MY MEMOIRS
BY
ALEXANDRE DUMAS
TRANSLATED BY
E. M. WALLER
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
ANDREW LANG
IN SIX VOLUMES
VOL. V
1831 TO 1832
WITH A FRONTISPIECE
NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1908
CONTENTS
BOOK I
CHAPTER I
Organisation of the Parisian Artillery--Metamorphosis of my
uniform of a Mounted National Guardsman--Bastide--Godefroy
Cavaignac--Guinard--Thomas--Names of the batteries and
of their principal servants--I am summoned to seize the
_Chamber_--How many of us came to the rendezvous
CHAPTER II
Odilon Barrot, Préfet of the Seine--His soirées--His
proclamation upon the subject of riots--Dupont (de l'Eure)
and Louis-Philippe--Resignation of the ministry of Mole and
Guizot--The affair of the forest of Breteuil--The Laffitte
ministry--The prudent way in which registration was carried
out
CHAPTER III
Béranger as Patriot and Republican 20
CHAPTER IV
Béranger, as Republican 28
CHAPTER V
Death of Benjamin Constant--Concerning his life--Funeral
honours that were conferred upon him--His funeral--Law
respecting national rewards--The trial of the
ministers--Grouvelle and his sister--M. Mérilhou
and the neophyte--Colonel Lavocat--The Court of
Peers--Panic--Fieschi
CHAPTER VI
The artillerymen at the Louvre--Bonapartist plot to take
our cannon from us--Distribution of cartridges by Godefroy
Cavaignac--The concourse of people outside the Luxembourg
when the ministers were sentenced--Departure of the
condemned for Vincennes--Defeat of the judges--La Fayette
and the riot--Bastide and Commandant Barré on guard with
Prosper Mérimée
CHAPTER VII
We are surrounded in the Louvre courtyard--Our ammunition
taken by surprise--Proclamation of the Écoles--Letter of
Louis-Philippe to La Fayette--The Chamber vote of thanks to
the Colleges--Protest of the École polytechnique--Discussion
at the Chamber upon the General Commandership of the
National Guard--Resignation of La Fayette--The king's
reply--I am appointed second captain
CHAPTER VIII
The Government member--Chodruc-Duclos--His portrait--His
life at Bordeaux--His imprisonment at Vincennes--The
Mayor of Orgon--Chodruc-Duclos converts himself into
a Diogenes--M. Giraud-Savine--Why Nodier was growing
old--Stibert--A lesson in shooting--Death of Chodruc-Duclos
CHAPTER IX
Alphonse Rabbe--Madame Cardinal--Rabbe and the Marseilles
Academy--_Les Massénaires_--Rabbe in Spain--His return--The
_Old Dagger_--The Journal _Le Phocéen_--Rabbe in prison--The
writer of fables--_Ma pipe_
CHAPTER X
Rabbe's friends--_La Sœur grise_--The historical résumés--M.
Brézé's advice--An imaginative man--Berruyer's style--Rabbe
with his hairdresser, his concierge and confectioner--_La
Sœur grise_ stolen--_Le Centaure_
CHAPTER XI
Adèle--Her devotion to Rabbe--Strong meat--_Appel à
Dieu_--_L'âme et la comédie humaine_--_La mort_--_Ultime
lettere_--Suicide--_À Alphonse Rabbe_, by Victor Hugo
CHAPTER XII
Chéron--His last compliments to Harel--Obituary of
1830--My official visit on New Year's Day--A striking
costume--Read the _Moniteur_--Disbanding of the Artillery
of the National Guard--First representation of _Napoléon
Bonaparte_--Delaistre--Frédérick-Lemaître
BOOK II
CHAPTER I
The Abbé Châtel--The programme of his church--The Curé of
Lèves and M. Clausel de Montals--The Lévois embrace the
religion of the primate of the Gauls--Mass in French--The
Roman curé--A dead body to inter
CHAPTER II
Fine example of religious toleration--The Abbé Dallier--The
Circes of Lèves--Waterloo after Leipzig--The Abbé Dallier is
kept as hostage--The barricades--The stones of Chartres--The
outlook--Preparations for fighting
CHAPTER III
Attack of the barricade--A sequel to Malplaquet--The
Grenadier--The Chartrian philanthropists--Sack of the
bishop's palace--A fancy dress--How order was restored--The
culprits both small and great--Death of the Abbé
Ledru--Scruples of conscience of the former schismatics--The
_Dies iræ_ of Kosciusko
CHAPTER IV
The Abbé de Lamennais--His prediction of the Revolution of
1830--Enters the Church--His views on the Empire--Casimir
Delavigne, Royalist--His early days--Two pieces of poetry
by M. de Lamennais--His literary vocation--_Essay on
Indifference in Religious Matters_--Reception given to
this book by the Church--The academy of the château de la
Chesnaie
CHAPTER V
The founding of l'_Avenir_--L'Abbé Lacordaire--M.
Charles de Montalembert--His article on the sacking
of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois--l'_Avenir_ and the new
literature--My first interview with M. de Lamennais--Lawsuit
against l'_Avenir_--MM. de Montalembert and Lacordaire as
schoolmasters--Their trial in the _Cour des pairs_--The
capture of Warsaw--Answer of four poets to a word spoken by
a statesman
CHAPTER VI
Suspension of l'_Avenir_--Its three principal editors
present themselves at Rome--The Abbé de Lamennais as
musician--The trouble it takes to obtain an audience of the
Pope--The convent of Santo-Andrea della Valle--Interview
of M. de Lamennais with Gregory XVI.--The statuette of
Moses--The doctrines of l'_Avenir_ are condemned by the
Council of Cardinals--Ruin of M. de Lamennais--The _Paroles
d'un Croyant_
CHAPTER VII
Who Gannot was--Mapah--His first miracle--The wedding
at Cana--Gannot, phrenologist--Where his first ideas on
phrenology came from--The unknown woman--The change wrought
in Gannot's life--How he becomes Mapah
CHAPTER VIII
The god and his sanctuary--He informs the Pope of his
overthrow--His manifestoes--His portrait---Doctrine of
escape--Symbols of that religion--Chaudesaigues takes me to
the Mapah--Iswara and Pracriti--Questions which are wanting
in actuality---War between the votaries of _bidja_ and the
followers of _sakti_--My last interview with the Mapah
CHAPTER IX
Apocalypse of the being who was once called Caillaux
BOOK III
CHAPTER I
The scapegoat of power--Legitimist hopes--The
expiatory mass--The Abbé Olivier--The Curé of
Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois--Pachel--Where I begin
to be wrong--General Jacqueminot--Pillage of
Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois--The sham Jesuit and the Préfet of
Police--The Abbé Paravey's room
CHAPTER II
The Préfet of Police at the Palais-Royal--The function
of fire--Valérius, the truss-maker--Demolition of the
archbishop's palace--The Chinese album--François Arago--The
spectators of the riot--The erasure of the fleurs-de-lis--I
give in my resignation a second time--MM. Chambolle and
Casimir Périer
CHAPTER III
My dramatic faith wavers--Bocage and Dorval reconcile
me with myself--A political trial wherein I deserved to
figure--Downfall of the Laffitte Ministry--Austria and the
Duc de Modena--Maréchal Maison is Ambassador at Vienna--The
story of one of his dispatches--Casimir Périer Prime
Minister--His reception at the Palais-Royal--They make him
the _amende honorable_
CHAPTER IV
Trial of the artillerymen--Procureur-général
Miller--Pescheux d'Herbinville--Godefroy
Cavaignac--Acquittal of the accused--The ovation they
received--Commissioner Gourdin--The cross of July--The red
and black ribbon--Final rehearsals of _Antony_
CHAPTER V
The first representation of _Antony_--The play, the actors,
the public--_Antony_ at the Palais-Royal--Alterations of the
_dénoûment_
CHAPTER VI
The inspiration under which I composed _Antony_--The
Preface--Wherein lies the moral of the piece--Cuckoldom,
Adultery and the Civil Code--_Quem nuptiæ demonstrant_--Why
the Critics exclaimed that my Drama was immoral--Account
given by the least malevolent among them--How prejudices
against bastardy are overcome
CHAPTER VII
A word on criticism--Molière estimated by Bossuet, by
Jean-Jacques Rousseau and by Bourdaloue--An anonymous
libel--Critics of the seventeenth and nineteenth
centuries--M. François de Salignac de la Motte de
Fénelon--Origin of the word _Tartuffe_--M. Taschereau and M.
Étienne
CHAPTER VIII
Thermometer of Social Crises--Interview with M. Thiers--His
intentions with regard to the Théâtre-Français--Our
conventions--_Antony_ comes back to the rue de
Richelieu--_The Constitutionnel_--Its leader against
Romanticism in general, and against my drama in
particular--Morality of the ancient theatre--Parallel
between the Théâtre-Français and that of the
Porte-Saint-Martin--First suspension of _Antony_
CHAPTER IX
My discussion with M. Thiers--Why he had been compelled
to suspend _Antony_--Letter of Madame Dorval to the
_Constitutionnel_--M. Jay crowned with roses--My lawsuit
with M. Jouslin de Lasalle--There are still judges in
Berlin!
CHAPTER X
Republican banquet at the _Vendanges de Bourgogne_--The
toasts--_To Louis-Philippe!_--Gathering of those who were
decorated in July--Formation of the board--Protests--Fifty
yards of ribbon--A dissentient--Contradiction in the
_Moniteur_--Trial of Évariste Gallois--His examination--His
acquittal
CHAPTER XI
The incompatibility of literature with riotings--_La
Maréchale d'Ancre_--My opinion concerning that
piece--_Farruck le Maure_--The début of Henry Monnier at the
Vaudeville--I leave Paris--Rouen--Havre--I meditate going
to explore Trouville--What is Trouville?--The consumptive
English lady--Honfleur--By land or by sea
CHAPTER XII
Appearance of Trouville--Mother Oseraie--How people are
accommodated at Trouville when they are married--The
price of painters and of the community of martyrs--Mother
Oseraie's acquaintances--How she had saved the life of
Huet, the landscape painter--My room and my neighbour's--A
twenty-franc dinner for fifty sous--A walk by the
sea-shore--Heroic resolution
CHAPTER XIII
A reading at Nodier's--The hearers and the
readers--Début--_Les Marrons du feu_--La Camargo and the
Abbé Desiderio--Genealogy of a dramatic idea--Orestes
and Hermione--Chimène and Don Sancho--_Goetz von
Berlichingen_--Fragments--How I render to Cæsar the things
that are Cæsar's
CHAPTER XIV
Poetry is the Spirit of God--The Conservatoire and l'École
of Rome--Letter of counsel to my Son--Employment of my
time at Trouville--Madame de la Garenne--The Vendéan
Bonnechose--M. Beudin--I am pursued by a fish--What came of
it
CHAPTER XV
Why M. Beudin came to Trouville--How I knew him under
another name--Prologue of a drama--What remained to
be done--Division into three parts--I finish _Charles
VII._--Departing from Trouville--In what manner I learn of
the first performance of _Marion Delorme_
CHAPTER XVI
_Marion Delorme_
CHAPTER XVII
Collaboration
BOOK IV
CHAPTER I
The feudal edifice and the industrial--The workmen of
Lyons--M. Bouvier-Dumolard--General Roguet--Discussion
and signing of the tariff regulating the price of the
workmanship of fabrics--The makers refuse to submit to
it--_Artificial prices_ for silk-workers--Insurrection
of Lyons--Eighteen millions on the civil list--Timon's
calculations--An unlucky saying of M. de Montalivet
CHAPTER II
Death of _Mirabeau_--The accessories of _Charles VII._--A
shooting party--Montereau--A temptation I cannot
resist--Critical position in which my shooting companions
and I find ourselves--We introduce ourselves into an empty
house by breaking into it at night--Inspection of the
premises--Improvised supper--As one makes one's bed, so
one lies on it--I go to see the dawn rise--Fowl and duck
shooting--Preparations for breakfast--Mother Galop
CHAPTER III
Who Mother Galop was--Why M. Dupont-Delporte was absent--
How I quarrelled with Viardot--Rabelais's quarter of an
hour--Providence No. I--The punishment of Tantalus--A waiter
who had not read Socrates--Providence No. 2--A breakfast for
four--Return to Paris
CHAPTER IV
_Le Masque de fer_--Georges' suppers--The garden
of the Luxembourg by moonlight--M. Scribe and
the _Clerc de la Basoche_--M. d'Épagny and _Le
Clerc et le Théologien_--Classical performances
at the Théâtre-Français--_Les Guelfes_, by M.
Arnault--Parenthesis--Dedicatory epistle to the prompter
CHAPTER V
M. Arnault's _Pertinax_--_Pizarre_, by M. Fulchiron--M.
Fulchiron as a politician--M. Fulchiron as magic poet--A
word about M. Viennet--My opposite neighbour at the
performance of _Pertinax_--Splendid failure of the
play--Quarrel with my _vis-à-vis_--The newspapers take it
up--My reply in the _Journal de Paris_--Advice of M. Pillet
CHAPTER VI
Chateaubriand ceases to be a peer of France--He leaves
the country--Béranger's song thereupon--Chateaubriand as
versifier--First night of _Charles VII._--Delafosse's
vizor--Yaqoub and Frédérick-Lemaître--_La Reine
d'Espagne_--M. Henri de Latouche--His works, talent and
character--Interlude of _La Reine d'Espagne_--Preface of the
play--Reports of the pit collected by the author
CHAPTER VII
Victor Escousse and Auguste Lebras
CHAPTER VIII
First performance of _Robert le Diable_--Véron, manager
of the Opéra--His opinion concerning Meyerbeer's
music--My opinion concerning Véron's intellect--My
relations with him--His articles and _Memoirs_--Rossini's
judgment of _Robert le Diable_--Nourrit, the
preacher--Meyerbeer--First performance of the _Fuite de
Law_, by M. Mennechet--First performance of _Richard
Darlington_--Frédérick--Lemaître--Delafosse--Mademoiselle
Noblet
CHAPTER IX Horace Vernet
CHAPTER X
Paul Delaroche
CHAPTER XI
Eugène Delacroix
CHAPTER XII
Three portraits in one frame
CHAPTER XIII
Collaboration--A whim of Bocage--Anicet
Bourgeois--_Teresa_--Drama at the Opéra-Comique--Laferrière
and the eruption of Vesuvius--Mélingue--Fancy-dress ball
at the Tuileries--The place de Grève and the barrière
Saint-Jacques--The death penalty
CHAPTER XIV
The peregrinations of Casimir Delavigne--_Jeanne
Vaubernier_--Rougemont--His translation of Cambronne's
_mot_--First representation of _Teresa_--Long and short
pieces--Cordelier Delanoue and his _Mathieu Luc_--Closing
of the Taitbout Hall and arrest of the leaders of the
Saint-Simonian cult
CHAPTER XV
Mély-Janin's _Louis XI._
CHAPTER XVI
Casimir Delavigne's _Louis XI._
NOTE (Béranger)
NOTE (de Latouche)
THE MEMOIRS OF ALEXANDRE DUMAS
BOOK I
CHAPTER I
Organisation of the Parisian Artillery--Metamorphosis of my
uniform of a Mounted National Guardsman--Bastide--Godefroy
Cavaignac--Guinard--Thomas--Names of the batteries and
of their principal servants--I am summoned to seize the
_Chamber_--How many of us came to the rendezvous
I am obliged to retrace my steps, as the putting out to nurse of
_Antony_ at the Porte-Sainte-Martin has carried me further than I
intended.
Bixio had given me a definite answer with regard to my joining the
artillery, and I was incorporated in the fourth battery under Captain
Olivier.
Just a word or two upon the constitution of this artillery.
The order creating the Garde Nationale provided for a legion of
artillery comprised of four batteries.
General La Fayette appointed Joubert provisional colonel of the
legion, which consisted of four batteries. It was the same Joubert at
whose house, in the Passage Dauphine, a quantity of powder had been
distributed and many bullets cast in the July Days. La Fayette had also
appointed four captains to enlist men. When the men were enlisted,
these captains were replaced by picked officers.
Arnoux was appointed head captain of the first battery. I have already
mentioned that the Duc d'Orléans was entered in this battery. Guinard
was appointed first captain, and Godefroy Cavaignac second captain, of
the second battery. Bastide was appointed senior captain, and Thomas
junior captain, of the third battery. Finally, Olivier was first
captain, and Saint-Évre second captain, of the fourth battery.
The first and second battery formed a squadron; the third and fourth a
second squadron.
The first squadron was commanded by Thierry, who has since become a
municipal councillor, and is now Medical Superintendent of Prisons, I
believe. The second squadron was commanded by a man named Barré, whom I
lost sight of after 1830, and I have forgotten what has become of him.
Finally, the whole were commanded by Comte Pernetti, whom the king had
appointed our colonel.
I had, therefore, reached the crown of my wishes: I was an artilleryman!
There only remained for me to exchange my uniform as a mounted national
guardsman for an artillery uniform, and to make myself known to my
commanding officers. My exchange of uniform was not a long job. My
jacket and trousers were of the same style and colour as those of the
artillery, so I only had to have a stripe of red cloth sewed on the
trousers instead of the silver one; then, to exchange my epaulettes
and my silver cross-belt at a military outfitter's for epaulettes and
a red woollen foraging rope. The same with regard to my schako, where
the silver braid and aigrette of cock's feathers had to be replaced by
woollen braiding and a horse-hair busby. We did not need to trouble
ourselves about carbines, for the Government lent us these; "_lent
them_" is the exact truth, for twice they took them away from us! I
lighted upon a very honest military outfitter, who gave me woollen
braid, kept all my silver trimmings, and only asked me for twenty
francs in return; though, it is true, I paid for my sword separately.
The day after I had received my complete costume, at eight o'clock in
the morning, I made my appearance at the Louvre to take my part in
the manœuvres. We had there twenty-four pieces of eight, and twenty
thousand rounds for firing.
The Governor of the Louvre was named Carrel, but he had nothing in
common with Armand Carrel, and I do not think he was any relation to
him.
The artillery was generally Republican in tone; the second and third
battery, in particular, affected these views. The first and fourth were
more reactionary; there would be quite fifty men among them who, in the
moment of danger, would unite with the others.
As my opinions coincided with those of Bastide, Guinard, Cavaignac and
Thomas, it is with them that I shall principally deal; as for Captains
Arnoux and Olivier, I knew them but little then and have never had
occasion to see them again. May I, therefore, be allowed to say a
few words of these men, whose names, since 1830, are to be found in
every conspiracy that arose? Their names have become historic; it is,
therefore, fitting that the men who bore them, or who, perhaps, bear
them still, should be made known in their true light.
Let us begin with Bastide, as he played the most considerable part,
having been Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1848. Bastide was already
at this time a man of thirty, with an expression of countenance that
was both gentle and yet firm; his face was long and pale, and his black
hair was close cut; he had a thick black moustache, and blue eyes, with
an expression of deep and habitual melancholy. He was tall and thin,
extremely deft-handed, although he looked rather awkward on account of
the unusual length of his neck; in conclusion, he was an adept in the
use of sword and pistol, especially the latter, and in what is called
in duelling terms, _la main malheureuse._[1]
So much for his physical characteristics. Morally, Bastide was a
thorough Parisian, a thorough native of the rue Montmartre, wedded to
his gutter, and, like Madame de Staël, he preferred it to the lake
of Geneva; unable to do without Paris no matter how dirty it was,
physically, morally, or politically; preferring imprisonment in Paris
to exile in the most beautiful country in the universe. He had been
exiled for several years, and spent two or three years in London. I
have heard him say since, that, rather than return there even for two
or three months, he would let himself get shot. He has a delightful
country house in the neighbourhood of Paris, to which he never goes.
Beneath an extremely unsophisticated manner, Bastide concealed real
knowledge; but you had to discover it for yourself; and, when he took
the trouble to be amusing, his conversation was full of witty sallies
but, as he always spoke very low, only his near neighbour benefited
by it. It must be admitted that this quite satisfied him, for I never
saw a less ambitious man than he in this respect. He was a bundle
of contradictions: he seemed to be nearly always idle, but was, in
reality, nearly always busy, often over trifles, as Horace in the Roman
forum, and, like Horace, he was completely absorbed in his trifling
for the time being; more often still he was occupied over difficult
and serious problems in mathematics or mechanics. He was brave without
being conscious of the fact, so simple and natural a quality did
bravery seem to his temperament and character. I shall have occasion
later to record the miraculous feats of courage he performed, and
the deliciously cool sayings he uttered while actually under fire,
between the years 1830 to 1852. During deliberations Bastide usually
kept silent; if his opinion were asked and he gave it, it was always
to advise that the question in hand be put into execution as promptly
and as openly, and even as brutally, as possible. For example, let
us refer to the interview between the Republicans and the king on 30
July 1830; Bastide was among them, awaiting the arrival of the king,
just as were the rest. This interval of waiting was put to good use
by the representatives of Republican opinion. Little accustomed to
the presence of crowned heads or of those on the eve of coronation,
they discussed among themselves as to what they ought to do when the
lieutenant-general should appear. Each person gave his opinion, and
Bastide was asked for his. "What must we do?" he said. "Why, open the
window and chuck him into the street."
If this advice had been as honestly that of the others as it was his
own, he would have put it into execution. He had a facile, and even a
graceful, pen. In the _National_ it was he who had to write impossible
articles; he succeeded, as Méry did, in the matter of bouts-rimés with
an almost miraculous cleverness. When Minister of Foreign Affairs, he
took upon himself the business of everybody else, and he a minister,
not only did his own work, but that, also, of his secretaries. We must
look to diplomatic Europe to pronounce upon the value of his work.
Godefroy Cavaignac, as he had recalled to the memory of the Duc
d'Orléans, was the son of the member of the convention, Jean Baptiste
Cavaignac; and, we will add, brother to Eugène Cavaignac, then an
officer in the Engineers at Metz, and, later, a general in Algeria,
finally dictator in France from June to December 1848; a noble and
disinterested character, who will remain in history as a glittering
contrast to those that were to succeed him. Godefroy Cavaignac was
then a man of thirty-five, with fair hair, and a long red moustache;
although his bearing was military, he stooped somewhat; smoked
unceasingly, flinging out sarcastic clever sayings between the clouds
of smoke; was very clear in discussion, always saying what he thought,
and expressing himself in the best words; he seemed to be better
educated than Bastide, although, in reality, he was less so; he took
to writing from fancy, and then wrote a species of short poems, or
novelettes, or slight dramas (I do not know what to call them) of
great originality, and very uncommon strength. I will mention two of
these _opuscules_: one that is known to everybody--_Une Guerre de
Cosaques_, and another, which everybody overlooks, which I read once,
and could never come across again: it was called _Est-ce vous!_ One of
his chansons was sung everywhere in 1832, entitled _À la chie-en-lit!_
which was the funniest thing in the world. Like Bastide he was
extremely brave, but perhaps less determined; there always seemed to
me to be great depths of indifference and of Epicurean philosophy in
his character. After being very intimate, we were ten years without
seeing one another; then, suddenly, one day, without knowing it,
we found ourselves seated side by side at the same table, and the
whole dinner-time was spent in one long happy gossip over mutual
recollections. We separated with hearty handshakes and promises not to
let it be such a long time before seeing one another again. A month
or two after, when I was talking of him, some one said, "But Godefroy
Cavaignac is dead!" I knew nothing of his illness, death or burial.
Our passage through this world is, indeed, a strange matter, if it be
not merely a preliminary to another life!
Guinard was notable for his warm-hearted, loyal characteristics; he
would weep like a child when he heard of a fine deed or great misery. A
man of marvellous despatch, you could have said of him, as Kléber did
of Scheswardin. "Go there and get killed and so save the army!" I am
not even sure he would have considered it necessary to answer: "Yes,
general"; he would have said nothing, but he would have gone and got
killed. His life, moreover, was one long sacrifice to his convictions;
he gave up to them all he held most dear--liberty, his fortune and
health.
From the single sentence we have quoted of Thomas, when he was
accosted by M. Thiers on 30 July, my readers can judge of his mind
and character. Bastide and he were in partnership, and possessed a
woodyard. He was stout-hearted and upright, and had a clever head
for business. Unaided, alone, and simply by his wonderful and honest
industry, he kept the _National_ afloat when it was on the verge of
shipwreck after the death of Carrel, from the year 1836 until 1848,
when the long struggle bore successful fruit for everybody except
himself.
But now let us pass on from the artillerymen to the composition of
their batteries.
Each battery was dubbed by a name derived from a special
characteristic.
Thus the first was called _The Aristocrat._ Its ranks contained, as
we already know, M. le Duc d'Orléans, then MM. de Tracy, Jal, Paravey
(who was afterwards a councillor of state), Étienne Arago, Schoelcher,
Loëve-Weymars, Alexandre Basset and Duvert.
The second was called _The Republican._ We are acquainted with its
two captains, Guinard and Cavaignac; the principal artillerymen
were--Guiaud, Gervais, Blaize, Darcet fils and Ferdinand Flocon.
The third was called _La Puritaine_, and it was thus named after its
captain, Bastide. Bastide, who was on the staff of the _National_, was
the champion of the religious questions, which this newspaper had a
tendency to attack after the manner of the _Constitutionnel._ Thence
originated the report of his absolute submission to the practices
of religion. The _Puritaine_ counted amongst its gunners--Carral,
Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire, Grégoire, Séchan.
The fourth was called _La Meurtrière_, on account of the large number
of doctors it contained. We have mentioned its captains; these are the
names of the chief "murderers"--Bixio, medical student; Doctors Trélat,
Laussedat, Jules Guyot, Montègre, Jourdan, Houet and Raspail, who was
half a doctor. The others were Prosper Mérimée, Lacave-Laplagne, who
has since become Minister of Finance; Ravoisié, Baltard, the architect;
Desvaux, student, afterwards a lieutenant in the July revolution,
and, later still, one of the bravest and most brilliant officers in
the whole army; lastly, Bocage and myself. Of course, there were many
others in these batteries, for the artillery, I believe, numbered eight
hundred men, but we are here only mentioning those whose names survived.
The discipline was very strict: three times a week there was drill from
six to ten in the morning, in the quadrangle of the Louvre, and twice a
month shooting practice at Vincennes.
I had given a specimen of my strength in lifting--with either five,
three, or one other, when the other servants were supposed to be either
killed, or _hors de combat_,-—pieces of eight weighing from three to
four hundred kilogrammes, when, one day, I received an invitation to
be at the Palais-Bourbon at four o'clock in the afternoon, fully armed.
The business in hand was _the taking of the Chamber._ We had taken a
sort of oath, after the manner of Freemasons and Carbonari, by which
we had engaged to obey the commands of our chiefs without questioning.
This one appeared rather high-handed, I must admit; but my oath was
taken! So, at half-past three, I put on my artillery dress, placed six
cartridges in my pouch and one in my carbine, and made my way towards
the pont de la Concorde. I noticed with as much surprise as pride,
that I was the first arrival. I only strutted about the more proudly,
searching along the quays and bridges and streets for the arrival of my
seven hundred and ninety-nine comrades who, four o'clock having struck,
seemed to me to be late in coming, when I saw a blue and red uniform
coming towards me. It was worn by Bixio. Two of us then here alone to
capture four hundred and forty-nine deputies! It was hardly enough; but
patriotism attempts ambitious things!
Half-past four, five, half-past five and six o'clock struck.
The deputies came out and filed past us, little suspecting that these
two fierce-eyed artillerymen who watched them pass, as they leant
against the parapet of the bridge, had come to capture them. Behind the
deputies appeared Cavaignac in civilian dress. We went up to him.
"It will not take place to-day," he said to us; "it is put off until
next week."
"Good!" I replied; "next week, then!"
He shook hands and disappeared. I turned to Bixio.
"I hope this postponement till next week will not prevent us from
dining as usual?" I said.
"Quite the reverse. I am as hungry as a wolf! Nothing makes one so
empty as conspiring."
So we went off and dined with that careless appetite which is the
prerogative of conspirators of twenty-eight years of age.
I have always suspected my new chiefs of wishing to, what they call
in regimental parlance, test me; in which case Cavaignac can only have
come just to make sure of my faithfulness in answering to his summons.
Was or was not Bixio in his confidence? I never could make out.
[1] TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.--Applied to a duellist who always kills or
wounds his opponent.
CHAPTER II
Odilon Barrot, Préfet of the Seine--His soirées--His
proclamation upon the subject of riots--Dupont (de l'Eure)
and Louis-Philippe--Resignation of the ministry of Molé and
Guizot--The affair of the forest of Breteuil--The Laffitte
ministry--The prudent way in which registration was carried
out
Now, the session of the Chamber had been an animated one that day,
and if we had burst into the parliament hall we should have found the
deputies in heated discussion over a proclamation issued by Odilon
Barrot.
It was a singular position for a man, outwardly so upright and
unbending as was Odilon Barrot, which was created by, on the one
hand, his duties as Préfet of the Seine about the person of the king
and, on the other, the good terms of friendship existing between him
and most of us. He held soirées at his house, to which we flocked in
large numbers; at which his wife, then still quite young, who seemed
a more ardent Republican than her husband, did the honours with the
correctness of a Cornelia that was not without a charm of its own.
We of course discussed nothing but politics at these gatherings; and
especially did we urge Odilon Barrot, in his official capacity as
Préfet of the Seine, to hunt for the famous programme of the Hôtel de
Ville, which had disappeared on 2 August, and had become more invisible
even than the famous provisional government which was represented by a
round table, empty bottles and a clerk who never stopped writing except
when the pen was snatched out of his hands. That programme had never
been discovered from that day to this! Our suggestion worried him much,
for our insistence placed him in the following dilemma:--
"My dear Odilon" (we would say), "all the strength of the Government
is vested in La Fayette and Dupont (de l'Eure) and yourself; if you,
for instance, were to withdraw, we are persuaded that La Fayette and
Dupont, the two blind men whom you, good dog, lead by the string, will
also retire.... So we are going to compel you to retire."
"But how?"
"Oh, it is simple enough! We are going to raise a disturbance to carry
off the king from the Palais-Royal.... Either you fire upon us, in
which case you make yourself unpopular; or you abstain from firing on
us, in which case we carry off the king, take him to Ham and proclaim
the Republic."
Odilon was well aware that this dilemma was only a joke; but he also
knew that there was a feverish spirit in us which any unlooked for
spark might kindle into a blaze and lead to the maddest enterprises
being attempted.
One day we drove him into a corner, and he promised that, on the first
opportunity, he would make his views known both to the court and to us.
This opportunity was the procession which, as I have mentioned, marched
through Paris, and proceeded to the Palais-Royal, and to the château de
Vincennes, shouting, "Death to the ministers!" It will be recollected
that the king and Odilon Barrot had appeared upon the terrace, and that
the men who led the procession had thereupon shouted, "Vive Odilon
Barrot!" forgetting to shout "Vive le roi!" Whereat Louis-Philippe, as
we know, had replied: "These are the sons of the men whom, in 1792, I
heard shouting: 'Vive Pétion!'"
The allusion had annoyed Odilon Barrot considerably, and he decided to
issue a proclamation of his own. He promised to give us this explicit
proclamation.
It is a mania with every man who wants to be looked upon as a statesman
to produce a proclamation, in fact he does not consider himself
entitled to the name of statesman until he has. His proclamation is
issued and received by the people, who read it and see in it the
sanction of some power or other, which they either obey or disobey
according to their individual views of politics. Unfortunately, this
proclamation, upon which Odilon was counting greatly, demonstrated the
fact that the Préfet of the Seine took a middle course, which offended
at the same time both the Court party and the Republicans. We will
reproduce it here in its entirety. Be it understood that our readers
are free to read only the sentences in italics, or to pass it over
altogether unread--
"Citizens, your magistrates are deeply distressed at the
disorders which have recently been disturbing the public
peace, at a time when commerce and industry, which are in
much need of protection, are beginning to rise above a long
crisis of depression.
"_It is not vengeance that this people of Paris, who are
the bravest and most generous in the world, are demanding,
but justice!_ Justice, in fact, is a right, a necessity, to
strong men; vengeance is but the delight of the weak and
cowardly. _The proposition of the Chamber is an_ INOPPORTUNE
STEP _calculated to make the people imagine that there is
a concerted design to interfere with the ordinary course
of justice with respect to the ex-ministers._ Delays have
arisen, which are merely the carrying out of those forms
which surround justice with greater solemnity of character;
and these delays but sanction and strengthen the opinion
_of which our ungovernable enemies, ever lying in wait to
disunite us_, persistently take advantage. Hence has arisen
that popular agitation, which men of rectitude and good
citizens regard as an actual mistake. I swear to you in all
good faith, fellow-citizens, that the course of justice
has neither been suspended, nor interrupted, nor will it
be. The preparation of the accusation brought against the
ex-ministers still continues: _they have come under the law
and the law alone shall decide their fate._
"No good citizen could wish or demand anything else; and
yet cries of "death" are uttered in the streets and public
places; but what are such instigations, such placards,
but violent measures against justice? We merely desire to
do as we would ourselves be done by, namely, be judged
dispassionately and impartially. Well, there are certain
misguided or malevolent persons who threaten the judges
before the trial has begun. People of Paris, you will
not stand by such violent conduct; the accused should be
sacred in your eyes; they are placed under the protection
of the law; to insult them, to hinder their defence, to
anticipate the decrees of justice, is to violate the laws
of every civilised society; it is to be wanting in the
first principles of liberty; it is worse than a crime;
it is cowardly! There is not a single citizen among this
great and glorious people who cannot but feel that it is
his honoured duty to prevent an outrage that will be a blot
upon our Revolution. Let justice be done! But violence
is not justice. And this is the cry of all well-meaning
people, and will be the principle guiding the conduct of our
magistrates. Under these grave circumstances they will count
upon the concurrence and the assistance of all true patriots
to uphold the measures that are taken to bring about public
order."
This proclamation is, perhaps, a little too lengthy and diffuse and
tedious; but we should remember that Odilon Barrot was a barrister
before he became Préfet of the Seine. However, in the midst of
this ocean of words, a flood of language by which the préfet had,
perhaps, hoped that the king would be mystified, His Majesty noted
this sentence--"_The proposal of the Chamber was an inopportune step
leading people to suppose it was a concerted thing...._" And the
Republicans caught hold of this one--"_Our ungovernable enemies, ever
on the watch to disunite us,_" etc.
The step that the Préfet of the Seine blamed was the king's own secret
wish, interpreted by the address of the Chamber; so that, by finding
fault with the address of the Chamber, the Préfet of the Seine allowed
himself to blame the secret wish of the king.
From that moment, the fall of the Préfet of the Seine was decided upon.
How could Louis-Philippe, with his plans for reigning and governing at
the same time, keep a man in his service who dared to find fault with
his own secret wishes? It was useless for M. Odilon Barrot to try to
deceive himself; from that hour dates the king's dislike to him: it was
that proclamation of 1830, which postponed his three hours' ministry
to 1848. Then, on the other hand, he broke with the Republican party
because he spoke of them as his _ungovernable enemies._
The same night, or the day after the appearance of this proclamation,
Godefroy Cavaignac cast Odilon Barrot's horoscope in these pregnant
words--
"My dear friend, you are played out!"
This is what really passed at the Palais-Royal. The king was furious
with the audacity of the _pettifogging little lawyer._ The _little
lawyer_, however, was to take his revenge for this epithet two years
later, by annulling the sentence on the young artist Geoffroy, who
had been illegally condemned to death by the court-martial that had
been instituted on account of the state of siege at the time. It was a
splendid and noble method of being revenged, which won back for Odilon
ten years popularity! So his fall was decided at the Palais-Royal.
But it was not a matter that was very painful to the ministry which
was in power in November 1830; this was composed only of M. Molé, a
deserter from the Napoléonic camp; of M. de Broglie, a deserter from
the Royalist camp; of M. Guizot, the man of the _Moniteur de Gand_;
M. Casimir Périer, the banker _whose bank closed at four o'clock_,
and who, up to the last, had struggled against the Revolution; M.
Sébastiani, who, on the 30th, had announced that the white flag was his
standard; and finally, General Gérard, the last minister of Charles X.,
who, to keep in power, had only had to get the Ordinance, which the
flight of the Elder Branch left blank, signed by the Younger Branch.
It will be understood that none of these men had the least personal
attachment to Odilon Barrot. So, when the king proposed the dismissal
of the Préfet of the Seine, they all unanimously exclaimed, "Just as
you wish, seigneur!" Only one voice cried, "_Veto!_" that of Dupont
(de l'Eure). Now, Dupont had this one grand fault in the eyes of
politicians (and the king was the foremost politician of his day), he
persisted in sticking both to his own opinions and to his friends.
"If Odilon Barrot goes, I also depart!" said the honest old man flatly.
This was a more serious matter, for if the withdrawal of Odilon Barrot
involved that of Dupont (de l'Eure), the withdrawal of Dupont would
also mean that of La Fayette with him. Now, La Fayette's resignation
might very well, in the end, involve that of the king himself. It
would, moreover, cause ill-feeling between the king and Laffitte, who
was another staunch friend of Odilon Barrot. True, the king was not
disinclined for a rupture with Laffitte: there are certain services
so great that they can only be repaid by ingratitude; but the king
only wished to quarrel with Laffitte in his own time and at his own
convenience, when such a course would be expedient and not prejudicial.
The grave question was referred to a consensus of opinion for solution.
M. Sébastiani won the honours of the sitting by his suggestion of
himself making a personal application to M. Odilon Barrot to obtain his
voluntary resignation. Of course, Dupont (de l'Eure) was not present at
this secret confabulation. They settled to hold another council that
night. The king was late, contrary to his custom. As he entered the
cabinet, he did not perceive Dupont (de l'Eure) talking in a corner of
the room with M. Bignon.
"Victory, messieurs!" he exclaimed, in an exulting voice; "the
resignation of the Préfet of the Seine is settled, and General La
Fayette, realising the necessity for the resignation, himself consented
to it."
"What did you say, sire?" said Dupont (de l'Eure) hastily, coming out
of the darkness into the circle of light which revealed his presence to
the king.
"Oh! you are there, are you, Monsieur Dupont," said the king, rather
embarrassed. "Well, I was saying that General La Fayette has ceased to
oppose the resignation of M. Barrot."
"Sire," replied Dupont, "the statement your Majesty has done me the
honour to make is quite impossible of belief."
"I had it from the general's own lips, monsieur," replied the king.
"Your majesty must permit me to believe he is labouring under a
mistake," insisted Dupont, with a bow; "for the general told me the
very reverse, and I cannot believe him capable of contradicting himself
in this matter."
A flash of anger crossed the king's face; yet he restrained himself.
"However," continued Dupont, "I will speak for myself alone ... If M.
Odilon Barrot retires, I renew my request to the king to be good enough
to accept my resignation."
"But, monsieur," said the king hastily, "you promised me this very
morning, that whatever happened, you would remain until after the trial
of the ministers."
"Yes, true, sire, but only on condition that M. Barrot remained too."
"Without any conditions, monsieur."
It was now Dupont's turn to flush red.
"I must this time, sire," he said, "with the strength of conviction,
positively assert that the king is in error."
"What! monsieur," exclaimed the king, "you give me the lie to my face?
Oh! this is really too much! And everybody shall hear how you have been
lacking in respect to me."
"Take care, sire," replied the chancellor coldly; "when the king says
_yes_ and Dupont (de l'Eure) says _no_, I am not sure which of the two
France will believe."
Then, bowing to the king, he proceeded to the door of exit.
But on the threshold the unbending old man met the Duc d'Orléans, who
was young and smiling and friendly; he took him by both hands and would
not let him go further.
"Father," said the duke to the king, "there has surely been some
misunderstanding ... M. Dupont is so strictly honourable that he could
not possibly take any other course."
The king was well aware of the mistake he had just made, and held out
his hand to his minister; the Duc d'Orléans pushed him into the king's
open arms, and the king and his minister embraced. Probably nothing was
forgotten on either side, but the compact was sealed.
Odilon Barrot was to remain Préfet of the Seine, and, consequently,
Dupont (de l'Eure) was to remain chancellor, and La Fayette,
consequently, would remain generalissimo of the National Guard
throughout the kingdom.
But we shall see how these three faithful friends were politely
dismissed when the king had no further need of them. It will, however,
readily be understood that all this was but a temporary patching up,
without any real stability underneath. M. Dupont (de l'Eure) consented
to remain with MM. de Broglie, Guizot, Molé and Casimir Périer, but
these gentlemen had no intention whatever of remaining in office with
him. Consequently, they sent in their resignation, which involved those
of MM. Dupin and Bignon, ministers who held no offices of state.
The king was placed in a most embarrassing quandary, and had recourse
to M. Laffitte. M. Laffitte urged the harm that it would do his banking
house, and the daily work he would be obliged to give to public
affairs, if he accepted a position in the Government, and he confided
to the king the worry which the consequences of the July Revolution
had already caused him in his business affairs. The king offered him
every kind of inducement. But, with extreme delicacy of feeling, M.
Laffitte would not hear of accepting anything from the king, unless
the latter felt inclined to buy the forest of Breteuil at a valuation.
The only condition M. Laffitte made to this sale was that it should
be by private deed and not publicly registered, as registration would
naturally reveal the fact of the sale and the seller's difficulties.
They exchanged mutual promises, and the forest of Breteuil was valued
at, and sold for, eight millions, I believe, and the private deeds of
sale and purchase were executed and signed upon this basis.
M. Laffitte's credit thus made secure, he consented to accept both
the office of Minister for Finance and the Presidency of the Cabinet
Council.
The _Moniteur_ published, on 2 November, the list of newly elected
ministers. They were--MM. Laffitte, for Finance and President of the
Council; Dupont (de l'Eure), Minister of Justice; Gérard, for War;
Sébastiani, at the Admiralty; Maison, for Foreign Affairs; Montalivet,
at the Home Office; Mérilhou, for Education.
The king, therefore, had attained his end; _the doctrinaires_ (as
they were nicknamed, probably because they had no real political
principles) had done him great service by their resignation, and given
him the opportunity of forming a ministry entirely devoted to him. In
the new coalition, Louis-Philippe ranked Laffitte as _his friend_,
Sébastiani and Montalivet, as his devoted servants; Gérard and Maison,
his subservient followers; while Mérilhou fell an easy prey to his
influence. There was only Dupont (de l'Eure) left, and he took his cue
from La Fayette.
Now, do not let us lose sight of the fact that this ministry might be
called _the Trial Ministry (ministère du procès)_, and that La Fayette,
who had been proscribed by M. de Polignac, wanted to take a noble
revenge upon him by saving his life. His speech in the Chamber did not
leave the slightest doubt of his intentions.
On 4 October, the Chamber of Peers constituted itself a Court of
Justice, ordered the removal of the ex-ministers to the prison of the
petit Luxembourg and fixed 15 December for the opening of the trial.
But between 4 October and 15 December (that is to say, between the
constitution of the Court of Peers and the opening of the trial) M.
Laffitte received the following curt note from Louis-Philippe:--
"MY DEAR MONSIEUR LAFFITTE,--After what has been told
me by a mutual friend, of whom I need not say anything
further, you know quite well why I have availed myself, at
M. Jamet's[1] urgent instigation, to whom the secret of
the purchase was entrusted by yourself and not by me, of
taking the opportunity of having the private deed of sale
registered, as secretly as possible.--Yours affectionately,
LOUIS-PHILIPPE."
M. Laffitte was stunned by the blow; he did not place any belief in the
secrecy of the registration; and he was right. The sale became known,
and M. Laffitte's downfall dated from that moment. But the deed of
sale bore a special date! M. Laffitte took up his pen to send in his
resignation, and this involved that of Dupont (de l'Eure), La Fayette
and Odilon Barrot. He reflected that Louis-Philippe would be disarmed
in face of a future political upheaval. But the revenge appeared too
cruel a one to the famous banker, who now acted the part of king, while
the real king played that of financier. Nevertheless, the wound rankled
none the less deeply in his heart.
[1] M. Jamet was the king's private book-keeper.
CHAPTER III
Béranger as Patriot and Republican
When Laffitte became minister, he wanted to bear with him up to the
political heights he was himself compelled to ascend, a man who,
as we have said, had perhaps contributed more to the accession of
Louis-Philippe even than had the celebrated banker himself. That man
was Béranger. But Béranger, with his clear-sighted common sense,
realised that, for him as well as for Laffitte, apparent promotion
really meant ultimate downfall. He therefore let all his friends
venture on that bridge of Mahomet, as narrow as a thread of flax,
called power; but shook his head and took farewell of them in the
following verses:--
"Non, mes amis, non, je ne veux rien être;
Semez ailleurs places, titres et croix.
Non, pour les cours Dieu ne m'a point fait naître:
Oiseau craintif, je fuis la glu des rois!
Que me faut-il? Maîtresse à fine taille,
Que me faut-il? Maîtresse à fine taille,
Petit repas et joyeux entretien!
De mon berceau près de bénir la paille,
En me créant, Dieu m'a dit: 'Ne sois rien!'
Un sort brillant serait chose importune
Pour moi rimeur, qui vis de temps perdu.
N'est-il tombé, des miettes de fortune,
Tout has, j'ai dit: 'Ce pain ne m'est pas dû.
Quel artisan, pauvre, hélas! quoi qu'il fasse,
N'a plus que moi droit à ce peu de bien?
Sans trop rougir, fouillons dans ma besace.
En me créant, Dieu m'a dit: 'Ne sois rien!'
Sachez pourtant, pilotes du royaume,
Combien j'admire un homme de vertu
Qui, désertant son hôtel ou son chaume,
Monte au vaisseau par tous les vents battu,
De loin, ma vois lui crie: 'Heureux voyage!'
Priant de cœur pour tout grand citoyen;
Mais, au soleil, je m'endors sur la plage
En me créant, Dieu m'a dit: 'Ne sois rien!'
Votre tombeau sera pompeux sans doute;
J'aurai, sous l'herbe, une fosse à l'écart.
Un peuple en deuil vous fait cortège en route;
Du pauvre, moi, j'attends le corbillard.
En vain l'on court ou votre étoile tombe;
Qu'importe alors votre gîte ou le mien?
La différence est toujours une tombe.
En me créant, Dieu m'a dit: 'Ne sois rien!'
De ce palais souffrez donc que je sorte,
À vos grandeurs je devais un salut;
Amis, adieu! j'ai, derrière la porte,
Laissé tantôt mes sabots et mon luth.
Sous ces lambris, près de vous accourue,
La Liberté s'offre à vous pour soutien ...
Je vais chanter ses bienfaits dans la rue.
En me créant, Dieu m'a dit: 'Ne sois rien!'"
So Béranger retired, leaving his friends more deeply entangled in the
web of power than was La Fontaine's raven in the sheep's wool. Even
when he is sentimental, Béranger finds it difficult not to insert a
touch of mischief in his poetry, and, perhaps, while he is singing in
the street the blessings of liberty, he is laughing in his sleeve;
exemplifying that disheartening maxim of La Rochefoucauld, that there
is always something even in the very misfortunes of our best friends
which gives us pleasure. Yet how many times did the philosophic singer
acclaim in his heart the Government he had founded. We say _in his
heart_, for whether distrustful of the stability of human institutions,
or whether he deemed it a good thing to set up kings, but a bad one
to sing their praises in poetry, Béranger never, thank goodness!
consecrated by a single line of praise in verse the sovereignty of
July which he had lauded in his speech.
Now let us take stock of the length of time his admiration of, and
sympathy with, the royal cause lasted. It was not for long! In six
months all was over; and the poet had taken the measure of the king:
the king was only fit to be put away with Villon's old moons. If my
reader disputes this assertion let him listen to Béranger's own words.
The man who, on 31 July, had flung _a plank across the stream_, as the
_petits Savoyards_ do, is the first to try to push it off into the
water: it is through no fault of his if it do not fall in and drag the
king with it.
"Oui, chanson, muse, ma fille,
J'ai déclaré net
Qu'avec Charle et sa famille,
On le détrônait;
Mais chaque loi qu'on nous donne
Te rappelle ici:
Chanson, reprends ta couronne!
--Messieurs, grand merci!
Je croyais qu'on allait faire
Du grand et du neuf,
Même étendre un peu la sphère
De quatre-vingt-neuf;
Mais point: on rebadigeonne
Un troûe noirci!
Chanson, reprends ta couronne!
--Messieurs, grand merci!
Depuis les jours de décembre,[1]
Vois, pour se grandir,
La chambre vanter la chambre,
La chambre applaudir!
À se prouver qu'elle est bonne,
Elle a réussi ...
Chanson, reprends ta couronne!
--Messieurs, grand merci!
Basse-cour des ministères
Qu'en France on honnit,
Nos chapons héréditaires,
Sauveront leur nid;
Les petits que Dieu leur donne
Y pondront aussi ...
Chanson, reprends ta couronne!
--Messieurs, grand merci!
La planète doctrinaire
Qui sur Gand brillait
Vent servir la luminaire
Aux gens de juillet:
Fi d'un froid soleil d'automne
De brume obscurci!
Chanson, reprends ta couronne!
--Messieurs, grand merci!
_Nos ministres, qu'on peut mettre_
_Tous au même point,_[2]
Voudraient que la baromètre
Ne variât point:
Pour peu que là-bas il tonne,
On se signe ici ...
Chanson, reprends ta couronne!
--Messieurs, grand merci!
Pour être en état de grâce
Que de grands peureux
Ont soin de laisser en place
Les hommes véreux!
Si l'on ne touche à personne,
C'est afin que si ...
Chanson, reprends ta couronne!
--Messieurs, grand merci!
Te voilà donc restaurée,
Chanson mes amours!
Tricolore et sans livrée,
Montre-toi toujours!
Ne crains plus qu'on l'emprisonne,
Du moins à Poissy ...
Chanson, reprends ta couronne!
--Messieurs, grand merci!
Mais, pourtant, laisse en jachère
Mon sol fatigué;
Mes jeunes rivaux, ma chère,
Ont un ciel si gai!
Chez eux la rose foisonne,
Chez moi le souci.
Chanson, reprends ta couronne!
--Messieurs, grand merci!"
These verses were nothing short of a declaration of war, but they
escaped unnoticed, and those poets who talked of them seemed to talk of
them as of something fallen from the moon, or some aerolite that nobody
had picked up.
A song of Béranger? What was it but a song by him? The public had not
read this particular one, though it was aware of the existence of a
poet of that name who had written _Le Dieu des bonnes gens, L'Ange
Gardien, Le Cinq mai, Les Deux Cousins, Le Ventru_, all songs that
more or less attacked Louis XVIII. and Charles X.; but they did not
recognise a poet of the name of Béranger who allowed himself to go
so far as to attack Louis-Philippe. Why this ignorance of the new
Béranger? Why this deafness as to his new song? We will explain.
There comes a reactionary period after every political change, during
which material interests prevail over national, and shameful appetites
over noble passions; during such a period,--as Louis-Philippe's reign,
for example--that government is in favour which fosters these selfish
interests and surfeits ignoble passions. The acts of such a government,
no matter how outrageously illegal and tyrannical and immoral, are
looked upon as saving graces! They praise and approve them, and make
as much noise at the footstool of power, as the priests of Cybele,
who clashed their cymbals round Jupiter's cradle. Throughout such a
period as this, the only thing the masses fear, who, living by such
a reaction, have every interest in upholding it, is, lest daylight
break on the scene of Pandemonium, and light shine into the sink where
speculators and moneymakers and coiners of crowns and paper money
jostle, and crowd and hustle one another amid that jingling of money
which denotes the work they are engaged in. Whether such a state of
things lasts long or only briefly, we repeat that, while it endures
until an honest, pure and elevated national spirit gets the upper hand,
nothing can be done or said or hoped for; everything else is cried up
and approved and extolled beforehand! It is as though that fine popular
spirit which inspires nations from time to time to attempt great deeds
has vanished, has gone up to the skies, or one knows not where. Weaker
spirits despair of ever seeing it come back, and nobler minds alone,
who share its essence, know that it ever lives, as they possess a spark
of that divine soul, believed to be extinct, and they wait with smiling
lips and calm brow. Then, gradually, they witness this political
phenomenon. Without apparent cause, or deviation from the road it
had taken, perhaps for the very reason that it is still pursuing
it, such a type of government, which cannot lose the reputation it
has never had, loses the factitious popularity it once possessed;
its very supporters, who have made their fortunes out of it, whose
co-operation it has rewarded, gradually fall away from it, and, without
disowning it altogether, already begin to question its stability. From
this very moment, such a government is condemned; and, just as they
used to approve of its evil deeds, they criticise its good actions.
Corruption is the very marrow of its bones and runs through it from
beginning to end and dries up the deadly sap which had made it spread
over a whole nation, branches like those of the upas tree, and shade
like that of the manchineel. Into this atmosphere, which, for five,
ten, fifteen, twenty years, has been full of an impure element that
has been inhaled together with other elements of the air, there comes
something antagonistic to it, something not immediately recognised.
This is the returning spirit of social probity, entering the political
conscience; it is the soul of the nation, in a word, that was thought
to have fainted, risen to the sky, gone, no one knew where, which comes
back to reanimate the vast democratic masses, which it had abandoned
to a lethargy that surrounding nations, jealous and inimical, had been
all too eager to proclaim as the sleep of death! At such a crisis the
government, by the mere returning of the masses to honesty, seems like
a ship that has lost its direction, which staggers and wavers and knows
not where it is going! It has withstood fifteen years of tempests and
storms and now it founders in a squall. It had become stronger by 5 and
6 June, on 13 and 14 April and 15 May, but falls before 24 February.
Such a government or rather governments show signs of their decline
when men of heart and understanding refuse to rally to their help, or
when those who had done so by mistake quit it from disgust. It does not
follow that these desertions bring about an immediate fall--it may not
be for years after, but it is a certain sign that they will fall some
day, alone, or by their own act, and the public conscience, at this
stage of their decline, needs but to give it a slight push to complete
the ruin!
Now Béranger, with his fine instinct of right and wrong, of good and
evil, knew all this; not in the self-saving spirit of the rat which
leaves the ship where it has fattened, when it is about to sail. As
we have seen, he would receive nothing at the hands of the Government
or from the friends who formed its crew; but, like the swift, white
sea-bird, which skims the crests of the rising waves, he warned the
sailors of coming storms. From this very moment, Béranger decides that
royalty in France is condemned, since this same royalty, which he has
kneaded with his own hands, with the democratic element of a Jacobin
prince in 1791, a commandant of the National Guard, a Republican in
1789 and a popular Government in 1830, is turning to a middle-class
aristocracy, the last of the aristocracies, because it is the most
selfish and the most narrow-minded,--and he dreams of a Republic!
But how was he to attack this popular king, this king of the bourgeois
classes and of material interests, the king who had saved society?
(Every form of government in France as it arose has made that claim!)
The king was invulnerable; the Revolution of '89, which was looked upon
as his mother, but was only his nurse, had dipped him in the furnace of
the Three Days, as Thetis dipped her son Achilles in the river Styx;
but he, too, had his weak spot like Homer's hero.
Is it the head? Is it the heel? Is it the heart? The poet, who will not
lose his time in manufacturing gunpowder, which might easily be blown
away, before it was used, will look for this weak spot, and, never
fear, he will find it.
[1] We shall talk about these directly, but, desiring to dedicate a
chapter or two now to Béranger, who, as poet and politician, took a
great part in the Revolution of July, we are obliged to take a step in
advance.
[2] What would have become of Béranger if he had followed the power of
the ministers who could be put all on the same level? For notice that
the ministers he speaks of here are his friends, who did not send in
their resignation till 13 March.
CHAPTER IV
Béranger, as Republican
This vulnerable spot was the Republican feeling, ever alert in France,
whether it be disguised under the names of Liberalism, Progress or
Democracy. Béranger discovered it, for, just when he was going to bid
farewell to poetry, he once more took up his song; like the warrior
who, in despair, had flung down his arms, he resumed them; but he has
changed his aim and will slay with principles rather than bullets, he
will no longer try to pierce the velvet of an ancient throne, but he
will set up a new statue of marble upon a brazen altar! That statue
shall be the figure of the Republic. He who was of the advanced school
under the Elder Branch, hangs back under the Younger. But what matters
it! He will accomplish his task and, though it stand alone, it will
be none the less powerful. Listen to him: behold him at his moulding:
like Benvenuto Cellini, he flings the lead of his old cartridges into
the smelting-pot: he will throw in his bronze and even the two silver
dinner-services which he brings out of an old walnut chest on grand
occasions when he dines with Lisette, and which he has once or twice
lent to Frétillon to put in pawn. While he works, he discovers that
those whom he fought in 1830 were in the right, and that it was he
himself who was wrong; he had looked upon them as _madmen_, now he
makes his frank apologies to them in this song--
"Vieux soldats de plomb que nous sommes,
Au cordeau nous alignant tous,
Si des rangs sortant quelques hommes,
Tous, nous crions: 'À bas les fous!'
On les persécute, on les tue,
Sauf, après un lent examen,
À leur dresser une statue
Pour la gloire du genre humain!
Combien de tempo une pensée.
Vierge obscure, attend son époux!
Les sots la traitent d'insensée,
Le sage lui dit: 'Cachez-vous!'
Mais, la rencontrant loin du monde,
Un fou qui croit au lendemain
L'épouse; elle devient féconde,
Pour le bonheur du genre humain!
J'ai vu Saint-Simon, le prophète,
Riche d'abord, puis endetté,
Qui, des fondements jusqu'au faite,
Refaisait la société.
Plein de son œuvre commencée,
Vieux, pour elle il tendais la main,
Sur qu'il embrassait la pensée
Qui doit sauver le genre humain!
Fourier nous dit: 'Sors de la fange,
Peuple en proie aux déceptions!
Travaille, groupé par phalange,
Dans un cercle d'attractions.
La terre, après tant de désastres,
Forme avec le ciel un hymen,
Et la loi qui régit les astres
Donne la paix au genre humain!'
Enfantin affranchit la femme,
L'appelle à partager nos droits.
'Fi! dites-vous, sous l'épigramme
Ces fous rêveurs tombent tous trois!'
Messieurs, lorsqu'en vain notre sphère
Du bonheur cherche le chemin,
Honneur au fou qui ferait faire
Un rêve heureux au genre humain!
Qui découvrit un nouveau monde?
Un fou qu'on raillait en tout lieu!
Sur la croix, que son sang inonde,
Un fou qui meurt nous lègue un Dieu!
Si, demain, oubliant d'élcore,
Le jour manquait, eh bien! demain,
Quelque fou trouverait encore
Un flambeau pour le genre humain!"
You have read this song. What wonderful sense and rhythm of thought and
poetry these lines contain! You say you didn't know it? Really? and
yet you knew all those which, under Charles X., attacked the throne or
the altar. _Le Sacre de Charles le Simple,_ and _L'Ange Gardien._ How
is it that you never knew this one? Because Béranger, instead of being
a tin soldier drawn up to defend public order, as stock-jobbers and
the bourgeois and grocers understand things, was looked upon as one
of those fanatics who leave the ranks in pursuit of mad ideas, which
they take unto themselves in marriage and perforce therefrom bring
forth offspring! Only, Béranger was no longer in sympathy with public
thought; the people do not pick up the arrows he shoots, in order to
hurl them back at the throne; his poems, which were published in 1825,
and again in 1829, and then sold to the extent of thirty thousand
copies, are, in 1833, only sold to some fifteen hundred. But what
matters it to him, the bird of the desert, who sings for the love of
singing, because the good God, who loves to hear him, who prefers his
poetry to that of _missionaries, Jesuits and of those jet-black-dwarfs_
whom he nourishes, and who hates the smoke of their censers, has said
to him, "Sing, poor little bird, sing!" So he goes on singing at every
opportunity.
When Escousse and Lebras died, he sang a melancholy song steeped in
doubt and disillusionment; he could not see his way in the chaos of
society. He only felt that the earth was moving like an ocean; that the
outlook was stormy; that the world was in darkness, and that the vessel
called _France_ was drifting further and further towards destruction.
Listen. Was there ever a more melancholy song than this? It is like the
wild seas that break upon coasts bristling with rocks and covered with
heather, like the bays of Morlaix and the cliffs of Douarnenez.
"Quoi! morts tous deux dans cette chambre close
Où du charbon pèse encor la vapeur!
Leur vie, hélas! était à peine éclose;
Suicide affreux! triste objet de stupeur!
Ils auront dit: 'Le monde fait naufrage;
Voyez pâlir pilote et matelots!
Vieux bâtiment usé par tous les flots,
Il s'engloutit, sauvons-nous à la nage!'
Et, vers le ciel se frayant un chemin,
Ils sont partis en se donnant la main!
. . . . . . . . .
Pauvres enfants! quelle douleur amère
N'apaisent pas de saints devoirs remplis?
Dans la patrie on retrouve une mère,
Et son drapeau vous couvre de ses plis!
Ils répondaient: 'Ce drapeau, qu'on escorte,
Au toit du chef le protège endormi;
Mais le soldat, teint du sang ennemi,
Veille, et de faim meurt en gardant la porte!'
Et, vers le ciel se frayant un chemin,
Ils sont partis en se donnant la main!
. . . . . . . . .
Dieu créateur, pardonne à leur démence!
Ils s'étaient fait les échos de leurs sous,
Ne sachant pas qu'en une chaîne immense,
Non pour nous seuls, mais pour tous nous naissons.
L'humanité manque de saints apôtres
Qui leur aient dit: 'Enfants, suivez ma loi!
Aimer, aimer, c'est être utile à soi!
Se faire aimer, c'est être utile aux autres!'
Et, vers le ciel se frayant un chemin,
Ils sont partis en se donnant la main!"
At what a moment,--consider it!--did Béranger prophesy that the world
would suffer shipwreck to the terror of pilots and sailors? When, in
February 1832, the Tuileries was feasting its courtiers; when the
newspapers, which supported the Government, were glutted with praise;
when the citizen-soldiers of the rues Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin
were enthusiastic in taking their turn on guard; when officers were
clamouring for crosses for themselves and invitations to court for
their wives; when, out of the thirty-six millions of the French
people, thirty millions were bellowing at the top of their voices,
"Vive Louis-Philippe, the upholder of order and saviour of society!"
when the _Journal des Débats_ was shouting its HOSANNAHS! and the
_Constitutionnel_ its AMENS!
By the powers! One would have been out of one's mind to die at such a
time; and only a poet would talk of the world going to wrack and ruin!
But wait! When Béranger perceived that no one listened to his words,
that, like Horace, he sang to deaf ears, he still went on singing, and
now still louder than before--
"Société, vieux et sombre édifice,
Ta chute, hélas! Menace nos abris:
Tu vas crouler! point de flambeau qui puisse
Guider la foule à travers tes débris:
Où courons-nous! Quel sage en proie au doute
N'a sur son front vingt fois passé la main?
C'est aux soleils d'être sûrs de leur route;
Dieu leur a dit: 'Voilà votre chemin!'"
Then comes the moment when this chaos is unravelled, and the night is
lifted, and the dawn of a new day rises; the poet bursts into a song of
joy as he sees it! What did he see? Oh! be not afraid, he will be only
too ready to tell you--
"Toujours prophète, en mon saint ministère,
Sur l'avenir j'ose interroger Dieu.
Pour châtier les princes de la terre,
Dans l'ancien monde un déluge aura lieu.
Déjà près d'eux, l'Océan, sur les grèves,
Mugit, se gonfle, il vient.... 'Maîtres, voyez,
Voyez!' leur dis-je. Ils répondent: 'Tu rêves!'
Ces pauvres rois, ils seront tous noyés!
. . . . . . . . .
Que vous ont fait, mon Dieu, ces bons monarques?
Il en est tant dont on bénit les lois!
De jougs trop lourds si nous portons les marques,
C'est qu'en oubli le peuple a mis ses droits.
Pourtant, les flots précipitent leur marche
Contre ces chefs jadis si bien choyés.
Faute d'esprit pour se construire une arche,
Ces pauvres rois, ils seront tous noyés!
'Un océan! quel est-il, ô prophète?'
_Peuples, c'est nous, affranchis de la faim_,
_Nous, plus instruits, consommant la défaite_
_De tant de rois, inutiles, enfin!..._
Dieu fait passer sur ces fils indociles
Nos flots mouvants, si longtemps fourvoyés;
Puis le ciel brille, et les flots sont tranquilles.
Ces pauvres rois, ils seront tous noyés!"
It will be observed that it was not as in _les Deux Cousins_, a simple
change of fortune or of dynasty, but the overturning of every dynasty
that the poet is predicting; not as in _Les Dieu des bonnes gens_, the
changing of destinies and tides, but the revolution of both towards
ultimate tranquillity. The ocean becomes a vast lake, without swell or
storms, reflecting the azure heavens and of such transparent clearness
that at the bottom can be seen the corpses of dead monarchies and the
débris of wrecked thrones.
Then, what happens on the banks of this lake, in the capital of the
civilised world, in the city _par excellence_, as the Romans called
Rome? The poet is going to tell you, and you will not have long to wait
to know if he speaks the truth: a hundred and sixty-six years, dating
from 1833, the date at which the song appeared. What is a hundred and
sixty-six years in the life of a people? For, note carefully, the
prophecy is for the year 2000, and the date may yet be disputed!
"Nostradamus, qui vit naître Henri-Quatre,
Grand astrologue, a prédit, dans ses vers,
Qu_'en l'an deux mil, date qu'on peut débattre_,
De la médaille on verrait le revers:
Alors, dit-il, Paris, dans l'allégresse,
Au pied du Louvre ouïra cette voix:
'Heureux Français, soulagez ma détresse;
Faites l'aumône au dernier de vos rois!'
Or, cette voix sera celle d'un homme
Pauvre, à scrofule, en haillons, sans souliers,
Qui, _né proscrit_, vieux, arrivant de Rome,
Fera spectacle aux petits écoliers.
Un sénateur crira: 'L'homme à besace,
Les mendiants sont bannis par nos lois!
--Hélas! monsieur, je suis seul de ma race;
Faites l'aumône au dernier de vos rois!'
'Es-tu vraiment de la race royale?'
--Oui, répondra cet homme, fier encor;
J'ai vu dans Rome, alors ville papale,
À mon aïeul couronne et sceptre d'or;
Il les vendit pour nourrir le courage
De faux agents, d'écrivains maladroits!
Moi, j'ai pour sceptre un bâton de voyage....
Faites l'aumône au dernier de vos rois!
'Mon père, âgé, _mort en prison pour dettes_,
D'un bon métier n'osa point me pouvoir;
Je tends la main ... Riches, partout vous êtes
Bien durs au pauvre, et Dieu me l'a fait voir!
Je foule enfin cette plage féconde
Qui repoussa mes aïeux tant de fois!
Ah! par pitié pour les grandeurs du monde,
Faites l'aumône au dernier de vos rois!'
Le sénateur dira: 'Viens! je t'emmène
Dans mon palais; vis heureux parmi nous.
Contre les rois nous n'avons plus de haine;
Ce qu'il en reste embrasse nos genoux!
En attendant que le sénat décide
À ses bienfaits si ton sort a des droits,
Moi, qui suis né d'un vieux sang régicide,
Je fais l'aumône au dernier de nos rois!'
Nostradamus ajoute en son vieux style:
'La _République_ au prince accordera
Cent louis de rente, et, citoyen utile,
Pour maire, un jour, Saint-Cloud le choisira.
Sur l'an deux mil, on dira dans l'histoire,
Qu'assise au trône et des arts et des lois,
La France, en paix, reposant sous sa gloire,
A fait l'aumône au dernier de ses rois!'"
It is quite clear this time, and the word _Republic_ is pronounced;
the _Republic_ in the year 2000 will give alms to the last of its
kings! There is no ambiguity in the prophecy. Now, how long will this
Republic, strong enough to give alms to the last of its kings, have
been established? It is a simple algebraic calculation which the most
insignificant mathematician can arrive at, by proceeding according to
rule, from the known to the unknown.
It is in the year 2000 that Paris will hear, at the foot of the Louvre,
the voice of a man in tatters shouting, "Give alms to the last of your
kings!"
This voice will belong to a man _born an outlaw, old,
arriving from Rome,_ which leads one to suppose he would
be about sixty or seventy years of age. Let us take a mean
course and say sixty-five @ 65
This man, a born outlaw, _saw in Rome, then a papal city,
the crown and golden sceptre of his grandfather._ How long
ago can that have been? Let us say fifty years @ 50
For how long had this grandfather been exiled? It cannot
have been long, because he had his sceptre and gold crown
still, and sold them to _feed the courage of false agents
and luckless writers._ Let us reckon it at fifteen years and
say no more about it @ 15
Let us add to that the twenty years that have rolled by
since 1833 @ 20
And we shall have to take away a total from 166 of 150
Now he who from 166 pays back 150 keeps 16 as remainder,--and yet,
and yet the poet said the year 2000 is _open to doubt._ Do not let us
dispute the question, but let us even allow more time.
We return thee thanks, Béranger, thou poet and prophet!
What happened upon the appearance of these prophecies which were
calculated to wound many very different interests? That the people who
knew the old poems of Béranger by heart, because their ambition, their
hopes and desires, had made weapons of them wherewith to destroy the
old throne, did not even read his new songs, whilst those who did read
them said to each other, "Have you read Béranger's new songs? No. Well,
don't read them. Poor fellow, he is going off!" So they did not read
them, or, if they had read them, the word was passed round to say,
that the song-writer was going off. No, on the contrary, the poet was
growing greater, not deteriorating! But just as from song-writer he had
become poet, so, from poet, he was becoming a prophet. I mean that, to
the masses, he was becoming more and more unintelligible. Antiquity has
preserved us the songs of Anacreon, but has forgotten the prophecies of
Cassandra.
And why? Homer tells us: the Greeks refused to put faith in the
prophetic utterances of the daughter of Priam and Hecuba.
Alas! Béranger followed her in this and held his peace; and a whole
world of masterpieces on the eve of bursting forth was arrested on his
silent lips. He smiled with that arch smile of his, and said--
"Ah! I am declining, am I? Well, then, ask for songs of those who are
rising!"
Rossini had said the same thing after _Guillaume Tell_, and what was
the result? We had no more operas by him, and no more songs from
Béranger.
Now it may be asked how it happens that Béranger, a Republican, resides
peacefully in the avenue de Chateaubriand (No. 5), at Paris, whilst
Victor Hugo is living in Marine Terrace, in the island of Jersey. It
is simply a question of age and of temperament. Hugo is a fighter, and
scarcely fifty: while Béranger, take him all in all, is an Epicurean
and, moreover, seventy years of age;[1] an age at which a man begins
to prepare his bed for his eternal sleep, and Béranger (God grant he
may live many years yet, would he but accept some years of our lives!)
wishes to die peacefully upon the bed of flowers and bay leaves that
he has made for himself. He has earned the right to do so--he has
struggled hard enough in the past, and, rest assured, his work will
continue in the future!
Let us just say, in conclusion, that those who were then spoken of as
the _young school_ (they are now men of forty to fifty) were not fair
to Béranger. After Benjamin Constant had exalted him to the rank of a
great epic poet, they tried to reduce him to the level of a writer of
doggerel verses. By this action, criticism innocently made itself the
accomplice of the ruling powers; it only intended to be severe, but
was, really, both unjust and ungrateful! It needs to be an exile and
a poet living in a strange land, far from that communion of thought
which is the food of intellectual life, to know how essentially French,
philosophical and consolatory, the muse of the poet of Passy really
was. In the case of Béranger, there was no question of exile, and each
exile can, while he sings his songs, look for the realisation of that
prophecy which Nostradamus has fixed for the year 2000.
But we are a very long way from the artillery, which we were
discussing, and we must return to it again and to the riot in which it
was called upon to play its part.
Let us, then, return to the riot and to the artillery. But, dear
Béranger, dear poet, dear father, we do not bid you _adieu_, only _au
revoir._ After the storm, the halcyon!--the halcyon, white as snow,
which has passed through all the storms, its swan-like plumage as
spotless as before.
[1] See Note A, at end of the volume.
CHAPTER V
Death of Benjamin Constant--Concerning his life--Funeral
honours that were conferred upon him--His funeral--Law
respecting national rewards--The trial of the
ministers--Grouvelle and his sister--M. Mérilhou and the
neophyte--Colonel Lavocat--The Court of Peers--Panic--Fieschi
The month of December 1830 teemed with events. One of the gravest
was the death of Benjamin Constant. On the 10th we received orders
to be ready equipped and armed by the 12th, to attend the funeral
procession of the famous deputy. He had died at seven in the evening
of 8 December. His death created a great sensation throughout Paris.
Benjamin Constant's popularity was a strange one, and it would be hard
to say upon what it was founded. He was a Swiss Protestant, and had
been brought up in England and Germany. He could speak English, German
and French with equal ease; but he composed and wrote in French. He
was young, good-looking, strong in body, but weak in character. From
the time he set foot in France, Constant did nothing unless under the
influence of women: they were his rulers in literature and his guides
in politics. He was taken up by three of the most celebrated women of
his time; by Madame Tallien, Madame de Beauharnais and Madame de Staël,
and he was completely under their influence; the latter, especially,
had an immense influence over his life. _Adolphe_ was he himself, and
the heroine in it was Madame de Staël. Besides, the life of Benjamin
was not by any means the life of a man, but that of a woman, that is
to say, a mixture of inconsistencies and weaknesses. Raised to the
Tribunal after the overturning of the Directory, he opposed Bonaparte
when he was First Consul, not, as historians state, because he had no
belief in the durability of Napoléon's good fortune, but because Madame
de Staël, with whom he was then on most intimate terms, detested the
First Consul. He was expelled from the Tribunal in 1801, and exiled
from France in 1802, and went to live near his mistress (or rather
master) at Coppet. About the year 1806 or 1807 this life of slavery
grew insufferable to him, and, weak though he was, he broke his chains.
Read his novel _Adolphe_, and you will see how heavily the chain
galled him! He settled at Hanover, where he married a German lady of
high birth, a relative of the Prince of Hardenberg, and behold him an
aristocrat, moving in the very highest aristocratic circles in Germany,
never leaving the princes of the north, but living in the heart of the
coalition which threatened France, directing foreign proclamations,
writing his brochure, _De l'esprit de conquête et d'usurpation_, upon
the table of the Emperor Alexander; and, finally, re-entering France
with Auguste de Staël, in the carriage of King Charles-John. How can
one escape being a Royalist in such company!
He was also admitted to the _Journal des Débats_, and became one of
the most active editors of that periodical. When Bonaparte landed
at the gulf of Juan and marched on Paris, Benjamin Constant's first
impulse was to take himself off. He began by hiding himself at the
house of Mr. Crawford, ex-ambassador to the United States; then he
went to Nantes with an American who undertook to get him out of
France. But, on the journey, he learned of the insurrection in the
West and retraced his steps and returned to Paris after a week's
absence. In five more days' time, he went to the Tuileries at the
invitation of M. Perregaux, where the emperor was awaiting an audience
with him in his private room. Benjamin Constant was to be bought by
any power that took the trouble to flatter him; he was in politics,
literature and morality what we will call a courtezan, only Thomas, of
the _National_, used a less polite word for it. Two days later, the
newspaper announced the appointment of Benjamin Constant as a member
of the State Council. Here it was that he drew up the famous _Acte
additionnel_ in conjunction with M. Molé, a minister whom we had just
thrown out of Louis-Philippe's Government. At the Second Restoration,
it was expedient for Benjamin Constant to get himself exiled; and it
regained him his popularity, so great was the public hatred against
the Bourbons! He went to England and published _Adolphe._ In 1816, the
portals of France were re-opened to him and he started the _Minerve_,
and wrote in the _Courrier_ and _Constitutionnel_ and in the _Temps._
I met him at this time at the houses of Châtelain and M. de Seuven. He
was a tall, well-built man, excessively nervous, pale and with long
hair, which gave his face a strangely Puritanical expression; he was
as irritable as a woman and a gambler to the pitch of infatuation! He
had been a deputy since 1819, and each day he was one of the first
arrivals at the Chamber, punctiliously clad in uniform, with its silver
fleurs-de-lis, and always, summer and winter, carrying a cloak over
his arm; his other hand was always full of books and printer's proofs;
he limped and leant upon a sort of crutch, stumbling along frequently
till he reached his seat. When seated, he began upon his correspondence
and the correcting of his proofs, employing every usher in the place
to execute his innumerable commissions. Ambitious in all directions,
without ever succeeding in anything, nor even getting into the Academy,
where he failed in his first attempt against Cousin, and in the second
against M. Viennet! by turns irresolute and courageous, servile and
independent, he spent his ten years as deputy under every kind of
vacillation. The Monday of the Ordinances he was away in the country,
where he had been undergoing a serious operation; he received a letter
from Vatout, short and significant--
"MY DEAR FRIEND,--A terrible game is being played here with
heads as stakes. Be the clever gambler you always are and
come and bring your own head to our assistance."
The summons was tempting and he went. On the Thursday, he reached
Montrouge, where the barricades compelled him to leave his carriage
and to cross Paris upon the arm of his wife, who was terrified when
she saw what men were guarding the Hôtel de Ville, and frightened her
husband as well as herself.
"Let us start for Switzerland instantly!" exclaimed Benjamin Constant;
"and find a corner of the earth where not even the cover of a newspaper
can reach us!"
He was actually on the point of doing so when he was recognised, and
some one called out "Vive Benjamin Constant!" lifted him in his arms
and carried him in triumph. His name was placed last on the list of
the protest of the deputies, and is to be found at the end of Act 30,
conferring the Lieutenant-generalship upon the Duc d'Orléans; these
two signatures, supported by his immense reputation and increasing
popularity, once more took him into the State Council. Meanwhile, he
was struggling against poverty, and Vatout induced the king to allow
him two hundred thousand francs, which Constant accepted on condition,
so he said to him who gave him this payment, that he was allowed the
right of free speech. That's exactly how I understand it, said the
king. At the end of four months, the two hundred thousand francs were
all gambled away, and Constant was poorer than ever. A fortnight before
his death, a friend went to his house, one morning at ten o'clock, and
found him eating dry bread, soaked in a glass of water. That crust of
bread was all he had had since the day before, and the glass of water
he owed to the Auvergnat who had filled his cistern that morning. His
death was announced to the Chamber of Deputies on 9 December.
"What did he die of?" several members asked.
And a melancholy accusing voice that none dared contradict replied--
"Of hunger!"
This was not quite the truth, but there was quite enough foundation for
the statement to be allowed to pass unchallenged.
Then they set to work to arrange all kinds of funeral celebrations;
they brought in a bill respecting the honours that should be bestowed
upon great citizens by a grateful country, and, as this Act could not
be passed by the following day, they bought provisionally a vault in
the Cemetery de l'Est.
Oh! what a fine thing is the gratitude of a nation! True, it does not
always secure one against death by starvation; but, at all events, it
guarantees your being buried in style when you are dead--unless you die
either in prison or in exile.
We had the privilege of contributing to the pomp of this cortège formed
of a hundred thousand men; shadowed by flags draped in crêpe; and
marching to the roll of muffled drums, and the dull twangings of the
tam-tams. At one time, the whole boulevard was flooded by a howling
sea like the rising tide, and, soon, the storm burst. As the funeral
procession came out of the church, the students tried to get possession
of the coffin, shouting, "To the Panthéon!" But Odilon Barrot came
forward; the Panthéon was not in the programme, and he opposed their
enthusiasm and, as a struggle began, he appealed to the law.
"The law must be enforced!" he cried. And he called to his aid
that strength which people in power generally apply less to the
maintenance of law than to the execution of their own desires; which,
unfortunately, is not always the same thing.
Eighteen months later, these very same words, "The law must be
enforced!" were pronounced over another coffin, but, in that instance,
the law was not enforced until after two days of frightful butchery.
At the edge of Benjamin Constant's grave, La Fayette nearly fainted
from grief and fatigue, and was obliged to be held up and pulled
backward or he would have lain beside the dead before his time.
We shall relate how the same thing nearly happened to him at the grave
of Lamarque, but, that time, he did not get up again.
Every one returned home at seven that evening, imbued with some of the
stormy electricity with which the air during the whole of that day had
been charged.
Next day, the Chamber enacted a law, which, in its turn, led to serious
disturbances. It was the law relative to national pensions.
On 7 October, M. Guizot had ascended the tribune and said--
"GENTLEMEN,--The king was as anxious as you were to sanction
by a legislative act the great debt of national gratitude,
which our country owes to the victims of the Revolution.
"I have the honour to put before you a bill to that effect.
Our three great days cost more than _five hundred orphans_
the loss of fathers, _five hundred widows_ their husbands,
and over _three hundred old people_ have lost the affection
and support of children. _Three hundred and eleven citizens_
have been mutilated and made incapable of carrying on their
livelihood, and _three thousand five hundred and sixty-four
wounded people_ have had to endure temporary disablement."
A Commission had been appointed to draw up this bill and, on 13
December, the bill called the Act of National Recompense was carried.
It fixed the amounts to be granted to the widows, fathers, mothers
and sisters of the victims; and decreed that France should adopt the
orphans made during the Three Days fighting; among other dispositions
it contained the following--
"ARTICLE 8.--Resolved that those who particularly
distinguished themselves during the July Days shall be made
noncommissioned officers and sub-lieutenants in the army, if
they are thought deserving of this honour after the report
of the Commission, provided that in each regiment the number
of sub-lieutenants does not exceed the number of two and
that of non-commissioned officers, four.
"ARTICLE 10.--A special decoration shall be granted to every
citizen who distinguished himself during the July Days; the
list of those who are permitted to wear it shall be drawn up
by the Commission, and _submitted to the King's approval_;
this decoration will rank in the same degree as the Légion
d'honneur."
This law appeared in the _Moniteur_ on the 17th.
Just as the bill had been introduced the day after M. de Tracy's
proposition with respect to the death penalty, this bill was adopted
the day before the trial of the ex-ministers. It was as good as
saying--"You dead, what more can you lay claim to? We have given your
widows, fathers, mothers and sisters pensions! You, who live, what
more can you want? We have made you non-commissioned officers and
sub-lieutenants and given you the Cross! You would not have enjoyed
such privileges if the ministers of Charles X. had not passed the
Ordinances; therefore praise them instead of vilifying them!"
But the public was in no mood to praise Polignac and his accomplices;
instead, it applauded the Belgian revolution and the Polish
insurrection. All eyes were fixed upon the Luxembourg. If the ministers
were acquitted or condemned to any other sentence than that of death,
the Revolution of July would be abjured before all Europe, and by the
king who won his crown by means of the barricades.
Mauguin, one of the examining judges, when questioned concerning
the punishment that ought to be served to the prisoners, replied
unhesitatingly--"Death!"
Such events as the violation of our territory by the Spanish army; the
death of Benjamin Constant and refusal to allow his body to be taken
to the Panthéon; the Belgian revolution and Polish insurrection; were
so many side winds to swell the storm which was gathering above the
Luxembourg.
On 15 December, two days after the vote upon the National Pensions
Bill, and two days before its promulgation in the _Moniteur_, the
prosecutions began. The trial lasted from the 15th to the 21st; for
six days we never changed our uniform. We did not know what we were
kept in waiting for; we were rallied together several times, either
at Cavaignac's or Grouvelle's, to come to some decision, but nothing
definite was proposed, beyond that our common centre should be the
Louvre, where our arms and ammunition were stored, and that we should
be guided by circumstances and act as the impulse of the moment
directed.
I have already had occasion to mention Grouvelle; but let us dwell for
a moment upon him and his sister. Both were admirable people, with
hearts as devoted to the cause of Republicanism as any Spartan or Roman
citizens. We shall meet them everywhere and in everything connected
with politics until Grouvelle disappears from the arena, at the same
time that his sister dies insane in the hospice de Montpellier. They
were the son and daughter of the Grouvelle who made the first complete
edition of the _Lettres de Madame de Sévigné_, and the same who, as
secretary of the Convention, had read to Louis XVI. the sentence of
death brought him by Garat. At the time I knew him, Grouvelle was
thirty-two or three, and his sister twenty-five, years of age. There
was nothing remarkable in his external appearance; he was very simply
dressed, with a gentle face and scanty fair hair, and upon his scalp he
wore a black band, no doubt to hide traces of trepanning. She, too, was
fair and had most lovely hair, with blue eyes below white eyelashes,
which gave an extremely sweet expression to her face, an expression,
however, which assumed much firmness if you followed the upper lines to
where they met round her mouth and chin. A charming portrait of herself
hung in her house, painted by Madame Mérimée, the wife of the artist
who painted the beautiful picture, _l'innocence et le Serpent_; the
mother of Prosper Mérimée, author of _Le Vase Étrusque, Colomba, Vénus
d'Ile_ and of a score of novels which are all of high merit. The mother
of Laure Grouvelle was a Darcet, sister, I believe, of Darcet the
chemist, who had invented the famous joke about gelatine; consequently,
she was cousin to the poor Darcet who died a horrible death, being
burnt by some new chemical that he was trying to substitute for
lamp-oil; cousin also to the beautiful Madame Pradier, who was then
simply Mademoiselle Darcet or at most called _madame._ They both had a
small fortune, sufficient for their needs, for Laure Grouvelle had none
of the usual feminine coquetry about her, but was something akin to
Charlotte Corday.
It was a noticeable fact that all the men of 1830 and the Carbonari
of 1821 and 1822 were either wealthy or of independent means, either
from private fortunes or industry or talent. Bastide and Thomas were
wealthy; Cavaignac and Guinard lived on their incomes; Arago and
Grouvelle had posts; Loëve-Weymars possessed talent and Carrel, genius.
I could name all and it would be seen that none of them acted from
selfish ends, or needed to bring about revolutions to enrich himself;
on the contrary, all lost by the revolutions they took part in, some
losing their fortunes, others their liberty, some their lives.
Mademoiselle Grouvelle had never married, but it was said that Étienne
Arago had proposed to her when she was a young girl; that was a long
while back, in 1821 or 1822. Étienne Arago was then, in 1821, a student
in chemistry at the École polytechnique, and was about twenty years of
age; he made the acquaintance of Grouvelle at Thénard's house. He was a
fiery-hearted son of the South; his friends were anxious to make him a
propagandist, and through his instrumentality principally, to introduce
the secret society of the _Charbonnerie_ into the École; Grouvelle,
Thénard, Mérilhou and Barthe being its chief supporters.
These germs of Republicanism, sown by the young chemical student, and,
even more, by the influence of Eugène Cavaignac, also a student at
the École at that time, produced in after life such men as Vanneau,
Charras, Lothon, Millotte, Caylus, Latrade, Servient and all that noble
race of young men who, from 1830 to 1848, were to be found at the head
of every political movement.
A year later, _La Charbonnerie_ was recruited by Guinard, Bastide,
Chevalon, Thomas, Gauja and many more, who were always first in the
field when fighting began.
The question of how to introduce the principles of _La Charbonnerie_
into Spain in the teeth of the _cordon sanitaire_ was being debated, in
order to establish relations between the patriots of the army and those
who were taking refuge in the peninsula. Étienne Arago was thought of,
but as he was too poor to undertake the journey, they went to Mérilhou.
Mérilhou, as I have said, was one of the ringleaders of Charbonarism.
He was then living in the rue des Moulins. Cavaignac and Grouvelle
introduced Étienne, and Mérilhou gazed at the neophyte, who did not
look more than eighteen.
"You are very young, my friend," said the cautious lawyer to him.
"That may be, monsieur," Étienne responded, "but young though I am, I
have been a Charbonist for two years."
"Do you realise to what dangers you would expose yourself if you
undertook this propagandist mission?"
"Certainly, I do; I expose myself to death on the scaffold."
Whereupon the future minister of Louis-Philippe and peer of France,
and presiding judge at the Barbés' trial, laid his hand upon Étienne's
shoulder, and said, in the theatrical manner barristers are wont to
assume--
"_Made animo, generose puer!_" And gave him the necessary money.
We shall come across M. Mérilhou again at Barbés' trial, and the _made
animo_ will not be thrown away upon us.
For the moment, however, we must go back to the trial of the ministers.
La Fayette had declared his views positively; he had offered himself
as guarantee to the High Court; he had sworn to the king to save the
heads of the ministers, if they were acquitted. Thereupon ensued a
strange revival of popularity in favour of the old general; fear made
his greatest enemies sing his praises on all sides; the king and Madame
Adélaïde showered favours upon him; he was indispensable; the monarchy
could not survive without his support.... If Atlas failed this new
Olympus, it would be overthrown!
La Fayette saw through it all and laughed to himself and shrugged
his shoulders significantly. None of these flatteries and favours
had induced him to act as he did, but simply the dictates of his own
conscience.
"General," I said to him on 15 December, "you know you are staking your
popularity to save the heads of these ministers?"
"My boy," he replied, "no one knows better than I the price to be put
upon popularity; it is the richest and most inestimable of treasure,
and the only one I have ever coveted; but, like all other treasures, in
life, when the moment comes, one must strip oneself to the uttermost
farthing in the interest of public welfare and national honour."
General La Fayette certainly acted nobly, much too nobly, indeed, for
the deserts of those for whom he made the sacrifice, for they only
attributed it to weakness instead of to devotion to duty.
The streets in the vicinity of the Luxembourg were dreadfully congested
by the crowds waiting during the trial, so that the troops of the
National Guard could scarcely circulate through them. Troops of the
line and National Guards were, at the command of La Fayette, placed
at his disposition with plenary power; he had the police of the
Palais-Royal, of the Luxembourg and of the Chamber of Peers. He had
made Colonel Lavocat second in command at the Luxembourg, with orders
to watch over the safety of the peers; those same peers who had once
condemned Lavocat to death. If he could but have evoked the shade of
Ney, he would have placed him as sentinel at the gates of the palace!
Colonel Feisthamel was first in command. Lavocat was one of the oldest
members of the Carbonari. Every kind of political party was represented
in the crowd that besieged the gates of the Luxembourg, except
Orléanist; we all rubbed against one another. Republicans, Carlists,
Napoléonists, awaiting events in the hope of being able to further each
his own interests, opinions and principles. We had tickets for reserved
seats. I was present on the last day but one, and heard the pleading of
M. de Martignac and also that of M. de Peyronnet, and I witnessed M.
Sauzet's triumph and saw M. Crémieux fall ill.
Just at that second the sound of the beating of drums penetrated right
into the Chamber of Peers. They were beating the rappel in a wild sort
of frenzy.
I rushed from the hall; the sitting was almost suspended, half on
account of the accident that had happened to M. Crémieux, half because
of the terrible noise that made the accused men shiver on their
benches and the judges in their seats. My uniform as artilleryman made
way for me through the crowds, and I gained the courtyard; it was
packed. A coach belonging to the king's printers had come into the
principal court and the multitude had angrily rushed in after it. It
was the sound of their angry growls combined with the drumming which
had reached the hall. A moment of inexpressible panic and confusion
succeeded among the peers, and it was quite useless for Colonel Lavocat
to shout from the door--
"Have no fear! I will be answerable for everything. The National Guard
is and will remain in possession of all the exits."
M. Pasquier could not hear him, and his little thin shrill voice could
be heard saying--
"Messieurs les pairs, the sitting is dissolved. M. le Commandant de
la Garde Nationale warns me that it will be unwise to hold a night
sitting."
It was exactly the opposite of what Colonel Lavocat had said, but,
as most of the peers were just as frightened as their illustrious
president, they rose and left the hall hurriedly, and the sitting was
deferred until the morrow.
As I went out I pushed against a man who seemed to be one of the most
furious of the rioters; he was shouting in a foreign accent and his
mouth was hideous and his eyes were wild.
"Death to the ministers!" he was yelling.
"Oh! by Jove!" I said to the chief editor of _The Moniteur_, a little
white-haired man called Sauvo, who, like myself, was also watching him.
"I bet twenty-five louis that that man is a spy!"
I don't know whether I was right at the time; but I do know that I
found the very same man again five years later in the dock of the Court
of Peers. He was the Corsican Fieschi.
CHAPTER VI
The artillerymen at the Louvre--Bonapartist plot to take
our cannon from us--Distribution of cartridges by Godefroy
Cavaignac--The concourse of people outside the Luxembourg
when the ministers were sentenced--Departure of the
condemned for Vincennes--Defeat of the judges--La Fayette
and the riot--Bastide and Commandant Barré on guard with
Prosper Mérimée
I returned to the Louvre to learn news and to impart it. It is quite
impossible to depict the excitement which reigned in this headquarters
of the artillery. Our chief colonel, Joubert, had been taken away from
us, and, as the choice of a colonel was not in our hands, he had been
replaced by Comte Pernetti.
Comte Pernetti was devoted to the court, and the court, with just
cause, mistrusted us, and looked for a chance to disband us.
But we, on our side, every minute kept meeting men whom we had seen
upon the barricades, who stopped us to ask--
"Do you recognise us? We were there with you...."
"Yes, I recognise you. What then?"
"Well, if it came to marching against the Palais-Royal as we did
against the Tuileries, would you desert us?"
And then we clasped hands and looked at one another with excited eyes
and parted, the artillerymen exclaiming--
"The people are rising!" While the populace repeated to one another,
"The artillery is with us!"
All these rumours were floating in the air, and seemed to stop like
mists at the highest buildings.
The Palais-Royal was only a hundred and fifty yards from the Louvre,
in which were twenty-four pieces of artillery, twenty thousand rounds
of ammunition, and out of eight hundred artillerymen six hundred were
Republicans.
No scheme of conspiracy had been arranged; but it was plainly evident
that, if the people rose, the artillery would support them. M. de
Montalivet, brother of the minister, warned his brother, about one
o'clock that afternoon, that there was a plot arranged for carrying
off our guns from us. General La Fayette immediately warned Godefroy
Cavaignac of the information that had been given him.
Now, we were quite willing to go with the people to manage our own
guns, and incur the risks of a second revolution, as we had run the
risks of the first; but the guns were, in a measure, our own property,
and we felt responsible for their safe keeping, so we did not incline
to have them taken out of our hands.
This rumour of a sudden attack upon the Louvre gained the readier
credence as, for two or three days past, there had been much talk of
a Bonapartist plot; and, although we were all ready to fight for La
Fayette and the Republic, we had no intentions of risking a hair of
our heads for Napoléon II. Consequently, Godefroy Cavaignac, being
warned, had brought in a bale of two or three hundred cartridges, which
he flung on one of the card-tables in the guardroom. Every man then
proceeded to fill his pouch and pockets. When I reached the Louvre, the
division had been made, but it did not matter, as my pouch had been
full since the day I had been summoned to seize the Chamber.
As would be expected, we had no end of spies among us, and I could
mention two in particular who received the Cross of the Légion
d'honneur for having filled that honourable office in our ranks.
An hour after this distribution of cartridges they were warned at the
Palais-Royal. A quarter of an hour after they had been warned there,
I received a letter from Oudard, begging me, if I was at the Louvre,
to go instantly to his office. I showed the letter to our comrades and
asked them what I was to do.
"Go, of course," answered Cavaignac.
"But if they question me--?"
"Tell the truth. If the Bonapartists want to seize our guns we will
fire our last cartridges to defend them; but, if the people rise
against the Luxembourg, _or even against any other palace_, we will
march with them."
"That suits me down to the ground. I like plain speaking."
So I went to the Palais-Royal. The offices were crowded with people;
one could feel the excitement running through from the centre to the
outlying extremities, and, judging from the state of agitation of
the extremities, the centre must have been very much excited. Oudard
questioned me; that was the only reason why he had sent for me. I
repeated what Cavaignac had told me, word for word. As far as I can
recollect, this happened on the evening of the 20th. On the 21st I
resumed my post in the rue de Tournon. The crowd was denser than ever:
the rue de Tournon, the rues de Seine, des Fossés-Monsieur-le-Prince,
Voltaire, the places de l'Odéon, Saint-Michel and l'École-de-Médecine,
were filled to overflowing with National Guards and troops of the
line. The National Guard had been made to believe that there was a
plot for plundering the shops; that the people of the July Revolution,
when pulled up by the appointment of the Duc d'Orléans to the
Lieutenant-generalship, had vowed to be revenged; now, the bourgeois,
ever ready to believe rumours of this kind, had rushed up in masses
and uttered terrible threats against pillagers, who had never pillaged
either on the 27th, the 28th, or the 29th, but who would have pillaged
on the 30th, if the creation of the Lieutenant-generalship had not
restored order just in time.
It is but fair to mention that all those excellent fellows, who were
waiting there, with rifles at rest, would not have put themselves out
to wait unless they had really believed that the trial would end in a
sentence of capital punishment.
About two o'clock it was announced that the counsels' speeches were
finished and the debates closed, and that sentence was going to be
pronounced. There was an intense silence, as though each person was
afraid that any sound might prevent him from hearing the great voice,
that, no doubt, like that of the angel of the day of judgment, should
pronounce the supreme sentence of that High Court of Justice.
Suddenly, some men rushed out of the Luxembourg and dashed down the rue
de Tournon crying--
"To death! They are sentenced to death!"
A stupendous uproar went up in response from every ray of that vast
constellation of streets that centres in the Luxembourg.
Everybody struggled to make a way out to his own quarter and house
to be the first to carry the bitter news. But they soon stayed their
progress and the multitude seemed to be driven back again and to press
towards the Luxembourg like a stream flowing backwards. Another rumour
had got abroad; that the ministers, instead of being condemned to
death, had only been sentenced to imprisonment for life; and that the
report of the penalty of death had been purposely spread to give them a
chance to escape.
The expression of people's faces changed and menacing shouts began to
resound; the National Guards struck the pavements with the butt-end of
their rifles. They had come to defend the peers but seemed quite ready
when they heard the news of the acquittal (and any punishment short of
death was acquittal) to attack the peers.
Meanwhile, this is what was happening inside. It was known beforehand,
in the Palais-Royal, that the sentence was to be one of imprisonment
for life. M. de Montalivet, Minister of the Interior, had received
orders from the king to have the ex-ministers conducted safe and
sound to Vincennes. The firing of a cannon when they had crossed the
drawbridge of the château was to tell the king of their safety. M. de
Montalivet had chosen General Falvier and Colonel Lavocat to share this
dangerous honour with him. When he saw the four ministers appearing,
who had been removed from the hall in order that, according to custom,
sentence should be pronounced in their absence--
"Messieurs," said General Falvier to Colonel Lavocat, "take heed! we
are going to make history; let us see to it that it redounds to the
glory of France!"
A light carriage awaited the prisoners outside the wicket-gate of the
petit Luxembourg. It was at this juncture that some men, set there by
M. de Montalivet, rushed through the main gateway, shouting, as we have
mentioned--
"Death.... They are sentenced to death!"
The prisoners could hear the tremendous shout of triumph that went
up at that false report. But the carriage, surrounded by two hundred
horsemen, had already set off, and was driving towards the outlying
boulevards with the speed and noise of a hurricane.
MM. de Montalivet and Lavocat galloped at each side of the doors.
The judges assembled in the Rubens gallery to deliberate. From there,
they could see, as far as eye could reach, the bristling of cannons
and bayonets and the seething agitation of the crowds. Night was fast
approaching, but the inmates of every house had put lamps in their
windows and a bright illumination succeeded the waning daylight, adding
a still more lurid character to the scene.
Suddenly, the peers heard an uproar; they saw, one might almost say
they _felt_, the terrible agitation going on outside: each wave of
that sea, that had broken or was just ready to break, rose higher than
the last; and the tide that one thought was at the ebb, returned with
greater and more threatening force than ever, beating against the
powerfully built walls of the Médicis palace: but the judges were fully
aware that no walls or barriers or ramparts could stand against the
strength of the ocean; they each tried to find some pretext or other
for slipping away: some did not even attempt any excuse for so doing.
M. Pasquier, by comparison, was the bravest, and felt ashamed of their
retreat.
"It is unseemly!" he exclaimed; "shut the doors!"
But La Layette was informed, at the same time, that the people were
rushing upon the palace.
"Messieurs," he said, turning to the three or four persons who awaited
his commands, "will you come with me to see what is going on?"
Thus, whilst M. Pasquier was returning to the audience chamber,
which was nearly deserted, to pronounce, by the dismal light of a
half-lighted chandelier, the sentence condemning the accused to
imprisonment for life and punishing the Prince de Polignac to civil
death, the man of 1789 and of 1830 was making his appearance in the
streets, as calm on that 21 December, as he announced to the people
the quasi-absolution of the ex-ministers, as he had been forty years
before, when he announced, to the fathers of those who were listening
to him then, the flight of the king to Varennes.
For a single instant it seemed as though the noble old man had presumed
too much on the magnanimity of the crowd and on his popularity: for
the waves of that ocean which, at first, made way respectfully before
him, now gathered round him angrily. A threatening growl ran through
the multitude, which knew its power and had but to make a move to grind
everything to powder or smash everything like glass.
Cries of "Death to the ministers! Put them to death! Put them to
death!" were uttered on all sides.
La Fayette tried to speak but loud imprecations drowned his voice.
At last he succeeded in being heard, and, "Citizens, I do not recognise
among you the heroes of July!" he said to the people.
"No wonder!" replied a voice; "how could you, seeing you were not on
their side!"
It was a critical moment; there were only four or five of us
artillerymen all together. M. Sarrans, who accompanied the general,
signed to us to come up to him, and thanks to our uniform, which the
people held in respect as a sign of the opposition party, we managed to
make our way to the general, who, recognising me, took me by the arm;
other patriots joined us, and La Fayette found himself surrounded by a
party of friends, amongst whom he could breathe freely.
But, on all sides, the National Guards were furious, and were
deserting their posts, some loading their rifles, others flinging them
down and all crying out treason.
At this moment, the sound of a cannon pierced the air like the
explosion of a thunderbolt. It was M. de Montalivet's signal announcing
to the king that the ministers were in safety; but we in our ignorance,
thought it was a signal sent us by our comrades in the Louvre; we left
the general and, drawing our poinards, we rushed across the Pont Neuf,
crying: "To arms!" At our shouts and the sight of our uniform and the
naked swords, the people opened way for us at once and soon began
running in all directions, yelling: "To arms!" We reached the Louvre
just as the porters were closing the gates and, pushing back both
keepers and gates, we entered by storm. Let them shut the gates behind
us, once inside what would it matter? There were about six hundred
artillerymen inside the Louvre. I flew into the guardroom on the left
of the entrance by the gateway in the place Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois.
The news of the discharge of the ministers was already known and had
produced its effect. Every one looked as though he were walking upon a
volcano. I saw Adjutant Richy go up to Bastide and whisper something
into his ear.
"Impossible!" exclaimed Bastide.
"See for yourself, then," Richy added.
Bastide went out hurriedly and, almost immediately after, we heard him
shout: "Help, men of the Third Artillery!"
But before he had time to cross the threshold of the guardroom he had
climbed over the park chains and was making straight for a group of
men, who, in spite of the sentry's orders, had got into the enclosure
reserved for the guns.
"Out of the park!" shrieked Bastide; "out of the park instantly or I
will put my sword through the bodies of every one of you!"
"Captain Bastide," said one of the men to whom he had addressed his
threat, "I am Commandant Barré ..."
"If you are the very devil himself it makes no difference! Our orders
are that no one shall enter the park, so out you go!"
"Excuse me," said Barré, "but I should much like to know who is in
command here, you or I?"
"Whoever is the stronger commands here at present.... I do not
recognise you.... Help, artillerymen!"
Fifty of us surrounded Bastide with poinards in hand. Several had found
time to take their loaded muskets from their racks. Barré gave in to us.
"What do you want?" he asked.
"To take any gun that comes handiest and make it ready for firing!"
exclaimed Bastide.
We flung ourselves on the first that came; but, at the third revolution
of the wheels, the washer broke and the wheel came off.
"I want you to fetch me the linch-pins of the guns you have just
carried off."
"Really ..."
"Those linch-pins, or, I repeat, I will pass my sword through your
body!"
Barré emptied a sack in which some ten linch-pins had been already put.
We rushed at them and put our guns in order again.
"Good," said Bastide. "Now, out of the park!"
Every one of them went out and Barré went straight off to offer his
command to Comte Pernetti, who declined to take it.
Bastide left me to keep guard over the park with Mérimée: our orders
were to fire on anybody who came near it, and who, at our second _qui
vive_, did not come up at command.
From that hour on sentry-duty (they had reduced the length of
sentry hours to one, on account of the gravity of events) dated
my acquaintance with Mérimée; we conversed part of the time, and
strange to say, under those circumstances, of art and literature and
architecture.
Ten years later, Mérimée, who, no doubt, recollecting what he had
wished to tell me that night, namely, that I had the most dramatic
imagination he had ever come across, thought fit to suggest to M. de
Rémusat, then Minister of the Interior, that I should be asked to write
a comedy for the Théâtre-Français.
M. de Rémusat wrote to ask me for a play, enclosing an order for an
advance of five thousand francs. A month afterwards, _Un Marriage sous
Louis XV._ was composed, read and rejected by the Théâtre-Français. In
due order, I will relate the story of _Un Manage sous Louis XV._ (the
younger brother of _Antony_) at greater length; it proved as difficult
to launch as _Antony._ But, meanwhile, let us return to that night at
the Louvre.
CHAPTER VII
We are surrounded in the Louvre courtyard--Our ammunition
taken by surprise--Proclamation of the Écoles--Letter of
Louis-Philippe to La Fayette--The Chamber vote of thanks to
the Colleges--Protest of the École polytechnique--Discussion
at the Chamber upon the General Commandership of the
National Guard--Resignation of La Fayette--The king's
reply--I am appointed second captain
During my hour on sentry-go, a great number of artillerymen had come
in; we were almost our full complement. Some, cloaked in mantles, had
gained entrance by the gate on the Carrousel side, although we had been
told it had been closed by order of the Governor of the Louvre. We were
afterwards assured that the Duc d'Orléans was among the number of the
cloaked artillerymen; doubtless, with his usual courage, he wanted to
judge for himself of the temper of the corps to which he was attached.
Just as I re-entered the guardroom, everything was in a frightful state
of commotion; it looked as though the battle was going to break out
in the midst of the very artillery itself, and as though the first
shots would be exchanged between brothers-in-arms. One artilleryman,
whose name I have forgotten, jumped up on a table and began to read
a proclamation that he had just drawn up: it was an appeal to arms.
Scarcely had he read a line before Grille de Beuzelin, who belonged
to the reactionary party, snatched it from his hands and tore it up.
The artilleryman drew his dagger and the affair would probably have
ended tragically, when one of our number rushed into the guardroom,
shouting--
"We are surrounded by the National Guard and troops of the line!"
There was a simultaneous cry of "To our guns!"
To make a way through the cordon that surrounded us did not disconcert
us at all, for we had more than once vied in skill and quickness
with the artillerymen of Vincennes. Moreover, at the first gunshot
in Paris, as we knew very well, the people would rally to our side.
They had come to see what terms we could offer. The artillerymen who
were not of our opinion had withdrawn to that portion of the Louvre
nearest the Tuileries: there were about a hundred and fifty of them.
Unfortunately, or, rather, fortunately, we learned all at once that
the cellars where we kept our ammunition were empty. The Governor of
the Louvre, foreseeing the events that I have just related, had had
it all taken away during the day. We had therefore no means of attack
or defence beyond our muskets and six or eight cartridges per man.
But these means of defence would seem to have been formidable enough
to make them do nothing more than surround us. We spent the night in
expectation of being attacked at any moment. Those of us who slept did
so with their muskets between their legs. The day broke and found us
still ready for action. The situation gradually turned from tragedy
to comedy: the bakers, wine-sellers and pork--butchers instantly made
their little speculation out of the position of things and assured us
we should not have to surrender from famine. We might be compared to a
menagerie of wild beasts shut up for the public safety. The resemblance
was the more striking when the people began to gaze at us through the
barred windows. Amongst those who came were friends who brought us the
latest news. Drums were beating in every quarter--though that was not
news to us, for we could hear them perfectly well for ourselves--but
the drummers _did not grow tired._
Up to noon, the situation of the king, politically, was serious; at
that hour no decision had been arrived at either for or against him.
General La Fayette had, however, published this proclamation--
"_Order of the Day_, 21 _December_
"The Commander-in-Chief is unable to find words to express
the feelings of his heart in order to show to his brethren
in arms of the National Guard and of the line his admiration
and his gratitude for the zeal, the steadiness and the
devotion they displayed during the painful events of
yesterday. He was quite aware that his confidence in their
patriotism would be justified on every occasion; but he
regrets exceedingly the toils and discomforts to which they
are exposed; he would gladly forestall them hut he can only
share them. We all of us feel equally the need of protecting
the capital against its enemies and against anarchy, of
assuring the safety of families and property, of preventing
our revolution from being stained by crimes and our honour
impugned. We are all as one man jointly and severally
answerable for the carrying out of these sacred duties;
and, amidst the sorrow which yesterday's disorders and
those promised for to-day cause him, the Commander-in-Chief
finds great consolation and perfect security in the kindly
feelings he bears towards his brave and dear comrades of
liberty and public order.
"LA FAYETTE"
At one o'clock we learnt that students, with cards in their hats,
and students from the École in uniform were going all over the town
together with the National Guards of the 12th legion, urging all to
moderation. At the same time, placards, signed by four students (one
from each College), were stuck up on all the walls. Here is the literal
rendering of one of them--
"Those patriots who have devoted their lives and labours
throughout crises of all kinds to the cause of our
independence are still in our midst standing steadfast in
the path of liberty; they, in common with others, want large
concessions on behalf of liberty; but it is not necessary
to use force to obtain them. Let us do things lawfully and
then--a more Republican basis will be sought for in all our
institutions and we shall obtain it; we shall be all the
more powerful if we act openly. _But if these concessions be
not granted, then all patriots and students who side with
democratic Principles will call upon the people to insist
on gaining their demands._ Remember, though, that foreign
nations look with admiration upon our Revolution because we
have exercised generosity and moderation; let them not say
that we are not yet fit to have liberty in our hands, and by
no means let them profit by our domestic quarrels, of which
they, perhaps, are the authors."
(Then followed the four signatures.)
The parade in the streets of Paris and these placards on every wall
about the city had the effect of soothing the public mind. The absence,
too, of the artillery, the reason for which they did not know,
also contributed to re-establish tranquillity. The king received a
deputation from the Colleges with great demonstration of affection,
which sent the deputies home delighted, with full assurance that the
liberties they longed for were as good as granted. That night the
National Guard and troops of the line, who had been surrounding us,
fell into rank and took themselves off; and the gates of the Louvre
opened behind them. We left the ordinary guard by the cannon and all
dispersed to our various homes. Things were settled, at all events, for
the time being.
Next day, came an "order of the day" from La Fayette containing a
letter from the king. We will put aside the "order of the day" and
quote the letter only. We beg our readers to notice the words that are
italicised:--
"TUESDAY MORNING,
"22 _December_
"It is to you I address myself, my dear general, to transmit
to our brave and indefatigable National Guard the expression
of my admiration for the zeal and energy with which it
has maintained public order and prevented all trouble.
_But it is you, especially, that I ought to thank, my dear
general, you who have just given a fresh example of courage,
patriotism and respect for law, in these days of trial,
as you have done many times besides throughout your long
and noble career._ Express in my name how much I rejoice
at having seen the revival of that splendid institution,
the National Guard, which had been almost entirely taken
away from us, and which has risen up again brilliantly
powerful and patriotic, finer and more numerous than it
has ever been, as soon as the glorious Days of July broke
the trammels by which its enemies flattered themselves they
had crushed it. It is this great institution to which we
certainly owe the triumph amongst us of the sacred cause of
liberty, which both causes our national independence to be
respected abroad, whilst preserving the action of laws from
all attack at home. Do not let us forget that there is no
liberty without law, and that there can be no laws where any
power of whatever kind succeeds in paralysing its action and
exalting itself beyond the reach of laws.
"These, my dear general, are the sentiments I beg you to
express to the National Guard on my behalf. I count on the
continuation of its efforts AND ON YOURS, so that nothing
may disturb that public peace which Paris and France need
greatly, and which it is essential to preserve. Receive, at
the same time, my dear general, the assurance of the sincere
friendship you know I hold towards you, LOUIS-PHILIPPE"
As can be seen, on 22 December, the thermometer indicated gratitude.
On the 23rd, upon the suggestion of M. Laffitte, the Chamber of
Deputies passed a vote of thanks to the young students, couched in
these terms--
"A vote of thanks is given to the students of the College
for the loyalty and noble conduct shown by them the day
before in maintaining public order and tranquillity."
Unluckily, there was a sentence in M. Laffitte's speech requesting the
Chamber to pass this vote of thanks which offended the feelings of the
École polytechnique. The phrase was still further emphasised by the
remarks he made--
"The three Colleges," the minister said, "which sent deputations to
the king displayed very noble sentiments and great courage and entire
subjection to law and order, and have given proof of their intentions
to make every effort to ensure the maintenance of order."
"On what conditions?" then inquired the deputies, who bore in mind the
sentences that we have underlined in the proclamation issued by the
Colleges.
"NONE ... NO CONDITIONS WERE MADE AT ALL," M. Laffitte replied. "_If
there were a few individuals who had proposals to make or conditions to
offer, such never came to the knowledge of the Government._"
The next day a protest, signed by eighty-nine students of the
Polytechnique, replied to the thanks of the Chamber and to M.
Laffitte's denial in the following terms:--
"A portion of the Chamber of Deputies has condescended
to pass a vote of thanks to the École polytechnique with
reference to certain facts that were _very accurately_
reported.
"We, students of the Polytechnique, the undersigned, deny in
part these facts and we decline to receive the thanks of the
Chamber.
"The students have been traduced, said the protest issued
by the School of Law; we have been accused of wishing to
place ourselves at the head of malcontent artizans, and of
obtaining by brute force the consequences of principles for
which we have sacrificed our very blood.
"We have solemnly protested, we who paid cash for the
liberty they are now haggling over; we preached public
order, without which liberty is impossible; but we did
not do so in order to procure the thanks and applause of
the Chamber of Deputies. No, indeed! we only fulfilled
our duty. Doubtless, we ought to be proud and elated at
the gratitude of France, but we look in vain for France
in the Chamber of Deputies, and we repudiate the praises
offered us, the condition of which is the assumed disavowal
of a proclamation, the terms and meaning whereof we
unhesitatingly declare that we adopt in the most formal
manner."
Of course, the Minister for War at once arrested these eighty-nine
students, but their protest had been issued, and the conditions under
which they had consented to support the Government were kept to
themselves. It will, therefore, be seen that the harmony between His
Majesty Louis-Philippe and the students of the three Colleges was not
of long duration. It was not to last much longer either between His
Majesty and poor General La Fayette, for whom he now had no further
use. He had staked his popularity during the troubles in December and
had lost. From that time, he was of no more use to the king, and what
was the good of being kind to a useless person? Two days after that on
which La Fayette received the letter from the king, thanking him for
his past services and expressing the hope for the _continuance of those
services_, the Chamber proposed this amendment to Article 64 of the law
concerning the National Guard, which the deputies had under discussion--
"As the office of commander-general of the National Guard
of the kingdom will cease with the circumstances that
rendered the office necessary, that office can never be
renewed without the passing of a fresh law, and no one shall
be appointed to hold the position without such a special
law."
This simply meant the deposition of General La Fayette. The blow was
the more perfidious as he was not present at the sitting. His absence
is recorded by this passage from the speech which M. Dupin made in
support of the amendment--
"I regret that our illustrious colleague is not present
at the sitting; he would himself have investigated this
question; he would, I have no doubt, have declared, as he
did at the Constituent Assembly, that the general command
of the regiments of the National Guard throughout the
kingdom is an impossible function which he would describe as
dangerous."
M. Dupin forgot that the Constituent Assembly, at any rate, had had the
modesty to wait until the general sent in his resignation. Now, perhaps
it will be said that it was the Chamber which took the initiative, and
that the Government had nothing to do with this untoward blow given
on the cheek of the living programme going on at the Hôtel de Ville.
This would be a mistake. Here is an article of the bill which virtually
implied the resignation of La Fayette--
"ARTICLE 50.--In the communes or cantons _where the
National Guard will form several legions_, the king may
appoint a superior commander; _but a superior commander of
the National Guards of a whole department, or even of an
arrondissement of a sous-préfecture, cannot be appointed._"
The next day after that scandalous debate in the Chamber, General La
Fayette wrote this letter to the king, in his own handwriting this
time, for I have seen the rough draft--
"SIRE,--The resolution passed yesterday by the Chamber of
Deputies _with the consent of the king's ministers_, for the
suppression of the general commandantship of the National
Guards at the very same moment that the law is going to
be voted upon, expresses exactly the feeling of the two
branches of the legislative power, _and in particular that
of the one of which I have the honour of being a member._ I
am of opinion that it would be disrespectful if I awaited
any formal information before sending in my resignation of
the prerogatives entrusted to me by royal command. Your
Majesty is aware, and the staff correspondence bill proves
the fact, if needful, that the exercise of the office down
to the present time has not been such a sinecure as was
stated in the Chamber. The king's patriotic solicitude will
provide for it, and it will be important, for instance,
to set at rest, by Ordinances which the law puts at the
king's disposal, the uneasiness that the sub-dividing of
the provincial battalions and the fear of seeing the highly
valuable institution of the artillery throughout the kingdom
confined to garrison or coast towns.
"The President of the Council was so good as to offer to
give me the honorary commandership; but he himself and
your Majesty will judge that such nominal honours are not
becoming to either the institutions of a free country or to
myself.
"In respectfully and gratefully handing back to the king the
only mandate that gives me any authority over the National
Guards, I have taken precautions that the service shall
not suffer. General Dumas[1] will take his orders from the
Minister of the Interior; General Carbonnel will control the
service in the capital until your Majesty has been able to
find a substitute, as he, too, wishes to resign.
"I beg your Majesty to receive my cordial and respectful
regards, LA FAYETTE"
Louis Blanc, who is usually well informed, said of General La Fayette
that he was a gentleman even in his scorn, and took care not to let the
monarch detect in his letter his profound feelings of personal injury.
He would not have said so if he had seen the letter to which he refers,
the one, namely, that we have just laid before our readers. But Louis
Blanc may be permitted not to know the contents of this letter, which
were kept secret, and only communicated to a few of the General's
intimate friends. Louis Philippe sent this reply on the same day--
"MY DEAR GENERAL,--I have just received _your letter. The
decision you have taken has surprised me as much as it has
pained me._ I HAVE NOT YET HAD TIME TO READ THE PAPERS. The
cabinet meets at one o'clock; I shall, therefore, be free
between four and five, and I shall hope to see you and to be
able to induce you to withdraw your decision. Yours, my dear
general, etc., LOUIS-PHILIPPE"
We give this letter as a sequel to that of M. Laffitte, and we give
them without commentary of our own; but we cannot, however, resist the
desire to point out to our readers that King Louis-Philippe must have
read the papers in order to know what was going on in the Chamber, and
that at noon on 25 December he had not yet done so! How can anyone
think after this proof of the king's ignorance of his ministers' doings
that he was anything more than constitutional monarch, reigning but not
ruling! But let us note one fact, as M. de Talleyrand remarks on the
end of the reign of the Bourbon dynasty, that on 25 December 1830 the
political career of General La Fayette was over. Another resignation
there was at this time which made less stir, but which, as we shall see
on 1 January 1831, had somewhat odd consequences for me; it was given
in the same day as General La Fayette's and it was that of one of our
two captains of the fourth battery.
As soon as this resignation was known, the artillerymen held a special
meeting to appoint another captain and, as the majority of the votes
were in favour of me, I was elected second captain. Within twenty-four
hours my lace, epaulettes and worsted cordings were exchanged for
the same in gold. On the 27th, I took command on parade, clad in the
insignia of my new office. We shall soon see how long I was to wear
them.
[1] Mathieu Dumas.
CHAPTER VIII
The Government member--Chodruc-Duclos--His portrait--His
life at Bordeaux--His imprisonment at Vincennes--The
Mayor of Orgon--Chodruc-Duclos converts himself into
a Diogenes--M. Giraud-Savine--Why Nodier was growing
old--Stibert--A lesson in shooting--Death of Chodruc-Duclos
Let us bid a truce to politics of which, I daresay, I am quite as tired
as is my reader. Let us put on one side those brave deputies of whom
Barthélemy makes such a delightful portrait, and return to matters more
amusing and creditable. Still, these Memoirs would fail of their end,
if, in passing through a period, they did not reveal themselves to
the public tinged with the colour of that particular period. So much
the worse when that period be dirty; the mud that I have had beneath
my feet has never bespattered either my hands or my face. One quickly
forgets, and I can hear my reader wondering what that charming portrait
is that Barthélemy drew of the deputy. Alas! it is the misfortune of
political works; they rarely survive the time of their birth; flowers
of stormy seasons, they need, in order to live, the muttering of
thunder, the lightning of tempests: they fade when calm is restored;
they die when the sun re-appears.
Ah, well! I will take from the middle of _La Némésis_ one of those
flowers which seem to be dead; and, as all poetry is immortal, I hold
that it was but sleeping and that, by breathing upon it, it will come
to life again. Therefore, I shall appeal to the poets of 1830 and 1831
more than once.
LE DÉPUTÉ MINISTÉRIEL
"C'était un citoyen aux manières ouvertes,
Ayant un œil serein sous des lunettes vertes;
Il lisait les journaux à l'heure du courrier;
Et, tous les soirs, au cercle, en jouant cœur ou pique,
Il suspendait le whist avec sa philippique
Contre le système Perrier.
Il avait de beaux plans dont il donnait copie;
C'était, de son aveu, quelque belle utopie,
Pièce de désespoir pour tous nos écrivains;
Baume qui guérirait les blessures des villes,
En nous sauvant la guerre et la liste civiles,
Et l'impôt direct sur les vins.
Il disait: 'En prenant mon heureux antidote,
Notre pays sera comme une table d'hôte
Où l'on ne verra plus, après de longs repas,
Quand les repus du centre ont quitté leurs serviettes,
Les affamés venir pour récolter les miettes,
Que souvent ils ne trouvent pas!'
Les crédules bourgeois, que ce langage tente,
Les rentiers du jury, les hommes à patente,
L'écoutaient en disant: 'Que ce langage est beau!
Voilà bien les discours que prononce un digne homme!
Si pour son député notre ville le nomme,
Il fera pâlir Mirabeau!'
Il fut nommé! Bientôt, de sa ville natale,
Il ne fit qu'un seul bond jusqu'à la capitale,
S'installant en garni dans le quartier du Bac.
On le vit à la chambre assis au côté gauche,
Muet ou ne parlant qu'à son mouchoir de poche,
Constellé de grains de tabac.
Grave comme un tribun de notre République,
Parfois il regardait evec un œil oblique
Ce centre où s'endormaient tant d'hommes accroupis.
Quel déchirant tableau pour son cœur patriote!
En longs trépignements les talons de sa botte
Fanaient les roses du tapis.
Lorsque Girod (de l'Ain), qui si mal les préside,
Disait: 'Ceux qui voudront refuser le subside
Se lèveront debout': le tribun impoli,
Foudroyant du regard le ministre vorace,
Bondissait tout d'un bloc sur le banc de sa place
Comme une bombe à Tivoli.
Quand il était assis, c'était Caton en buste;
Le peuple s'appuyait sur ce torse robuste;
De tous les rangs du cintre on aimait à le voir ...
Qui donc a ramolli ce marbre de Carrare?
Quel acide a dissous cette perle si rare
Dans la patère du pouvoir?
Peut-être avez-vous vu, dans le cirque hippodrome,
Martin, l'imitateur de l'Androclès de Rome,
Entre ses deux lions s'avancer triomphant;
Son œil fascinateur domptait les bêtes fauves;
Il entrait, sans pâlir, dans leurs sombres alcôves,
Comme dans un berceau d'enfant.
Aujourd'hui, nous avons la clef de ces mystères.
Il se glissait, la nuit, au chevet des panthères;
Sous le linceul du tigre il étendait la main;
Il trompait leur instinct dans la nocturne scène,
Et l'animal, sans force, à ce jongleur obscène
Obéissait le lendemain!
Voilà par quels moyens l'Onan du ministère
Énerve de sa main l'homme le plus austère,
Du tribun le plus chaste assouplit la vertu;
Il vient à lui, les mains pleines de dons infâmes;
'Que veux-tu? lui dit-il; j'ai de l'or, j'ai des femmes,
Des croix, des honneurs! que veux-tu?'
Eh! qui résisterait à ces dons magnifiques?
Hélas! les députés sont des gens prolifiques;
Ils ont des fils nombreux, tous visant aux emplois,
Tous rêvant, jour et nuit, un avenir prospère,
Tous, par chaque courrier, répétant: 'O mon père!
Placez-nous en faisant des lois!'
Et le bon père, ému par ces chaudes missives,
Dépose sur son banc les armes offensives,
Se rapproche du centre, et renonce au combat.
Oh! pour faire au budget une constante guerre,
Il faudrait n'avoir point de parents sur la terre,
Et vivre dans le célibat!
Ou bien, pour résister à ce coupable leurre,
Il faut aller, le soir, où va Dupont (de l'Eure),
Près de lui retremper sa vertu de tribun;
Là veille encor pour nous une pure phalange,
Cénacle politique où personne ne mange
Au budget des deux cent vingt-un!"
This _cénacle_ referred to our evenings at La Fayette's. Since his
resignation, the general was to be found amidst his young, warm, and
true friends the Republicans, and, more than once, as said Barthélemy,
our callow wrath invigorated the patriotism of the two old men.
Another man received his dismissal at the same time as La Fayette: this
was Chodruc-Duclos, the Diogenes of the Palais-Royal, the long-bearded
man of whom we have promised to say a few words.
One morning, the frequenters of those stone galleries were amazed to
see Chodruc-Duclos go by, clad in shoes and stockings, in a coat only
a very little worn and an almost new hat! We will borrow the portrait
of Chodruc-Duclos from Barthélemy; and complete it by a few anecdotes,
gleaned from personal experience, and by others which we believe are
new. When the poet has described all those starving people who swarm
round the cellars of Véfour and of the Frères-Provençaux, he proceeds
to the king of the beggars--Chodruc-Duclos. These are Barthélemy's
lines; they depict the man with that happy touch and that faithfulness
of description which are such characteristic features of the talented
author of _La Némésis_--
"Mais, autant qu'un ormeau s'élève sur l'arbuste,
Autant que Cornuet domine l'homme-buste,[1]
Sur cette obscure plèbe errante dans l'enclos,
Autant plane et surgit l'héroïque Duclos.
Dans cet étroit royaume où le destin les parque,
Les terrestres damnés l'ont élu pour monarque:
C'est l'archange déchu, le Satan bordelais,
Le Juif-Errant chrétien, le Melmoth du palais.
Jamais l'ermite Paul, le virginal Macaire,
Marabout, talapoin, faquir, santon du Caire,
Brahme, Guèbre, Parsis adorateur du feu,
N'accomplit sur la terre un plus terrible vœu!
Depuis sept ans entiers, de colonne en colonne,
Comme un soleil éteint ce spectre tourbillonne;
Depuis le dernier soir que l'acier le rasa,
Il a vu trois Véfour et quatre Corazza;
Sous ses orteils, chaussés d'eternelles sandales,
Il a du long portique usé toutes les dalles;
Être mystérieux qui, d'un coup d'œil glaçant,
Déconcerte le rire aux lèvres du passant,
Sur tant d'infortunés, in fortune célèbre!
Des calculs du malheur c'est la vivante algèbre.
De l'angle de Terris jusqu'à Berthellemot,
Il fait tourner sans fin son énigme sans mot.
Est-il un point d'arrêt à cette ellipse immense?
Est-ce dédain sublime, ou sagesse, ou démence?
Qui sait? Il vent peut-être, au bout de son chemin,
Par un enseignement frapper le genre humain;
Peut-être, pour fournir un dernier épisode,
Il attend que Rothschild, son terrestre antipode,
Un jour, dans le palais, l'aborde sans effroi,
En lui disant: 'Je suis plus malheureux que toi!'"
We will endeavour to be the Œdipus to that Sphinx, and guess the
riddle, the mystery whereof was hidden for a long time.
Chodruc-Duclos was born at Sainte-Foy, near Bordeaux. He would be
about forty-eight when the Revolution of July took place; he was tall
and strong and splendidly built; his beard hid features that must
have been of singular beauty; but he used ostentatiously to display
his hands, which were always very clean. By right of courage, if not
of skill, he was looked upon as the principal star of that Pleiades
of duellists which flourished at Bordeaux, during the Empire, under
the title of _les Crânes_ (Skulls). They were all Royalists. MM.
Lercaro, Latapie and de Peyronnet were said to be Duclos' most
intimate friends. These men were also possessed of another notable
characteristic: they never fought amongst themselves. Duclos was
suspected of carrying on relations with Louis XVIII. in the very zenith
of the Empire, and was arrested one morning in his bed by the Chief
of the Police, Pierre-Pierre. He was taken to Vincennes, where he was
kept a prisoner until 1814. Set free by the Restoration, he entered
Bordeaux in triumph, and as, during his captivity, he had come into
a small fortune, he resumed his old habits and interlarded them with
fresh diversions. The Royalist government, which recompensed all its
devoted adherents (a virtue that was attributed to it as a crime),
would, no doubt, have been pleased to reward Duclos for his loyalty,
but it was very difficult to find a suitable way of doing so, for he
had the incurable habits of a peripatetic: he was only accustomed to a
nomadic life of fencing, political intrigue, theatre-going, women and
literature. King Louis XVIII., therefore, could not entrust him with
any other public function than that of an everlasting walker, or, as
Barthélemy dubbed it, "_Chrétien_ _errant._"
Unfortunately, money, however considerable its quantity, comes to an
end some time. When Duclos had exhausted his patrimony, he recollected
his past services for the Bourbon cause and came to Paris to remind
them. But he had remembered too late and had given the Bourbons time
to forget. The business of soliciting for favours, at all events,
exercised his locomotive faculties to the best possible advantage. So,
every morning, two melancholy looking pleaders could be seen to cross
the Pont Royal, like two shades crossing the river Styx, on their way
to beg a good place in the Elysian fields from the minister of Pluto.
One was Duclos, the other the Mayor of Orgon. What had the latter done?
He had thrown the first stone into the emperor's carriage in 1814, and
had come to Paris, stone in hand, to demand his reward. After years of
soliciting, these two faithful applicants, seeing that nothing was
to be obtained, each arrived at a different conclusion. The Mayor of
Orgon, completely ruined, tied his stone round his own neck and threw
himself into the Seine. Duclos, much more philosophically inclined,
decided upon living, and, in order to humiliate the Government to which
he had sacrificed three years of his liberty, and M. de Peyronnet,
with whom he had had many bouts by the banks of the Garonne, bought
old clothes, as he had not the patience to wait till his new ones
grew old, bashed in the top of his hat, gave up shaving himself, tied
sandals over his old shoes, and began that everlasting promenade up
and down the arcades of the Palais-Royal which exercised the wisdom
of all the Œdipuses of his time. Duclos never left the Palais-Royal
until one in the morning, when he went to the rue du Pélican, where
he lodged, to sleep, not exactly in furnished apartments, but, more
correctly speaking, in _unfurnished_ ones. In the course of his
promenading, which lasted probably a dozen years, Duclos (with only
three exceptions, which we are about to quote, one of them being made
in our own favour) never went up to anyone to speak to him, no matter
who he was. Like Socrates, he communed alone with his own familiar
spirit; no tragic hero ever attempted such a complete monologue!--One
day, however, he departed from his habits, and walked straight towards
one of his old friends, M. Giraud-Savine, a witty and learned man, as
we shall find out later, who afterwards became deputy to the Mayor of
Batignolles. M. Giraud's heart stood still with fright for an instant,
for he thought he was going to be robbed of his purse; but he was
wrong: for Duclos never borrowed anything.
"Giraud," he asked in a deep bass voice, "which is the best translation
of Tacitus?"
"There isn't one!" replied M. Giraud.
Duclos shook his treasured rags in sad dejection, then returned, like
Diogenes, to his tub. Only, his tub happened to be the Palais-Royal.
On another occasion, whilst I was chatting with Nodier, opposite the
door of the café de Foy, Duclos passed and stared attentively at
Nodier. Nodier, who knew him, thought he must want to speak to him,
and took a step towards him. But Duclos shook his head and went on his
way without saying anything. Nodier then gave me various details of
the life of this odd being; after which we separated. During our talk,
Duclos had had time to make the round of the Palais-Royal; so, going
back by the Théâtre-Français, I met him very nearly opposite the café
Corazza. He stopped right in front of me.
"Monsieur Dumas," he said to me, "Do you know Nodier?"
"Very well."
"Do you like him?"
"With all my heart I do."
"Do you not think he grows old very fast?"
"I must confess I agree with you that he does."
"Do you know why?"
"No."
"Well, I will tell you: _Because he does not take care of himself!_
Nothing ages a man more quickly than neglecting his health!"
He continued his walk and left me quite stunned; not by his
observation, sagacious as it was; but by the thought that it was
Chodruc-Duclos who had made it.
The Revolution of July 1830 had, for the moment, interrupted the
inveterate habits of two men--Stibert and Chodruc-Duclos.
Stibert was-as confirmed a gambler as Duclos was an indefatigable
walker. Frascati's, where Stibert spent his days and nights, was
closed; the Ordinances had suspended the game of _trente-et-un_, until
the monarchy of July should suppress it altogether. Stibert had not
patience to wait till the Tuileries was taken: on 28 July, at three
in the afternoon, he compelled the concierge at Frascati's to open
its doors to him and to play picquet with him. Duclos, for his part,
coming from his rooms to go to his beloved Palais-Royal, found the
Swiss defending the approaches to it. Some youths had begun a struggle
with them, and one of them, armed with a regulation rifle, was firing
on the red-coats with more courage than skill. Duclos watched him and
then, growing impatient that anyone should risk his life thus wantonly,
he said to the youth--
"Hand me your rifle. I will show you how to use it."
The young fellow lent it him and Duclos took aim.
"Look!" he said; and down dropped a Swiss.
Duclos returned the youth his rifle.
"Oh," said the latter, "upon my word! if you can use it to such good
purpose as that, stick to it!"
"Thanks!" replied Duclos, "I am not of that opinion," and, putting
the rifle into the youth's hands, he crossed right through the very
centre of the firing and re-entered the Palais-Royal, where he resumed
his accustomed walk past the bronze Apollo and marble Ulysses, the
only society he had the chance of meeting during the 27, 28 and 29
July. This was the third and last time upon which he opened his
mouth. Duclos, engrossed as he was with his everlasting walk, would,
doubtless, never have found a moment in which to die; only one morning
he forgot to wake up. The inhabitants of the Palais-Royal, astonished
at having been a whole day without meeting the man with the long
beard, learnt, on the following day, from the Cornuet papers, that
Chodruc-Duclos had fallen into the sleep that knows no waking, upon his
pallet bed in the rue du Pélican.
For three or four years, Duclos, as we have said, had clad himself
in garments more like those of ordinary people. The Revolution of
July, which exiled the Bourbons, and the trial of the ex-ministers,
which ostracised M. de Peyronnet to Ham, removed every reason for his
ragged condition, and set a limit to his revenge. In spite of, perhaps
even on account of, this change of his outward appearance, Duclos,
like Epaminondas, left nothing wherewith to pay for his funeral. The
Palais-Royal buried him by public subscription.
General La Fayette resigned his position, and Chodruc-Duclos his
revenge. A third notability resigned his life; namely, Alphonse Rabbe,
whom we have already briefly mentioned, and who deserves that we should
dedicate a special chapter to him.
[1] Cornuet occupied one of those literary pavilions which were erected
at each end of the garden of the Palais-Royal; the other was occupied
by a dwarf who was all body and seemed to crawl on almost invisible
legs.
CHAPTER IX
Alphonse Rabbe--Madame Cardinal--Rabbe and the Marseilles
Academy--_Les Massénaires_--Rabbe in Spain--His return--The
_Old Dagger_--The Journal _Le Phocéen_--Rabbe in prison--The
writer of fables--_Ma pipe_
Alphonse Rabbe was born at Riez, in the Basses-Alpes. As is the case
with all deep and tender-hearted people, he was greatly attached to
his own country; he talked of it on every opportunity, and, to believe
him, its ancient Roman remains were as remarkable as those of Arles
or Nîmes. Rabbe was one of the most extraordinary men of our time;
and, had he lived, he would, assuredly, have become one of the most
remarkable. Alas! who remembers anything about him now, except Méry,
Hugo and myself? As a matter of fact, poor Rabbe gave so many fragments
of his life to others that he had not time, during his thirty-nine
years, to write one of those books which survive their authors; he
whose words, had they been taken down in shorthand, would have made a
complete library; he who brought into the literary and political world,
Thiers, Mignet, Armaud Carrel, Méry and many others, who are unaware of
it, has disappeared from this double world, without leaving any trace
beyond two volumes of fragments, which were published by subscription
after his death, with an admirable preface in verse by Victor Hugo.
Furthermore, in order to quote some portions of these fragments that I
had heard read by poor Rabbe himself, compared with whom I was quite an
unknown boy (I had only written _Henri III._ when he died), I wanted
to procure those two volumes: I might as well have set to work to find
Solomon's ring! But I found them at last, where one finds everything,
in the rue des Cannettes, in Madame Cardinal's second-hand bookshop.
The two volumes had lain there since 1835; they were on her shelves, in
her catalogue, had been on show in the window! but they were not even
cut! and I was the first to insert an ivory paper-knife between their
virgin pages, after eighteen years waiting! Unfortunate Rabbe; this was
the last touch to your customary ill-luck! Fate seemed ever against
him; all his life long he was looking for a revolution. He would have
been as great as Catiline or Danton at such a crisis. When 1830 dawned,
he had been dead for twenty-four hours! When Rabbe was eighteen, he
competed for an academic prize. The subject was a eulogy of Puget. A
noble speech, full of new ideas, a glowing style of southern eloquence,
were quite sufficient reasons to prevent Rabbe being successful, or
from even receiving honourable mention; but, in this failure, his
friends could discern the elements of Rabbe's future brilliancy, should
Fortune's wheel turn in his favour. Alas! fortune was academic in
Rabbe's case, and Rabbe had Orestes for his patron.
Gifted with a temperament that was carried away by the passion of the
moment, Rabbe took it into his head to become the enemy of Masséna in
1815. Why? No one ever really knew, not even Rabbe! He then published
his _Massénaires_, written in a kind of prose iambics, in red-hot
zeal. This brochure set him in the ranks of the Royalist party. A
fortnight later, he became reconciled with the conqueror of Zurich, and
he set out on a mission to Spain. From thence dated all poor Rabbe's
misfortunes; it was in Spain that he was attacked by a disease which
had the sad defect of not being fatal. What was this scourge, this
plague, this contagious disease? He shall tell us in his own words; we
will not deprive him of his right to give the particulars himself--
"Alas! O my mother, thou couldst not make me invulnerable
when thou didst bear me, by dipping me in the icy waters of
the Styx! Carried away by a fiery imagination and imperious
desires, I wasted the treasures and incense of my youth upon
the altars of criminal voluptuousness; pleasure, which
should be the parent of and not the destroyer of human
beings, devoured the first springs of my youth. When I look
at myself, I shudder! Is that image really myself? What
hand has seared my face with those hideous signs?... What
has become of that forehead which displayed the candour of
my once pure spirit? of those bleared eyes, which terrify,
which once expressed the desires of a heart that was full
of hope and without a single regret, and whose voluptuous
yet serious thoughts were still free from shameful trammels?
A kindly tolerant smile ever lighted them up when they
fell on one of my fellows; but, now, my bold and sadly
savage looks say to all: 'I have lived and suffered; I
have known your ways and long for death!' What has become
of those almost charming features which once graced my
face with their harmonious lines? That expression of happy
good nature, which once gave pleasure and won me love and
kindly hearts, is now no longer visible! All has perished in
degradation! God and nature are avenged! When, hereafter, I
shall experience an affectionate impulse, the expression of
my features will betray my soul; and when I go near beauty
and innocence, they will fly from me! What inexpressible
tortures! What frightful punishment! Henceforth, I must
find all my virtues in the remorse that consumes my life; I
must purify myself in the unquenchable fires of never-dying
sorrow; and ascend to the dignity of my being by means of
profound and poignant regret for having sullied my soul.
When I shall have earned rest by my sufferings, my youth
will have gone.... But there is another life and, when I
cross its threshold, I shall be re-clothed in the robe of
immortal youth!"
Take notice, reader, that, before that unfortunate journey to Spain,
Alphonse Rabbe was never spoken of otherwise than as the _Antinous of
Aix._ An incurable melancholy took possession of him from this period.
"I have outlived myself!" he said, shaking his head sadly. Only his
beautiful hair remained of his former self. Accursed be the invention
of looking-glasses! By thirty, he had already stopped short of two
attempts at suicide. But his hands were not steady enough and the
dagger missed his heart. We have all seen that dagger to which Rabbe
offered a kind of worship, as the last friend to whom he looked for
the supreme service. He has immortalised this dagger. Read this and
tell me if ever a more virile style sprung from a human pen--
THE OLD DAGGER
"Thou earnest out of the tomb of a warrior, whose fate is
unknown to us; thou wast alone, and without companion of thy
kind, hung on the walls of the wretched haunt of a dealer in
pictures, when thy shape and appearance struck my attention.
I felt the formidable temper of thy blade; I guessed the
fierceness of thy point through the sheath of thick rust
which covered thee completely. I hastened to bargain so as
to have thee in my power; the low-born dealer, who only saw
in thee a worthless bit of iron, will give thee up, almost
for nothing, to my jealous eagerness. I will carry thee
off secretly, pressed against my heart; an extraordinary
emotion, mingled with joy, rage and confidence, shook my
whole being. I feel the same shuddering every time I seize
hold of thee.... Ancient dagger! We will never leave one
another more!
"I have rid thee of that injurious rust, which, even after
that long interval of time, has not altered thy form.
Here, thou art restored to the glories of the light; thou
flashest as thou comest forth from that deep darkness. I
did not imprudently entrust thee to a mercenary workman to
repair the injustice of those years: I myself, for two days,
carefully worked to repolish thee; it is I who preserved
thee from the injurious danger of being at the first moment
confused with worthless old iron, from the disgrace,
perhaps, of going to an obscure forge, to be transformed
into a nail to shoe the mule of an iniquitous Jesuit.
"What is the reason that thy aspect quickens the flow of
my blood, in spite of myself?... Shall I not succeed in
understanding thy story? To what century dost thou belong?
What is the name of the warrior whom thou followedst to his
last resting-place? What is the terrible blow which bent
thee slightly?...
"I have left thee that mark of thy good services: to efface
that imperceptible curve which made thy edge uneven, thou
wouldst have had to be submitted to the action of fire; but
who knows but that thou mightst have lost thy virtue? Who,
then, would have given me back the secret of that blade,
strong and obedient to that which the breastplate did not
always withstand, when the blow was dealt with a valiant arm?
"Was it in the blood of a newly killed bull that thy point
was buried on first coming out of the fire? Was it in the
cold air of a narrow gorge of mountains? Was it in the syrup
prepared from certain herbs or, perhaps, in holy oil? None
of our best craftsmen, not Bromstein himself, could tell.
"Tell me whom thou hast comforted and whom punished? Hast
thou avenged the outlaw for the judicial murder of his
father? Hast thou, during the night, engraved on some
granite columns the sentence of those who passed sentence?
Thou canst only have obeyed powerful and just passions;
the intrepid man who wanted to carry thee away with him to
his last resting-place had baptized thee in the blood of a
feudal oppressor.
"Thou art pure steel; thy shape is bold, but without studied
grace; thou wast not, indeed, frivolously wrought to adorn
the girdle of a foppish carpet-knight of the court of
Francis I., or of Charles-Quint; thou art not of sufficient
beauty to have been thus commonplace; the filigree-work
which ornaments thy hilt is only of red copper, that
brilliant shade of red which colours the summit of the Mont
de la Victoire on long May evenings.
"What does this broad furrow mean which, a quarter of the
length down thy blade to the hilt, is pierced with a score
of tiny holes like so many loop-holes? Doubtless they were
made so that the blood could drip through, which shoots and
gushes along the blade in smoking bubbles when the blow has
gone home. Oh! if I shed some evil blood I too should wish
it to drain off and not to soil my hands.... If it were the
blood of a powerful enemy to one's country, little would
it matter if it was left all blood smeared; I should have
settled my accounts with this wretched world beforehand,
and then thou wouldst not fail me at need; thou wouldst do
me the same service as thou renderest formerly to him whose
bones the tomb received along with thee.
"In storms of public misfortunes, or in crises of personal
adversity, the tomb is often the only refuge for noble
hearts; it, at any rate, is impregnable and quiet: there one
can brave accusers and the instruments of despotism, who are
as vile as the accusers themselves!
"Open the gates of eternity to me, I implore thee! Since
it needs must be, we will go together, my old dagger, thou
and I, as with a new friend. Do not fail me when my soul
shall ask transit of thee; afford to my hand that virile
self-reliance which a strong man has in himself; snatch me
from the outrages of petty persecutors and from the slow
torture of the unknown!"
Although this dagger was treasured by the unhappy Rabbe, as we have
mentioned, it was not by its means that the _accursed one_, as he
called himself, was to put an end to his miseries. Rabbe was only
thirty and had strength enough in him yet to go on living.
So, in despair, he dragged out his posthumous existence and flung
himself into the political arena, as a gladiator takes comfort to
himself by showing himself off between two tigers.
1821 began; the death of the Duc de Berry served as an excuse for many
reactionary laws; Alphonse Rabbe now found his golden hour; he came to
Marseilles and started _Le Phocéen_, in a countryside that was a very
volcano of Royalism. Would you hear how he addresses those in power?
Then listen. Hear how he addressed men of influence--
"Oligarchies are fighting for the rays of liberty across the
dead body of an unfortunate prince.... O Liberty! mark with
thy powerful inspirations those hours of the night which
William Tell and his friends used to spend in striking blows
to redress wrongs!..."
When liberty is invoked in such terms she rarely answers to the call.
One morning, someone knocked at Rabbe's door; he went to open it,
and two policemen stood there who asked him to accompany them to the
prison. When Rabbe was arrested, all Marseilles rose up in a violent
Royalist explosion against him. An author who had written a couple of
volumes of fables took upon himself to support the Bourbon cause in one
of the papers. Rabbe read the article and replied--
"Monsieur, in one of your apologues you compare yourself to a sheep;
well and good. Then, _monsieur le mouton_, go on, cropping your tender
grass and stop biting other things!"
The writer of fables paid a polite call upon Rabbe; they shook hands
and all was forgotten.
However, the _Phocéen_ had been suspended the very day its chief
editor was arrested. Rabbe was set free after a narrow escape of being
assassinated by those terrible Marseillais Royalists who, during the
early years of the Restoration, left behind them such wide traces
of bloodshed. He went to Paris, where his two friends, Thiers and
Mignet, had already won a high position in the hôtels of Laffite and
of Talleyrand. If Rabbe had preserved the features of Apollo and the
form of Antinous, he would have won all Parisian society by his charm
of manner and his delightful winning mental attainments; but his mirror
condemned him to seclusion more than ever. His sole, his only, friend
was his pipe; Rabbe smoked incessantly. We have read the magnificent
prose ode he addressed to his dagger; let us see how, in another style,
he spoke to his pipe, or, rather, of his pipe.
MA PIPE
"Young man, light my pipe; light it and give it to me, so
that I can chase away a little of the weariness of living,
and give myself up to forgetfulness of everything, whilst
this imbecile people, eager after gross emotions, hastens
its steps towards the pompous ceremony of the Sacred-Heart
in opulent and superstitious Marseilles.
"I myself hate the multitude and its stupid excitement; I
hate these fairs either sacred or profane, these festivals
with all their cheating games, at the cost of which an
unlucky people consents readily to forget the ills which
overwhelm it; I hate these signs of servile respect which
the duped crowd lavishes on those who deceive and oppress
it; I hate that worship of error which absolves crime,
afflicts innocence and drives the fanatic to murder by its
inhuman doctrines of exclusiveness!
"Let us forgive the dupes! All those who go to these
festivals are promised pleasure. Unfortunate human beings!
We pursue this alluring phantom along all kinds of roads. To
be elsewhere than one is, to change place and affections,
to leave the supportable for worse, to go after novelty
upon novelty, to obtain one more sensation, to grow old,
burdened with unsatisfied desires, to die finally without
having lived, such is our destiny!
"What do I myself look for at the bottom of thy little
bowl, O my pipe! Like an alchemist, I am searching how to
transmute the woes of the present into fleeting delights;
I inhale thy smoke with hurried draughts in order to carry
happy confusion to my brain, a quick delirium, that is
preferable to cold reflection; I seek for sweet oblivion
from what is, for the dream of what is not, and even for
that which cannot be.
"Thou makest me pay dear for thy easy consolations; the
brain is possibly consumed and weakened by the daily
repetition of these disordered emotions. Thought becomes
idle, and the imagination runs riot from the habit of
depicting such wandering agreeable fictions.
"The pipe is the touch-stone of the nerves, the true
dynamometer of slender tissues. Young people who conceal a
delicate and feminine organisation beneath a man's clothing
do not smoke, for they dread cruel convulsions, and, what
would be still more cruel, the loss of the favours of Venus.
Smoke, on the contrary, unhappy lovers, ardent and restless
spirits tormented with the weight of your thoughts.
"The savants of Germany keep a pipe on their desks; it is
through the waves of tobacco smoke that they search after
truths of the intellectual and the spiritual order. That is
why their works, always a little nebulous, exceed the reach
of our French philosophers, whom fashion, and the salons,
compel to inhale more urbane and gracious perfumes.
"When Karl Sand, the delegate of the Muses of Erlangen, came
to Kotzebue's house, the old man, before joining him, had
him presented with coffee and a pipe. This token of touching
hospitality did not in the least disarm the dauntless young
man: a tear moistened his eyelid; but he persisted. Why? He
sacrificed himself for liberty!
"The unhappy man works during the day; and, at night, his
bread earned, with arms folded, before his tumble-down
doorway, with the smoke of his pipe he drives away the few
remaining thoughts that the repose of his limbs may leave
him.
"O my pipe! what good things I owe to thee! If an
importunate person, a foolish talker, a despicable fanatic,
comes and addresses me, I quickly draw a cigar from my case
and begin to smoke, and, henceforth, if I am condemned to
the affliction of listening, I at least escape the penalty
of replying to him. At intervals, a bitter smile compresses
my lips, and the fool flatters himself that I approve him!
He attributes to the effect of the rash cigar the equivocal
heed I pay to his babble.... He redoubles his loquacity;
but, stifled by his impertinence, I suddenly emit the clouds
of thick smoke which I have collected in my mouth, like the
scorn within my breast.
"I exhale both at once, burning vapour and repressed
indignation. Oh! how nauseating is the idiocy of others to
him who is already out of love with, and wearied of, his
own burdens!... I smother him with smoke! If only I could
asphyxiate the fool with the lava from my tiny volcano!
"But when a friend who is lovable alike in mind and heart
comes to me, the pleasure of the pipe quickens the happiness
of the meeting. After the first talk, which rapidly flows
along, whilst the lighted punch scatters the spirituous
particles which abound in the sparkling flame of the
liqueur, the glasses clink together: Friend, from this day
and for a year hence, let us drain the brotherly cup under
the happiest auspices!
"Then we light two cigars, just alike; incited by my friend
to talk on a thousand different topics, I often let mine go
out, and he gives me a light again from his own.... I am
like an old husband who relights a score of times from the
lips of a young beauty the flame of his passion, as impotent
as many times over. O my friend! when, then, will happier
days shine forth?
"Tell me, my friend, in those parts from whence thou comest,
are men filled with hope and courage? Do they keep constant
and faithful to the worship of our great goddess, Liberty?
... Tell me, if thou knowest, how long we must still chafe
at the humiliating bit which condemns us to silence?...
"How it hinders me from flinging down my part of servitude!
How it delays me from seeing the vain titles of tyranny,
which oppress us, reduced to powder; from seeing the ashes
of a dishonoured diadem scattered at the breath of patriots
as the ashes of my pipe are scattered by mine! My soul is
weary of waiting, friend; I warn thee, and with horror I
meditate upon the doings of such sad waywardness. See how
this people, roused wholly by the infamous sect of Loyola,
rushes to fling itself before their strange processions!
Young and old, men and women, all hasten to receive their
hypocritical and futile benedictions! The fools! if the
plague passed under a canopy they would run to see it pass
by and kneel before it! Tell me, friend, is such a people
fit for liberty? Is it not rather condemned to grow old
and still be kept in the infantine swaddling clothes of a
two-fold bondage?
"Men are still but children. Nevertheless, the human race
increases and goes on progressing continually, and meanwhile
stretches its bonds till they break. The time draws near
when it will no longer listen to the lame man who calls
upon it to stop, when it will no longer ask its way of
the blind. May the world become enlightened! God desires
it!... And we, my friend, we will smoke whilst we watch
for the coming dawn. Happily, friend, liberty has her
secrets, her resources. This people, which seems to us for
ever brutalised, is, however, educating itself and every
day becomes more enlightened! Friend, we will forgive the
slaves for running after distractions; we will bear with the
immodest mother who prides herself that her daughters will
pass for virgins when they have been blessed. We will not be
surprised that old scoundrels hope to sweat out the seeds
of their crimes, exhausting themselves to carry despicable
images.
"O my pipe! every day do I owe thee that expressive emblem
of humility which religion only places once a year on
the brow of the adoring Christian: Man is but dust and
ashes.... That, in fact, is all which remains at the last
of the tenderest or most magnanimous heart, of hearts
over-intoxicated with joy or pride, or those consumed with
the bitterest pains.
"These small remnants of men, these ashes, the lightest
zephyr scatter into the empty air.... Where, then, is the
dust of Alexander, where the ashes of Gengis? They are
nothing more than vain historic phantoms; those great
subduers of nations, those terrible oppressors of men, what
are they but fine-sounding names, objects of vain enthusiasm
or of useless malediction!
"I, too, shall soon perish; all that makes up my being, my
very name, will disappear like light smoke.... In a few
days' time, perhaps at the very spot where I now write, it
will not even be known that I have ever existed.... Now,
does something imperishable breathe forth and rise up on
high from this perishable body? Does there dwell in man one
spark worthy to light the calumet of the angels upon the
pavements of the heavens?... O my pipe! chase away, banish
this ambitious and baneful desire after the unknown and the
impenetrable!"
We may be mistaken, but it seems to us that one would search in vain
for anything more melancholy in _Werther_ or more bitter in _Don Juan_,
than the pages we have just read.
CHAPTER X
Rabbe's friends_--La Sœur grise_--The historical résumés--M.
Brézé's advice--An imaginative man--Berruyer's style--Rabbe
with his hairdresser, his concierge and confectioner--_La
Sœur grise_ stolen_--Le Centaure._
Alphonse Rabbe's most assiduous disciples were Thiers and Mignet;[1]
they came to see him most days and treated him with the respect of
pupils towards their master. But Rabbe was independent to the verge
of intractability; and always ready to rear even under the hand that
caressed him. Now, Rabbe discerned that these two writers were already
on the way to become historians, had no desire to make a third in a
trio with them and resolved to be more true to life than the historians
and to write a novel. Walter Scott was then all the rage in London and
Paris.
Rabbe seized paper and pen and wrote the title of his novel on the
first leaf, _La Sœur grise._ Then he stopped, and I dare go so far even
as to say that this first page was never turned over. True, what Rabbe
did in imagination was much more real to him than what he actually did.
Félix Bodin had just begun to inaugurate the era of _Résumés
historiques_; the publishers, Lecointe and Roret, went about asking for
summaries from anyone at all approaching an author; résumés showered in
like hail; the very humblest scholar felt himself bound to send in his
résumé.
There was a regular scourge of them; even the most harmless of persons
were attacked with the disease. Rabbe eclipses all those obscure
writers at abound; he published, successively, résumés of the history
of Spain, of Portugal and of Russia; all extending to several editions.
These three volumes showed admirable talent for the writing of history,
and their only defect was the commonplace title under which they were
published.
"What are you working at?" Thiers often asked Alphonse Rabbe, as they
saw the reams of paper he was using up.
"I am at work on my _Sœur grise_," he replied.
In the summer of 1824, Mignet made a journey to Marseilles where,
before all his friends, he spread the praises of Rabbe's forthcoming
novel, _La Sœur grise_, which Mignet believed to be nearly completed.
Besides these fine books of history, Alphonse Rabbe wrote excellent
articles in the _Courrier-Français_ on the Fine Arts. On this subject,
he was not only a great master but, in addition, a great critic. He was
possibly slightly unfair to Vaudeville drama and a little severe on its
exponents; he carried this injustice almost to the point of hatred.
A droll adventure arose out of his dislike. A compatriot of Rabbe, a
Marseillais named M. Brézé (you see we sometimes put _Monsieur_) was
possessed by an ardent desire for giving Rabbe advice. (Let us here
insert, parenthetically, the observation that the Marseillais are born
advisers, specially when their advice is unsolicited.)
Well, M. Brézé had given endless advice to Rabbe while he was still at
Marseilles, advice which we can easily guess he took good care not to
follow. M. Brézé came to Paris and met Barthélemy, the poet, at the
Palais-Royal. The two compatriots entered into conversation with one
another--
"What is Rabbe doing?" asked M. Brézé.
"Résumés."
"Ah! so Rabbe is doing résumés?" repeated M. Brézé. "Hang it all!"
"Quite so."
"What are these résumés?"
"The quintessence of history compressed into small volumes instead of
being spun out into large ones."
"How many such résumés does he do in the year?"
"Perhaps one and a half or two at the most."
"And how much does a résumé bring in?"
"I believe twelve hundred francs."
"So, if Rabbe works all the year and has only done one résumé and a
half, he has earned eighteen hundred francs?"
"Eighteen hundred francs, yes! by Jove!"
"Hum!"
And M. Brézé began to reflect. Then, suddenly, he asked--"Do you think
Rabbe is as clever as M. Scribe?"
The question was so unlooked for and, above all, so inappropriate, that
Barthélemy began to laugh.
"Why, yes," he said; "only it is cleverness of a different order." "Oh!
that does not matter!"
"Why does it not matter?"
"If he has as much talent as M. Scribe it is all that is necessary."
Again he fell into reflection; then, after a pause he said to
Barthélemy--
"Is it true that M. Scribe earns a hundred thousand francs a year?"
"People say so," replied Barthélemy.
"Well, then," said M. Brézé, "in that case I must offer Rabbe some
advice."
"You?"
"Yes, I."
"You are quite capable of doing so--what will it be?"
"I must tell him to leave off writing his résumés and take to writing
vaudevilles."
The advice struck Barthélemy as a magnificent joke.
"Say that again," he said to M. Brézé.
"I must advise Rabbe to leave off writing his résumés and take to
writing vaudevilles."
"My goodness!" exclaimed Barthélemy, "do offer him that advice,
Monsieur Brézé."
"I will."
"When?"
"The first time I see him."
"You promise me you will?"
"On my word of honour."
"Whatever you do don't forget!"
"Make your mind quite easy."
Barthélemy and M. Brézé shook hands and separated. M. Brézé very much
delighted with himself for having conceived such a splendid idea;
Barthélemy with only one regret, that he could not be at hand when he
put his idea into execution.
As a matter of fact, M. Brézé met Rabbe one day, upon the Pont des
Arts. Rabbe was then deep in Russian history: he was as pre-occupied as
Tacitus.
"Oh! I am pleased to see you, my dear Rabbe!" said M. Brézé, as he came
up to him.
"And I to see you," said Rabbe.
"I have been looking for you for the past week."
"Indeed."
"Upon my word, I have!"
"What for?"
"My dear Rabbe, you know how attached I am to you?"
"Why, yes!"
"Well, then, in your own interest ... you understand? In your interest
..."
"Certainly, I understand."
"Well, I have a piece of advice to offer you."
"To offer me?"
"Yes, you."
"Give it me, then," said Rabbe, looking at Brézé over his spectacles,
as he was in the habit of doing, when he felt great surprise or people
began to bore him.
"Believe me, I speak as a friend."
"I do not doubt it; but what is the advice?"
"Rabbe, my friend, instead of making résumés, write vaudevilles!"
A deep growl sounded from the historian's breast. He seized the offerer
of advice by the arm, and in an awful voice he said to him--
"Monsieur, one of my enemies must have sent you to insult me."
"One of your enemies?"
"It was Latouche!"
"Why, no ..."
"Then it was Santo-Domingo!"
"No."
"Or Loëve-Weymars!"
"I swear to you it was none of them."
"Tell me the name of the insulting fellow."
"Rabbe! my dear Rabbe!"
"Give me his name, monsieur, or I will take you by the heels and pitch
you into the Seine, as Hercules threw Pirithous into the sea."
Then, perceiving that he had got mixed in his quotation--
"Pirithous or some other, it is all the same!"
"But I take my oath ..."
"Then it is you yourself?" exclaimed Rabbe, before Brézé had time to
finish his sentence. "Well, monsieur, you shall account to me for this
insult!"
At this proposition, Brézé gave such a jump that he tore himself from
the pincer-like grip that held him and ran to put himself under the
protection of the pensioner who took the toll at the bridge.
Rabbe took himself off after first making a gesture significant of
future vengeance. Next day he had forgotten all about it. Brézé,
however, remembered it ten years afterwards!
Two explanations must follow this anecdote which ought really to have
preceded it. From much study of the _Confessions_ of Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, Rabbe had imbibed something of the character of the
susceptible Genevese; he thought there was a general conspiracy
organised against him: that his Catiline and Manlius and Spartacus were
Latouche, Santo-Domingo and Loëve-Weymars; he even went so far as to
suspect his two Pylades, Thiers and Mignet.
"They are my d'Alembert and Diderot!" he said.
It was quite evident he believed Brézé's suggestion was the result of a
conspiracy that was just breaking out.
Rabbe's life was a species of perpetual hallucination, an existence
made up of dreams; and sleep, itself, the only reality. One day, he
button-holed Méry; his manner was gloomy, his hand on his breast
convulsively crumpled his shirt-front.
"Well," he exclaimed, shaking his head up and down, "I told you so!"
"What?"
"That he was an enemy of mine."
"Who?"
"Mignet."
"But, my dear Rabbe, he is nothing of the kind.... Mignet loves and
admires you."
"Ah! _he_ love me!"
"Yes."
"_He_ admire me!"
"No doubt of it."
"Well, do you know what the man who professes to love and admire me
said of me?"
"What did he say?"
"Why, he said that I was a man of IMAGINATION, yes, he did."
Méry assumed an air of consternation to oblige Rabbe. Rabbe, to revenge
himself for Mignet's insult, wrote in the preface of a second edition
of his résumés these crushing words--
"The pen of the historian ought not to be like a leaden pipe through
which a stream of tepid water flows on to the paper."
From this moment, his wrath against historians,--modern historians,
that is, of course: he worshipped Tacitus,--knew no bounds; and, when
there were friends present at his house and all historians were absent,
he would declaim in thunderous tones--
"Would you believe it, gentlemen, there are in France, at the present
moment and of our generation and rank, historians who take it into
their heads to copy the style of the veterans, Berruyer, Catrou and
Rouille? Yes, in each line of their modern battles they will tell
you that thirty thousand men were _cut in pieces_, or that they _bit
the dust_, or that they _were left lying strewn upon the scene._ How
behind the times these youngsters are! The other day, one of them, in
describing the battle of Austerlitz, wrote this sentence: 'Twenty-five
thousand Russians were drawn up in battle upon a vast frozen lake;
Napoléon gave orders that firing should be directed against this lake.
Bullets broke through the ice and the twenty-five thousand Russians BIT
THE DUST!'"
It is curious to note that such a sentence was actually written in
one of the résumés of that date. The second remark that we ought to
have made will explain the comparison that Rabbe had hazarded when
he spoke of himself as Hercules and of Brézé as Pirithous. He had so
effectually contracted the habit of using grand oratorical metaphor and
stilted language, that he could never descend to a more familiar style
of speech in his relations with more ordinary people. Thus, he once
addressed his hairdresser solemnly in the following terms:--
"Do not disarrange the economy of my hair too much; let the strokes of
your comb fall lightly on my head, and take care, as Boileau says, that
'L'ivoire trop hâté ne se brise en vos mains!'"
He said to his porter--
"If some friend comes and knocks at my hospitable portal, deal kindly
with him.... I shall soon return: I go to breathe the evening air upon
the Pont des Arts."
He said to his pastry-cook, Grandjean, who lived close by him in the
rue des Petits-Augustins--
"Monsieur Grandjean, the vol-au-vent that you did me the honour to send
yesterday had a crust of Roman cement, obstinate to the teeth; give a
more unctuous turn to your culinary art and people will be grateful to
you."
While all these things were happening, Rabbe fully imagined that he was
writing his novel, _La Sœur grise._
One day, Thiers came in to see him, as was his custom.
"Well, Rabbe," he said, "what are you at work upon now?"
"Parbleu!" replied Rabbe, "the same as usual, you know! My _Sœur
grise._"
"It ought to be nearly finished by now."
"It is finished."
"Oh, indeed!"
"Do you doubt me?"
"No."
"But you do doubt it?"
"Of course not."
"Stay," he said, picking up an exercise-book full of sheets of paper,
"here it is."
Thiers took it from him.
"But what is this? You have given me blank sheets of paper, my dear
fellow!"
Rabbe sprang like a tiger upon Thiers, and might, perhaps, in 1825,
have demolished the Minister of the First of March, had not Thiers
opened the book and showed him the pages as white as the dress worn by
M. Planard's shepherdess. Rabbe tore his hair with both hands.
"Do you know what has happened to me?" he shouted.
"No."
"Someone has stolen the MS. of my _Sœur grise!_"
"Oh! my God!" exclaimed Thiers, who did not want to vex him; "do you
know who is the thief?"
"No ... stay, yes, indeed, I think I do ... it is Loëve-Weymars! He
shall perish by my own hand; I will send him my two seconds!"
Loëve-Weymars was not in Paris. For upwards of a fortnight Rabbe
laboured under the delusion that he had written _La Sœur grise_ from
cover to cover, and that Loëve-Weymars was jealous of him and had
robbed him of his manuscript.
When such petulant insults fell upon friends like Loëve-Weymars,
Thiers, Mignet, Armaud Carrel and Méry, it did not matter; but, when
they were directed at strangers less acquainted with Rabbe's follies,
affairs sometimes assumed a more tragic aspect. Thus, about this
period, he had two duels; one with Alexis Dumesnil, the other with
Coste; he received a sword-cut from both of these gentlemen; but these
wounds did not cure him of his passion for quarrelling. He used to say
that, in his youth, he had been very clever at handling the javelin;
unluckily, however, his adversaries always declined that weapon,
which refusal Rabbe, with his enthusiasm for antiquity, never could
understand.
But if Rabbe admired antiquity madly, it was because he felt it
strongly; his piece, _Le Centaure_, is André Chénier in prose. Let us
give the proof of what we have been stating--
THE CENTAUR
"Swift as the west wind, amorous, superb, a young centaur
comes to carry off the beauteous Cymothoë from her old
husband. The impotent cries of the old man are heard
afar.... Proud of his prey, impotent with desire, the
ravisher stops beneath the deep shade of the banks of the
river. His flanks still palpitate from the swiftness of his
course; his breath comes hard and fast. He stops; his strong
legs bend under him; he stretches one forth and kneels with
agility on the other. He lovingly raises his beautiful prey
whom he holds trembling across his powerful thighs; he
takes her and presses her against his manly breast, sighs a
thousand sighs and covers her tear-dewed eyelids with kisses.
"'Fear not,' he says to her, 'O Cymothoë! Be not terrified
of a lover who offers to thy charms the united quality of
both man and war-horse. Believe me! my heart is worth more
than that of a vile mortal who dwells in your towns. Tame my
wild independence; I will bear thee to the freshest rivers,
beneath the loveliest of shade; I will carry thee over the
green prairies, which are bathed by the Pene or patriarchal
Achelous. Seated on my broad back, with thy arms intertwined
in the rings of my black hair, thou canst entrust thy charms
to the gambols of the waves, without fear that a jealous
god will venture to seize thee to take thee to the depths of
his crystal grotto.... I love thee, O young Cymothoë! Drive
away thy tears; thou canst try thy power: thou hast me in
subjection!'
"'Splendid monster!' replies the weeping Cymothoë, 'I am
struck with amazement. Thy accents are full of gentleness,
and thou speakest words of love! Why, thou talkest like
a man! Thy fearful caresses do not slay me! Tell me why!
But dost thou not hear the cries of Dryas, my old husband?
Centaur, fear for thy life! His kisses are like ice, but his
vengeance is cruel; his hounds are flying in thy tracks; his
slaves follow them; haste thee to fly and leave me!'
"'I leave thee!' replies the Centaur. And he stifles a
plaintive murmur on the lips of his captive. 'I leave thee!
Where is the Pirithous, the Alcides who dare come to dispute
my conquest with me? Have I not my javelins? Have I not my
heavy club? Have I not my swift speed? Has not Neptune given
to the Centaur the impetuous strength of the storm?'
"Then suddenly he bounded away full of courage, confidence
and happiness. Cymothoë balanced as if she was hung in a
moving net under these green vaults, or like as though borne
in a chariot of clouds by Zephyrus, henceforth rids herself
of her useless terrors and abandons herself to the raptures
of this strange lover.
"Again he stops and she admires the way nature has delighted
to mate in him the lovely form of a horse with the majestic
features of a man. Intelligent thought animates his glance,
so proud and yet so gentle; beneath that broad breast dwells
a heart touched by her charms.... What a splendid slave to
Cymothoë and to love!
"She soon stops looking; a burning blush covers her cheeks
and her eyelids droop; then, as her lover redoubles his
caresses, and unfastens her girdle--
"'Stay!' she says to him, 'stay, beauteous Centaur! Dost
thou not hear the fiery pack of hounds? Do not the arrows
whistle in thy ears.... I do not indeed hate thee; but leave
me! Leave me!'
"But neither Dryas nor his hounds nor slaves come that way,
and those were not the reason of Cymothoë's fears. He,
smiling--
"'Calm thy fright; come, let us cross the river, and do not
dread the sacrifice we are about to offer to the-powerful
Venus on the other side!... Soon, alas! the forests will
see no more such nuptials. Our fathers have succumbed,
betrayed by the wedding of Thetis and Peleus; we are now few
in number, solitary, fugitive, not from man, weaker and less
noble than we, but before Death who pursues us. The laws of
a mysterious nature have thus decreed it; the reign of our
race is nearly over!
"'This globe, deprived of the love of the gods who made
it, must grow old and the weak replace the strong; debased
mortals will have nothing but vain memories of the early
joys of the world. Thou art perhaps the last daughter of men
destined to be allied with our race; but thou wilt at least
have been the most beautiful and the happiest! Come!'
"Thus speaks the man-horse, and replacing his delightsome
burden on his bare back, he runs to the river and rushes
into the midst of the waves, which sparkle round him in
diamond sheaves burning with the setting fire of a summer
sun. His eyes fixed on those of the beauty which intoxicates
him, he swims across the stream and is lost to sight in the
green depths which stretch from the other side to the foot
of the high mountains...."
Is this not a genuine bit of antiquity without a modern touch in it,
like a bas-relief taken from the temple of Hercules at Thebes or of
Theseus at Athens?
[1] Do not let it be thought for one moment that it is in order to make
out any intimacy whatsoever with the two famous historians, whom I have
several times mentioned, that I say Thiers and Mignet; theirs are names
which have won the privilege of being presented to the public without
the banal title of _monsieur._
CHAPTER XI
Adèle--Her devotion to Rabbe--Strong meat--_Appel à
Dieu_--_L'âme et la comédie humaine_--_La mort_--_Ultime
lettere_--Suicide_--À Alphonse Rabbe_, by Victor Hugo
We have been forgetful, more than forgetful, even ungrateful, in saying
that Rabbe's one and only consolation was his pipe; there was another.
A young girl, named Adèle, spent three years with him; but those three
happy years only added fresh sorrows to Rabbe, for, soon, the beautiful
fresh girl drooped like a flower at whose roots a worm is gnawing; she
bowed her head, suffered for a year, then died.
History has made much stir about certain devoted attachments; no
devotion could have been purer or more disinterested than the unnoticed
devotion of this young girl, all the more complete that she crowned it
with her death.
A subject of this nature is either stated in three brief lines of bald
fact, or is extended over a couple of volumes as a psychological study.
Poor Adèle! We have but four lines, and the memory of your devotion to
offer you! Her death drove Rabbe to despair; from that time dates the
most abandoned period of his life. Rabbe found out not only that the
seeds of destruction were in him, but that they emanated from him. His
wails of despair from that moment became bitter and frequent; and his
thoughts turned incessantly towards suicide so that they might become
accustomed to the idea. Certain memoranda hung always in his sight;
he called them his _pain des forts_; they were, indeed, the spiritual
bread he fed himself on.
We will give a few examples of his most remarkable thoughts from this
lugubrious diary:--
"The whole life of man is but one journey towards death."
*
"Man, from whence comes thy pride? It was a mistake for thee
to have been conceived; thy birth is a misfortune; thy life
a labour; thy death inevitable."
*
"Thou living corpse! When wilt thou return to the dust?
O solitude! O death! I have drunk deep of thy austere
delights. You are my loves! the only ones that are faithful
to me!"
*
"Every hour that passes by drives us towards the tomb and is
hastened by the advance of those that precede it."
*
"Bitter and cruel is the absence of God's face from me. How
much longer wilt Thou make me suffer?"
*
"Reflect in the morning that by night you may be no longer
here; and at night, that by morning you may have died."
*
"Sometimes there is a melancholy remembrance of the glorious
days of youth, of that happiness which never seems so great
or so bitter as when remembered in the days of misfortune;
at times, such collections confront the unfortunate wretch
whose aspirations are towards death. Then, his despair turns
to melancholy--almost even to hope."
*
"But these illusions of the beautiful days of youth pass and
vanish away! Oh! what bitterness fills my soul! Inexorable
nature, fate, destiny of providence give me back the cup
of life and of happiness! My lips had scarcely touched it
before you snatched it out of my trembling hands. Give me
back the cup! Give it back! I am consumed by burning thirst;
I have deceived myself; you have deceived me; I have never
drunk, I have never satisfied my thirst, for the liquid
evaporated like blue flame, which leaves behind it nothing
but the smell of sulphur and volcanoes."
*
"Lightning from heaven! Why dost thou not rather strike the
lofty tops of those oaks and fir trees whose robust old age
has already braved a hundred winters? They, at least, have
lived; and have satiated themselves with the sweets of the
earth!"
*
"I have been struck down in my prime; for nine years I have
been a prey, fighting against death.... Miserable wretch
why has not the hand of God which smote me annihilated me
altogether?"
Then, in consequence of his pains, the soul of the unhappy Rabbe rises
to the level of prayer; he, the sceptic, loses faith in unbelief and
returns to God--
"O my God!" he exclaims in the solitudes of night, which
carries the plaint of his groans and tears to the ears of
his neighbours. "O my God! If Thou art just, Thou must have
a better world in store for us! O my God! Thou who knowest
all the thoughts that I bare here before Thee and the
remorse to which my scalding tears give expression; O my
God! if the groanings of an unfortunate soul are heard by
Thee, Thou must understand, O my God! the heart that Thou
didst give me, thou knowest the wishes it formed, and the
insatiable desires that still possess it. Oh! if afflictions
have broken it, if the absence of all consolation and
tenderness, if the most horrible solitude, have withered it,
O my God! help Thy wretched creature; give me faith in a
better world to come! Oh! may I find beyond the grave what
my soul, unrecognised and bewildered, has unceasingly craved
for on this earth...."
Then God took pity on him. He did not restore his health or hope, his
youth, beauty and loves in this life; those three illusions vanished
all too soon: but God granted him the gift of tears. And he thanked
God for it. Towards the close of the year 1829, the disease made such
progress that Rabbe resolved he would not live to see the opening of
the year 1830. Thus, as he had addressed God, as he had addressed his
soul, so he now addresses death--
DEATH
"Thou diest! Thou hast reached the limit to which all things
comes at last; the end of thy miseries, the beginning of
thy happiness. Behold, death stands face to face with thee!
Thou wilt not longer be able to wish for, nor to dread it.
Pains and weakness of body, sad heart-searchings, piercing
spiritual anguish, devouring griefs, all are over! Thou wilt
never suffer them again; thou goest in peace to brave the
insolent pride of the successful evil-doer, the despising
of fools and the abortive pity of those who dare to style
themselves _good._
"The deprivation of many evils will not be an evil in
itself; I have seen thee chafing at thy bit, shaking the
humiliating chains of an adverse fate in despair; I have
often heard the distressing complaints which issued from
the depths of thy oppressed heart.... Thou art satisfied at
last. Haste thee to empty the cup of an unfortunate life,
and perish the vase from which thou wast compelled to drink
such bitter draughts.
"But thou dost stop and tremble! Thou dost curse the
duration of thy suffering and yet dost dread and regret that
the end has come! Thou apprisest without reason or justice,
and dost lament equally both what things are and what they
cease to be. Listen, and think for one moment.
"In dying, thou dost but follow the path thy forefathers
have trodden; thousands of generations before thee have
fallen into the abyss into which thou hast to descend;
many thousands will fall into it after thee. The cruel
vicissitude of life and death cannot be altered for thee
alone. Onward then towards thy journey's end, follow where
others have gone, and be not afraid of straying from it
or losing thyself when thou hast so many other travelling
companions. Let there be no signs of weakness, no tears!
The man who weeps over his own death is the vilest and
most despicable of all beings. Submit unmurmuringly to the
inevitable; thou must die, as thou hast had to live, without
will of thy own. Give back, therefore, without anxiety, thy
life which thou receivest unconsciously. Neither birth nor
death are in thy power. Rather rejoice, for thou art at
the beginning of an immortal dawn. Those who surround thy
deathbed, all those whom thou hast ever seen, of whom thou
hast heard speak or read, the small number of those thou
hast known especially well, the vast multitude of those who
have lived formerly or been born or are to be born in ages
to come throughout the world, all these have gone or will go
the road thou art going. Look with wise eyes upon the long
caravan of successive generations which have crossed the
deserts of life, fighting as they travel across the burning
sands for one drop of the water which inflames their thirst
more than it appeases it! Thou art swallowed up in the crowd
directly thou fallest: but look how many others are falling
too at the same time with thee!
"Wouldst thou desire to live for ever? Wouldst thou only
wish thy life to last for a thousand years? Remember the
long hours of weariness in thy short career, thy frequent
fainting under the burden. Thou wast aghast at the limited
horizon of a short, uncertain and fugitive life: what
wouldst thou have said if thou hadst seen an immeasurable,
inevitably long future of weariness and sorrow stretch
before thy eyes!
"O mortals! you weep over death, as though life were
something great and precious! And yet the vilest insects
that crawl share this rare treasure of life with you! All
march towards death because all yearn towards rest and
perfect peace.
"Behold! the approach of the day that thou fain wouldst
have tried to bring nearer by thy prayers, if a jealous
fate had not deferred it; for which thou didst often sigh;
behold the moment which is to remove the capricious yoke
of fortune from the trammels of human society, from the
venomous attacks of thy fellow-creatures. Thou thinkest thou
wilt cease to exist and that thought torments thee.... Well,
but what proves to thee that thou wilt be annihilated? All
the ages have retained a hope in immortality. The belief in
a spiritual life was not merely a dogma of a few religious
creeds; it was the need and the cry of all nations that have
covered the face of the earth. The European, in the luxuries
of his capital towns, the aboriginal American-Indian under
his rude huts, both equally dream of an immortal state; all
cry to the tribunal of nature against the incompleteness of
this life.
"If thou sufferest, it is well to die; if thou art happy
or thinkest thou art so, thou wilt gain by death since thy
illusion would not have lasted long. Thou passest from a
terrestrial habitation to a pure and celestial one. Why look
back when thy foot is upon the threshold of its portals? The
eternal distributor of good and evil, our Sovereign Master,
calls thee to Himself; it is by His desire thy prison flies
open; thy heavy chains are broken and thy exile is ended;
therefore rejoice! Thou wilt soar to the throne of thy King
and Saviour!
"Ah! if thou art not shackled with the weight of some
unexpiated crime, thou wilt sing as thou diest; and, like
the Roman emperor, thou wilt rise up in thy agony at the
very thought, and thou wouldst die standing with eyes turned
towards the promised land!
"O Saint Preux and Werther! O Jacob Ortis! how far were you
from reaching such heights as that! Orators even to the
death agony, your brains alone it is which lament; man in
his death throes, this actually dying creature, it is his
heart that groans, his flesh that cries out, his spirit
which doubts. Oh! how well one feels that all that hollow
philosophising does not reassure him as to the pain of
the supreme moment, and especially against that terror of
annihilation, which brought drops of sweat to the brow of
Hamlet!
"One more cry--the last, then silence shall fall on him who
suffered much."
Moreover, Alphonse Rabbe wished there to be no doubt of how he died;
hear this, his will, which he signed; there was to his mind no
dishonour in digging himself a grave with his own hands between those
of Cato of Utica and of Brutus--
"31 _December_ 1829
"Like Ugo Foscolo, I must write my _ultime lettere._ If
every man who had thought and felt deeply could die before
the decline of his faculties from age, and leave behind him
his _philosophical testament_, that is to say, a profession
of faith bold and sincere, written upon the planks of his
coffin, there would be more truths recognised and saved from
the regions of foolishness and the contemptible opinion of
the vulgar.
"I have other motives for executing this project. There
are in the world various interesting men who have been my
friends; I wish them to know how I ended my life. I desire
that even the indifferent, namely, the bulk of the general
public (to whom I shall be a subject of conversation for
about ten minutes--perhaps even that is an exaggerated
supposition), should know, however poor an opinion I have of
the majority of people, that I did not yield to cowardice,
but that the cup of my weariness was already filled, when
fresh wrongs came and overthrew it. I wish, in conclusion,
that my friends, those indifferent to me, and even my
enemies, should know that I have but exercised quietly and
with dignity the privilege that every man acquires from
nature--the right to dispose of himself as he likes. This is
the last thing that has interest for me this side the grave.
All my hopes lie beyond it ...if perchance there be anything
beyond."
Thus, poor Rabbe, after all thy philosophy, sifted as fine as ripe
grain; after all thy philosophising; after many prayers to God and
dialogues with thy soul, and many conversations with death, these
supreme interlocutors have taught thee nothing and thy last thought is
a doubt!
Rabbe had said he would not see the year 1830: and he died during the
night of the 31 December 1829.
Now, how did he die? That gloomy mystery was kept locked in the hearts
of the last friends who were present with him. But one of his friends
told me that, the evening before his death, his sufferings were so
unendurable, that the doctor ordered an opium plaster to be put on the
sick man's chest. Next day, they hunted in vain for the opium plaster
but could not find it....
On 17 September 1835, Victor Hugo addresses these lines to him
À ALPHONSE RABBE
_Mort le_ 31 _décembre_ 1829
"Hélas! que fais tu donc, ô Rabbe, ô mon ami,
Sévère historien dans la tombe endormi?
Je l'ai pensé souvent dans les heures funèbres,
Seul, près de mon flambeau qui rayait les ténèbres,
O noble ami! pareil aux hommes d'autrefois,
Il manque parmi nous ta voix; ta forte voix,
Pleine de l'équité qui gonflait ta poitrine.
Il nous manque ta main, qui grave et qui burine,
Dans ce siècle où par l'or les sages sont distraits,
Où l'idée est servante auprès des intérêts;
Temps de fruits avortés et de tiges rompues,
D'instincts dénaturés, de raisons corrompues,
Où, dans l'esprit humain tout étant dispersé,
Le présent au hasard flotte sur le passé!
Si, parmi nous, ta tête était debout encore,
Cette cime où vibrait l'éloquence sonore,
Au milieu de nos flots tu serais calme et grand;
Tu serais comme un pont posé sur le courant.
Tu serais pour chacun la boix haute et sensée
Qui fait que, brouillard s'en va de la pensée,
Et que la vérité, qu'en vain nous repoussions,
Sort de l'amas confus des sombres visions!
Tu dirais aux partis qu'ils font trop be poussière
Autour de la raison pour qu'on la voie entière;
Au peuple, que la loi du travail est sur tous,
Et qu'il est assez fort pour n'être pas jaloux;
Au pouvoir, que jamais le pouvoir ne se venge,
Et que, pour le penseur, c'est un spectacle étrange.
Et triste, quand la loi, figure au bras d'airain,
Déesse qui ne doit avoir qu'un front serein,
Sort, à de certains jours, de l'urne consulaire,
L'œil hagard, écumante et folle de colère!
Et ces jeunes esprits, à qui tu souriais,
Et que leur âge livre aux rêves inquiets,
Tu leur dirais: Amis nés pour des temps prospères,
Oh! n'allez pas errer comme ont erré vos pères!
Laissez murir vos fronts! gardez-vous, jeunes gens,
Des systèmes dorés aux plumages changeants,
Qui, dans les carrefours, s'en vont faire la roue!
Et de ce qu'en vos cœurs l'Amérique secoue,
Peuple à peine essayé, nation de hasard,
Sans tige, sans passé, sans histoire et sans art!
Et de cette sagesse impie, envenimée,
Du cerveau de Voltaire éclose tout armée,
Fille de l'ignorance et de l'orgueil, posant
Les lois des anciens jours sur les mœurs d'à présent;
Qui refait un chaos partout où fut un monde;
Qui rudement enfoncé,--ô démence profonde!
Le casque étroit de Sparte au front du vieux Paris;
Qui, dans les temps passés, mal lus et mal compris,
Viole effrontément tout sage, pour lui faire
Un monstre qui serait la terreur de son père!
Si bien que les héros antiques tout tremblants
S'en sont voilé la face, et qu'après deux mille ans,
Par ses embrassements réveillé sous la pierre,
Lycurgue, qu'elle épouse, enfante Robespierre!"
Tu nous dirais à tous: 'Ne vous endormez pas!
Veillez et soyez prêts! Car déjà, pas à pas,
La main de l'oiseleur dans l'ombre s'est glissée
Partout où chante un nid couvé par la pensée!
Car les plus nobles fronts sont vaincus ou sont las!
Car la Pologne, aux fers, ne peut plus même, hêlas!
Mordre le pied tartare appuyé sur sa gorge!
Car on voit, chaque jour, s'allonger dans la forge
La chaîne que les rois, craignant la liberté,
Font pour cette géante, endormie à côté!
Ne vous endormez pas! travaillez sans relâche!
Car les grands ont leur œuvre et les petits leur tâche;
Chacun a son ouvrage à faire, chacun met
Sa pierre à l'édifice encor loin du sommet--
Qui croit avoir fini, pour un roi qu'on dépose,
Se trompe: un roi qui tombe est toujours peu de chose;
Il est plus difficile et c'est un plus grand poids
De relever les mœurs que d'abattre les rois.
Rien chez vous n'est complet: la ruine ou l'ébauche!
L'épi n'est pas formé que votre main le fauche!
Vous êtes encombrés de plans toujours rêvés
Et jamais accomplis ... Hommes, vous ne savez,
Tant vous connaissez peu ce qui convient aux âmes,
Que faire des enfants, ni que faire des femmes!
Où donc en êtes-vous? Vous vous applaudissez
Pour quelques blocs de lois au hasard entassés!
Ah! l'heure du repos pour aucun n'est venue;
Travaillez! vous cherchez une chose inconnue;
Vous n'avez pas de foi, vous n'avez pas d'amour;
Rien chez vous n'est encore éclairé du vrai jour!
Crépuscule et brouillards que vos plus clairs systèmes
Dans vos lois, dans vos mœurs et dans vos esprits
mêmes,
Partout l'aube blanchâtre ou le couchant vermeil!
Nulle part le midi! nulle part le soleil!'
Tu parlerais ainsi dans des livres austères,
Comme parlaient jadis les anciens solitaires,
Comme parlent tous ceux devant qui l'on se tait,
Et l'on t'écouterait comme on les écoutait;
Et l'on viendrait vers toi, dans ce siècle plein d'ombre,
Où, chacun se heurtant aux obstacles sans nombre
Que, faute de lumière, on tâte avec la main,
Le conseil manque à l'âme, et le guide au chemin!
Hélas! à chaque instant, des souffles de tempêtes
Amassent plus de brume et d'ombre sur nos têtes;
De moment en moment l'avenir s'assombrit.
Dans le calme du cœur, dans la paix de l'esprit,
Je l'adressais ces vers, où mon âme sereine
N'a laissé sur ta pierre écumer nulle haine,
À toi qui dors couché dans le tombeau profond,
À toi qui ne sais plus ce que les hommes font!
Je l'adressais ces vers, pleins de tristes présages;
Car c'est bien follement que nous nous croyons sages.
Le combat furieux recommence à gronder
Entre le droit de croître et le droit d'émonder;
La bataille où les lois attaquent les idées
Se mêle de nouveau sur des mers mal sondées;
Chacun se sent troublé comme l'eau sous le vent ...
Et moi-même, à cette heure, à mon foyer rêvant,
Voilà, depuis cinq ans qu'on oubliait Procuste,
Que j'entends aboyer, au seuil du drame auguste,
La censure à l'haleine immonde, aux ongles noirs,
Cette chienne au front has qui suit tous les pouvoirs,
Vile et mâchant toujours dans sa gueule souillée,
O muse! quelque pan de ta robe étoilée!
Hélas! que fais-tu donc, ô Rabbe, ô mon ami!
Sévère historien dans la tombe endormi?"
If anything of poor Rabbe still survives, he will surely tremble with
joy in his tomb at this tribute. Indeed, few kings have had such an
epitaph!
CHAPTER XII
Chéron--His last compliments to Harel--Obituary of
1830--My official visit on New Year's Day--A striking
costume--Read the _Moniteur_--Disbanding of the Artillery
of the National Guard--First representation of _Napoléon
Bonaparte_--Delaistre--Frédérick Lemaître
Meantime, throughout the course of that glorious year of 1830, death
had been gathering in a harvest of celebrated men.
It had begun with Chéron, the author of _Tartufe de Mœurs._ We learnt
his death in a singular fashion. Harel thought of taking up the only
comedy that the good fellow had written, and had begun its rehearsals
the same time as _Christine._ They rehearsed Chéron's comedy at ten
in the morning and _Christine_ at noon. One morning, Chéron, who was
punctuality itself, was late. Harel had waited a little while, then
given orders to prepare the stage for _Christine._ Steinberg had not
got further than his tenth line, when a little fellow of twelve years
came from behind one of the wings and asked for M. Harel.
"Here I am," said Harel, "what is it?"
"M. Chéron presents his compliments to you," said the little man, "and
sends word that he cannot come to his rehearsal this morning."
"Why not, my boy?" asked Harel.
"Because he died last night," replied the little fellow.
"Ah! diable!" exclaimed Harel; "in that case you must take back my best
compliments and tell him that I will attend his funeral to-morrow."
That was the funeral oration the ex-government inspector to the
Théâtre-Français pronounced over him.
I believe I have mentioned somewhere that Taylor succeeded Chéron.
At the beginning of the year, on 15 February, Comte Marie de Chamans
de Lavalette had also died; he it was who, in 1815, was saved by the
devotion of his wife and of two Englishmen; one of whom, Sir Robert
Wilson, I met in 1846 when he was Governor of Gibraltar. Comte de
Lavalette lived fifteen years after his condemnation to death; caring
for his wife, in his turn, for she had gone insane from the terrible
anxiety she suffered in helping her husband to escape.
On 11 March the obituary list was marked by the death of the
Marquis de Lally-Tollendal, whom I knew well: he was the son of the
Lally-Tollendal who was executed in the place de Grève as guilty of
peculation, upon whom it will be recollected Gilbert wrote lines that
were certainly some of his best. The poor Marquis de Lally-Tollendal
was always in trouble, but this did not prevent him from becoming
enormously stout. He weighed nearly three hundred pounds; Madame de
Staël called him "the fattest of sentient beings."
Perhaps I have already said this somewhere. If so, I ask pardon for
repeating it.
The same month Radet died, the doyen of vaudevillists. During the
latter years of his life he was afflicted with kleptomania, but his
friends never minded; if, after his departure they missed anything they
knew where to go and look for the missing article.
Then, on 15 April, Hippolyte Bendo died. He was behindhand, for death,
who was out of breath with running after him, caught him up at the age
of one hundred and twenty-two. He had married again at one hundred and
one!
Then, on 23 April, died the Chevalier Sue, father of Eugène Sue; he had
been honorary physician in chief to the household of King Charles X.
He was a man of great originality of mind and, at times, of singular
artlessness of expression; those who heard him give his course of
lectures on conchology will bear me out in this I am very sure.
On 29 May that excellent man Jérôme Gohier passed away, of whom I
have spoken as an old friend of mine; and who could not forgive
Bonaparte for causing the events of 18 Brumaire, whilst he, Gohier, was
breakfasting with Josephine.
On 29 June died good old M. Pieyre, former tutor and secretary to the
duc d'Orléans; author of _l'École des pères_; and the same who, with
old Bichet and M. de Parseval de Grandmaison, had shown such great
friendship to me and supported me to the utmost at the beginning of my
dramatic career.
Then, on 29 July, a lady named Rosaria Pangallo died; she was born on 3
August 1698, only four years after Voltaire, whom we thought belonged
to a past age, as he had died in 1778! The good lady was 132, ten years
older than her compatriot Hippolyte Bendo, of whom we spoke just now.
On 28 August Martainville died, hero of the Pont du Pecq, whom we saw
fighting with M. Arnault over _Germanicus._
On 18 October Adam Weishaupt died, that famous leader of the Illuminati
whose ashes I was to revive eighteen years later in my romance _Joseph
Balsamo._
Then, on 30 November, Pius VIII. passed to his account; he was
succeeded by Gregory XVI., of whom I shall have much to say.
On 17 December Marmontel's son died in New York, America, in hospital,
just as a real poet might have done.
Then, on the 31st of the same month, the Comtesse de Genlis died,
that bogie of my childhood, whose appearances at the Château de
Villers-Hellon I related earlier in these Memoirs, and who, before
she died, had the sorrow of seeing the accession to the throne of her
pupil, badly treated by her, as a politician, in a letter which we
printed in our _Histoire de Louis-Philippe._
Finally, on the last night of the old year, the artillery came to
its end, killed by royal decree; and, as I had not heard of this
decree soon enough, it led me to make the absurd blunder I am about
to describe, which was probably among all the grievances King
Louis-Philippe believed he had against me the one that made him
cherish the bitterest rancour towards me. The reader will recollect the
resignation of one of our captains and my election to the rank thus
left vacant; he will further remember that, owing to the enthusiasm
which fired me at that period, I undertook the command of a manœuvre
the day but one after my appointment. This made the third change I
had had to make in my uniform in five months: first, mounted National
Guard; then, from that, to a gunner in the artillery; then, from a
private to a captain in the same arm of the service. In due course New
Year's day was approaching, and there had been a meeting to decide
whether we should pay a visit of etiquette to the king or not. In
order to avoid being placed upon the index for no good reason, it
was decided to go. Consequently, a rendezvous was made for the next
day, 1 January 1831, at nine in the morning, in the courtyard of the
Palais-Royal. Whereupon we separated. I do not remember what caused
me to lie in bed longer than usual that New Year's morning 1831; but,
to cut a long story short, when I looked at my watch, I saw that I
had only just time, if that, to dress and reach the Palais-Royal. I
summoned Joseph and, with his help, as nine o'clock was striking, I
flew down stairs four steps at a time from my third storey. I need
hardly say that, being in such a tremendous hurry, of course there was
no cab or carriage of any description to be had. Thus, I reached the
courtyard of the Palais-Royal by a quarter past nine. It was crowded
with officers waiting their turn to present their collective New Year's
congratulations to the King of the French; but, in the midst of all the
various uniforms, that of the artillery was conspicuous by its absence.
I glanced at the clock, and seeing that I was a quarter of an hour
late, I thought the artillery had already taken up its position and
that I should be able to join it either on the staircases or in one of
the apartments. I rushed quickly up the State stairway and reached the
great audience chamber. Not a sign of any artillerymen! I thought that,
like Victor Hugo's kettle-drummers, the artillerymen must have passed
and I decided to go in alone.
Had I not been so preoccupied with my unpunctuality, I should have
remarked the strange looks people cast at me all round; but I saw
nothing, thanks to my absent-mindedness, except that the group of
officers, with whom I intermingled to enter the king's chamber, made
a movement from centre to circumference, which left me as completely
isolated as though I was suspected of bringing infection of cholera,
which was beginning to be talked about in Paris. I attributed this act
of repulsion to the part the artillery had played during the recent
disturbances, and as I, for my part, was quite ready to answer for
the responsibility of my own actions, I went in with my head held
high. I should say, that out of the score of officers who formed
the group I had honoured with my presence, I seemed to be the only
one who attracted the attention of the king; he even gazed at me
with such surprise that I looked around to find the cause of this
incomprehensible stare. Among those present some put on a scornful
smile, others seemed alarmed; and the expression of others, again,
seemed to say: "Seigneur; pardon us for having come in with that man!"
The whole thing was inexplicable to me. I went up to the king, who was
so good as to speak to me.
"Ah! good day, Dumas!" he said to me; "that's just like you! I
recognise you well enough! It is just like you to come!"
I looked at the king and, for the life of me, I could not tell what he
was alluding to. Then, as he began laughing, and all the good courtiers
round imitated his example, I smiled in company with everybody else,
and went on my way. In the next room where my steps led me I found
Vatout, Oudard, Appert, Tallencourt, Casimir Delavigne and a host of
my old comrades. They had seen me through the half-open door and they,
too, were all laughing. This universal hilarity began to confuse me.
"Ah!" said Vatout. "Well, you have a nerve, my friend!"
"What do you mean?"
"Why, you have just paid the king a New Year's visit in a dress of
_dissous_."
By _dissous_ understand _dix sous_ (ten sous).
Vatout was an inveterate punster.
"I do not understand you," I said, very seriously.
"Come now," he said. "You aren't surely going to try to make us believe
that you did not know the king's order!"
"What order?"
"The disbandment of the artillery, of course!"
"What! the artillery is disbanded?"
"Why, it is in black and white in the _Moniteur!_"
"You are joking. Do I ever read the _Moniteur?_"
"You are right to say that."
"But, by Jove! I say it because it is true!"
They all began laughing again.
I will acknowledge that, by this time, I was dreadfully angry; I had
done a thing that, if considered in the light of an act of bravado,
might indeed be regarded as a very grave impertinence, and one in which
I, least of any person, had no right to indulge towards the king. I
went down the staircase as quickly as I had gone up it, ran to the café
_du Roi,_ and asked for the _Moniteur_ with a ferocity that astonished
the frequenters of the café. They had to send out and borrow one from
the café _Minerve._ The order was in a prominent position; it was
short, but explicit, and in these simple words--
"LOUIS-PHILIPPE, KING OF THE FRENCH,--To all, now and
hereafter, Greeting. Upon the report of our Minister, the
Secretary of State for Home Affairs, we have ordained and do
ordain as follows:--
"ARTICLE I.--The corps of artillery of the National Guard of
Paris is disbanded.
"ARTICLE 2.--Proceedings for the reorganisation of that
corps shall begin immediately.
"ARTICLE 3.--A commission shall be appointed to proceed with
that reorganisation."
After seeing this official document I could have no further doubts upon
the subject. I went home, stripped myself of my seditious clothing,
put on the dress of ordinary folk, and went off to the Odéon for my
rehearsal of _Napoléon Bonaparte_, which was announced for its first
production the next day. As I came away after the rehearsal, I met
three or four of my artillery comrades, who congratulated me warmly.
My adventure had already spread all over Paris; some-thought it a joke
in the worst possible taste, others thought my action heroic. But none
of them would believe the truth that it was done through ignorance.
To this act of mine I owed being made later a member of the committee
to consider the national pensions lists, of the Polish committee and
of that for deciding the distribution of honours to those who took
conspicuous part in the July Revolution, and of being re-elected as
lieutenant in the new artillery,--honours which naturally led to my
taking part in the actions of 5 June 1832, and being obliged to spend
three months' absence in Switzerland and two in Italy.
But, in the meantime, as I have said, _Napoléon_ was to be acted on
the following day, a literary event that was little calculated to
restore me to the king's political good books. This time, the poor
duc d'Orléans did _not_ come and ask me to intercede with his father
to be allowed to go to the Odéon. _Napoléon_ was a success, but only
from pure chance: its literary value was pretty nearly nil. The rôle
of the spy was the only real original creation; all the rest was done
with paste and scissors. There was some hissing amongst the applause,
and (a rare thing with an author) I was almost of the opinion of those
who hissed. But the expenses, with Frédérick playing the principal
part, and Lockroy and Stockleit the secondary ones; with costumes
and decorations and the burning of the Kremlin, and the retreat of
Bérésina, and especially the passion of five years at Saint Helena,
amounting to a hundred thousand francs; how could it, with all this,
have been anything but a success? Delaistre acted the part of Hudson
Lowe. I remember they were obliged to send the theatre attendants
back with him each night to keep him from being stoned on his way
home. The honours of the first night belonged by right to Frédérick
far more than to me. Frédérick had just begun to make his fine and
great reputation, a reputation conscientiously earned and well
deserved. He had made his first appearances at the Cirque; then, as
we have stated, he came to act at the Odéon, in the part of one of
the brothers in _Les Macchabées_, by M. Guiraud; he next returned to
the Ambigu, where he created the parts of Cartouche and of Cardillac,
and, subsequently, he went to the Porte-Saint-Martin, where his name
had become famous by his Méphistophélès, Marat and Le Joueur. He was
a privileged actor, after the style of Kean, full of defects, but as
full, also, of fine qualities; he was a genius in parts requiring
violence, strength, anger, sarcasm, caprice or buffoonery. At the same
time, in summing up the gifts of this eminent actor, it is useless
to expect of him attributes that Bocage possessed in such characters
as the man _Antony_, and in _La Tour de Nesle._ Bocage and Frédérick
combined gave us the qualities that Talma, in his prime, gave us by
himself. Frédérick finally returned to the Odéon, where he played
le Duresnel in _La Mère et la Fille_ most wonderfully; and where he
next played _Napoléon._ But Frédérick's great dramatic talents do not
stand out most conspicuously in the part of _Napoléon._ To speak of
him adequately, we must dwell upon his _Richard Darlington_, _Lucrèce
Borgia, Kean_ and _Buy Bias._
In this manner did I stride across the invisible abyss that divided one
year from another, and passed from the year 1830 to that of 1831, which
brought me insensibly to my twenty-ninth year.
BOOK II
CHAPTER I
The Abbé Châtel--The programme of his church--The Curé of
Lèves and M. Clausel de Montais--The Lévois embrace the
religion of the primate of the Gauls--Mass in French--The
Roman curé--A dead body to inter
A triple movement of a very remarkable character arose at this
time: political, literary and social. It seemed as though after the
Revolution of 1793, which had shaken, overturned and destroyed things
generally, society grew frightened and exerted all its strength upon a
general reorganisation. This reconstruction, it is true, was more like
that of the Tower of Babel than of Solomon's Temple. We have spoken
about the literary builders and of the political too; now let us say
something about the social and religious reconstructors.
The first to show signs of existence was the Abbé Châtel.
On 20 February 1831, the French Catholic Church, situated in the
Boulevard Saint-Denis opened with this programme--
"The ecclesiastic authorities who constitute the French
Catholic Church propose, among other reforms, to celebrate
all its religious ceremonies, as soon as circumstances
will allow, in the popular tongue. The ministers of this
new church exercise the offices of their ministry without
imposing any remuneration. The offertory is entirely
voluntary; people need not even feel obliged to pay for
their seats. No collection of any kind will disturb the
meditation of the faithful during the holy offices.
"We do not recognise any other impediments to marriage than
those which are set forth by the civil law. Consequently,
we will bestow the nuptial benediction on all those who
shall present themselves to us provided with a certificate,
proving the marriage to have taken place at the _mairie_,
even in the case of one of the contracting parties being of
the reformed or other religious sect."
I need hardly say that the Abbé Châtel was excommunicated, put on the
index and pronounced a heretic. But he continued saying mass in French
all the same, and marrying after the civil code and not after the
canons of the Church, and not charging anything for his seats. In spite
of the advantages the new order of religious procedure offered, I do
not know that it made great progress in Paris. As for its growth in the
provinces, I presume it was restricted, or partially so, to one case
that I witnessed towards the beginning of 1833.
I was at Levéville, staying at the château of my dear and excellent
friend, Auguste Barthélemy, one of those inheritors of an income of
thirty thousand francs, who would have created a revolution in society
in 1852, if society had not in 1851 been miraculously saved by the
_coup d'état_ of 2 December 1851, when news was brought to us that the
village of Lèves was in a state of open revolution. This village stands
like an outpost on the road from Chartres to Paris and to Dreux; so
much for its topography. Now, it had the reputation of being one of the
most peaceful villages in the whole of the Chartrian countryside, so
much for its morality. What unforeseen event could therefore have upset
the village of Lèves? This was what had happened--
Lèves possessed that rare article, a curé it adored! He was a fine and
estimable priest of about forty years of age, a _bon vivant_, giving
men handshakes that made them yell with pain; chucking maidens under
their chins till they blushed again; on Sundays being present at the
dances with his cassock tucked up into his girdle; which permitted of
the display, like Mademoiselle Duchesnois in Alzire, of a well-turned
sturdy leg; urging his parishioners to shake off the cares of the week,
to the sound of the violin and clarionet; pledging a health with the
deepest of the drinkers, and playing piquet with great proficiency.
He was called Abbé Ledru, a fine name which, like those of the first
kings of France, seemed to be derived both from his physical and mental
qualities. All these qualities (to which should be added the absence of
the orthodox niece) were extremely congenial to the natives of Lèves,
but were not so fortunate as to be properly appreciated by the Bishop
of Chartres, M. Clausel de Montais. True, the absence of a niece,
which the Abbé Ledru viewed in the light of an advantage, could prove
absolutely nothing, or, rather, it proved this--that the Abbé Ledru had
never regarded the tithes as seriously abolished, and, consequently,
exacted toll with all the goodwill in the world from his parishioners,
or, to speak more accurately, from his female parishioners. M. Clausel
de Montais was then, as he is still, one of the strictest prelates
among the French clergy; only, now he is twenty years older than he
was then, which fact has not tended to soften his rigidness. When
Monseigneur de Montais heard rumours, whether true or false, he
immediately recalled the Abbé Ledru without asking the opinion of the
inhabitants of Lèves, or warning a soul. If a thunderbolt had fallen
upon the village of Lèves out of a cloudless sky it could not have
produced a more unlooked-for sensation. The husbands cried at the top
of their voices that they would keep their curé, the wives cried out
even louder than their husbands and the daughters exclaimed loudest of
all. The inhabitants of Lèves rose up together and gathered in front
of their bereft church; they counted up their numbers, men, women and
children; altogether there were between eleven and twelve hundred
souls. They dispatched a deputation of four hundred to M. Clausel de
Montais. It comprised all the men of between twenty and sixty in the
village. The deputation set out; it looked like a small army, except
that it was without drums or swords or rifles. Those who had sticks
laid them against the town doors lest the sight of them should frighten
Monseigneur, the bishop. The deputies presented themselves at the
bishop's palace and were shown in. They laid the object of their visit
before the prelate and insistently demanded the reinstatement of the
Curé Ledru. M. Clausel de Montais replied after the fashion of Sylla--
"I can at times alter my plans--but my decrees are like those of fate,
unalterable!"
They entreated and implored--it was useless!
What was the origin of M. de Montal's hatred towards the poor Abbé
Ledru? We will explain it, since these Memoirs were written with the
intention of searching to the bottom of things and of laying bare the
trifling causes that bring about great results. The Abbé Ledru had
subscribed towards those who were wounded during July; he had made a
collection in favour of the Poles; he had dressed the drummer of the
National Guards of his commune out of his own pocket; in brief, the
Abbé Ledru was a patriot; whilst M. de Montals, on the contrary, was
not merely an ardent partisan, but also a great friend, of Charles X.,
and, according to report, one of the instigators of the Ordinances of
July. It will be imagined that, after this, the diocese was not large
enough to hold both the bishop and the curé within its boundaries. The
lesser one had to give in. M. de Montals planted his episcopal sandal
upon the Abbé Ledru and crushed him mercilessly!
The deputies returned to those who had sent them. As the Curé Ledru
was enjoined to leave the presbytery immediately, a rich farmer in the
district offered him a lodging and the church was closed. But, although
the church was shut up, the need was still felt for some sort of
religion. Now, as the peasantry of Lèves were not very particular as to
the sort of religion they had, provided they had something, they made
inquiries of the Abbé Ledru if there existed among the many religions
of the various peoples of the earth one which would allow them to
dispense with M. Clausel de Montals. The Abbé Ledru replied that there
was that form of religion practised by the Abbé Châtel, and asked his
parishioners if that would suit them. They found it possessed one
great advantage in that they could follow the liturgy, which hitherto
they had never done, as it was said, in French instead of Latin. The
inhabitants of Lèves pronounced with one common voice, that it was not
so much the religion they clung to, as the priest, and that they would
be delighted to understand what had hitherto been incomprehensible
to them. The Abbé Ledru went to Paris to take a few lessons of the
leader of the French church, and, when sufficiently initiated into the
new form of religion, he returned to Lèves. His return was made the
occasion of a triumphant fête! A splendid barn just opposite their
old Roman church, which had been closed more out of the scorn of the
Lévois than because of the bishop's anger, was placed at his service
and transformed into a place of worship. Everyone, as for the temporary
altars at the fête of Corpus Christi, brought his share of adornment;
some the covering for the Holy Table, some altar candles, some the
crucifix or the ciborium; the carpenter put up the benches; the glazier
put glass into the windows; the river supplied the lustral water and
all was ready by the following Sunday.
I have already mentioned that we were staying at the Château de
Levéville. I did not know the Abbé Châtel and was ignorant of his
religious theories; so I thought it a good opportunity for initiating
myself into the doctrine of the primate of the Gauls. I therefore
suggested to Barthélemy that we should go and hear the Châtellaisian
mass; he agreed and we set off. It was somewhat more tedious than in
Latin, as one was almost obliged to listen. But that was the only
difference we could discover between the two forms. Of course we were
not the only persons in the neighbourhood of Chartres who had been
informed of the schism that had broken out between the Church of
Lèves and the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church; M. de Montals
was perfectly acquainted with what was going on, and had hoped there
would be some scandal during the mass for him to carp at: but the mass
was celebrated without scandal, and the village of Lèves, which had
listened to the whole of the divine office, left the barn quite as much
edified as though leaving a proper church.
But the result was fatal; the example might become infectious--people
were strongly inclined towards Voltairism in 1830. The bishop was
seized with great anger and, still more, with holy terror. What would
happen if all the flock followed the footsteps of the erring sheep?
The bishop would be left by himself alone, and his episcopal crook
would become useless. A _Roman_ priest must at once be supplied to the
parish of Lèves, who could combat the _French_ curé with whom it had
provided itself. The news of this decision reached the Lévois, who
again assembled together and vowed to hang the priest, no matter who he
was, who should come forward to enter upon the reversion of the office
of the Abbé Ledru. An event soon happened which afforded the bishop tip
opportunity of putting his plan into execution, and for the Lievois to
keep their vow. A Lèves peasant died. This peasant, in spite-of M. de
Montal's declaration, had, before he died, asked for the presence of
a Catholic priest, which consolation had been refused him; but, as he
was not yet buried, the bishop decided that, as compensation, he should
be interred with the full rites of the Latin Church. This happened
on Monday, 13 March 1833. On the 14th, Monseigneur, the Bishop of
Chartres, despatched to Lèves a curate of his cathedral named the Abbé
Duval. The choice was a good one and suitable under the circumstances.
The Abbé Duval was by no means one of that timid class of men who are
soon made anxious and frightened by the least thing; he was, on the
contrary, a man of energetic character with a fine carriage, whose tall
figure was quite as well adapted to the wearing of the cuirass of a
carabinier as of a priest's cassock. So the Abbé Duval started on his
journey. He was not in entire ignorance of the dangers he was about to
incur; but he was unconscious of the fact that no missionary entering
any Chinese or Thibetan town had ever been so near to martyrdom. The
report of the Roman priest's arrival soon spread through the village of
Lèves. Everybody at once retired into his house and shut his doors and
windows. The poor abbé might at first have imagined that he had been
given the cure of a city of the dead like Herculaneum or Pompeii. But,
when he reached the centre of the village, he saw that all the doors
opened surreptitiously and the windows were slily raised a little; and
in a minute he and the mayor, who accompanied him, were surrounded by
about thirty peasants who called upon him to go back. We must do the
mayor and abbé the justice to say that they tried to offer resistance;
but, at the end of a quarter of an hour, the cries became so furious
and the threats so terrible, that the mayor took the advantage of being
within reach of his house to slink away and shut the door behind him,
abandoning the Abbé Duval to his unhappy fate. It was extremely mean on
the part of the mayor, but what can one expect! Every magistrate is not
a Bailly, just as every president is not a Boissy-d'Anglais--consult,
rather, M. Sauzet, M. Buchez and M. Dupin! Luckily for the poor abbé,
at this critical moment a member of the council of the préfecture who
was well known and much respected by the inhabitants of Lèves passed by
in his carriage, inquired the cause of the uproar, pronounced in favour
of the abbé, took possession of him and drove him back to Chartres.
Meanwhile the dead man waited on!
CHAPTER II
Fine example of religious toleration--The Abbé Dallier--The
Circes of Lèves--Waterloo after Leipzig--The Abbé Dallier is
kept as hostage--The barricades--The stones of Chartres--The
outlook--Preparations for fighting
Although the Lévois had liberated their prisoner, they realised, none
the less, that war was declared; threats and coarse words had been
hurled at the bishop's head, but they knew his grace's character too
well to expect that he would consider himself defeated. That did not
matter, though! They had made up their minds to push their faith in
the new religion to the extreme test of martyrdom, if need be! In the
meantime, as there was nothing better to do, they proposed to get rid
of the dead man, the innocent cause of all this rumpus. He had, it
was said, abjured the Abbé Ledru with his last breath; but it was not
an assured fact and the report might even have been set about by the
bishop! moreover, new forms of religion are tolerant: the Abbé Ledru
knew that he must lay the foundations of his on the side of leniency;
he forgave the dead man his momentary defection, supposing he had one,
said a French mass for him and buried him according to the rites of
the Abbé Châtel! Alas! the poor dead man seemed quite indifferent to
the tongue in which they intoned mass over him and the manner in which
they buried him! They waited from 24 March until 29 April--nearly six
weeks--before receiving any fresh attack from high quarters, and before
the bishop showed any signs of his existence. The Abbé Ledru continued
to say mass, and the Lévois thought they were fully authorised to
follow the rite that suited them best for the good of their souls.
But Sunday, 29 April, came at last, the date which the bishop and
préfet had fixed for the re-opening of the Roman Church and the
installation of a new priest. In the morning, a squadron of the 4th
regiment of rifles and a half section of the gendarmerie came and
took up their position in front of the church. An hour later than the
soldiers, the Préfet of Rigny arrived, also the commander-general of
the department and the chief of the gendarmerie. They brought with them
a new abbé, Abbé Dallier. This priest came supported by a respectable
body of armed force to reinstate the true God in the church. Things
began to wear the look of a parody from the _Lutrin._ Notwithstanding
all this, the whole of the population of Lèves had gradually collected
in the street that we will call La rue des Grands-Prés, although
I am very much afraid that we are really its spouses. To prevent
the re-opening of the Latin Church, the women, who were even more
bitter than the men against the re-opening, had crowded themselves
together under the porch. The préfet tried to break through their
ranks, followed by a locksmith; for the Lévois threw the keys of the
church into the river when the Abbé Duval arrived. As the locksmith
possessed no claims of an administrative nature, it was to him they
addressed their outcries and threats. These rose to such a swelling
diapason that the poor devil took fright and fled. It will be seen
that the protection of the préfet only half assured him. The example
proved contagious: for, whether the préfet in his turn gave way to
fright at these cries, whether, without the locksmith, any attempts
to open the church doors were useless, he too beat a retreat. It is
true, however, that they had just told him that the riflemen--seduced
by the blandishments of the women of Lèves, as the King of Ithaca's
companions were by the witchcraft of Circe--had forgotten themselves
so far before the arrival of the authorities above mentioned, as to
shout: "Vive l'Abbé Ledru!" "Vive l'Église française!" It was rather a
seditious cry, at a period when the army neither voted nor deliberated!
Whatever the cause, the préfet, as we have said, beat a retreat. Just
at this moment the Abbé Ledru appeared at the door of his barn. Four
women at once constituted themselves as alms-collectors, using their
outstretched aprons as alms-boxes. The total of the four collections
was employed in the purchase of eau-de-vie for the soldiers. Was it
the Abbé Ledru who gave such corrupt advice? or was it, indeed, the
alms-collectors' own idea? Woman is ever deceitful and the devil sly!
The soldiers, after shouting "Vive l'Abbé Ledru!" drank to that abbé's
health and to the supremacy of the French Church--this was, indeed,
a serious thing! If he had known how to take advantage of the frame
of mind the soldiers were in, the Abbé Ledru would have been equal
to laying siege to Rome, as did the Constable of Bourbon. But his
ambition, probably, fell short of this and he did not even make the
suggestion.
Meanwhile, the préfet, the general-commander of the department and
the chief of the gendarmerie were debating at the mairie as to the
action they should take. The officers of the riflemen felt that their
men were almost escaping from their control: the squadron threatened
to appoint the primate of the Gauls as its chaplain, and to proclaim
that, if the Roman Catholic religion was the ritual of the State the
French form should be that of the Army. It was decided to send for the
king's attorney, who was supposed to have a shrewd head. He arrived
an hour later with two deputies and a judge. The squadron of riflemen
continued drinking the health of the Abbé Ledru and to the supremacy
of the French Church. Reinforced by four magistrates, the préfet,
commander-general of the department and chief of the gendarmerie took
their way to the rue des Grands-Prés. The street was now literally
packed. They meant to make a second attempt upon the church. They had
reckoned that this body of military dignitaries, civil and magisterial,
would have an awe-inspiring effect on the crowd. Bah! the people only
began shouting at the top of their voices--
"Down with the Carlists!" "Down with the Jesuits!"
"Down with the bishop!" ... "Long live the King and the French Church!"
The préfet tried to speak, the king's attorney tried to demand, the
deputies tried threats, the judge to open the code, the general
tried to draw his sword, the chief of the gendarmerie attempted to
flourish his sabre; but every one of their efforts were frustrated and
drowned in the singing of _La Parisienne_ and _La Marseillaise._ These
gentlemen had a good mind to make the call to arms, but the attitude
of the troop was too doubtful for them to risk the chance. The préfet
withdrew a second time, followed by the general, chief of gendarmerie,
king's attorney, deputies and the judge. It was a case of Waterloo
after Leipzig! A minute later, the troop received orders to quit the
rue des Grands-Prés; and, as there was nothing hostile against the
population in such an order, the troop obeyed. Soldiers and inhabitants
embraced and fraternised and drank together for the third time,
then separated. The Lévois believed that the préfet had definitely
renounced the idea of opening the church; but their delusion was not
of long duration. News came to them that an orderly had been sent off
to Chartres, charged with the commission of bringing back another
squadron of rifles and all the reinforcements they could possibly
muster. Whereupon the cry of "To arms!" was set up. At this war cry,
a man in a cassock attempted to fly--it was the Abbé Dallier, who had
been completely forgotten by the préfet, general, chief of gendarmerie,
king's attorney, the two deputies and the judge, in their precipitation
to beat a retreat! The poor abbé was caught by his cassock and made
prisoner and shut up in a cellar, while they announced to him, through
the grating, that he was to be kept as hostage and that if the
slightest injury happened to any inhabitant of the village commune, the
penalty of retaliation would be applied to him in full force. They next
began to construct barricades at each end of the rue des Grands-Prés,
where stood, as we know, both the Latin and French churches. For the
material wherewith to build these barricades, which rose up as quick
as thought, a wooden shoemaker gave three or four beams, a carter
brought two or three waggons, the schoolmaster took his desks and
the inhabitants made an offering of their shutters. The street lads
collected heaps of stones.
I do not know whether my readers are acquainted with the Chartres
stones; they are pretty ones that vary from the size of a pigeon's egg
to that of an ostrich, and when broken, either by art or nature, they
show an edge as sharp as that of a razor. Chartres is partly paved with
these stones, and the paviors are usually careful to place the sharp
edges upwards so that the pedestrian's boots may come in contact with
them; which makes one think with some justification that the worthy
guild of shoemakers must give the paviors a consideration. One of
my friends, Noël Parfait, a true Chartrian, and jealous, as are all
true-hearted patriots, of the honour of his country, maintains that
Chartres was once a seaport, and that these stones are clearly the
shingle that the ocean swell threw up on the beach in former times. In
an hour's time, there was enough ammunition behind each barricade to
hold a siege for eight days. Projectiles, also, grew under the hands,
or rather, the feet, of the providers. One individual climbed the
church tower, to watch the Chartres road in order to sound the alarm
as soon as the troop appeared in sight. The Abbé Ledru blessed the
fighters, and invoked the God of armies in French; then they waited,
ready for anything that might happen. All these preparations had been
made in sight of the riflemen and gendarmes who, withdrawn to the
Grand-Rue, looked on at all these preparations for fighting without
protest. Truly, the wretched fellows were won over to heresy.
Ten minutes after the finishing of the barricades, the alarm bell
sounded. It signified that troops had left Chartres. These troops
were preceded by a locksmith, who was brought under the escort of two
gendarmes; but the man was so railed at by the Abbé Ledru's fierce
sectaries, as soon as the first houses in Lèves were reached, that
he took advantage of a momentary hesitation on the part of the two
gendarmes to slip between the legs of the one on his right, reach a
garden and disappear into the fields! This was the second locksmith
that melted away out of the clutch of authority. It reminds one of
those rearguards of the army of Russia which slipped through Ney's
hands! The new troops came on the scene full of alacrity. Care was
taken that they did not come into contact with the disaffected
squadron, and they decided to take the barricades by main force. But,
at the same time, about thirty Chartrain patriots hurried up to the
assistance of the insurgents--amateurs, desirous of taking their part
in the dangers of their brothers of Lèves. They were greeted with
shouts of joy; _La Parisienne_ and _La Marseillaise_ were thundered
forth more loudly, and the tocsin rang more wildly than ever! The
préfet and the general headed the riflemen, and the force marched up to
the barricade.
CHAPTER III
Attack of the barricade--A sequel to Malplaquet--The
Grenadier--The Chartrian philanthropists--Sack of the
bishop's palace--A fancy dress--How order was restored--The
culprits both small and great--Death of the Abbé
Ledru--Scruples of conscience of the former schismatics--The
_Dies iræ_ of Kosciusko
At this period it was still usual to summon the insurgents to withdraw,
and this the préfet did. They responded by a hailstorm of stones,
one of them hitting the general. This time, he lost all patience and
shouted--
"Forward!" and the men charged the barricade sword in hand. The Lévois
made a splendid resistance, but a dozen or more riflemen managed to
clear the obstacle; however, when they reached the other side of the
barricade, they were overwhelmed with stones, thrown down and disarmed.
Blood had flowed on both sides; and temper was roused to boiling point;
it would have gone badly with the dozen prisoners if some men, who were
either less heated or more prudent than the rest, had not carried them
off and thus saved their lives. Let us confess, with no desire whatever
of casting a slur on the army, which we would uphold at all times, and,
nowadays, more than ever, that, from that moment, every attempt of the
riflemen to take the barricade failed! But what else can be said? It
is a matter of history; as are Poitiers, Agincourt and Malplaquet! A
shower of stones fell, compared with which the one that annihilated the
Amalekites was but an April shower.
The préfet and the general finally decided to give up the enterprise;
they sounded the retreat and took their road back to Chartres. As the
insurgents did not know what to do with their prisoners, and being
afraid of a siege, and not having any desire to burden themselves with
useless mouths, the riflemen were released on parole. They could not
believe in the retreat of the troops; it was in vain the watchmen in
the tower shouted, "Victory!" The conviction did not really take hold
of the minds of the Lévois until their look-out declared that the
last soldier had entered Chartres. Such being the case, it was but
one step to turn from doubt to boldness: they began by giving aid to
the wounded; then, as no signs of any uniforms reappeared upon the
high road, by degrees they grew bolder, until they arrived at such a
pitch of enthusiasm that one of the insurgents, having ventured the
suggestion that they should march the Abbé Dallier round the walls
of Chartres, as Achilles had led Hector round the walls of Pergamus,
the proposition was received with acclamation. But, as the vanquished
man was alive and not dead, they put a rope round his neck instead of
round his ankles and the other end was placed in the hands of one of
the Abbé Ledru's most excited penitents, who went by the name of the
_Grenadier._ I need hardly add that the penitent's name was, like that
of the Abbé Ledru, conspicuous for the physical and moral qualities of
a virago. Every man filled his pockets with stones in readiness for
attack or defence, and the folk set out for Chartres, escorting the
condemned man, who marched towards martyrdom with visible distaste.
It is half a league between Lèves and Chartres; and that half league
was a real Via Dolorosa to the poor priest. The Lévois had calculated
to perfection what they were doing when they gave the rope's end to
the care of the Grenadier. When the savages of Florida wish to inflict
extreme punishment on any of their prisoners they hand the criminals
over to the women and children. When the victors reached Chartres,
they did not find the opposition they had looked for; but they found
something else equally unexpected: they saw neither préfet, nor
general, nor chief of the gendarmerie, nor king's attorney, neither
deputies nor judges; but several philanthropists approached them and
made them listen to what was styled, at the end of last century, the
language of reason--
It was not the poor priest's fault that he had been selected by the
bishop to replace the Abbé Ledru; he did not know in what esteem his
parishioners held him, he was neither more nor less blameworthy than
his predecessor, the Abbé Duval; and when the one had come to a flock
of sheep, why should another priest fall among a band of tigers? It was
the fault of the bishop, who had instantly and brutally deposed the
Abbé Ledru, and then had the audacity to appoint first one and then
another successor!
Upon this very reasonable discourse, the scales fell from the eyes of
the inhabitants of Lèves, as from Saint Paul's, and they began to see
things in their true light. The effect of their enlightenment was to
make them untie the rope and to let the Abbé Dallier go free with many
apologies. But, at the same time, it was unanimously agreed that, since
there was a rope all ready, the bishop should be hanged with it.
When people conceive such brilliant ideas, they lose no time in
putting them into execution. So they directed their steps rapidly in
the direction of M. Clausel de Montal's sumptuous dwelling-place. But
although these avenging spirits had made all diligence, M. Clausel
de Montais had made still greater; to such an extent that, when the
hangmen arrived at the bishop's palace, they could nowhere find him
whom they had come to hang: Monseigneur the bishop had departed,
and with very good reason too! We know what happens under such
circumstances; things pay for men, and the bishop's palace had to pay
instead of the bishop. This was the era of sacrilege; the sacking
of the palace of the Archbishop of Paris had set the fashion of the
destruction of religious houses. They broke the window panes and
the mirrors over the mantelpieces, they tore down the curtains, and
transformed them into banners. Finally, they reached the billiard room,
where they fenced with the cues, and threw the balls at each other's
heads, whilst a sailor neatly cut off the cloth from the billiard
table, which he rolled into a ball and tucked under his arm. Three
or four days later, he had made a coat, waistcoat and trousers out
of it, and promenaded the streets of Lèves, amidst the enthusiastic
applause of his fellow-citizens, clad entirely in green cloth, like
one of the Earl of Lincoln's archers! But the life the Lévois led in
the palace was too delightful to last for long; authority bestirred
itself; they brought the riflemen out of their barracks once more, and
beat the rappel, and, a certain number of the National Guard having
taken up arms, they directed their combined forces upon the palace.
The attack was too completely unexpected for the spoilers to dream of
offering resistance. They went further than that, and, instead of the
wise retreat one would have expected from men who had vanquished the
troops which one is accustomed to call the best in the world, they took
to flight as rapidly as possible: leaping out of the windows into the
garden and scaling the walls, they ran across the fields and regained
Lèves in complete disorder. That same night every trace of barricading
disappeared. Next day, each inhabitant of Lèves attended to his work or
play or business. They were thinking nothing about the recent events,
when, suddenly, they saw quite an army arriving at Chartres from
Paris, Versailles and Orléans. This army was carrying twenty pieces
of artillery with it. It was commanded by General Schramm, and was
coming to restore order. Order had been re-established for the last
fortnight, unassisted! That did not matter, however; seeing there had
been disorder, they were marching on Lèves to carry out a razzia.
The threatened village quietly watched this left-handed justice
approach: its eleven to twelve hundred inhabitants modestly stood at
their doors and windows. Peace and innocence reigned throughout from
east to west, from north to south; anyone entering might have thought
it the valley of Tempe, when Apollo tended the flocks of King Admetus.
The inhabitants of Lèves looked as though they were the actors in
that play (I cannot recall which it is), where Odry had sent for the
commissary at the wrong moment and, when the commissary arrived,
everybody was in unity again; so that everybody asked in profound
surprise--
"Who sent for a commissary? Did you? or you? or you?"
"No.... I asked for a commissionaire," replied Odry; "just an ordinary
messenger, that is all!" and the agent took himself off abashed and
with empty hands.
That happened in the piece, but not exactly in the same way at Lèves.
A score of persons were arrested, and these were divided into two
categories: the least guilty and the most guilty. The least guilty were
handed over to the jurisdiction of the police; the guiltiest were sent
before the Court of Assizes. A very curious thing resulted from this
separation. At that time, the _police correctionelle_ always sentenced,
whilst the jury acquitted only too eagerly. The least guilty men who
appeared before the _police correctionnelle_ were found guilty, while
the most culpable, who were tried before a jury, were acquitted. The
sailor in the green cloth was one of the most guilty, and was produced
before the jury as an indisputable piece of evidence. The jury declared
that billiard tables had not a monopoly for clothing in green; that
if a citizen liked to dress like a billiard table, why! political
opinions were free, so a man surely might indulge his individual fancy
in his style of dress. The religious question was decided in favour of
the French Church, and this decision lasted as long as the Abbé Ledru
himself, namely, four or five years; during which period of time the
parish of Lèves was separated from the general religion of the kingdom,
in France, without producing any great sensation. At the end of that
time, the Abbé Ledru committed the stupidity of dying. I am unaware
in what tongue and rites he was interred; but I do know that, the day
after his death, the Lévois asked the bishop for another priest, and
this bishop proved a kind father to his prodigal children and sent them
one.
The third was received with as many honours as the two previously
appointed had been received with insults on their arrival. The French
Church was closed, the Roman Catholic religion re-established, and the
new priest returned to the old presbytery; the Grenadier became the
most fervent and humble of his penitents, and the tongue of Cicero and
Tacitus again became the dominical one of the Lévois, returned to the
bosom of Holy Church.
But Barthélemy wrote to me, a little time ago, that there were serious
scruples in some weak minds. Were the infants baptised, the adults
married, and the old people buried by the Abbé Ledru during his schism
with Gregory XVI., really properly baptised and married and buried? It
did not matter to the baptised souls, who could return and be baptised
by an orthodox hand; nor again to the married ones, who had but to have
a second mass said over them and to pass under the canopy once more,
but it mattered terribly to the dead; for they could neither be sought
for nor recognised one from another. Happily God will recognise those
whom the blindness of human eyes prevents from seeing, and I am sure
that He will forgive the Lévois their temporary heresy for the sake of
their good intention.
This event, and the conversion of Casimir Delavigne to the observances
of the French religion, were the culminating points in the fortunes of
the Abbé Châtel, primate of the Gauls. Casimir Delavigne, who gave his
sanction to all new phases of power; who sanctioned the authority of
Louis XVIII. in his play entitled, _Du besoin de s'unir après le depart
des étrangers_; who sanctioned the prerogative of Louis-Philippe in his
immortal, or say rather everlasting, _Parisienne_; Casimir Delavigne
sanctioned the authority of the primate of the Gauls by his translation
of the _Dies irœ, dies ilia_, which was chanted by Abbé Châtel's
choristers at the mass which the latter said in French at the funeral
service of Kosciusko. The Abbé Châtel possessed this good quality, that
he openly declared for the people as against kings.
Here is the poem; it is little known and deserves to be better known
than it is. It is, therefore, in the hope of increasing its reputation
that we bring it to the notice of our readers. It was sung at the
French Church on 23 February 1831:--
"Jour de colère, jour de larmes,
Où le sort, qui trahit nos armes,
Arrêta son vol glorieux!
À tes côtés, ombre chérie,
Elle tomba, notre patrie,
Et ta main lui ferma les yeux!
Tu vis, de ses membres livides,
Les rois, comme des loups avides,
S'arracher les lambeaux épars:
Le fer, dégouttant de carnage,
Pour en grossir leur héritage,
De son cadavre fit trois parts.
La Pologne ainsi partagée,
Quel bras humain l'aurait vengée?
Dieu seul pouvait la secourir!
Toi-même tu la crus sans vie;
Mais, son cœur, c'était Varsovie;
Le feu sacré n'y put mourir!
Que ta grande ombre se relève;
Secoue, en reprenant ton glaive,
Le sommeil de l'éternité!
J'entends le signal des batailles,
Et le chant de tes funérailles
Est un hymne de liberté!
Tombez, tombez, boiles funèbres!
La Pologne sort des ténèbres,
Féconde en nouveaux défenseurs!
Par la liberté ranimée,
De sa chaîne elle s'est armée
Pour en frapper ses oppresseurs.
Cette main qu'elle te présente
Sera bientôt libre et sanglante;
Tends-lui la main du haut des deux.
Descends pour venger ses injures,
Ou pour entourer ses blessures
De ton linceul victorieux.
Si cette France qu'elle appelle,
Trop loin--ne pent vaincre avec elle,
Que Dieu, du moins, soit son appui.
Trop haut, si Dieu ne peut l'entendre,
Eh bien! mourons pour la défendre,
Et nous irons nous plaindre à lui!"
We do not believe to-day that the Abbé Châtel is dead; but, if we judge
of his health by the cobwebs which adorn the hinges and bolts of the
French Church, we shall not be afraid to assert that he is very ill
indeed.
CHAPTER IV
The Abbé de Lamennais--His prediction of the Revolution of
1830--Enters the Church--His views on the Empire--Casimir
Delavigne, Royalist--His early days--Two pieces of poetry
by M. de Lamennais--His literary vocation--_Essay on
Indifference in Religious Matters_--Reception given to this
book by the Church--The academy of the château de la Chesnaie
We now ask permission to approach a more serious subject, and to
dedicate this chapter (were it only for the purpose of forming a
contrast with the preceding chapters) to one of the finest and greatest
of modern geniuses, to the Abbé de Lamennais. We speak of a period two
months after the Revolution of 1830.
Out of the wilds of Brittany, that is, from the château de la Chesnaie,
there appeared a priest of forty, small of stature, nervous and pale,
with stubbly hair, and high forehead, the head compressed at the
sides as though it were enclosed by walls of bone; a sign, according
to Gall, indicative of the absence in man of cupidity, cunning and
acquisitiveness; the nose long, with dilated nostrils, denoting high
intelligence, according to Lavater; and, last, a piercing glance
and a determined chin. Everything connected with the man's external
appearance revealed his Celtic origin. Such was the Abbé DE LA MENNAIS,
whose name was written in three different ways, like that of M. DE
LA MARTINE, each different way in which he wrote it indicating the
different phases of the development of his mind and the progress of
his opinion. We say of his opinion and not opinions, for these three
phases, as in Raphael's three styles, mean, not a change of style, but
a perfecting of style.
Into the thick of the agitation going on in silent thought or open
speech, the austere Breton came to teach the world a word they had
not expected; in fact at that time M. de la Mennais was looked upon
as a supporter of both _Throne_ and _Church._ The throne had just
fallen, and the Church was shaking violently from the changes which
the events of 1830 had wrought in social institutions. But the world
was mistaken with regard to the views of the great writer, because it
only saw in him the author of _L'Essai sur l'indifférence en matière
de religion_, a strange book, in which that virile imagination strove
against his century, struggling with the spirit of the times, as Jacob
strove with the angel. People forgot that in 1828, during the Martignac
Ministry, the same de Lamennais had hurled a book into the controversy
which had predicted a certain degree of intellectual revival: I refer
to _Du progrès de la Revolution et de la guerre contre l'Église._ In
this book, the Revolution of 1830 was foretold as an inevitable event.
Listen carefully to his words--
"And even to-day when there no longer really exists any
government, since it has become the tool and the plaything
of the boldest or of the most powerful; to-day, when
democracy triumphs openly, is there any more calm in its
own breast? Could one find, moreover, no matter what the
nature of his opinions may be, one man, one single man, who
desires what is, and who _desires only that and nothing
more?_ Never, on the other hand, has he more eagerly longed
for a new order of things; _everybody cries out for, the
whole world is calling for, a revolution, whether they admit
it or are conscious of it themselves._ Yes, it will come,
because it is imperative that nations shall be unitedly
educated and chastised; _because, according to the common
laws of Providence, a revolution is indispensable for the
preparation of a true social regeneration. France will not
be the only scene of action: it will extend everywhere where
Liberalism rules either in doctrine or in sentiment; and
under this latter form it is universal._"
In the preface to the same book, M. de Lamennais had already said--
"That France and Europe are marching towards fresh
revolutions is now apparent to everybody. The most
undaunted hopes which have fed themselves for long on
interest or stupidity give way before the evidence of facts,
in the face of which it is no longer possible for anyone to
delude himself. Nothing can remain as it is, everything is
unsettled, totters towards a change. _Conturbatœ sunt gentes
et inclinata sunt regna._"
We underline nothing in this second paragraph because we should have to
underline the whole. Let us pass on to the last words of the book--
"The time is coming when it will be said _to those who are
in darkness_: 'Behold the light!' And they will arise,
and, with gaze fixed on that divine radiance will, with
repentance and surprise, yet filled with joy, worship that
spirit which restores all disorder, reveals all truth,
enlightens every intelligence: _oriens ex alto._"
The above expressions are those of a prophet as well as of a poet; they
reveal what neither the Guizots, the Molés, the Broglies, nor even the
Casimir Périers saw, nor, indeed, any of those we are accustomed to
style _statesmen_ foresaw.
In this work M. de Lamennais appealed solemnly "for the alliance of
Catholics with all sincere Liberal spirits." This book is really in
some measure the hinge on which turned the gate through which M. de
Lamennais passed from his first political phase to the second.
M. de Lamennais was born at St. Malo, in the house next to that in
which Chateaubriand was born, and a few yards only from that in which
Broussais came into the world. So that the old peaceful town gave us,
in less than fifteen years, Chateaubriand, Broussais and Lamennais,
names representative of the better part of the poetry, science and
philosophy of the first half of the nineteenth century. M. de Lamennais
had, like Chateaubriand, passed his childhood by the sea, had listened
to the roar of the ocean, watching the waves which are lost to sight on
infinite horizons, eternally returning to break against the cliffs, as
the human wave returns to break itself against invincible necessity. He
preserved, I recollect (for one feature in my existence coincided with
that of the author of _Paroles d'un Croyant_), he preserved, I repeat,
from his earliest childhood, the vivid and clear recollections which he
connected with the grand and rugged scenery of his beloved Brittany.
"I can still hear," he said to us, at a dinner where the principal
guests were himself, the Abbé Lacordaire, M. de Montalembert, Listz
and myself--"the cry of certain sea-birds which passed _barking_ over
my head. Some of those rocks, which have looked down pityingly for
numberless centuries upon the angry impotent waves which perish at
their feet, are stocked with ancient legends."
M. de Lamennais related one of these in his _une Voix de prison._ It is
that of a maiden who, overtaken by the tide, on a reef of rocks, tied
her hair to the stems of sea-weeds to keep herself from being washed
off by the motion of the waves, far away from her native land.
M. de Lamennais's youth was stormy and undisciplined. He loved physical
exercises, hunting, fencing, racing and riding; strange tastes
these, as preparation for an ecclesiastical career! But it was not
from personal inclination or of his own impulse that he entered the
priesthood, but by compulsion from the noble families in the district.
On his part, the bishop of the diocese discerned in the young man a
superior intellect, a lofty character, a tendency towards meditation
and thoughtfulness, and drew him to himself by all kinds of seductions.
They spared him the trials of an ecclesiastical seminary, at which his
intractable disposition might have rebelled; but, priest though he was,
M. de Lamennais did not discontinue to ride the most fiery horses of
the town, or to practise shooting. It was the Empire, that régime of
glory and of despotism, which wounded the sensitive nerves of the young
priest of stern spirit and Royalist sympathies. Brittany remembered her
exiled princes, and the family of M. de Lamennais was among those which
faithfully preserved the worship of the past; not that their family
was of ancient nobility: the head of the house was a shipowner who had
made his wealth by distant voyages, and who was ennobled at the close
of the last century for services rendered to the town of St. Malo. The
Empire fell, and M. de Lamennais, casting a bird's-eye view over that
stupendous ruin, wrote in 1815--
"Wars of extermination sprang up again; despotism counted
her expenditure in men, as people reckon the revenue of an
estate; generations were mowed down like grass; and men
daily sold, bought, exchanged and given away like flocks of
little value, often not even knowing whose property they
were, to such an extent did a monstrous policy multiply
these infamous transactions! Whole nations were put in
circulation like pieces of money!"
To profess such principles was, of course, equivalent to looking
towards the Restoration, that dawn without a sun. Moreover, it should
not be forgotten that, in those days, all young men of letters were
carried away with the same intoxication for monarchical memories.
Poets are like women--I do not at all know who said that poets were
women--they make much of a favourable misfortune. This enthusiasm for
_the person of the king_ was shared, in different degrees, even by
men whose names, later, were connected with Liberalism. Heaven alone
knows whether any king was ever less fitted than Louis XVIII. for
calling forth tenderness and idolatry! But that did not hinder Casimir
Delavigne from exclaiming--
"Henri, divin Henri, toi que fus grand et bon,
Qui chassas l'Espagnol, et finis nos misères,
Les partis sont d'accord en prononçant ton nom;
Henri, de les enfants fais un peuple de frères!
Ton image déjà semble nous protéger:
Tu renais! avec toi renaît l'indépendance!
Ô roi le plus Français dont s'honore la France,
Il est dans ton destin de voir fuir l'étranger!
Et toi, son digne fils, après vingt ans d'orage,
Règne sur des sujets par toi-même ennoblis;
Leurs droits sont consacrés dans ton plus bel ouvrage.
Oui, ce grand monument, affermi d'âge en âge,
Doit couvrir de son ombre et le peuple et les lys
Il est des opprimés l'asile impérissable,
La terreur du tyran, du ministre coupable,
Le temple de nos libertés!
Que la France prospère en tes mains magnanimes;
Que tes jours soient sereins, tes décrets respectés,
Toi qui proclames ces maximes:
'Ô rois, pour commander, obéissez aux lois!
Peuple, en obéissant, sois libre sous tes rois!'"
True, fifteen years later, the author of _La Semaine de Paris_ sang,
almost in the same lines of the accession to the throne of King
Louis-Philippe. Rather read for yourself--
"Ô toi, roi citoyen, qu'il presse dans ses bras, Aux cris
d'un peuple entier dont les transports sont justes. Tu fus
mon bienfaiteur ... Je ne te loûrai pas: Les poètes des
rois sont leurs actes augustes. Que ton règne te chante, et
qu'on dise après nous: 'Monarque, il fut sacré par la raison
publique; Sa force fut la loi; l'honneur, sa politique; Son
droit divin, l'amour de tous!'"
Let us read again the lines we have just quoted--those which were
addressed to Louis XVIII. we mean--and we shall see that Victor Hugo,
Lamartine and Lamennais never expressed their delight at the return of
the Bourbons in more endearing terms than did Casimir Delavigne. What,
then, was the reason why the Liberals of that day and the Conservatives
of to-day bitterly reproached the first three of the above-mentioned
authors for these pledges of affection for the Elder Branch, whilst
they always ignored or pretended to ignore the covert royalism of the
author of _Messéniennes_? Ah! Heavens! It is because the former were
sincere in their blind, young enthusiasm, whilst the latter--let us be
allowed to say it--was not. The world forgives a political untruth, but
it does not forgive a conscientious recantation of the foolish mistakes
of a generously sympathetic heart. In the generous pity of these three
authors for the Bourbon family there was room for the shedding of a
tear for Marie-Antoinette and for Louis XVII.
M. de Lamennais hesitated, for a while, over his literary vocation,
or at least, over the direction it should take. The solitude in which
he had lived, by the sea, had filled his soul with floating dreams,
like those beauteous clouds he had often watched with his outward
eyes in the depths of the heavens. He was within an ace of writing
novels and works of fiction; he did even get so far as to write some
poetry, which, of course, he never published. Here are two lines, which
entered, as far as I can remember, into a description of scholastic
theology--
"Elle avait deux grands yeux stupidement ouverts,
Dont l'un ne voyait pas ou voyait de travers!"
M. de Lamennais then became a religious writer and a philosopher
more from force of circumstances than from inclination. His taste,
he assured us in his moments of expansion, upon which we look back
with respect and pride, would have led him by preference towards that
style of poetical prose-writing which Bernardin de Saint-Pierre had
made fashionable in _Paul et Virginie_, and Chateaubriand in _René._
So he communed with himself and, with the unerring finger of the
implacable genius of the born observer, he touched upon the wound of
his century--indifference to religious matters. Surely the cry uttered
by that gloomy storm-bird, "the gods are departing!" had good reason
for startling the pious folk and statesmen of that period! Were not
the churches filled with missions and the high roads crowded with
missionaries? Was there not the cross of Migné, the miracles of the
Prince of Hohenlohe, the apparitions and trances of Martin de Gallardon
and others? What, then, could this man mean? M. de Lamennais took, as
the motto for his book, these words from the Bible--
"_Impius, cum in profundum venerit contemnit._"
In his opinion, contempt was the sign by which he recognised the
decline of religious feeling. The seventeenth century believed, the
eighteenth denied, the nineteenth doubted.
The success of the book was immense. France, agitated by vast and
conflicting problems, a Babel wherein many voices were speaking
simultaneously, in every kind of tongue, the France of the Empire, of
the Restoration, of Carbonarism, of Liberalism and of Republicanism,
held its peace to listen to the weighty and inspired utterance of this
unknown writer: "_et siluit terra in conspectu ejus!_" The voice came
from the desert. Who had seen, who knew this man? He had dropped from
the region where eagles dwell; his name was mentioned by all lips, in
the same breath with that of Bossuet. _L'Essai sur l'indifférence_
was little read but much admired; the poets--they are the only people
who read--recognised in it a powerful imagination, at times almost an
affrighted imagination, which, both by its excesses and its terrors,
hugged, as it were, the dead body of religious belief, and shook it
roughly, hoping against hope, to bring it back to life again. Of all
prose-writers, Tacitus was the one whom the Abbé de Lamennais admired
the most; of all poets, Dante was the one he read over and over again
the most frequently; of all books, the one he knew by heart was the
Bible.
Now, it might assuredly have been believed that this citadel, intended
to protect the weak walls of Catholicism, _L'Essai sur l'indifférence
en matière de religion_, was viewed with favourable eyes by the French
clergy; no such thing! Quite the contrary; a cry went up from the
heart of the Church, not of joy or admiration, but of terror. They
were scared by the genius of the man; religion was no longer in the
habit of having an Origen, a Tertullian, or a Bossuet to defend it;
it was afraid of being supported by such a defender and, little by
little, the shudder of fear reached even as far as Rome; and the book
was very nearly placed on the _Index._ These suspicions were aroused
by the nature of the arguments of which the author made use to repel
the attacks of philosophers. The Abbé de Lamennais foresaw, through the
gloom, the causes at work undermining the old edifice of orthodoxy,
and tried to put it on a wider basis of toleration and to prop it up,
as he himself expressed it, by the exercise of common sense. To this
end he made incredible flights into metaphysical realms, to prove that
Catholicism was, and always had been, the religion of Humanity.
The Abbé de Lamennais taught in the seminaries, but his teaching was
looked upon with suspicion; and young people were forbidden the reading
of a work, which the outside world regarded as that of a misguided god
who wanted to deny man the right of freedom of thought. No suicide
was ever more heroic, never did intellect bring so much courage and
logic to the task of self-destruction. But, in reality, and from his
point of view, the Abbé de Lamennais was right: if you believe in an
infallible Church you must bravely destroy the eyes of your intellect
and extinguish the light of your soul, and, having voluntarily made
yourself blind, let yourself be led by the hand. But, however high a
solitary intellect may be placed, it is very quickly reached by the
influence of the times in which it lives.
Two or three years ago, an aeronautic friend of mine, Petin, seriously
propounded to me _viva voce_, and to the world through the medium of
the daily papers, that he had just solved the great problem of serial
navigation. He reasoned thus--
"The earth turns_--E pur si muove!_--and in the motion of rotation on
its own axis, it successively presents every part of its surface, both
inhabited and uninhabited. Now, any person, who could raise himself
up into the extreme strata of ambient air, and could find a means to
keep himself there, would be able to descend in a balloon and alight
upon whatever town on the globe he liked; he would only have to wait
until that town passed beneath his feet; in that way he could go to the
Antipodes in a dozen hours, and without any fatigue whatsoever, since
he would not stir from his position, as it would be the earth which
would move for him."
This calculation had but one flaw: it was false. The earth, in its
vast motion, carries with it every atom of the molecules of its
seething atmosphere. It is the same with great spirits which aim at
stability; without perceiving that, at the very moment when they think
they have cast anchor in the Infinite, they wake up to find they are
being carried away in spite of themselves by the irresistible movement
of their age. The spirit of Liberalism, with which the atmosphere
of the time was charged, carried away the splendid, obstinate and
lonely reason of the Abbé de Lamennais. It was about the year 1828.
Whilst fighting against the Doctrinaire School, for which he showed a
scarcely veiled contempt, M. de Lamennais sought to combine the needs
of faith with the necessities of progress; with this end in view he
had installed at his château at La Chesnaie a school of young people
whom he inculcated with his religious ideas. La Chesnaie was an ancient
château of Brittany, shaded by sturdy, centenarian oaks--those natural
philosophers, which ponder while their leaves rustle in the breeze on
the vicissitudes of man, of which changes they are impassive witnesses.
There, this priest, who was already troubled by the new spirit abroad,
educated and communed with disciples who held on from far or near to
the Church; amongst them were the Abbé Gerbert, Cyprien Robert, now
professor of Slavonic literature in the College of France, and a few
others. Work--methodical and persevering--was carried on within those
old walls, which the sea winds rocked and lashed against. This new
academy of Pythagoras studied the science of the century in order to
combat it; but, at each fresh ray of light, it recoiled enlightened,
and its recoil put weapons to be used against itself into the hands of
the enemy. That enemy was Human Thought.
CHAPTER V
The founding of _l'Avenir_--L'Abbé Lacordaire--M.
Charles de Montalembert--His article on the sacking
of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois--_l'Avenir_ and the new
literature--My first interview with M. de Lamennais--Lawsuit
against _l'Avenir_--MM. de Montalembert and Lacordaire as
schoolmasters--Their trial in the _Cour des pairs_--The
capture of Warsaw--Answer of four poets to a word spoken by
a statesman
The Revolution of 1830 came as a surprise to M. de Lamennais and his
school in the midst of these vague and restless designs. His heart,
ready to sympathise with everything that was great and generous,
had already been alienated from Royalism; already the man, poet and
philosopher, was kicking beneath the priestly robe. The century which
had just venerated and extolled his genius, reproached him under its
breath for resisting the way of progress. Intractable and headstrong by
nature, with a rugged and reclusive intellect, the Abbé de Lamennais
was by temperament a free lance. Then 1830 sounded. Sitting upon the
ruins of that upheaval, which had just swallowed up one dynasty, and
shaken the Church with the same storm and shipwreck in which that
dynasty had foundered, the philosophers of La Chesnaie took counsel
together; they said among themselves that the opposition against the
clergy, with which Liberalism had been animated since 1815, was the
result of the prominent protection which had been spread over the
Catholic priests, in face of the instability of the Powers, in face of
the roaring waves of the Revolution; and they began to question whether
it would not be advantageous to the immutable Church to separate
herself from all the tottering States. Stated thus, the question was
quickly decided. The Abbé de Lamennais thought the time had come for
him to throw himself directly and personally into the struggle. The
principles of a journal were settled, and he went. Two men entered that
career of publicity with him: the Abbé Lacordaire and Comte Charles de
Montalembert.
The Abbé Lacordaire was, at the period when I had the honour of finding
myself in communication with him on religious and political principles,
a young priest who had passed from the Bar at Paris to the Seminary
of Saint-Sulpice. After his term of probation, he had spent three
harassing years in the study of theology; he left the seminary full of
hazy ideas and turbulent instincts. His temper of mind was acrimonious,
keen and subtle; he had dark fiery eyes, delicate and mobile features,
he was pale with the pallor of the Cenobite and of a sickly complexion,
with hard, gaunt, strongly marked outlines,--so much for his face.
Attracted by the brilliancy of the Abbé de Lamennais, he fell in with
all his political views; he, too, longed for the liberty of the spirit
after due control of the flesh; the protection of the State, because of
his priesthood, was burdensome to him. He put his hand in his master's
and the covenant was sealed.
The Comte de Montalembert, on his side, was, at that time, quite a
young man, fair, with a face like a girl's, and pink cheeks, shy and
blushing; as he was short-sighted, he looked close at people through
his eye-glasses. He appealed strongly to the Abbé de Lamennais, who
felt drawn to him with a sort of paternal sympathy. Finally, Comte
Charles de Montalembert belonged to a family whose devotion to the
cause of the Elder Branch of the Bourbons was well known; but he openly
declared that he placed France in his affections before a dynasty, and
liberty before a crown.
Round these three men, one already famous and the others still
unknown, rallied the ecclesiastics and young people of talent, who,
in all simple faith, were desirous of combining the majesty of
religious traditions with the nobility of revolutionary ideas. That
such an alliance was impossible Time--that great tester of things and
men--would prove; but the attempt was none the less noble for all
that; it ministered, moreover, to a want which was then permeating the
new generations. Already Camille Desmoulins, one of those poets who
are specially inspired, had exclaimed to the Revolutionary Tribunal
with somewhat penetrative melancholy: "I am the same age, thirty-three
years, as the _Sans-culotte_ Jesus!"
The title of the new journal was _l'Avenir._ The programme of its
principles was drawn up equally by them all, and it called upon
the government of July for absolute liberty for all creeds and all
religious communities, for liberty of the press, liberty in education,
the radical separation of the Church from the State and, finally,
for the abolition of the ecclesiastical budget. It was 16 October
1830, and the moment was a favourable one. Belgium was about to start
her revolution, and, in that revolution, the hand of the clergy was
visible; Catholic Poland was sending up under the savage treatment of
the Czar one long cry of distress and yet of hope; Ireland, by the
voice of O'Connell, was moving all nationalities to whom religion was
the motive power and a flag of independence; Ireland shook the air with
the words CHRIST and LIBERTY! _L'Avenir_ made itself the monitor of the
religious movement, combined with the political movement, as may be
judged by these few lines which proceeded from the association, and are
taken from its first number--
"We have no hidden design whatsoever, we never had; we mean
exactly what we say. Hoping, therefore, to be believed
in all good faith, we say to those whose ideas differ
upon several points of our creed: 'Do you sincerely want
religious liberty, liberty in educational matters, in civil
and political affairs and liberty of the press, which,
do not let us forget, is the guarantee for all types of
liberty? You belong to us as we belong to you. Every kind
of liberty that the people in the gradual development of
their life can uphold is their due, and their progress in
civilisation is to be measured by the actual and not the
fictitious, progress they make in liberty!'"
It was at this juncture that the transformation tool place of the Abbé
DE LA MENNAIS to the Abbé de LAMENNAIS. His opinions and his talents
and his name entered upon a new era; he was no more the stern and
gloomy priest pronouncing deadly sentence on the human intellect over
the tomb of Faith; but a prophet shaking the shrouds of dying nations
in the name of liberty, and crying aloud to the dry bones to "Arise!"
Now, among the young editors of _l'Avenir_ it is worth noticing that
the most distinguished of them for talent and for the loftiness of his
democratic views, was Comte Charles de Montalembert, whose imprudent
impetuosity the stern old man was obliged, more than once, to check.
Presently, we shall have to relate the story of the sacking of the
church of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois and the profanation of the sacred
contents. The situation was an embarrassing one for _l'Avenir_: that
journal had advised the young clergy to put faith in the Revolution,
and here was that self-same Revolution, breaking loose in a moment of
anger, throwing mud at the Catholic temples and uprooting the insignia
of religion. It was Comte Charles de Montalembert who undertook to be
the leader of the morrow. Instead of inveighing against the vandals,
he inveighed against the clergy and priests, whose blind and dangerous
devotion to the overturned throne had drawn down the anger of the
people upon the Christian creed. He had no anathemas strong enough
to hurl at "those incorrigible defenders of the ancient régime, and
that bastard Catholicism which gave birth to the religion of kings!"
The crosses that had been knocked down were those branded with the
fleurs-de-lis; he took the opportunity to urge the separation of the
Church from the civil authority. Without the fleurs-de-lis, no one--the
Comte Charles de Montalembert insisted emphatically--had any quarrel
with the Cross.
The objective of _l'Avenir_, then, was both political and literary;
it was in sympathy with modern literature, and, in the person of the
Abbé de Lamennais, it possessed, besides, one of the leading writers of
the day; it was one of those rare papers (_rari nantes_) in which one
could follow the human mind under its two aspects. _Liber_, in Latin,
may be allowed to mean also _libre_ (free) and _livre_ (book). I have
already told how we literary men of the new school had made implacable
enemies of all the papers on the side of the political movement. It was
all the more strange that the literary revolution had preceded, helped,
prepared the way for and heralded the political revolution which was
past, and the social revolution which was taking place. For example,
we recollect an article upon _Notre Dame de Paris_, wherein, whilst
regretting that the author was not more deeply Catholic, Comte Charles
de Montalembert praised the style and poetry of Victor Hugo with the
enthusiasm of an adept. It was about this time, and several days, I
believe, after the representation of _Antony_, that M. de Lamennais
expressed the desire that I should be introduced to him. This wish was
a great honour for me, and I gratefully acquiesced. A mutual friend
took me to the house of the famous founder of _l'Avenir_, who was then
living in the rue Jacob--I remember the name of the street, but have
forgotten the number of the house. Before that day, I had already
joyfully acknowledged an admiration for him which sprang up in my heart
and soul fresh, and strong, and unalloyed.
Meanwhile, _l'Avenir_ was successful; this was soon apparent from the
anger and hatred launched against its doctrines. Amongst the various
advices it gave to the clergy, that of renouncing the emoluments
administered by the State, and of simply following Christ in poverty,
was not at all relished; and people grew indignant. It was in vain for
the solemn voice of the Abbé de Lamennais to exclaim--
"Break these degrading chains! Put away these rags!"
The clergy replied under their breath: "Call them rags if you wish, but
they are rags dear to our hearts."
Do my readers desire to know to what degree the journal _l'Avenir_ had
its roots buried in what is aristocratically styled Society? Then let
us quote the first lines dedicated to the trial of _l'Avenir_ in the
_l'Annuaire_ of Lesur--
"Never were the approaches to the Court of Assizes more
largely filled with so affluent and influential a crowd,
and never certainly were so large a number of _ladies_
attracted to a political trial as in the case of this.
Immediately the court opened proceedings, the jurymen,
defendants, barristers and the magistrate himself were
overwhelmed by a multitude of persons who could not manage
to find seats. M. l'Abbé de Lamennais, M. Lacordaire, the
editors of _l'Avenir,_ and M. Waille, the responsible
manager of the paper, were placed on chairs in the centre of
the bar; the two first were clad in frockcoats over their
cassocks; M. Waille wore the uniform of the National Guard."
It was one of the first press trials since July. The public
prosecutor's speech was very timid, and he apologised for coming,
after a revolution carried out in favour of the press, to demand legal
penalties against this very press. But _l'Avenir_ had exceeded all
limits of propriety. We will quote the incriminating phrase--
"Let us prove that we are Frenchmen by faithfully defending
that which no one can snatch from us without violating the
law of the land. Let us say to our sovereigns: 'We will obey
you in so far as you yourselves obey that law which has made
you what you are, without which you are nothing! '"
That was written by M. de Lamennais. We forget the actual phrase,
although not the cause, which brought the Abbé Lacordaire to the
defendants' bench. M. de Lamennais was defended by Janvier, who has
since played a part in politics. Lacordaire defended himself. His
speech made a great sensation, and revealed the qualities both of a
lawyer and of a preacher. The jury acquitted them.
Some time later, _l'Avenir_ had to submit to the ordeal of another
trial in a greater arena and under circumstances which we ought to
recall.
MM. de Montalembert and Lacordaire had constituted themselves the
champions of liberty in educational matters, as well as of all other
liberties, both religious and civil. From words they passed to deeds;
and they opened, conjointly, an elementary school which a few poor
children attended. The police intervened. Ordered to withdraw, the
professors offered resistance, so they were obliged to arrest the
"substance of the offence"--namely, the street arabs who filled the
school-room. There was hardly sufficient ground for a trial before the
_tribunal correctionnel_; but, in the meantime, a few days before the
promulgation of the law which suppressed the hereditary rights to the
peerage, M. Charles de Montalembert's most excellent father died. The
matter then assumed unexpected proportions: Charles de Montalembert,
a peer of France by the grace of non-retroactivity, was not amenable
to ordinary courts of justice, so the trial was carried before the
Court of Peers, where it took the dimensions of a political debate
upon the freedom of education. Lacordaire, whose cause could not be
disconnected from that of his accomplice, was also transferred to the
Supreme Court, and he delivered extempore his own counsel's speech. M.
de Montalembert, on the contrary, read a speech in which he attacked
the university and M. de Broglie in particular.
"At this point," says the _Moniteur_, in its report of the trial, "the
honourable peer of France put up his eye-glass and looked critically at
the young orator."
Less fortunate before the Court of Peers than before the jury, which
would certainly have acquitted them, the two editors of _l'Avenir_
lost their case; but they won it in the opinion of the country. The
Comte de Montalembert owed it to this circumstance, that he sided
with M. de Lamennais, whose Liberal doctrines he shared and professed
at that time; he was also equally bound by the unexpected death
of his father to find a career ready opened for him in the Upper
Chamber. But when questioned by the Chamber as to his profession, he
replied--"Schoolmaster."
All these trials seemed but to give a handle to M. de Lamennais's
religious enemies. Rumours began from below. From the lower clergy, who
condemned them, M. de Lamennais and the other editors of _l'Avenir_
appealed to the bishops, who in their turn also condemned them. Then,
driven back from one entrenchment after another, like the defenders
of a town, who, having vainly defended their advanced positions, and
their first and second _enceintes_, are forced to take refuge within
the citadel itself, the accused men were obliged to look towards
the Vatican, and to put their trust in Rome. The mainmast of this
storm-beaten vessel, M. de Lamennais, was the first to be struck by the
thunders of denunciation.
On 8 September 1831, a voice rang through the world similar to that of
the angel in the Apocalypse, announcing the fall of towns and empires;
that voice, as incoherent as a death-rattle or last expiring sigh,
formulated itself in these terrible words on 16 September: "Poland has
just fallen! Warsaw is taken!" We know how this news was announced to
the Chamber of Deputies by General Sébastiani. "Letters I have received
from Poland," he said, in the session of 16 September, "inform me
that PEACE _reigns in Warsaw."_ There was a slight variation given in
the _Moniteur_, which spoke of ORDER, instead of _peace_, reigning in
Warsaw. Under the circumstances neither word was better than the other:
both were infamous! It is curious to come across again to-day the echo
which that great downfall awakened in the soul of poets and believers,
those living lyres which great national misfortunes cause to vibrate,
and from whom the passing breeze of calamity draws exquisite sounds.
Here we have four replies to the optimistic phraseology of the Minister
for Foreign Affairs--
BARTHÉLEMY
"_Destinée à périr!_ ... L'oracle avait raison!
Faut-il accuser Dieu, le sort, la trahison?
Non, tout était prévu, l'oracle était lucide!...
Qu'il tombe sur nos fronts, le sceau du fratricide!
Noble sœur! Varsovie! elle est morte pour nous;
Morte un fusil en main, sans fléchir les genoux;
Morte en nous maudissant à son heure dernière;
Morte en baignant de pleurs l'aigle de sa bannière,
Sans avoir entendu notre cri de pitié,
Sans un mot de la France, un adieu d'amitié!
Tout ce que l'univers, la planète des crimes,
Possédait de grandeur et de vertus sublimes;
Tout ce qui fut géant dans notre siècle étroit
A disparu! Tout dort dans le sépulcre froid!...
Cachons-nous! cachons-nous! nous sommes des infâmes!
Rasons nos poils, prenons la quenouille des femmes;
Jetons has nos fusils, nos guerriers oripeaux,
Nos plumets citadins, nos ceintures de peaux;
Le courage à nos cœurs ne vient que par saccades ...
Ne parlons plus de gloire et de nos barricades!
Que le teint de la honte embrase notre front!
Vous voulez voir venir les Russes: ils viendront!..."
BARBIER
"_La Guerre_
"Mère! il était une ville fameuse;
Avec le Hun j'ai franchi ses détours;
J'ai démoli son enceinte fumeuse;
Sous le boulet j'ai fait crouler ses tours!
J'ai promené mes chevaux par les rues,
Et, sous le fer de leurs rudes sabots,
J'ai labouré le corps des femmes nues,
Et des enfants couchés dans les ruisseaux!...
Hourra! hourra! j'ai courbé la rebelle!
J'ai largement lavé mon vieil affront:
J'ai vu des morts à hauteur de ma selle!
Hourra! j'ai mis les deux pieds sur son front!...
Tout est fini, maintenant, et ma lame
Pend inutile à côté de mon flanc.
Tout a passé par le fer et la flamme;
Toute muraille a sa tache de sang!
Les maigres chiens aux saillantes échines
Dans les ruisseaux n'ont plus rien à lécher;
Tout est désert; l'herbe pousse aux ruines....
Ô mort! ô mort! je n'ai rien à faucher!"
"_Le Choléra-Morbus_
"Mère! il était un peuple plein de vie,
Un peuple ardent et fou de liberté;
Eh bien, soudain, des champs de Moscovie,
Je l'ai frappé de mon souffle empesté!
Mieux que la balle et les larges mitrailles,
Mieux que la flamme et l'implacable faim,
J'ai déchiré les mortelles entrailles,
J'ai souillé l'air et corrompu le pain!...
J'ai tout noirci de mon haleine errante;
De mon contact j'ai tout empoisonné;
Sur le teton de sa mère expirante,
Tout endormi, j'ai pris le nouveau-né!
J'ai dévoré, même au sein de la guerre,
Des camps entiers de carnage filmants;
J'ai frappé l'homme au bruit de son tonnerre;
J'ai fait combattre entre eux des ossements!...
Partout, partout le noir corbeau becquète;
Partout les vers ont des corps à manger;
Pas un vivant, et partout un squelette ...
Ô mort! ô mort! je n'ai rien à ronger!"
"_La Mort_
"Le sang toujours ne peut rougir la terre;
Les chiens toujours ne peuvent pas lécher;
Il est un temps où la Peste et la Guerre
Ne trouvent plus de vivants à faucher!...
Enfants hideux! couchez-vous dans mon ombre,
Et sur la pierre étendez vos genoux;
Dormez! dormez! sur notre globe sombre,
Tristes fléaux! je veillerai pour vous.
Dormez! dormez! je prêterai l'oreille
Au moindre bruit par le vent apporté;
Et, quand, de loin, comme un vol de corneille,
S'élèveront des cris de liberté;
Quand j'entendrai de pâles multitudes,
Des peuples nus, des milliers de proscrits,
Jeter à has leurs vieilles servitudes
En maudissant leurs tyrans abrutis;
Enfants hideux! pour finir votre somme,
Comptez sur moi, car j'ai l'œil creux ... Jamais
Je ne m'endors, et ma bouche aime l'homme
Comme le czar aime les Polonais!"
VICTOR HUGO
"Je hais l'oppression d'une haine profonde;
Aussi, lorsque j'entends, dans quelque coin du monde,
Sous un ciel inclément, sous un roi meurtrier,
Un peuple qu'on égorge appeler et crier;
Quand, par les rois chrétiens aux bourreaux turcs livrée,
La Grèce, notre mère, agonise éventrée;
Quand l'Irlande saignante expire sur sa croix;
Quand l'Allemagne aux fers se débat sous dix rois;
Quand Lisbonne, jadis belle et toujours en fête,
Pend au gibet, les pieds de Miguel sur sa tête;
Quand Albani gouverne au pays de Caton;
Quand Naples mange et dort; quand, avec son bâton,
Sceptre honteux et lourd que la peur divinise,
L'Autriche casse l'aile au lion de Venise;
Quand Modène étranglé râle sous l'archiduc:
Quand Dresde lutte et pleure au lit d'un roi caduc;
Quand Madrid sa rendort d'un sommeil léthargique;
Quand Vienne tient Milan; quand le lion belgique,
Courbé comme le bœuf qui creuse un vil sillon,
N'a plus même de dents pour mordre son bâillon;
Quand un Cosaque affreux, que la rage transporte,
Viole Varsovie échevelée et morte,
Et, souillant son linceul, chaste et sacré lambeau
Se vautre sur la vierge étendue au tombeau;
Alors, oh! je maudis, dans leur cour, dans leur antre,
Ces rois dont les chevaux ont du sang jusqu'au ventre.
Je sens que le poète est leur juge; je sens
Que la muse indignée, avec ses poings puissants,
Peut, comme au pilori, les lier sur leur trône,
Et leur faire un carcan de leur lâche couronne,
Et renvoyer ces rois, qu'on aurait pu bénir,
Marqués au front d'un vers que lira l'avenir!
Oh! la muse se doit aux peuples sans défense!
J'oublie, alors, l'armour, la famille, l'enfance.
Et les molles chansons, et le loisir serein,
Et j'ajoute à ma lyre une corde d'airain!"
LAMENNAIS
"_The Taking of Warsaw_
"Warsaw has capitulated! The heroic nation of Poland,
forsaken by France and repulsed by England, has fallen in the
struggle she has gloriously maintained for eight months against
the Tartar hordes allied with Prussia. The Muscovite yoke is
again about to oppress the people of Jagellon and of Sobieski,
and, to aggravate her misfortune, the furious rage of various
monsters will, perhaps, detract from the horror which the crime
of this fresh onslaught ought to inspire. Let every man protect
his own property; leave to the cut-throat, murder and
treachery! Let the true sons of Poland protect their glory
untarnished, immortal! Leave to the Czar and his allies the
curses of everyone who has a human heart, of every man who
realises what constitutes a country. To our Ministers their
names! There is nothing lower than this. Therefore, generous
people, our brothers in faith, and at arms, whilst you were
fighting for your lives, we could only aid you with our
prayers; and now, when you are lying on the field of battle,
all that we can give you is our tears! May they in some
degree, at least, comfort you in your great sufferings!
Liberty has passed over you like a fleeting shadow, a shadow
that has terrified your ancient oppressors: to them it appears
as a symbol of justice! After the dark days had passed, you
looked heavenwards, and thought you saw more kindly signs
there; you said to yourself: 'The time of deliverance
approaches; this earth which covers the bones of our ancestors
shall yet be our own; we will no longer heed the voice of the
stranger dictating his insolent commands to us.... Our altars
shall be as free as our fire-sides.' But you have been self-deceived;
the time to live has not yet come; it was the time
to die for all that was sweet and sacred to men's hearts....
Nation of heroes, people of our affection! rest in peace in the
tombs that the crimes and cowardice of others have dug for
you; but never forget that hope springs from those tombs; and
a cross above them prophesies, 'Thou shalt rise again!'"
Let us admit that a nation is fortunate if it possesses poets; for were
there only politicians, posterity would gather very odd notions about
it.
In conclusion, the downfall of Poland included with it that of
_l'Avenir._ We will explain how this was brought about in the next
chapter.
CHAPTER VI
Suspension of _l'Avenir_--Its three principal editors
present themselves at Rome--The Abbé de Lamennais as
musician--The trouble it takes to obtain an audience of the
Pope--The convent of Santo-Andrea della Valle--Interview
of M. de Lamennais with Gregory XVI.--The statuette of
Moses--The doctrines of _l'Avenir_ are condemned by the
Council of Cardinals--Ruin of M. de Lamennais--The _Paroles
d'un Croyant_
The position of affairs was no longer tenable for the editors of
_l'Avenir._ If, on the one hand, the religious democracy, overwhelmed
with sadness and bitterness, listened with affection to the words of
the messengers; on the other hand, the opposition of the heads of the
Catholic Church became formidable, and the accusation of heresy ran
from lip to lip. The Abbé de Lamennais looked about him and, like the
prophet Isaiah, could see nothing but desolation all around. Poland,
wounded in her side, her hand out of her winding sheet, slept in the
ever deceived expectation of help from the hand of France; and yet she
had fallen full of despair and doubt, crying, "God is too high, and
France too far off!" Ireland, sunk in misery and dying from starvation,
ground down under the heel of England, in vain prostrated herself
before its wooden crosses to implore succour from Heaven: none came to
her! Liberty seemed to have turned away her face from a world utterly
unworthy of her. Poland and Ireland, those two natural allies in all
religious democracy, disappeared from the political scenes, dragging
down with them in their fall the existence of _l'Avenir._ The wave
of opposition, like an unebbing tide, still rose and ever rose. Some
detested M. de Lamennais's opinions; others, his talent; the latter
were as much incensed against him as any. He was obliged to yield. Like
every paper which disappears into space, _l'Avenir_ had to announce
_suspension_ of publication; this was his farewell from Fontainebleau--
"If we withdraw for a while," wrote M. de Lamennais, "it is
not on account of weariness, still less from discouragement;
it is to go, as the soldiers of Israel of old, _to consult
the Lord in Shiloh._ They have put our faith and our very
intentions to the doubt; for what is there that people do
not attack in these days? We leave the field of battle
for a short time to fulfil another duty equally pressing.
Traveller's stick in hand, we pursue our way to the eternal
throne to prostrate ourselves at the feet of the pontiff
whom Jesus Christ has established as the guide and teacher
to His disciples, and we will say to him, 'O Father!
condescend to look down upon these, the latest of thy
children to be accused of being in rebellion against thy
infallibility and gracious authority! O Father! pronounce
over us the words which will give life and light, and extend
thy hand over us in blessing and in acknowledgment of our
obedience and love.'"
It would be puerile to question the sincerity of the author of those
lines at this point. For, like Luther, who also promised his submission
to Rome, the Abbé de Lamennais meant to persevere in the Catholic
faith. If, later, his orthodoxy wavered; if, upon closer view of Rome
and her cardinals, his faith in the Vicar of Christ and the visible
representation of the Church gave way, we should rather accuse the
pagan form under which the religion of Christ was presented to him, as
in the case of the monk of Eisleben, when he visited the Eternal City.
When I reach that period in my life, I will relate my own feelings, and
will give my long conversations on the subject with Pope Gregory XVI.
The three pilgrims of _l'Avenir,_ the Abbé de Lamennais, the Abbé
Lacordaire and the Comte Charles de Montalembert, started, then, for
Italy, not quite, as one of their number expressed it, with travellers'
staffs in their hands, but animated with sincere faith and with
sorrow in their hearts. They did not leave behind them the dream of
eleven months without feeling deep regret; _l'Avenir_ had, in fact,
lasted from 16 October 1830 to 17 September 1831. We will not relate
the travelling impressions of the Abbé de Lamennais, for the author
of the _Essai sur l'indifférence_ was not at all the man to notice
external impressions. He passed through Italy with unseeing eyes; all
through that land of wonders he saw nothing beyond his own thoughts
and the object of his journey. Ten years later, when prisoner at
Sainte-Pélagie, and already grown quite old, Lamennais discovered a
corner in his memory still warm with the Italian sunshine; by a process
of photography, which explains the character of the man we are dealing
with, the monuments of art and the country itself were transferred to
a plate in his brain! It needed meditation, solitude and captivity,
just as the silvered plate needs iodine, to bring out of his memory
the image of the beautiful things he had forgotton to admire ten years
previously. On this account, he writes to us in 1841, under the low
ceiling of his cell--
"I begin to see Italy.... It is a wondrous country!"
A curious psychological study might be made of the Abbé de Lamennais,
especially by comparing him with other poets of his day. The author of
the _Essai sur l'indifférence_ saw little and saw that but imperfectly;
there was a cloud over his eyes and on his brain; the sole perception,
the only sense he had of the outside world, which seemed to be always
alert and awake, was that of hearing, a sense equivalent to the
musical faculty: he played the piano and especially delighted in the
compositions of Liszt. Hence arose, probably, his profound affection
for that great artist. As regards all other outward senses of the
objective world, his perceptions seem to have been within him, and
when he wishes to see, it is in his own soul that he looks. To this
peculiarity is owing the nature of his style, which is psychological in
treatment. If he describes scenery, as in his _Paroles d'un Croyant_,
or in the descriptions sent from his prison, it is always the outlines
of the infinite that is drawn by his pen in vague horizons; with him it
is his thoughts which visualise, not his eyes. M. de Lamennais belongs
to the race of morbid thinkers, of whom Blaise Pascal is a sample. Let
not the medical faculty even attempt to cure these sensitive natures:
it will be but to deprive them of their genius.
The journey, with its enforced waits for relays of horses, often
afforded the Abbé de Lamennais leisure for the study of our modern
school of literature, with which he was but little acquainted. In an
Italian monastery, where the pilgrims received hospitality, MM. de
Lamennais and Lacordaire read _Notre-Dame de Paris_ and _Henri III._
for the first time. When they reached Rome, the Abbé de Lamennais
put up at the same hotel and suite of rooms that had been occupied a
few months previously by the Comtesse Guiccioli. His one fixed idea
was to see the Pope and to settle his affairs, those of religious
democracy, with him direct. After long delays and a number of fruitless
applications, after seven or eight requests for an audience still
without result, the Abbé de Lamennais complained; then a Romish
ecclesiastic, to whom he poured out his grievances, naively suggested
that he had perhaps omitted to deposit the sum of ... in the hands of
Cardinal.... The Abbé de Lamennais confessed that he would have been
afraid of offending His Eminence by treating him like the doorkeeper of
a common courtesan.
"You need no longer be surprised at not having been received by His
Holiness," was the Italian abbé's reply.
The ignorant traveller had forgotten the essential formality. But,
although instructed, he still persisted in trying to obtain an audience
of the Pope gratis; by paying, he felt he should be truckling with
simony. The editors of _l'Avenir_ had remained for three months
unrecognised in the Holy City, waiting until the Pope should condescend
to consider a question which was keeping half Catholic Europe in
suspense. The Abbé Lacordaire had decided to return to France; the
Comte de Montalembert made preparations for setting out for Naples; M.
de Lamennais alone remained knocking at the gates of the Vatican, which
were more inexorably closed than those of Lydia in her bad days. Father
Ventura, then general of the Theatine, received the illustrious French
traveller at Santo-Andrea della Valle.
"I shall never forget," says M. de Lamennais in his _Affaires de Rome_,
"those peaceful days I spent in that pious household, surrounded
by the most exquisite care, amongst those instructively good and
religious people devoted to their duty and aloof from all intrigue.
The life of the cloister-regular, calm and, as it were, set apart and
self-contained-holds a kind of _via media_ between the purely worldly
life and that of the future, which faith reveals to us in but shadowy
outlines, and of which every human being possesses within himself a
positive assurance."
Finally, after many solicitations, the Abbé de Lamennais was received
in private audience by Gregory XVI. He went to the Vatican, climbed the
huge staircase often ascended and descended by Raphael and by Michael
Angelo, by Leo X. and Julian II.; he crossed the high and silent
chambers with their double rows of superposed windows; at the end of
that long, splendid and desolate palace he reached, under the escort
of an usher, an ante-chamber, where two cardinals, as motionless as
statues, sat upon wooden seats, solemnly reading their breviary. At
the appointed moment the Abbé de Lamennais was introduced. In a small
room, bare, upholstered in scarlet, where a single armchair denoted
that only one man had the right to sit there, a tall old man stood
upright, calm and smiling in his white garments. He received M. de
Lamennais standing, a great honour! The greatest honour which that
divine man could pay to another man without violating etiquette. Then
the Pope conversed with the French traveller about the lovely sunshine
and the beauties of nature in Italy, of the Roman monuments, the arts
and ancient history; but of the object of his journey and his own
special business in coming there, not a a single word. The Pope had no
commission at all for that: the question was being considered somewhere
in the dark by the cardinals appointed to inquire into it, whose names
were not divulged. A petition had been addressed to the Court of Rome
by the editors of _l'Avenir_; and this petition must necessarily lead
to some decision, but all this was shrouded in the most impenetrable
mystery. The Pope himself, however, showed affability to the French
priest, whose genius was an honour to the Catholic Church.
"What work of art," he asked M. de Lamennais, "has impressed you most?"
"The _Moses_ of Michael Angelo," replied the priest.
"Very well," replied Gregory XVI.; "then I will show you something
which no one sees or which very few indeed, even of the specially
favoured, see at Rome." Whilst saying this, the great white-haired
old man entered a sort of recess enclosed by curtains, and returned
holding in his arms a miniature replica in silver of the _Moses_ done
by Michael Angelo himself.
The Abbé de Lamennais admired it, bowed and withdrew, accompanied by
the two cardinals who guarded the entrance to that chamber. He was
compelled to acknowledge the gracious reception he had been accorded by
the Holy Father; but, in all conscience, he had not come all the way
from Paris to Rome just to see the statuette of Moses! It was a most
complete disillusionment. He shook the dust of Rome off his feet, the
dust of graves, and returned to Paris. After a long silence, when the
affair of _l'Avenir_ seemed buried in the excavations of the Holy See,
Rome spoke: she condemned the doctrines of the men who had tried to
reunite Christianity to Liberty.
The distress of the Abbé de Lamennais was profound. The shepherd
being smitten, the sheep scattered, the news of censure had scarcely
had time to reach La Chesnaie before the disciples were seized with
terror and took to flight. M. de Lamennais remained alone in the old
deserted château, in melancholy silence, broken only by the murmur of
the great oak trees and the plaintive song of birds. Soon, even this
retreat was taken from him, and he woke one day to find himself ruined
by the failure of a bookseller to whom he had given his note of hand.
Then the late editor of _l'Avenir_ began his voyage through bitter
waters; anguish of soul prevented his feeling his poverty, which was
extreme; his furniture, books, all were sold. Twice he bowed his head
submissively under the hand of the Head of the Church, and twice he
raised it, each time sadder than before, each time more indomitable,
more convinced that the human mind, progress, reason, the conscience
could not be wrong. It was not without profound heart-rendings that
he separated himself from the articles of belief of his youth, from
his career of priesthood and of tranquil obedience and from great
and powerful harmony; in a word, from everything that he had upheld
previously; but the new spirit had, in Biblical language, gripped him
by the hair commanding him to "go forward!" It was then, in silence,
in the midst of persecutions which even his gentleness was unable to
disarm, in a small room in Paris, furnished with only a folding-bed,
a table and two chairs, that the Abbé de Lamennais wrote his _Paroles
d'un Croyant._ The manuscript lay for a year in the author's portfolio;
placed several times in the hands of the editor Renduel, withdrawn,
then given back to him to be again withdrawn, this fine book was
subjected to all sorts of vicissitudes before its publication and met
with all sorts of obstructions; the chief difficulties came from the
abbé's own family, especially from a brother, who viewed with terror
the launching forth upon the sea of democracy tossed by the storms
of 1833. At last, after many delays and grievous hesitations, the
author's strength of will carried the day against the entreaties of
friendship; and the book appeared. It marked the third transformation
of its writer: the ABBÉ DE LA MENNAIS and M. de LAMENNAIS gave place to
CITIZEN LAMENNAIS. We shall come across him again on the benches of the
Constituent Assembly of 1848. In common with all men of great genius,
who have had to pilot their own original course through the religious
and political storms that raged for thirty years, M. de Lamennais has
been the subject of the most opposite criticisms. We do not undertake
here to be either his apologist or denouncer; simply to endeavour to
render him that justice which every true-hearted man owes to any man
whom he admires: we have tried to show him to others as he appeared to
our own eyes.
CHAPTER VII
Who Gannot was--Mapah--His first miracle--The wedding
at Cana--Gannot, phrenologist--Where his first ideas on
phrenology came from--The unknown woman--The change wrought
in Gannot's life--How he becomes Mapah
Let us frame M. de Lamennais, the great philosopher, poet and
humanitarian, between a false priest and a false god. Christ was
crucified after His bloody passion between two thieves. We are now
going to relate the adventures and expose the doctrines of _Mapah_ or
of the _being who was Gannot._ He was one of the most eccentric of
the gods produced during the years 1831 to 1845. The ancients divided
their gods into _dii majores_ and _dii minores_; Mapah was a _minor_
god. He was not any the less entertaining on that account. The name of
_Mapah_ was the favourite title of the god, and the one under which
he wished to be worshipped; but, not forgetting that he had been a
man before he became a god, he humbly and modestly permitted himself
to be called, and at times even called himself, by his own personal
name as, _he who was Gannot._ He had indeed, or rather he had had, two
very distinct existences; that of a man and that of a god. The man
was born about 1800, or, at all events, he would seem to have been
nearly my own age when I knew him. He gave his age out to be then as
between twenty-eight and thirty. I was told that, when he became a
god, he maintained he had been contemporaneous with all the ages and
even to have preexisted, under a double symbolic form, Adam and Eve,
in whom he became incarnate when the father and mother of the human
race were yet one and the self-same flesh! The man had been an elegant
dandy, a fop and frequenter of the boulevard de Gand, loving horses
and adoring women, and an inveterate gambler; he was an adept at every
kind of play, specially at billiards. He was as good a billiard player
as was Pope Gregory XVI., and supposing the latter had staked his
papacy on his skilful play against Gannot, I would assuredly have bet
on Gannot. To say that Gannot played billiards better than other games
does not mean that he preferred games of skill to those of chance; not
at all: he had a passion for roulette, for la rouge et la blanche, for
trente-et-un, for le biribi, and, in fact, for all kinds of games of
chance. He was also possessed of all the happy superstitious optimism
of the gambler: none knew better than he how to puff at a cigar and to
creak about in varnished boots upon the asphalted pavements whilst he
dreamt of marvellous fortunes, of coaches, tilburys, tandems harnessed
to horses shod in silver; of mansions, hotels, palaces, with soft thick
carpets like the grass in a meadow; of curtains, of imitation brocades,
tapestries, figured silk, crystal lustres and Boule furniture.
Unluckily, the gold he won flowed through his extravagant fingers like
water. Unceasingly bandied about from misery to abundance, he passed
from the goddess of hunger to that of satiety with regal airs that were
a delight to witness. Debauchery was none the less pleasing to him,
but it had to be debauchery on a huge scale: the feast of Trimalco or
the nuptials of Gamacho. But, in other ways, he was a good friend,
ever ready to lend a helping hand--throwing his money broadcast, and
his heart among the women, giving his life to everybody not suspecting
his future divinity, but already performing all kinds of miracles.
Such was Gannot, the future Mapah, when I had the honour of making his
acquaintance, about 1830 or 1831, at the _café de Paris._ Still less
than he himself could I foretell his future divinity, and, if anybody
had told me that, when I left him at two o'clock in the morning to
return to my third storey in the rue de l'Université, I had just shaken
the hand of a god, I should certainly have been very much surprised
indeed.
I have said that even before he became a god, Gannot worked miracles;
I will recount one which I almost saw him do. It was somewhere about
1831--to give the precise date of the year is impossible--and a friend
of Gannot, an innocent debtor who was as yet only negotiating his first
bill of exchange, went to find Gannot to lay before him his distress
in harrowing terms. Gannot was the type of man people always consulted
in difficult crises,--his mind was quick in suggestions; he was
clear-sighted and steady of hand. Unluckily, Gannot was going through
one of his periods of poverty, days when he could have given points
even to Job. He began, therefore, by confessing his personal inability
to help, and when his friend despaired--
"Bah!" he said, "we have seen plenty of other people in as bad a
plight!"
This was a favourite expression with Gannot, who had, indeed, seen all
shades of life.
"All very well," said his friend; "but meantime, how am I to get out of
this fix?"
"Have you anything of value you could raise money on, if it were but
twenty, ten, or even five francs?"
"Alas!" said the young fellow, "there is only my watch ..."
"Silver or gold?"
"Gold."
"Gold! What did it cost?"
"Two hundred francs; but I shall hardly get sixty for it, and the bill
of exchange is for five hundred francs."
"Go and take your watch to the Mont-de-Piété."
"And then?"
"Bring back the money they give you for it here."
"Well?"
"You must give me half of it."
"After that?"
"Then I will tell you what you must do.... Go, and be sure you do not
divert a single son of the amount!"
"The deuce! I shall not think of doing that," said the friend. And off
he ran and returned presently with seventy francs. This was a good
beginning. Gannot took it and put it with a grand flourish into his
pocket.
"What are you doing?" asked his friend.
"You will soon see."
"I thought you said we were to halve it ..."
"Later ... meanwhile it is six o'clock; let us go and have dinner."
"How are we to dine?"
"My dear fellow, decent folk must have their dinner and dine well in
order to give themselves fresh ideas."
And Gannot took his way towards the Palais-Royal, accompanied by the
young man. When there, he entered the Frères-Provençaux. The youth
tried faintly to drag Gannot away by the arm, but the latter pinched
his hand tight as in a vice and the young man was obliged to follow.
Gannot chose the menu and dined valiantly, to the great uneasiness of
his friend; the more dainty the dishes the more he left on his plate
untasted. The future Mapah ate enough for both. The Rabelaisian quarter
of an hour arrived, and the bill came to thirty-five francs. Gannot
flung a couple of louis on the table. They were going to give him the
change.
"Keep it--the five francs are for the waiter," he said.
The young man shook his head sadly.
"That is not the way," he muttered below his breath, "to pay my bill of
exchange."
Gannot did not appear to notice either his murmurs or his headshakings.
They went out, Gannot walking in front, with a toothpick in his mouth;
the friend followed silently and gloomily, like some resigned victim.
When they reached _la Rolonde_, Gannot sat down, drew a chair within
his friend's reach, struck the marble table with the wood of the
framework that held the daily paper, ordered two cups of coffee, an
inn-full of assorted liqueurs and the best cigars they possessed. The
total amounted to five francs. There were then but twenty-five francs
left over from the seventy. Gannot put ten in his friend's hand and
restored the remaining fifteen to his pocket.
"What now?" asked his friend.
"Take the ten francs," replied Gannot; "go upstairs to that house you
see opposite, No. 113; be careful not to mistake the storey, whatever
you do!"
"What is the house?"
"It is a gambling-house."
"I shall have to play, then?"
"Of course you must! And at midnight, whatever your gains or losses,
bring them here. I shall be there."
The young man had by this time reached such a pitch of utter exhaustion
that, if Gannot had told him to go and fling himself into the river, he
would have gone. He carried out Gannot's instructions to the letter.
He had never put foot in a gaming-house before; fortune, it is said,
favours the innocent beginner: he played and won. At a quarter to
twelve--for he had not forgotten the injunctions of the master for
whom he began to feel a sort of superstitious reverence--he went away
with his pockets full of gold and his heart bursting with joy. Gannot
was walking up and down the passage which led to the Perron, quietly
smoking his cigar. From the farthest distance when he first caught
sight of him, the youth shouted--
"Oh! my friend, such good luck! I have won fifteen hundred francs; when
my bill of exchange is paid I shall still have a thousand francs!...
Let me embrace you; I owe you my very life."
Gannot gently checked him with his hand, and told him to moderate his
transports of gratitude.
"Ah! now," he said, "we can indeed go and have a glass of punch, can we
not?"
"A glass of punch? A bowl, my friend, two bowls! As much as ever you
like, and havanas _ad libitum!_ I am rich; when my bill of exchange is
paid, my watch redeemed, I shall still have ..."
"You have told me all that before."
"Upon my word, I am so pleased I cannot repeat it often enough, dear
friend!" And the young man gave himself up to shouts of immoderate joy,
whilst Gannot regally climbed the stairs which led to the Hollandais,
the only one left open after midnight. It was full. Gannot called for
the _waiters._ One waiter appeared. "I asked for _the waiters_," said
Gannot. He fetched three who were in the ice-house and they roused up
two who had already gone to bed--fifteen came in all. Gannot counted
them.
"Good!" he said. "Now, waiters, go from table to table and ask the
gentlemen and ladies at them what they would like to take."
"Then, monsieur ..."
"I will pay for it!" Gannot replied, in lordly tones.
The joke was acceded to and was, indeed, thought to be in very good
taste; only the friend laughed at the wrong side of his mouth as he
watched the consumption of liqueurs, coffee and glorias. Every table
was like a liquid volcano, with lava of punch flowing out of the middle
of its flames. The tables filled up again and the new arrivals were
invited by the amphitryon to choose whatever they liked from the carte;
ices, liqueurs, syphons of lemonade, everything, even to soda-water.
Finally, at three o'clock, when there was not a single glass of brandy
left in the establishment, Gannot called for the bill. It came to
eighteen hundred francs. What about the bill of exchange now?... The
young man, feeling more dead than alive, mechanically put his hand into
his pocket, although he knew very well that it did not contain more
than fifteen hundred francs; but Gannot opened his pocket-book and
pulled out two notes of a thousand francs, and blowing them apart--
"Here, waiters," he said, "the change is for your attendance."
And, turning to his pupil, who was quite faint by this time, and who
had been nudging his arm the whole night or treading on his toes--
"Young man," he said to him, "I wanted to give you a little lesson....
To teach you that a true gambler ought not to be astonished at his
winnings, and, above all, he should make bold use of them." With the
fifteen francs he had kept of his friend's money, he, too, had played,
and had won two thousand francs. We have seen how they were spent. This
was his miracle of the marriage of Cana.
But, as may well be understood, this hazardous fortune-making had its
cruel reverses; Gannot's life was full of crises; he always lived at
extremes of excitement. More than once during this stormy existence
the darkest thoughts crossed his mind. To become another Karl Moor
or Jean Sbogar or Jaromir, he formed all kinds of dreadful plans. To
attack travellers by the highway and to fling on to the green baize
tables gold pieces stained with blood, was, during more than one fit
of despair, the dream of feverish nights and the terrible hope of his
morrows!
"I went stumbling," he said, after his divinity had freed him from all
such gloomy human chimeras, "along the road of crime, knocking my head
here and there against the guillotine's edge; I had to go through all
these experiences; for from the lowest blackguard was to emerge the
first of reformers!"
To the career of gambling he added another, less risky. Upon the
boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle, where he then lived, the passers-by might
observe a head as signpost. Upon its bald head some artist had painted
in blue and red the cerebral topography of the _talents, feelings_
and _instincts_; this cabalistic head indicated that consultations
on phrenology were given within. Now, it is worth while to tell how
Gannot attained the zenith of the science of Gall and of Spurzheim.
He was the son of a hatter, and, when a child, had noticed in his
father's shop the many different shapes of the hands corresponding
to the diverse shapes of people's heads. He had thereupon originated
a system of phrenology of his own, which, later, he developed by a
superficial study of anatomy. Gannot was a doctor, or, more correctly
speaking, a sanitary inspector; what he had learnt occupied little room
in his memory, but, gifted as he was with fine and discerning tact, he
analysed, by means of a species of _clairvoyance_, the characters and
heads with which he had to deal. One day, when overwhelmed by a loss
of money at the gaming-table and seeing only destitution and despair
ahead of him, he had given way to dark resolutions, a fashionable and
beautiful young woman of wealth got down from her carriage, ascended
his stairs and knocked at his door. She came to ask the soothsayer to
tell her fortune by her head. Though a splendid creature, Gannot saw
neither her, nor her beauty, nor her troubles and wavering blushes;
she sat down, took off her hat, uncovered her lovely golden hair, and
let her head be examined by the phrenologist. The mysterious doctor
passed his hands carelessly through the golden waves. His mind was
elsewhere. There was nothing, however, more promising than the surfaces
and contours which his skilful hand discovered as he touched them. But,
when he came to the spot at the base of the skull which is commonly
called the nape, which savants call the organ of _amativity_, whether
she had seen Gannot previously or whether from instantaneous and
magnetic sympathy, the lady burst into tears and flung her arms round
the future Mapah's neck, exclaiming--
"Oh! I love you!"
This was quite a new light in the life of this man. Until that time
Gannot had known women; he had not known woman. His life of mad
debauchery, of gambling, violent emotions, spent on the pavements
of the boulevards, and in the bars of houses of ill-fame, and among
the walks of the _bois_, was followed by one of retirement and love;
for he loved this beautiful unknown woman to distraction and almost
to madness. She was married. Often, after their hours of delirious
ecstacy, when the moment of parting had to come, when tears filled
their eyes and sobs their breasts, they plotted together the death of
the man who was the obstacle to their intoxicating passion; but they
got no further to the completion of crime than thinking of it. She
wished at least to fly with him; but, on the very day they had arranged
to take flight, she arrived at Gannot's house with a pocket-book full
of bank notes stolen from her husband. Gannot was horrified with the
theft and declined the money. Next day she returned with no other
fortune than the clothes she wore, not even a chain of gold round her
neck or a ring on her finger. And then he took her away. Complicated by
this fresh element in his life, he took his flight into more impossible
regions than ever before; his was the type of nature which is carried
away by all kinds of impulses. If the principle M. Guizot lays down
be true: "Bodies always fall on the side towards which they incline,"
the Mapah was bound to fall some day or other, for he inclined to
many sides! Gambling and love admirably suited the instincts of that
eccentric life; but gambling--houses were closed! And the woman he
loved died! Then was it that the god was born in him from inconsolable
love and the suppressed passion for play. He was seized by illness,
during which the spirit of this dead woman visited him every night,
and revealed to him the doctrines of his new religion. Haunted by the
hallucinations of love and fever, Gannot listened to himself in the
voice which spoke within him. But he was no longer Gannot, he was
transfigured.
CHAPTER VIII
The god and his sanctuary--He informs the Pope of his
overthrow--His manifestoes--His portrait--Doctrine of
escape--Symbols of that religion--Chaudesaigues takes me to
the Mapah--Iswara and Pracriti--Questions which are wanting
in actuality--War between the votaries of _bidja_ and the
followers of _sakti_--My last interview with the Mapah
In 1840, in the old Ile Saint Louis which is lashed by bitter and angry
winds from the north and west, upon the coldest quay of that frigid
Thule--_terrarum ultima Thule_--on a dark and dingy ground-floor, in
a bare room, a man was moulding and casting in plaster. That man was
the one-time Gannot. The room served both as studio and school; pupils
came and took lessons in modelling there and to consult the _Mapah._
This was the name, as we have already said, under which Gannot went in
his new existence. From this room was sent the first manifesto in which
_he who had been Gannot_ proclaimed his mission to the world. Who was
surprised by it? Pope Gregory XVI. certainly was, when he received, on
his sovereign throne, a letter dated _from our apostolic pallet-bed_,
which announced that his time was over; that, from henceforth, he was
to look upon himself as dethroned, and, in fact, that he was superseded
by another. This polite duty fulfilled with regard to his predecessor,
Gannot, in all simplicity, announced to his friends that they must
look upon him as the god of the future. Gannot had been the leader of
a certain school of thought for two or three years past; amongst his
followers were Felix Pyat, Thoré, Chaudesaigues, etc. etc. His sudden
transformation from Gannot to Mapah, his declaration to the Pope,
and his presumption in posing as a revealer, alienated his former
disciples; it was the _durus his sermo._ Nevertheless, he maintained
unshaken belief in himself and continued his sermons; but as these oral
sermons were insufficient and he thought it necessary to add to them a
printed profession of faith, one day he sold his wearing apparel and
converted the price of it into manifestoes of war against the religion
of Christ, which he distributed among his new disciples.
After the sale of his wardrobe, the habits of the ci-devant lion
entirely disappeared, as his garments had done. In his transition from
Gannot to Mapah, everything that constituted the former man vanished: a
blouse replaced, for both summer and winter, the elegant clothes which
the past gambler used to wear; a grey felt hat covered his high and
finely-shaped forehead. But, seen thus, he was really beautiful: his
blue-grey eyes sparkled with mystic fire; his finely chiselled nose,
with its delicately defined outlines, was straight and pure in form;
his long flowing beard, bright gold coloured, fell to his chest; all
his features, as is usual with thinkers and visionaries, were drawn up
towards the top of his head by a sort of nervous tension; his hands
were white and fine and distinguished-looking, and, with a remnant
of his past vanity as a man of the world, he took particular care of
them; his gestures were not by any means without commanding power;
his language was eloquent, impassioned, picturesque and original.
The prophet of poverty, he had adopted its symbols; he became a
proletarian in order to reach the hearts of the lower classes; he
donned the working-man's blouse to convert the wearers of blouses.
The Mapah was not a simple god--he was a composite one; he was made
up of Saint Simon, of Fourier and of Owen. His chief dogma was the
extremely ancient one of Androgynism, _i.e._ the unity of the male and
female principle throughout all nature, and the unity of the man and
the woman in society. He called his religion EVADISME, _i.e._ (Eve and
Adam); himself he called MAPAH, from _mater_ and _pater_; and herein
he excelled the Pope, who had never even in the palmiest days of the
papacy, not even under Gregory VII., been anything more than the father
of Christians, whilst he was both father and mother of humanity. In his
system people had not to take simply the name of their father, but the
first syllable of their mother's name combined with the first syllable
of that of their father. Once the Mapah addressed himself thus to his
friend Chaudesaigues--
"What is your name?"
"Chaudesaigues."
"What does that come from?"
"It is my father's name."
"Have you then killed your mother, wretched man?"
Chaudesaigues lowered his head: he had no answer to give to that.
In Socialism Mapah's doctrine was that of dissent. According to him
assassins, thieves and smugglers were the living condemnation of the
moral order against which they were rebelling. Schiller's _Brigands_ he
looked upon as the most complete development of his theory to be found
in the world. Once he went to a home for lost women and collected them
together, as he had once collected the waiters of the Hollandais in the
days of his worldly folly; then, addressing the poor creatures who were
waiting with curiosity, wondering who this sultan could be who wanted a
dozen or more wives at a time--
"Mesdemoiselles," he said, "do you know what you are?"
"Why, we are prostitutes," the girls all replied together.
"You are wrong," said the Mapah; "you are Protestants." And in words
which were not without elevation and vividness, he expounded to them
the manner in which they, poor girls, protested against the privileges
of respectable women. It need hardly be said that, as this doctrine
spread, it led to some disquietude in the minds of magistrates, who had
not attained the heights of the new religion, but were still plunged in
the darkness of Christianity. Two or three times they brought the Mapah
before the examining magistrates and threatened him with a trial; but
the Mapah merely shook his blouse with his fine nervous hand, as the
Roman ambassador used to shake his toga.
"Imprison me, try me, condemn me," he said; "I shall not appeal from
the lower to a higher tribunal; I shall appeal from Pilate to the
People!"
And, in fact, whether they stood in awe of his beard, his blouse or his
speech, which was certainly captivating; whether they were unable to
arrive at a decision as to what court the new religion should be judged
at--police court or Court of Assizes--they left the Mapah in peace.
The most enthusiastic of the Evadian apostles was _he who was once
Caillaux,_ who published the _Arche de la nouvelle alliance._ He was
the Mapah's Saint John; the _Arche de la nouvelle alliance_ was the
gospel which told the passion of Humanity to whose rescue the Christ of
the Ile Saint Louis was come. We will devote a chapter to that gospel.
The Mapah himself wrote nothing, except two or three manifestoes issued
from his _apostolic pallet_, in which he announced his apostolate
to the modern world; he did nothing but pictures and plaster-casts
that looked like originals dug out of a temple of Isis. Taking his
_religion_ back to its source, he showed by his _twofold symbolism_,
how it had developed from age to age, fertilising the whole of nature,
till, finally, it culminated in himself. The whole of the history was
written in hieroglyphic signs, had the advantage of being able to be
read and expounded by everybody and treated of Buddhism, Paganism and
Christianity before leading up to Evadism. In the latter years of the
reign of Louis-Philippe, the Mapah sent his allegorical pictures and
symbols in plaster to the members of the Chamber of Deputies and to
the Royal Family; it will be readily believed that the members of the
Chamber and royal personages left these lithographs and symbols in the
hands of their ushers and lackeys, with which to decorate their own
attics. The Mapah trembled for their fate.
"They scoff," he said in prophecy: "MANÉ, THÉCEL, PHARÈS; evil fortune
will befall them!"
What did happen to them we know.
One day Chaudesaigues--poor honest fellow, who died long before his
time, which I shall speak of in its place--proposed to take me to the
Mapah, and I accepted. He recognised me, as he had once dined or taken
supper with me in the days when he was Gannot; and he had preserved
a very clear memory of that meeting; he was very anxious at once to
acquaint me with his symbolic figures, and to initiate me, like the
Egyptian proselytes, into his most secret mysteries. Now, I had, by
chance, just been studying in earnest the subjects of the early ages
of the world and its great wars, which apparently devastated those
primitive times without seeming reason; I was, therefore, in a measure,
perfectly able not only to understand the most obscure traditions of
the religion of the Mapah, but also to explain them to others, which I
will now endeavour to do here.
At the period when the Celts had conquered India, that ancestor of
Egyptian, Greek and Roman civilisations, they found a complete system
of physical and metaphysical sciences already established; Atlantic
cosmogony related to absolute unity, and, according to it, everything
emanated from one single principle, called _Iswara_, which was purely
spiritual. But soon the Indian savants perceived with fear, that
this world, which they had looked upon for long as the product of
absolute _unity_, was incontestably that of a combined _duality._
They might have looked upon these two principles, as did the first
Zoroaster a long time after them, as _principiés_--_i.e._ as the
son and daughter of Iswara, thus leaving the ancient Iswara his old
position, by supporting him on a double column of creating beings,
as we see a Roman general being carried raised up on two shields by
his soldiers; but they wished to divide these two principles into
_principiant_ principles; they therefore satisfied themselves by
joining a fresh principle to that of Iswara, by mating Iswara with
_Pracriti_, or nature. This explained everything. Pracriti possessed
the _sakti_--_i.e._ the conceptive power, and the old Iswara was the
_bidja_ or generative power.
I think, up to now, I have been as clear as possible, and I mean to try
to continue my explanations with equal lucidity; which will not be an
easy matter seeing that (and I am happy to give my reader due warning
of it) we are dealing only with pure science, of which fact he might
not be aware.
This early discovery of the Indian savants, which resulted in the
marriage of Iswara with Pracriti, led to the consideration of the
universe as the product of two principles, each possessing its own
peculiar function of the male and female qualities. Iswara and Pracriti
stood for Adam and Eve to the whole of the universe, not simply for
humanity. This system, remarkable by its very simplicity, which
attracted men by giving to all that surrounded him an origin similar
to his own, is to be found amongst most races, which received it from
the Hindus. Sanchoniathon calls his male principle _Hypsistos_, the
Most High, and his female principle _Berouth_, nature; the Greeks call
this male principle _Saturn_, and their female principle _Rhea_; both
one and the other correspond to Iswara and Pracriti. All went well for
several centuries; but the mania for controversy is innate in man, and
it led to the following questions, which the Hindu savants propounded,
and which provoked the struggle of half the human race against the
other.
"Since," say the controversials, "the universe is the result of two
_principiant_ powers, one acting with male, the other with female
qualities, must we then consider the relations that they bear to one
another? Are they independent one of the other? are they pre-existent
to matter and contemporaneous with eternity? Or ought we rather to look
upon one of them as the procreative cause of its companion? If they
are independent, how came they to be reunited? Was it by some coercive
force? If so, what divinity of greater power than themselves exercised
that pressure upon them? Was it by sympathy? Why, then, did it not act
either earlier or later? If they are not independent of one another,
which of the two is to be under subjection to the other? Which is
first in order of antiquity or of power? Did Iswara produce Pracriti
or Pracriti Iswara? Which of them acts with the greatest energy and is
the most necessary to the procreation of inanimate things and animate
beings? Which should be called first in the sacrifices made to them or
in the hymns addressed to them? Ought the worship offered them to be
combined or separated? Ought men and women to raise separate altars to
them or one for both together?"[1]
These questions, which have divided the minds of millions of men,
which have caused rivers of blood to flow, nowadays sound idle and
even absurd to our readers, who hear Hindu religion spoken of as mere
mythology, and India as some far-off planet; but, at the time of
which we are now speaking, the Indian Empire was the centre of the
civilised world and master of the known world. These questions, then,
were of the highest importance. They circulated quietly in the empire
at first, but soon each one collected quite a large enough number
of partisans for the religious question to appear under a political
aspect. The supreme priesthood, which at first had begun by holding
itself aloof from all controversy, sacrificed equally to Iswara
and to Pracriti--to the _generative_ power and to the _conceptive
power_: sacerdotalism, which had long remained neutral between the
_bidja_ and the _sakti_ principles, was compelled to decide, and as
it was composed of men--that is to say of the _generative power_, it
decided in favour of _males_, and proclaimed the dominance of the
masculine sex over the feminine. This decision was, of course, looked
upon as tyrannical by the Pracritists, that is, the followers of the
_conceptive power_ theory; they revolted. Government rose to suppress
the revolution and, hence, the declaration of civil war. Figure to
yourselves upon an immense scale, in an empire of several hundreds of
millions of men, a war similar to that of the Albigenses, the Vaudois
or the Protestants. Meantime two princes of the reigning dynasty,[2]
both sons of King Ongra, the oldest called Tarak'hya, the youngest
Irshou, divided the Indian Empire between them, less from personal
conviction than to make proselytes. One took _bija_ for his standard,
the other took _sakti._ The followers of each of these two symbols
rallied at the same time under their leaders, and India had a political
and civil and religious war; Irshou, the younger of the two brothers,
having positively declared that he had broken with sacerdotalism and
intended to worship the feminine or conceptive faculty, as the first
cause in the universe, according priority to it and pre-eminence over
the generative or masculine faculty. A political war can be ended
by a division of territory; a religious war is never-ending. Sects
exterminate one another and yet are not convinced. A deadly, bitter,
relentless war, then, ravaged the empire. As Irshou represented popular
opinion and the Socialism of the time, and his army was largely
composed of herdsmen, they called his followers the _pallis_, that is
to say, shepherds, from the Celtic word _pal_, which means shepherd's
crook. Irshou was defeated by Tarak'hya, and driven back as far as
Egypt. The Pallis there became the stock from which those primitive
dynasties sprang which lasted for two hundred and sixty-one years,
and are known as the dynasties of Shepherd Kings. The etymology this
time is palpably evident; therefore, let us hope we shall not meet
with any contradiction on this head. Now, we have stated that Irshou
took as his standard the symbol which represented the divinity he had
worshipped; that sign, in Sanscrit, was called _yoni_, from whence is
derived _yoneh_--which means a dove--this explains, we may point out
in passing, why the dove became the bird of Venus. The men who wore
the badge of the yoni were called Yoniens, and, as they always wore it
symbolically depicted on a red flag, red or purple became, at Tyre and
Sidon and in Greece, the royal colour, and was adopted by the consuls
and emperors and popes of Rome and, finally, by all reigning princes,
no matter what race they were descended from or what religion they
professed. My readers may assume that I am rather pleased to be able to
teach kings the derivation of their purple robes.
Well, then, it was on account of his studying these great questions of
dispute, which had lasted more than two thousand years and had cost a
million of men's lives; it was from fear lest they should be revived in
our days that the philanthropic Gannot endeavoured to found a religion,
under the title of Evadism which was to reunite these two creeds into
a single one. To that end were his strange figures moulded in plaster
and the eccentric lithographs that he designed and executed upon
coloured paper, with the earnestness of a Brahmin disciple of _bidja_
or an Egyptian adherent of _sakti._[3]
The joy of the Mapah can be imagined when he found I was acquainted
with the primitive dogmas of his religion and with the disasters which
the discussion of those doctrines had brought with them. He offered me
the position of his chief disciple, on the spot, in place of _him who
had once been Caillaux_; but I have ever been averse to usurpation,
and had no intention of devoting myself to a principle, by my example,
which, some day or other, I should be called upon to oppose. The Mapah
next offered to abdicate in my favour and himself be my head disciple.
The position did not seem to me sufficiently clearly defined, in the
face of both spiritual and temporal powers, to accept that offer,
fascinating though it was. I therefore contented myself with carrying
away from the Mapah's studio one of the most beautiful specimens of the
_bidja_ and _sakti_, promising to exhibit them in the most conspicuous
place in my sitting-room, which I took good care not to do, and then I
departed. I did not see the Mapah again until after the Revolution of
24 February, when, by chance, I met him in the offices of the _Commune
de Paris_, where I went to ask for the insertion of an article on
exiles in general, and those of the family of Orléans in particular.
The article had been declined by the chief editor of the _Liberté_, M.
Lepoitevin-Saint-Alme. The revolution predicted by Gannot had come. I
expected, therefore, to find him overwhelmed with delight; and, as a
matter of fact, he did praise the three days of February, but with a
faint voice and dulled feelings; he seemed to be singularly enfeebled
by that strange and sensual mysticism, which presented every event to
his mind in dogmatic form. The lines of the upper part of his face were
more deeply drawn towards his prominent forehead, and his whole person
bespoke the visionary in whom the hallucination of being a god had
degenerated into a disease.
He defined the terror of the middle classes at the events of 24
February and Socialistic doctrines as, "the frantic terror of the pig
which feels the cold edge of the knife at its throat." His latter
years were sad and gloomy; he ended by doubting himself. _Eli, Eli,
lama sabachthani!_ rang in his aching and disillusioned heart like a
death-knell. During the last year of his life his only pupil was an
Auvergnat, a seller of chestnuts in a passage-way.... And to him the
dying god bequeathed the charge of spreading his doctrines. This event
took place towards the beginning of the year 1851.
[1] The Abbé d'Olivet, _État social de l'homme._
[2] See the _Scanda-Pousana_ and the _Brahmanda_ for the details of
this war.
[3] In Sanscrit _linga_ and _yoni_; in Greek _ϕαλλος_ and _χοίρος._
CHAPTER IX
Apocalypse of the being who was once called Caillaux
We said a few words of the apostle of Mapah and promised to follow him
to his isle of Patmos and to give some idea of his apocalypse. We will
keep our word. It was no easy matter to find this apocalypse, my reader
may judge; it had been published at the trouble and expense of Hetzel,
under the title of _Arche de la nouvelle Alliance._ Not that Hetzel was
in the very least a follower of the Evadian religion--he was simply
the compatriot and friend of _him who was Caillaux_, to which twofold
advantages he owed the honour of dining several times with the god
Mapah and his disciple. It is more than likely that Hetzel paid for the
dinners himself.
ARCHE DE LA NOUVELLE ALLIANCE
"I have not come to say to the people, 'Render to Cæsar
the things that are Cæsar's and to God the things that are
God's,' but I have come to tell Cæsar to render to God
the things that belong to God! 'What is God?--God, is the
People!--The _Mapah._' At the hour when shadows deepen I saw
the vision of the last apostle of a decaying religion and I
exclaimed--
I
"'Why dost thou grieve, O king! and why dost thou moan over
thy ruined crown? Why rise up against those who dethroned
thee? If thou fallest to-day, it is because thy hour has
come: to attempt to prolong it for a day, is but to offer
insult to the Majesty in the heavens.
II
"'Everything that exists here below has it not its phases of
life and of death? Does the vegetation of the valleys always
flourish? After the season of fine days does it not come to
pass that some morning the autumn wind scatters the leaves
of the beeches?
III
"'Cease, then, O King! thy lamentation and do not be
perturbed in thy loneliness! Be not surprised if thy road is
deserted and if the nations keep silence during thy passing
as at the passing of a funeral cortège: thou hast not failed
in thy mission; simply, thy mission is done. It is destiny!
IV
"'Dost thou not know that humanity only lives in the future?
What does the present care about the oriflamme of Bouvines?
Let us bury it with thy ancestors lying motionless beneath
their monuments; another banner is needed for the men of
to-day.
V
"'And when we have sealed with a triple seal the stone
which covers up past majesty, let us do obeisance as did
the people of Memphis before the silence of their pyramids,
those mute giants of the desert; but like them do not let us
remain with our foreheads in the dust, but from the ruins of
ancient creeds let us spring upwards towards the Infinite!
Thus did I sing during the dawn of my life. A poet, I have
ever pitied noble misfortune; as son of the people, I have
never abjured renown. At that time this world appeared to
me to be free and powerful under heaven, and I believed
that the last salute of the universe to the phantom of
ancient days would be its first aspiration towards future
splendours. But it was nothing of the kind. The past, whilst
burying itself under the earth, had not drawn all its
procession of dark shades with it. Now I went to those bare
strands which the ocean bleaches with its foam. The seagulls
hailed the rocks of the coast with their harsh cries, and
the mighty voice of the sea sounded more sweetly to my ear
than the language of men ...'"
Then follows the apostle's feelings under the influence of the great
aspects of Nature; he stays a year far from Paris; then at last his
vocation recalls him among men.
"Now, the very night of my return from my wanderings, I
walked a dreamer in the midst of the roar of that great
western city, my soul more than ever crushed beneath
the weight of its ruin. I beheld myself as during my
happiest years when I was full of confidence in God and
the future; and then I turned my glance upon myself, the
man of the present moment, for ever tossed between hope
and fear, between desire and remorse, between calm and
discouragement. When I had well contemplated myself thus,
and had by thought stirred up the mud of the past and had
considered the good and evil that had emanated from me, I
raised in inexpressible anger my fist towards heaven, and
I said to God: 'To whom, then, does this earth belong?' At
the same moment, I felt myself hustled violently, and by
an irresistible movement I lowered my arm to strike--in
striking the cheek of him who was jostling me, I felt I was
smiting the world. Oh! what a surprise! my hand, instead of
beating his face, encountered his hand; a loving pressure
drew us together, and in grave and solemn tones he said:
'The water, the air, the earth and fire belong to none--they
are God's!' Then, uncovering the folds of the garment
which covered my breast, he put a finger on my heart and a
brilliant flame leapt out and I felt relief. Overcome with
amazement, I exclaimed--
"'Who art thou, whose word strengthens and whose touch
regenerates?'
'Thou shalt know, this very night!' he replied, and went on
his way.
"I followed and examined him at leisure: he was a man of the
people, with a crooked back and powerful limbs; an untrimmed
beard fell over his breast, and his bare and nearly bald
head bore witness to hard work and rude passions. He carried
a sack of plaster on his back which bowed him down beneath
its weight. Thus bent he passed through the crowd...."
The disciple then followed the god; for this man who had comforted him
was the Mapah; he followed him to the threshold of his studio, into
which he disappeared. It was the same studio to which Chaudesaigues had
taken me, on the quai Bourbon, in the Ile Saint Louis. The door of the
studio soon reopened and the apostle entered and was present at the
revelation, which the Mapah had promised him. But, first of all, there
was the discovery of the Mapah himself.
"Meanwhile, the owner of this dwelling had none of the
bearing of a common working-man. He was, indeed, the man of
the sack of plaster, and the uncut beard, and torn blouse,
who had accosted me in such an unexpected fashion; he had
exactly the same powerful glance, the same breadth of
shoulders, the same vigorous loins, but on that furrowed
brow, and in those granite features and that indescribable
personality of the man there hovered a rude dignity before
which I bowed my head.
"I advanced towards my host, who was laid on a half-broken
bed, lighted up by a night lamp in a pot of earth. I said--
"'Master, you whose touch heals and whose words restore, who
are you?'
"Lifting his eyes to me, he replied simply, 'There is no
master now; we are all children of God: call me brother.'
"'Then,' I replied, 'Brother, who then are you?'
"'I am _he who is._ Like the shepherd on the tops of the
cliffs I have heard the cry of the multitude; it is like
the moan of the waves at the winter equinox; that cry has
pierced my heart and I have come.'
"Motioning me to come nearer, he went on--
"'Son of doubt, who art sowing sorrow and reaping anguish,
what seekest thou? The sun or darkness? Death or life? Hope
or the grave?'
"'Brother, I seek after truth,' I replied. 'I have hailed
the past, I have questioned its abysmal depths whence came
the rumours that had reached me: the past was deaf to my
cries.'
"'The past was not to hear you. Every age has had its own
prophets, and each country its monuments; but prophets
and monuments have vanished like shadows: what was life
yesterday is to-day but death. Do not then evoke the past,
let it fall asleep in the darkness of its tombs in the dust
of its solitary places.'
"I went on--'I questioned the present amidst the flashes and
deceptions of this century, but it did not hear me either.'
"'The present was not to hear you; its flashes do but
precede the storm, and its law is not the law of the future.'
"'Brother, what then is this law? What are the showers that
make it blossom, and what sun sheds light upon it?'
"'God will teach thee.'
"Pointing to me to be seated near to him, he added:
'Sit down and listen attentively, for I will declare the
truth unto you. I am he who crieth to the people, "Watch at
the threshold of your dwelling and sleep not: the hour of
revelation is at hand ..."'
"At that moment the earth trembled, a hurricane beat against
the window panes, belfries rang of themselves; the disciple
would fain flee, but fear riveted him to the master's side.
He continued--
"I foreboded that something strange would take place before
me, and indeed as the knell of the belfry rang out on the
empty air, a song which had no echo in mortal tongue,
abrupt, quick and laden with indefinable mockery, answered
him from under the earth, and rising from note to note,
from the deepest to the shrillest tones, it resounded and
rebounded like some wounded snake, and grated like a saw
being sharpened; finally, ever decreasing, ever-growing
feebler, until it was lost at last in space. And this is the
burden of the song--
"'Behold the year '40, the famous year '40 has come! Ah!
ah! ah! What will it bring forth? What will it produce? An
ox or an egg? Perhaps one, perhaps the other! ah! ah! ah!
Peasants turn up your sleeves! And you wealthy, sweep your
hearthstones. Make way, make way for the year '40! The year
'40 is cold and hungry and in need of food; and no wonder!
Its teeth chatter, its limbs shiver, its children have
no shoes, and its daughters possess not even a ribbon to
adorn their locks on Sunday; they have not even a beggarly
dime lying idle in their poverty-stricken pockets to buy
drink wherewith to refresh themselves and their lovers! Ah!
ah! what wretchedness! Were it not too dreadful it would
seem ludicrous. Did you come here, gossip, to see this
topsy-turvy world? Come quickly, there is room for all....
Stay, you raven looking in at the window, and that vulture
beating its wings. Ah! ah! ah! The year '40 is cold, is an
hungered, in need of food! What will it bring forth ...?'
"And the song died away in the distance, and mingled with
the murmur of the wind which was wailing without....
"Then began the apparitions. There were twelve of them, all
livid and weighted with chains and bleeding, each holding
its dissevered head in its hand, each wrapped in a shroud,
green with the moss of its sepulchre, each carrying in front
of it the mark of the twelve great passions, the mystic
link which unites man to the Creator. They advanced as some
dark shadow of night falls upon the mountains. It was one
of those terrifying groups, which one sees in the days of
torment, in the midst of the cross-roads of the seething
city; the citizens question one another by signs, and ask
each other--
"'Do you see those awful faces down there? Who on earth are
those men, and how come they to wander spectre-like among
the excited crowd?'
"And on the head of the one who walked first, like that of
an over-thrown king, so splendid was its pallor and its
regal lips scornful, a crown of fire was burning with this
word written in letters of blood, '_Lacenairisme!_' Dumb
and led by the figure who seemed to be their king, the
phantoms grouped themselves in a semi-circle at the foot of
the dilapidated bed, as though at the foot of some seat of
justice; and _he who is_, after fixing his earnest glance
upon them for some moments questioned them in the following
terms--
"'Who are you?'
"'Sorrow's elect, apostles of hunger.'
"'Your names?'
"'A mysterious letter.'
"'Whence come you?'
"'From the shades.'
"'What do you demand?'
"'Justice.'
"The echoes repeated, 'Justice!'
"And at a signal from their king, the phantoms intoned a
ringing hymn in chorus ..."
It had a kind of awful majesty in it, a sort of grand
terror, but we will reserve our space for other quotations
which we prefer to that. The apostle resumed--
"The pale phantoms ceased, their lips became motionless and
frozen, and round the accursed brows of these lost children
of the grave, there seemed to hover indistinctly the bloody
shadow of the past. Suddenly from the base to the top of
this mysterious ladder issued a loud sound, and fresh faces
appeared on the threshold.... A red shirt, a coarse woollen
cap, a poor pair of linen trousers soiled with sweat and
powder; at the feet was a brass cannon-ball, in its hands
were clanking chains; these accoutrements stood for the
symbols of all kinds of human misfortunes. As if they had
been called up by their predecessors, they entered and bowed
amicably to them. I noticed that each face bore a look
of unconcern and of defiance, each carefully hid a rusty
dagger beneath its vestments, and on their shoulders they
bore triumphantly a large chopping-block still dyed with
dark stains of blood. And on this block leant a man with
a drunken face and tottering legs, grotesquely supporting
himself on the worn-out handle of an axe. And this man,
gambolling and gesticulating, mumbled in a nasal tone, a
kind of lament with this refrain--
"'Voici l'autel et le bedeau!
À sa barbe faisons l'orgie;
Jusqu'à ce que sur notre vie,
Le diable tire le rideau,
Foin de l'autel et du bedeau!'
"And his companions took up the refrain in chorus to the
noise of their clashing chains. Which perceiving _he who is_
spread his hands over the dreadful pageant. There took place
a profound silence; then he said--
"'My heart, ocean of life, of grief and of love, is the
great receptacle of the new alliance into which fall its
tears and sweat and blood; and by the tears which have
watered, by the sweat which has dropped, by the blood which
has become fertile, be blessed, my brothers, executed
persons, convicts and sufferers, and hope--the hour of
revelation is at hand!'
'What!' I exclaimed in horror; 'hast thou come to preach the
sword?'
'I do not come to preach it but to give the word for it.'
"And _he who is_ replied--
"'Passions are like the twelve great tables of the law of
laws, LOVE. They are when in unison the source of all good
things; when subverted they are the source of all evils.'
"Silence again arose, and he added--
"'Each head that falls is one letter of a verb whose
meaning is not yet understood, but whose first word stands
for protestation; the last, signifies integral passional
expansion. The axe is a steel; the head of the executed,
a flint; the blood which spurts from it, the spark; and
society a powder-horn!'
"Silence was renewed, and he went on a third time--
"'The prison is to modern society what the circus was to
ancient Rome: the slave died for individual liberty; in our
day, the convict dies for passional integral liberty.'
"And again silence reigned, but after a while a mild
Voice from on high said to the sorry cortège which stood
motionless at one corner of the pallet-bed---
"'Have hope, ye poor martyrs! Hope! for the hour
approaches!'"
"Then three noble figures came forward--those of the
mechanic, the labourer and the soldier. The first was
hungry: they fought with him for the bread he had earned.
The second was both hungry and cold; they haggled for the
corn he had sown and the wood he had cut down. The third
had experienced every kind of human suffering; furthermore,
he had hoped and his hope had withered away, and he was
reproached for the blood that had been shed. All three
bore the history of their lives on their countenances; all
felt ill at ease in the present and were ready to question
God concerning His doings; but as the hour approached and
their cry was about to rise to the Eternal, a spectre rose
up from the limbs of the past: his name was _Duty._ Before
him they recoiled affrighted. A priest went before them,
his form wrapped in burial clothes; he advanced slowly with
lowered eyes. Strange contrast! He dreamed of the heavens
and yet bent low towards the earth! On his breast was the
inscription: _Christianity!_ Beneath: _Resignation._
"'Here they come! Behold them!' cried the apostle; they are
advancing to _him who is._ What will be the nature of their
speech and how will they express themselves in his presence?
Will their complaint be as great as their sadness? Not so,
their uncertainty is too great for them to dare to formulate
their thoughts: besides, doubt is their real feeling.
Perhaps, some day, they may speak out more freely. Let us
listen respectfully to the hymn that falls from their lips;
it is solemnly majestic, but less musical than the breeze
and less infinite than the Ocean. Hear it--
HYMNE
"Du haut de l'horizon, du milieu des nuages
Où l'astre voyageur apparut aux trois rois,
Des profondeurs du temple où veillent tes images,
O Christ! entends-tu notre voix?
Si tu contemples la misère
De la foule muette au pied de tes autels,
Une larme de sang doit mouiller ta paupière.
Tu dois te demander, dans ta douleur austère,
S'il est des dogmes éternels!"
LE PRÊTRE
"O Christ! j'ai pris longtemps pour un port salutaire
Ta maison, dont le toit domine les hauts lieux;
Et j'ai voulu cacher au fond du sanctuaire,
Comme sous un bandeau, mon front tumultueux."
LE SOLDAT
"O Christ! j'ai pris longtemps pour une noble chaîne
L'abrutissant lien que je traîne aujourd'hui;
Et j'ai donné mon sang à la cause incertaine
De cette égalité dont l'aurore avait lui."
LE LABOUREUR
"O Christ! j'ai pris longtemps pour une tâche sainte
La rude mission confiée à mes bras,
Et j'ai, pendant vingt ans, sans repos et sans plainte,
Laissé sur les sillons la trace de mes pas."
L'OUVRIER
"O Christ! j'ai pris longtemps pour œuvre méritoire
Mes longs jours consumés dans un labeur sans fin;
Et, maintes fois, de peur d'outrager ta mémoire,
J'ai plié ma nature aux douleurs de la faim."
LE PRÊTRE
"La foi n'a pas rempli mon âme inassouvie!"
LE SOLDAT
"L'orage a balayé tout le sang répandu!"
LE LABOUREUR
"Où je semais le grain, j'ai récolté l'ortie!"
L'OUVRIER
"Hier, J'avais un lit mon maître l'a vendu!"
"Silence! Has the night wind borne away their prayer on its
wings? or have their voices ceased to question the heavens?
Are they perchance comforted? Who can tell? God keeps the
enigma in His own mighty hands, the terrible enigma held
aloft over the borders of two worlds--the present and the
future. But they will not be forsaken on their way where
doubt assails them, where resignation fells them. Children
of God, they shall have their share of life and of sunshine.
God loves those who seek after Him.... Then the priest and
soldier and artizan and labourer gave place to others, and
the apostle went on--
"And after two women, one of whom was dazzlingly and boldly
adorned, and the other mute and veiled, there followed a
procession in which the grotesque was mingled with the
terrible, the fantastic with the real; all moved about the
room together, which seemed suddenly to grow larger to make
space for this multitude, whilst the retiring spectres,
giving place to the newcomers, grouped themselves silently
at a little distance from their formidable predecessors.
And _he who is_, preparing to address a speech to the fresh
arrivals, one of their number, whom I had not at first
noticed, came forward to answer in the name of his acolytes.
Upon the brow of this interpreter, square built, with
shining and greedy lips and on his glistening hungry lips, I
read in letters of gold the word _Macairisme!_
"And _he who is_ said--
"'Who are you?'
"'The favourites of luxury, the apostles of joy.'
"'Whence come you?'
"'From wealth.'
"'Where do you go?'
"'To pleasure.'
"'What has made you so well favoured?'
"'Infamy.'
"'What makes you so happy?'
"'Impunity.'"
The strange procession which then unfolded itself before the apostle's
eyes can be imagined: first the dazzling woman in the bold attire,
the prostitute; the mute, veiled woman was the adulteress; then came
stock-jobbers, sharpers, business men, bankers, usurers,--all that
class of worms, reptiles and serpents which are spawned in the filth of
society.
"One twirled a great gold snuff-box between his fingers,
upon the lid of which were engraved these words: _Powdered
plebeian patience_; and he rammed it into his nostrils with
avidity. Another was wrapped in the folds of a great cloak
which bore this inscription: _Cloth cut from the backs
of fools._ A third, with a narrow forehead, yellow skin
and hollow cheeks, was leaning lovingly upon his abdomen,
which was nothing less than an iron safe, his two hands,
the fingers of which were so many great leeches, twisting
and opening their gaping tentacles, as though begging for
food. Several of the figures had noses like the beaks of
vultures, between their round and wild eyes: noses which
cut up with disgusting voracity a quarter of carrion held
at arm's length by a chain of massive gold, resembling
those which shine on the breasts of the grand dignitaries
of various orders of chivalry. In the middle of all was one
who shone forth in brilliant pontifical robes, with a mitre
on his head shaped like a globe, sparkling with emeralds
and rubies. He held a crozier in one hand upon which he
leant, and a sword in the other, which seemed at a distance
to throw out flames; but on nearer approach the creaking of
bones was heard beneath the vestments, and the figure turned
out to be only a skeleton painted, and the sword and the
crozier were but of fragile glass and rotten wood. Finally,
above this seething, deformed indescribable assembly, there
floated a sombre banner, a gigantic oriflamme, a fantastic
labarum, the immense folds of which were being raised by
a pestilential whistling wind; and on this banner, which
slowly and silently unfurled like the wings of a vulture,
could be read, _Providential Pillories._ And the whole
company talked and sang, laughed and wept, gesticulated
and danced and performed innumerable artifices. It was
bewildering! It was fearful!"
Here followed the description of a kind of revel beside which _Faust's_
was altogether lacking in imagination. But, when he thought they had
all talked, sung, laughed, wept, gesticulated and danced long enough,
_he who is_ made a sign and all those voices melted into but two
voices, and all the figures into but two, and all the heads into but
two. And two human forms appeared side by side, looking down at their
feet, which were of clay. Then, suddenly, out of the clay came forth
a seven-headed hydra and each of its heads bore a name. The first was
called Pride; the second, Avarice; the third, Luxury; the fourth,
Envy; the fifth, Gluttony; the sixth, Anger; the seventh, Idleness.
And, standing up to its full height, this frightful hydra, with its
thousand folds, strangled the writhing limbs of the colossus, which
struggled and howled and uttered curses and lamentations towards the
heavens: each of the seven jaws of the monster impressed horrible bites
in his flesh, one in his forehead, another in his heart, another in his
belly, another in his mouth, another in his flanks and another in his
arms.
"'Behold the past!' said _he who is._
"'Brother,' I cried, 'and what shall then the future be
like?'
"'Look,' he said. The hydra had disappeared and the two
human forms were defined again, intertwined, full of
strength and majesty and love against the light background
of the hovel, and the feet of the colossus were changed
into marble of the most dazzling whiteness. When I had
well contemplated this celestial form, _he who is_ again
held out his hands and it vanished, and the studio became
as it was a few moments previously. The three great orders
of our visitors were still there, but calm now and in holy
contemplation. Then _he who is_ said--
"'Whoever you may be, from whatever region you come, from
sadness or pleasure, from a splendid east or the dull west,
you are welcome brothers, and to all I wish good days, good
years! To the murdered and convicts, brothers! innocent
protestors, gladiators of the circus, living thermometers
of the falsity of social institutions, Hope! the hour of
your restoration is at hand!... And you poor prostitutes,
my sisters! beautiful diamonds, bespattered with mud and
opprobrium, Hope! the hour of your transformation is
approaching!... To you, adulteresses, my sisters, who weep
and lament in your domestic prison, fair Christs of love
with tarnished brows, Hope! the hour of liberty is near!...
To you, poor artisans, my brothers, who sweat for the master
who devours you, who eat the scraps of bread he allows
you, when he does leave you any, in agony and torments for
the morrow! What ought you to become? Everything! What are
you now? Nothing! Hope and listen: Oppression is impious;
resignation is blasphemy!... To you, poor labouring men and
farmers, brothers, who toil for the landlord, sow and reap
the corn for the landlord of which he leaves you only the
bran, Hope! the time for bread whiter than snow is coming!
... To you, poor soldiers, my brothers, who fertilise the
great furrow of humanity with your blood, Hope! the hour
for eternal peace is at hand!... And you, poor priests, my
brothers, who lament beneath your frieze robes and heat your
foreheads at the sides of your altars! Hope! the hour of
toleration is at hand!'
"After a moment's silence, _he who is_ went on--
"'I not forget you, either, you the happy ones of the
century, those elected for joy. You, too, have your mission
to fulfil; it is a holy one, for from the glutted body of
the old world will issue the transformed universe of the
future.... Be welcome, then, brothers; good wishes to you
all!'
"Then all those who were present, who had listened to him,
departed from the garret in silence, filled with hope; and
their footsteps echoed on the steps of the interminably long
staircase. And the same cry which had already rung in my
ears resounded a second time--'The year '40 is cold, it is
hungry! The year '40 needs food! What will it bring forth?
What will it produce? Ah! ah! ah!'
"I turned to _him who is._ The night had not run a third of
its course, and the flame of the lamp still burnt in its
yellow fount, and I exclaimed--
"'Brother! in whose name wilt thou relieve all these
miseries?'
"'In the name of my mother, the great mother who was
crucified!' replied _he who is._
"He continued: 'At the beginning all was well and all women
were like the one single woman, _Eve_, and all men like one
single man, _Adam_, and the reign of _Eve and Adam_, or of
primitive unity, flourished in Eden, and harmony and love
were the sole laws of this world.'
"He went on: 'Fifty years ago appeared a woman who was more
beautiful than all others--her name was _Liberty_, and she
took flesh in a people--that people called itself _France._
On her brow, as in ancient Eden, spread a tree with green
boughs which was called the _tree of liberty._ Henceforward
France and Liberty stand for the same thing, one single
identical idea!' And, giving me a harp which hung above
his bed, he added. 'Sing, prophet!' and the Spirit of God
inspired me with these words--
I
"Why dost thou rise with the Sun, O France! O Liberty! And
why are thy vestments scented with incense? Why dost thou
ascend the mountains in early morn?
II
"Is it to see reapers in the ripened cornfields, or the
gleaner bending over the furrows like a shrub bowed down by
the winds?
III
"Or is it to listen to the song of the lark or the murmur of
the river, or to gaze at the dawn which is as beautiful as a
blue-eyed maiden?
IV
"If you rise with the sun, O France! O Liberty! it is not to
watch the reapers in the cornfields or the bowed gleaners
among the furrows.
V
"Nor to listen to the song of the lark or murmur of the
river, nor yet to gaze at the dawn, beauteous as a blue-eyed
maiden.
VI
"Thou awaitest thy bridegroom to be: thy bridegroom of the
strong hands, with lips more roseate than corals from the
Spanish seas, and forehead more polished than Pharo's marble.
VII
"Come down from thy mountains, O France! O Liberty! Thou
wilt not find thy bridegroom there. Thou wilt meet him in
the holy city, in the midst of the multitude.
VIII
"Behold him as he comes to thee, with proud steps, his
breast covered with a breastplate of brass; thou shalt slip
the nuptial ring on his finger; at thy feet is a crown that
has fallen in the mud; thou shalt place it on his brow and
proclaim him emperor. Thus adorned thou shalt gaze on him
proudly and address him thus--
IX
'My bridegroom thou art as beauteous as the first of men.
Take off the Phrygian cap from my brow, and replace it by
a helmet with waving plumes; gird my loins with a flaming
sword and send me out among the nations until I shall have
accomplished in sorrow the mystery of love, according as it
has been written, that I am to crush the serpent's head!'
X
"And when thy bridegroom has listened to thee, he will
reply: 'Thy will be done, O France! O Liberty!' And he will
urge thee forth, well armed, among the nations, that God's
word may be accomplished.
XI
"Why is thy brow so pale, O France! O Liberty! And why is
thy white tunic soiled with sweat and blood? Why walkest
thou painfully like a woman in travail?
XII
"Because thy bridegroom gives thee no relaxation from thy
task, and thy travail is at hand.
XIII
"Dost thou hear the wind roaring in the distance, and the
mighty voice of the flood as it groans in its granite
prison? Dost thou hear the moaning of the waves and the cry
of the night-birds? All announce that deliverance is at hand.
XIV
"As in the days of thy departure, O France, O Liberty!
put on thy glorious raiment; sprinkle on thy locks the
purest perfumes of Araby; empty with thy disciples the
farewell goblet, and take thy way to thy Calvary, where the
deliverance of the world must be sealed.
XV
"'What is the name of that hill thou climbest amidst the
lightning flashes?'
"'The hill is Waterloo.'
"'What is that plain called all red with thy blood?'
"'It is the plain of the Belle-Alliance!'
"'Be thou for ever blessed among women, among all the
nations, O France! O Liberty!'
"And when _he who is_ had listened to these things, he
replied--
"'Oh, my mother, thou who told me "Death was not the tomb;
but the cradle of an ampler life, of more infinite Love!"
thy cry has reached me. O mother! by the anguish of thy
painful travail, by the sufferings of thy martyrdom in
crushing the serpent's head and saving Humanity!'
"Then turning to me he added: 'Child of God, what art thou
looking for? Light or darkness? Death or life? Hope or
despair?'
"'Brother,' I replied, 'I am looking for Truth!'
"And he replied, 'In the name of primeval unity,
reconstructed by the grand blood of France, I hail thee
apostle of _Eve-Adam!_'
"And _he who is_ called forth to the abyss which opened out
at his voice--
"'Child of God,' he said, 'listen attentively, and look!'
"And I looked and saw a great vessel, with a huge mast
which terminated in a mere hull, and one of the sides of
the vessel looked west and the other east. And on the
west it rested upon the cloudy tops of three mountains
whose bases were plunged in a raging sea. Each of these
mountains bore its name on its blood-red flank: the first
was called Golgotha; the second, Mont-Saint-Jean; the
third, Saint-Helena. In the middle of the great mast,
on the western side, a five-armed cross was fixed, upon
which a woman was stretched, dying. Over her head was this
inscription--
"FRANCE
18 _June_ 1815
Good Friday
"Each of the five arms of the cross on which she was
stretched represented one of the five parts of the world;
her head rested over Europe and a cloud surrounded her. But
on the side of the vessel which looked towards the east
there were no shadows; and the keel stayed at the threshold
of the city of God, on the summit of a triumphal arch which
the sun lit up with its rays. And the same woman reappeared,
but she was transfigured and radiant; she lifted up the
stone of a grave on which was written--
"RESTORATION, DAYS OF THE TOMB
29 _July_ 1830
Easter
"And her bridegroom held out his arms, smiling, and together
they sprang upwards to the skies. Then, from the depths of
the arched heavens, a mighty voice spake--
"'The mystery of love is accomplished--all are called! all
are chosen! all are re-instated!' Behold this is what I saw
in the holy heavens and soon after the abyss was veiled, and
_he who is_ laid his hands upon me and said--
"'Go, my brother, take off thy festal garments and don the
tunic of a working-man; hang the hammer of a worker at thy
waist, for he who does not go with the people does not side
with me, and he who does not take his share of labour is the
enemy of God. Go, and be a faithful disciple of unity!'
"And I replied: 'It is the faith in which I desire to live,
which I am ready to seal with my blood? When I was ready to
set forth, the sun began to climb above the horizon.
"_He who was_ CAILLAUX
_"July_ 1840"
Such was the apocalypse of the chief, and we might almost say, the
only apostle of the Mapah. I began with the intention of cutting out
three-quarters of it, and I have given nearly the whole. I began, my
pen inclined to scoff, but my courage has failed me; for there is
beneath it all a true devotion and poetry and nobility of thought. What
became of the man who wrote these lines? I do not know in the least;
but I have no doubt he did not desert _the faith in which he desired
to live, and that he remained ready to seal it with his blood._ ...
Society must be in a bad state and sadly out of joint and disorganised
for men of such intelligence to find no other method of employment than
to become self-constituted gods--or apostles!
BOOK III
CHAPTER I
The scapegoat of power--Legitimist hopes--The
expiatory mass--The Abbé Olivier--The Curé of
Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois--Pachel--Where I begin
to be wrong--General Jacqueminot--Pillage of
Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois--The sham Jesuit and the Préfet of
Police--The Abbé Paravey's room
Whilst we were upon the subject of great priests, of apostles and gods,
of the Abbé Châtel, and of _him who was Caillaux_ and the Mapah, we
meant to approach cursorily the history of Saint-Simon and of his two
disciples Enfantin and Bayard; but we begin to fear that our readers
have had enough of this modern Olympus; we therefore hasten to return
to politics, which were going from bad to worse, and to literature,
which was growing better and better. Let us, however, assure our
readers they have lost nothing by the delay: a little further on they
will meet with the god again at his office of the Mont-de-Piété, and
the apostles in their retreat of Mérilmontant.
But first let us return to our artillerymen; then, by way of
Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois and the archbishop's palace, we will reach
_Antony._ As will be realised, our misdeeds of the months of November
and December had roused the attention of those in authority; warrants
had been issued, and nineteen citizens, mostly belonging to the
artillery, had been arrested. These were Trélat, Godefroy Cavaignac,
Guinard, Sambuc, Francfort, Audry, Penard, Rouhier, Chaparre, Guilley,
Chauvin, Peschieux d'Herbinville, Lebastard, Alexandre Garnier,
Charles Garnier, Danton, Lenoble, Pointis and Gourdin. They had been
in all the riots of the reign of Louis-Philippe, as also in those of
the end of the Consulate and the beginning of the Empire: no matter
what party had stirred up the rising, it was always the Republicans
who were dropped upon. And this because every reactionary government,
in succession for the past seventy years, thoroughly understood that
Republicans were its only serious, actual and unceasing enemies. The
preference King Louis-Philippe showed us, at the risk of being accused
of partiality, strongly encouraged the other parties and, notably,
the Carlist party. Royalists from within and Royalist from without
seemed to send one another this famous programme of 1792: "_Make a
stir and we will come in! Come in, and we will make a stir!_" It was
the Royalists inside who were the first to make a stir and upon the
following occasion: The idea had stayed in the minds of various persons
that King Louis-Philippe had only accepted his power to give it at
some time to Henri V. Now, that which, in particular, lent colour to
the idea that Louis-Philippe was inclined to play the part of monk,
was the report that the only ambassador the Emperor Nicholas would
accept was this very M. de Mortemart, to whom the Duc d'Orléans had
handed, on 31 July, this famous letter of which I have given a copy;
and, as M. de Mortemart had just started for St. Petersburg with the
rank of ambassador, there was no further doubt, at least, in the eyes
of the Royalists that the king of the barricades was ready to hand
over the crown to Henri V. This rumour was less absurd, it must be
granted, than that which was spread abroad from 1799 to 1803, namely,
that Bonaparte had caused 18 Brumaire for the benefit of Louis XVIII.
Each of the two sovereigns replied with arguments characteristic of
themselves. Bonaparte had the Duc d'Enghien arrested, tried and shot.
Louis-Philippe allowed the pillage of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois and
of the archbishop's palace. An opportunity was to be given to the
Carlists and priests, their natural allies, to test the situation
which eight months of Philippist reign and three of Republican
prosecutions had wrought among them. They were nearing 14 February,
the anniversary of the assassination of the Duc de Berry. Already in
the provinces there had been small Legitimist attempts. At Rodez,
the tree of liberty was torn down during the night; at Collioure,
they had hoisted the white flag; at Nîmes, les Verdets seemed to
have come to life again, and, like the phantoms that return from the
other world to smite their enemies, they had, it was reported, beaten
the National Guard, who had been discovered, almost overwhelmed and
unable to give any but a very vague description of their destroyers.
That was the situation on 12 February. The triple emanation of the
Republican, Carlist and Napoléonic phases went through the atmosphere
like a sudden gust of storm, bearing on its wings the harsh cries of
some unbridled, frenzied carnival, when, all at once, people learnt
that, in a couple of days' time, an anniversary service was to be
celebrated at Saint-Roch, in expiation of the assassination at the
Place Louvois. A political assassination is such a detestable thing
in the opinion of all factions, that it ought always to be allowable
to offer expiatory masses for the assassinated; but there are times
of feverish excitement when the most simple actions assume the huge
proportions of a threat or contempt, and this particular mass, on
account of the peculiar circumstances at the time, was both a threat
and an act of defiance. But they were deceived as to the place where
it was to be held. Saint-Roch, as far as I can recollect, was, at that
period, served by the Abbé Olivier, a fine, spiritual-minded priest,
adored by his flock, who are scarcely consoled at the present day by
seeing him made Bishop of Évreux. I knew the Abbé Olivier; he was fond
of me and I hope he still likes me; I reverenced him and shall always
reverence him. I mention this, in passing, to give him news of one of
his penitents, in the extremely improbable case of these Memoirs ever
falling into his hands. Moreover, I shall have to refer to him later,
more than once. He was deeply devoted to the queen; more than anyone
else he could appreciate the benevolence, piety and even humility of
that worthy princess: for he was her confessor. I do not know whether
it was on account of the royal intimacy with which the Abbé Olivier
was honoured, or because he understood the significance of the act
that was expected of him, that the Church of Saint-Roch declined the
honour. It was different with the curé of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois.
He accepted. This appealed to him as a twofold duty: the curé of
Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois was nearly eighty years of age, and he was
the priest who had accompanied Marie-Antoinette to the scaffold. His
curate, M. Paravey, by a strange coincidence, was the priest who had
blessed the tombs of the Louvre.
In consequence of the change which had been made in the programme,
men, placed on the steps of the Church of Saint-Roch, distributed,
on the morning of the 14th, notices announcing that the funeral
ceremony had been arranged to take place at Saint-Roch and not at
Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois.
I was at the Vaudeville, where I believe we were rehearsing _La Famille
improvisée_ by Henry Monnier--I have already spoken of, and shall often
again refer to, this old friend of mine, an eminent artiste, witty
comrade and _good fellow_! as the English say--when Pachel the head
hired-applauder ran in terrified, crying out that emblazoned equipages
were forming in line at Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois; and people were
saying in the crowd that the personages who were getting out from them
had come to be present at a requiem service for the repose of the soul
of the Duc de Berry. This news produced an absolutely contrary effect
upon Arago and myself: it exasperated Arago, but put me very much at
ease.
I have related how I was educated by a priest, and by an excellent
one too; now that early education, the influence of those juvenile
memories, gave--I will not say to all my actions--God forbid I should
represent myself to my readers as a habitually religious-minded
man!--but to all my beliefs and opinions--such a deep religious tinge
that I cannot even now enter a church without taking holy water, or
pass in front of a crucifix without making the sign of the cross.
Therefore, in spite of the violence of my political opinions at that
time, I thought that the poor assassinated Duc de Berry had a right to
a requiem mass, that the Royalists had a right to be present at it and
the curé the right to celebrate it. But this was not Étienne's way of
looking at it. Perhaps he was right. Consequently, he wrote a few lines
to the _National_ and to the _Temps_ and ran to the spot. I followed
him in a much more tranquil manner. I could see that something serious
would come of it; that the Royalist journals would exclaim against
the sacrilege, and that the accusation would fall upon the Republican
party. Arago, with his convinced opinions, his southern fieriness
of temperament, entered the church just as a young man was hanging
a portrait of the Duc de Bordeaux on the catafalque. Here was where
Arago began to be in the right and I to be in the wrong. Behind the
young man there came a lady, who placed a crown of immortelles upon it;
behind the woman came soldiers, who hung their crosses to the effigy
of Henri VI. by the aid of pins. Now, Arago was wholly in the right
and I totally wrong. For the ceremony here ceased to be a religious
demonstration and became a political act of provocation. The people and
citizens rushed into the church. The citizens became incensed, and the
people grumbled. But let us keep exactly to the events which followed.
The riot at the archbishop's palace was middle class, not lower class.
The men who raised it were the same as those who had caused the
Raucourt and Philippe riots under the Restoration; the subscriptors
of Voltaire-Touquet, the buyers of snuff-boxes à la Charte. Arago
perceived the moment was the right one and that the irritation and
grumbling could be turned to account. There was no organisation in the
nature of conspiracy at that time; but the Republican party was on the
watch and ready to turn any contingencies to account. We shall see the
truth of this illustrated in connection with the burial of Lamarque.
Arago sprang out of the church, climbed up on a horizontal bar of the
railings and, stretching out his hands in the direction of the graves
of July, which lay in front of the portal of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois,
shouted--"Citizens! They dare to celebrate a requiem service in honour
of one of the members of the family whom we have just driven from
power, only fifty yards from the victims of July! Shall we allow them
to finish the service?"
Maddened cries went up. "No! no! no!" from every voice; and they rushed
into the church. The assailants encountered General Jacqueminot in
the doorway, who was then chief of the staff or second in command of
the National Guard (I do not know further particulars, and the matter
is not important enough for me to inquire into). He tried to stem the
torrent, but it was too strong to be stopped by a single man. The
general realised this, and tried to stay it by a word. Now, a word, if
it is the right one, and courageous or sympathetic, is the safest wall
that can be put across the path of that fifth element which we call
"The People."
"My friends," cried the general, "listen to me and take in who I am--I
was at Rambouillet: therefore, I belong to your party."
"You were at Rambouillet?" a voice questioned.
"Yes."
"Well, you would have done better to stay in Paris, and to leave the
combatants of July where they were: their absence would not then have
been taken advantage of to set up a king!"
The riposte was a deadly one, and General Jacqueminot looked upon
himself as a dead man and made no further signs of life. The invasion
of the church was rapid, irresistible and terrible; in a few minutes
the catafalque was destroyed, the pall was torn to shreds and the altar
knocked down; the golden-flowered hanging, sacred pictures, sacerdotal
vestments were all trampled under foot! Scepticism revenged itself by
impiety, sacrilege and blasphemy, for the fifteen years during which it
had been made to hide its mocking face behind the mask of hypocrisy.
They laughed, they howled, they danced round all the sacred things
they had heaped up, overturned and torn in pieces. One of the rioters
came out of the sacristy in the complete dress of a priest: he mounted
on the top of a heap of débris and beat time to the infernal din. It
looked like a figure of Satan, dressed up ironically in priestly robes,
presiding over a revel.
I witnessed the whole scene from the entrance and went away, with
bent head and a heavy heart and unquiet mind, sorry I had seen it. I
could not hide from myself that the people had been incited to do what
they had done. I was too much of a philosopher to expect the people
to discriminate between the Church and the priesthood--religion from
its ministers; but I was too religious at heart to stay there, and
I attempted to get away from the place. I say _I attempted_, for it
was no easy thing to get out: the square of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois
was crowded; and the crowd, forced back into the narrow rue de
Prêtres, overflowed on to the quays. At one spot this crowd was
excited and turbulent; and a struggle was going on from whence issued
cries. A tall, pale young man, with long black hair and good-looking
countenance, was standing on a post, watching the tumult with some
expression of scorn. One of the bystanders, who was probably irritated
by this disdain, began to shout: "A Jesuit!" Such a cry at such a time
was like putting a match to a bundle of tow. The crowd rushed for the
poor fellow, crying--
"Throw the Jesuits into the Seine! Drown him! Give the Jesuits to the
nets of Saint-Cloud!"
Baude was the Préfet of Police. I can see him now with his fine locks
flying in the wind, his dark eyes darting out lightning flashes, and
his herculean strength. It was the second time I had seen him thus. He
had just arrived with the Municipal Guard, which he had drawn up before
the church door; the men were trying to shut the gates. He flew to the
rescue of the unlucky doomed man, who was being passed from hand to
hand, and was in his aërial flight approaching the river with fearful
rapidity. The desire to hinder a murder redoubled Baude's strength.
He reached the edge of the river at the same time as the victim who
was threatened with being flung over the parapet. He clutched hold
of him and drew him back. I saw no more: for I was being suffocated
against the boards which, at that time, enclosed the _jardin de
l'Infante_ and, dilapidated though they were, they offered a great
deal more resistance than I liked, The necessity for labouring for
my personal preservation compelled me to turn my eyes away from the
direction of the quay and to struggle on my own account. My stalwart
build and the combined efforts of many who recognised me enabled me to
reach the quay and, from thence, the _pont des Arts._ They were still
fighting by the parapet. Later, I learnt that Baude had succeeded
in saving the poor devil at the expense of a good number of bruises
and his coat torn to ribbons. But, whilst the Préfet of Police was
playing the part of philanthropist, he was not fulfilling his duties
as préfet, and the rioters profited by this lapse in his municipal
functions. The people continued pillaging the church and the presbytery
of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, and by the time that Baude had done his
good action it was all over. Only the room of the Abbé Paravey, who
had blessed the tombs of the July martyrs, had been respected. The mob
always recognises, even in its moments of greatest anger and its worst
sacrilege, the something that is greater than its wrath, before which
it stops and bends the knee. On 24 February 1848 the mob served the
Tuileries as they had served the Church of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois on
14 February 1831, but it stopped short at the apartment of the Duchesse
d'Orléans, as it had done before the Abbé Paravey's room.