and

the way to divide up the drama. When the rôle of the spy was thought

out, the rest was clear enough. History itself provided the divisions

of the play.

"From Toulon to Sainte-Hélène!" Harel had said to me. "I am willing to

lay out a hundred thousand francs, if need be!"

It would have been difficult to provide me with a wider margin.

The next morning I began to write. As fast as the scenes were composed

I passed them over to Georges, who in her turn sent them on to Harel,

who in his gave them to a charming fellow called Verteuil to copy out.

Verteuil is now secretary to the Théâtre-Français.

The drama was done at the end of the week. It consisted of twenty-four

scenes and contained nine thousand lines. It was three times bigger

than an ordinary play, five times longer than _Iphigénie_ and six times

longer than _Mérope._

Frédéric was to play the part of _Napoléon._ I had debated that choice

beforehand; physique seemed to me to be most important in such a

creation. The success of the _Napoléon_ at the Porte-Saint-Martin was

due primarily to Gobert's likeness to the emperor; and nobody could

have been less like Napoléon and especially Bonaparte, than Frédéric.

"My dear fellow," Georges had said to me, "remember this: a genius like

Frédéric can play any part well."

The reason struck me as being so good that I gave in, and the part was

given to Frédéric.

By the ninth day the piece was copied out; Verteuil, with the

assistance of two copyists, had only taken one day longer to copy it

out than I had to write it.

It was not good work, far from it; but the title would assure a popular

success, and the part of the spy would be enough to secure literary

success.

They assembled on the ninth day to hear it read, and I read as far as

Moscow; next day I continued to the end. The part of Frédéric alone

contained four thousand lines--that is to say, it was as long as all

the parts in _Le Mariage de Figaro_ put together. But to cut nothing

out of it during collation seemed impossible, and it was therefore

decided that any cutting down should be done at rehearsals. Everybody

set to work with an energy I have rarely seen, even learning passages

that were likely to be omitted, which is a most difficult thing to

get an artist to do. Frédéric, Lockroy and Stockleit were enraptured

with their parts. I was set at liberty the night of the reading. There

was a supper given me on my release, as there had been before my

incarceration.

These suppers at Georges' house were delightful; I reiterate this

statement, for they are amongst my happiest memories of the past; no

one could possibly have been more beautiful and queenly, more scornful

and caustic, more like a Greek courtezan, or a Roman matron, or the

niece of a pope, than was Georges (in her varying moods). The contrast

between Georges and Mars was incredibly great; Mars was always as

affected, reserved, tight-laced and self-contained as the wife of a

senator of the Empire. And then there was Harel, who was so alert

mentally that he always reminded one of a man sitting on a glass stool

in touch with an electric battery, with sparks at all his finger-tips,

and at the end of each of his hairs.

When _it came to the actual theatre_, it was found to contain over a

hundred different parts. For five or six days there was a perfect chaos

to unravel; I believe I would rather have put the world to rights as

described in the Book of Genesis than this world of _Napoléon._ All

the parts melted down, compressed and put together (not including the

supernumeraries), made between eighty and ninety persons with speaking

parts. Jouslin de la Salle, stage manager, quite lost his head over it,

and Harel emptied three snuff-boxes full at every rehearsal.

As we have said, Harel laid out a hundred thousand francs in the

mounting of the play; but not even M. de Rothschild's cashier would

have been capable of calculating the number of brilliant, sparkling,

comic expressions he also expended.

In the midst of all this hurly-burly I followed up that everlasting

study of dramatic situations and of character which I am looking for

always and everywhere, sometimes even in places where they don't exist.

Here is an example, for instance:--

Amongst my troop-leaders, acting in--I know not now what part--one of

those small rôles called _accessoires_ (emergency parts), I had noticed

a good-looking young man of between twenty-five and twenty-six years of

age, holding a gun as though he had never done anything else all his

life long, and, what was still more unusual and important, speaking his

part fairly well.

I must ask my readers to forgive me for being obliged sometimes to use

theatrical slang; it expresses things often much better than ordinary

language does.

Well, it also seemed to me that my _accessoire's_ face was familiar to

me; and he, on his side, without being too forward, seemed to smile at

me as much as to say, "It is not only at the theatre I have seen you."

Now where had he seen me? Where had I seen him? This I wanted to find

out. I had asked his name; it was Charlet, the same name as our famous

lithographer. The name awoke no recollection in my mind. One day,

however, right in the midst of a movement of the Old Guard, I stopped

in front of him.

"Excuse me, Monsieur Charlet," I said to him, "it seems to me I have

seen you somewhere.... Where, I cannot tell; but I will bet my hat you

are not a stranger to me. Can you assist my memory?"

"Quite true, monsieur," he answered; "we have seen each other three

times before, as one does catch sight of people at special times: once

in the rue Saint-Honoré, once on the Pont de la Grève and once at the

Louvre."

"Oh yes, I remember ... on the Pont de la Grève you commanded the

attack when the standard-bearer was killed?"

"That was it," he replied.

"You are an actor?"

"Well, as you see, I am trying to become one."

"Why did you wait until I spoke to you?"

"I am timid."

"Not in the face of bullets, anyhow!"

"Oh! bullets only kill, when all is said."

He began to laugh.

"I am indeed," he went on, "as timid as I say, to a point you would not

believe possible.... For instance, I know M. Charles Nodier."

"You know Charles Nodier?"

"Yes, and quite sufficiently well to have asked him for an introduction

to you, or to M. Hugo, or anybody else, but I never dared ask him for

one."

"You did wrong: Nodier is a capital fellow, and would most certainly

have given you such an introduction."

"I am well aware of it ... although I began by wanting to kill him;

but, as afterwards I prevented him from being killed, we are quits."

"What the deuce are you telling me?"

"God's truth."

"How did it come about?"

"Oh! bah! it is too long a story; besides, it is not very

interesting...."

"Wrong again, my friend," I said to him; "I am not like ordinary

people: everything interests me. As for what you say about the tale

being long, well, if it bores me, I will ask you to cut it short."

"We are not in a suitable place here. Indeed, Jouslin de la Salle has

already twice tried to silence us."

"They will only think I am asking you your part."

Then he burst out laughing, a good open laugh, showing lovely white

teeth.

I like people who can laugh, however poor they are, for it shows they

are good-hearted and possess a sound digestion.

"Listen," I said to him, "you are not in the next act."

"No, nor in the one after that ... I only come on again at the burning

of Moscow."

"Then let us go up to the foyer and then you can tell me this story."

"Ah! nothing would please me better."

We went from the theatre to the foyer, and sat down in that magnificent

gallery which, at night especially, looks like a portico of Herculaneum

or an atrium of Pompeii, in the fine shadows that cross it.

"Well?" I asked Charlet, putting a hand on his knee.