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
Let us skip over the reception of M. Viennet into the Académie
Française, which fact M. Viennet doubtless learnt from his porter, as
he learned later, from the same porter, that he was made a peer of
France, and let us return to our friends, acquitted amidst storms of
applause and enthusiastically escorted to their homes on the night
of 16 April. It was decided that we should give them a banquet by
subscription. This was fixed for 9 May and took place at the _Vendanges
de Bourgogne._ There were two hundred subscribers. It would have been
difficult to find throughout the whole of Paris two hundred guests more
hostile to the Government than were these who gathered together at five
o'clock in the afternoon, in a long dining-room on the ground-floor
looking out on the garden. I was placed between Raspail, who had just
declined the cross, and an actor from the Théâtre-Français, who had
come with me far less from political conviction than from curiosity.
Marrast was the depositary of the official toasts which were to be
offered, and it had been decided that none should be drunk but such as
had been approved by the president.
Things went smoothly enough throughout two-thirds of the dinner; but,
at the popping of the bottles of champagne, which began to simulate a
well-sustained discharge of musketry, spirits rose; the conversation,
naturally of a purely political character, resolved itself into a
most dangerous dialogue, and, in the midst of official toasts, there
gradually slipped private toasts.
The first illicit toast was offered to Raspail, because he had declined
the Cross of the Légion d'Honneur. Fontan, who had just obtained it,
took the matter personally, and began to entangle himself in a speech,
the greater part of which never reached the ears of the audience. Poor
Fontan had not the gift of speech and, luckily, the applause of his
friends drowned the halting of his tongue.
I had no intention of offering any toast: I do not like speaking in
public unless I am carried away by some passion or other. However,
shouts of "Dumas! Dumas! Dumas!" compelled me to raise my glass. I
proposed a toast which would have seemed very mild, if, instead of
coming before the others, it had come after. I had completely forgotten
what the toast was, but the actor whom I mentioned just now came
to dine with me a week ago and recalled it to me. It was: "To Art!
inasmuch as the pen and the paint-brush contribute as efficaciously
as the rifle and sword to that social regeneration to which we have
dedicated our lives and for which cause we are ready to die!"
There are times when people will applaud everything: they applauded my
toast. Why not? They had just applauded Fontan's speech. It was now
Étienne Arago's turn. He rose.
"_To the sun of_ 1831!" he said; "may it be as warm as that of 1830 and
not dazzle us as that did!"
This deserved and obtained a triple salvo of cheers. Then came the
toasts of Godefroy and Eugène Cavaignac. I blame myself for having
forgotten them; especially do I regret forgetting Eugène's, which was
most characteristic. Suddenly, in the midst of a private conversation
with my left-hand neighbour, the name of Louis-Philippe, followed by
five or six hisses, caught my ear. I turned round. A most animated
scene was going on fifteen or twenty places from me. A young fellow
was holding his raised glass and an open dagger-knife in the same
hand and trying to make himself heard. It was Évariste Gallois, who
was afterwards killed in a duel by Pescheux d'Herbinville, that
delightful young man who wrapped his cartridges in tissue-paper, tied
with rose-coloured favours. Évariste Gallois was scarcely twenty-three
or twenty-four years of age at that time; he was one of the fiercest of
Republicans. The noise was so great, that the cause of it could not be
discovered because of the tumult. But I could gather there was danger
threatening; the name of Louis-Philippe had been uttered--and the open
knife plainly showed with what motive. This far exceeded the limits of
my Republican opinions: I yielded to the persuasion of the neighbour
on my left, who, in his capacity as king's comedian, could not dare
to be compromised, and we leapt through the window into the garden. I
returned home very uneasy: it was evident that this affair would have
consequences, and, as a matter of fact, Évariste Gallois was arrested
two or three days later. We shall meet him again at the end of the
chapter before the Court of Assizes. This event happened at the same
time as another event which was of some gravity to us. I have related
that the decree concerning the Cross of July instituted the phrase,
_Given by the King of the French_, and imposed the substitution of the
blue ribbon edged with red, for the red edged with black. The king had
signed this order in a fit of ill-temper. At one of the meetings at
which I was present as a member of the committee, one of the king's
aide-de-camps,--M. de Rumigny, so far as I can remember, although I
cannot say for certain,--presented himself, asking, in the king's name
and on behalf of the king, for the decoration of the Three Days, which
had been accorded with much enthusiasm to La Fayette, Laffitte, Dupont
(de l'Eure) and Béranger. This proceeding had surprised us, but not
disconcerted us; we launched into discussion and decided, unanimously,
that, the decoration being specially reserved for the combatants of the
Three Days, or for citizens, who, without fighting, had during those
three days taken an active part in the Revolution, the king, who had
not entered Paris until the night of the 30th, had, therefore, no sort
of right either to the decoration or to the medal. This decision was
immediately transmitted to the messenger, who transmitted it instantly
to his august principal. Now, we never doubted that our refusal was
the cause of the decree of 30 April. I believe I have also mentioned
that a protest was made by us against the colour of the ribbon, the
subscription and the oath.
Two days before the banquet at the _Vendanges de Bourgogne_, a general
assembly had taken place in the hall of the _Grande-Chaumière_ in
the _passage du Saumon._ The total number of the decorated amounted
to fifteen hundred and twenty-eight. Four hundred belonged to the
_départements_, the remainder to Paris. Notices having been sent to
each at his own house, all those decorated were prompt in answering
the appeal; there were nearly a thousand of us gathered together. We
proceeded to form a board. The president was elected by acclamation. He
was one of the old conquerors of the Bastille, aged between seventy and
seventy-five,---who wore next the decoration of 14 July 1789 the Cross
of 29 July 1830. M. de Talleyrand was right in his dictum that nothing
is more dangerous than enthusiasm; we learnt afterwards that the man we
made president by acclamation was an old blackguard who had been before
the assizes for violating a young girl.
Then we proceeded to the voting. The board was to be composed of
fourteen members, one for each arrondissement; the thirteenth and
fourteenth arrondissements represented the outlying dependencies. By a
most wonderful chance, I have discovered the list of members of that
board close to my hand; here it is--
"_First arrondissement_, Lamoure; _second_, Étienne Arago;
_third_, Trélat; _fourth_, Moussette; _fifth_, Higonnet;
_sixth_, Bastide; _seventh_, Garnier--Pagès; _eighth_,
Villeret; _ninth_, Gréau; _tenth_, Godefroy Cavaignac;
_eleventh_, Raspail; _twelfth_, Bavoux; _thirteenth_,
Geibel; _fourteenth_, Alexandre Dumas."
The names of the fourteen members were given out and applauded; then we
proceeded with the discussion. The meeting was first informed of the
situation; next, different questions were put upon which the meeting
was asked to deliberate. All these queries were put to the vote, for
and against, and decided accordingly. The following minutes of the
meeting were immediately dispatched to the three papers, the _Temps_,
the _Courrier_ and the _National._
"No oath, inasmuch as the law respecting national awards had
not prescribed any such oath.
"No superscription of _Donnée par le roi_; the Cross of July
is a national award, not a royal.
"All those decorated for the events of July pledge
themselves to wear that cross, holding themselves authorised
to do so by the insertion of their names upon the list of
national awards issued by the committee.
"The king cannot be head of an order of which he is not even
chevalier.
"Even were the king a chevalier of July, and he is not, his
son, when he comes to the throne, would not inherit that
decoration.
"Further, there is no identity whatever between his position
with regard to the decoration of July and his position with
regard to the Légion d'Honneur and other orders which are
inherited with the kingdom.
"The right won at the place de Grève, at the Louvre and at
the Caserne de Babylon is anterior to all other rights: it
is not possible, without falling into absurdity, to imagine
a decoration to have been given by a king who did not exist
at that time, and for whose person, we publicly confess we
should not have fought for then.
"With regard to the ribbon, as its change of colour does not
change any principle, the ribbon suggested by the Government
may be adopted."
This last clause roused a long and heated discussion. In my opinion,
the colour of the ribbon was a matter of indifference; moreover, to
cede one point showed that we had not previously made up our minds to
reject everything. I gained a hearing, and won the majority of the
meeting over to my opinion. As soon as this point had been settled
by vote. I drew from my pocket three or four yards of blue ribbon
edged with red, with which I had provided myself in advance, and I
decorated the board and those members of the order who were nearest
me. Among them was Charras. I did not see him again after that for
twenty-two years--and then he was in exile. Hardly was it noticed that
a score of members were decorated, before everybody wished to be in
the same case. We sent out for fifty yards of ribbon, and the thousand
spectators left the _passage du Saumon_ wearing the ribbon of July in
their buttonholes. This meeting of 7 May made a great stir in Paris.
The _Moniteur_ busied itself with lying as usual. It announced that the
resolutions had not been unanimously passed, and that many of those
decorated had protested there and then. On the contrary, no protests
of any kind had been raised. This was the only note which reached the
board--
"I ask that all protests against all or part of the decree
relative to the distribution of the Cross of July shall be
decided by those who are interested in the matter, and that
no general measure shall be adopted and imposed on everyone;
each of us ought to rest perfectly free to protest or not as
he likes.
HUET"
This note was read aloud and stopped with hootings. We sent the
following contradiction to the _Moniteur_ signed by our fourteen names--
"_To the Editor of the Moniteur Universal_
"SIR,--You state that the account of the meeting of those
wearing the July decoration is false, although you were
not present thereat and took no part whatever in the acts
of the combatants of the Three Days. We affirm that it
contained nothing but the exact truth. We will not discuss
the illegality of the decree of 30 April: it has been
sufficiently dwelt upon by the newspapers.
"We will only say that it is a lie that any combatant of
1789 and of 1830 was brought to that meeting by means
of a prearranged surprise. Citizen Decombis came of his
own accord to relate how the decoration of 1789 had been
distributed, and at the equally spontaneous desire of the
meeting he was called to the board. It was not, as you
state, a small number of men who protested against the
decree; the gathering was composed of over a thousand
decorated people. The illegality of the oath and of
the superscription _Donnée par le roi_, was recognised
_unanimously._ None of the members present raised a hand
to vote against it; all rose with enthusiasm to refuse to
subscribe to that twofold illegality; this we can absolutely
prove; for, in case any of the questions had not been
thoroughly understood, each vote for and against the motions
was repeated.
"Furthermore: all those decorated remained in the hall for
an hour after the meeting, waiting for ribbons, and during
that time no objections were raised against the conclusions
arrived at during the deliberations.
"And this we affirm, we who have never dishonoured our pens
or our oaths.
"_Signed_: LAMOURE, ST. ARAGO, TRÉLAT, MOUSSETTE, HIGONNET,
BASTIDE, GARNIER-PAGÈS, VILLERET, GRÉAU, G. CAVAIGNAC,
RASPAIL, BAVOUX, GEIBEL, ALEX. DUMAS."
The affair, as I have said, made a great noise; and had somewhat
important consequences: an order of Republican knighthood was
instituted, outside the pale of the protection and oversight of the
Government. A thousand knights of this order rose up solely of their
own accord, pledged only to their own conscience, able to recognise one
another at a sign, always on the alert with their July guns ready to
hand. The Government recoiled.
On 13 May the king issued an order decreeing that the Cross of July
should be remitted by the mayors to the citizens of Paris and of the
outskirts included in the _état nominatif_ and in the supplementary
list which the commission on national awards had drawn up. To that
end, a register was opened at all municipal offices to receive the
oaths of the decorated. The mayors did not have much business to do
and the registers remained almost immaculate. Each one of us paid for
his own decoration, and people clubbed together to buy crosses for
those who could not afford that expense. The Government left us all in
undisturbed peace. I have said that Gallois was arrested. His trial
was rapidly hurried on: on 15 June, he appeared before the Court of
Assizes. I never saw anything simpler or more straightforward than that
trial, in which the prisoner seemed to make a point of furnishing the
judges with the evidence of which they might be in need. Here is the
writ of indictment--it furnishes me with facts of which I, at any rate,
did not yet know. Carried away in other directions by the rapidity of
events, I had not troubled myself about that stormy evening. People
lived fast and in an exceedingly varied way at that period. But let us
listen to the king's procurator--
"On 9 May last, a reunion of two hundred persons assembled
at the restaurant _Vendanges de Bourgogne_, in the
faubourg du Temple to celebrate the acquittal of MM.
Trélat, Cavaignac and Guinard. The repast took place in a
dining-room on the ground-floor which opened out on the
garden. Divers toasts were drunk, at which the most hostile
opinions against the present Government were expressed.
In the middle of this gathering Évariste Gallois rose and
said in a loud voice, on his own responsibility: '_To
Louis-Philippe!_' holding a dagger in his hand meantime.
He repeated it twice. Several persons imitated his example
by raising their hands and shouting similarly: '_To
Louis-Philippe!_' Then hootings were heard, although the
guests wish to disclaim the wretched affair, suggesting,
_as Gallois declares_, that they thought he was proposing
the health of the king of the French; it is, however, a
well-established fact that several of the diners loudly
condemn what happened. The dagger-knife had been ordered by
Gallois on 6 May, from Henry, the cutler. He had seemed in
a great hurry for it, giving the false excuse of going a
journey."
We will now give the examination of the prisoner in its naked
simplicity--
"THE PRESIDENT.--Prisoner Gallois, were you present at the
meeting which was held on 9 May last, at the _Vendanges de
Bourgogne_?
"THE PRISONER.--Yes, Monsieur le Président, and if you will
allow me to instruct you as to the truth of what took place
at it, I will save you the trouble of questioning me.
"THE PRESIDENT.--We will listen.
"THE PRISONER.--This is the exact truth of the incident to
which I owe _the honour_ of appearing before you. I had
a knife which had been used to carve with throughout the
banquet; at dessert, I raised this knife and said: '_For
Louis-Philippe ... if he turns traitor_.' These last words
were only heard by my immediate neighbours, because of the
fierce hootings that were raised by the first part of my
speech and the notion that I intended to propose a toast to
that man.
"D.[1]--Then, in your opinion, a toast proposed to the
king's health was proscribed at that gathering?
"R.--To be sure!
"D.--A toast offered purely and simply to Louis-Philippe,
king of the French, would have excited the animosity of that
assembly?
"R.--Assuredly.
"D.--Your intention, therefore, was to put King
Louis-Philippe to the dagger?
"R.--In case he turned traitor, yes, monsieur.
"D.--Was it, on your part, the expression of your own
personal sentiment to set forth the king of the French as
deserving a dagger-stroke, or was your real intention to
provoke the others to a like action?
"R.--I wished to incite them to such a deed if
Louis-Philippe proved a traitor, that is to say, in case he
ventured to depart from legal action.
"D.--Why do you suppose the king is likely to act illegally?
"R.--Everybody unites in thinking that it will not be long
before he makes himself guilty of that crime, if he has not
already done so.
"D.--Explain yourself.
"R.--I should have thought it clear enough.
"D.--No matter! Explain it.
"R.--Well, I say then, that the trend of Government action
leads one to suppose that Louis-Philippe will some day be
treacherous if he has not already been so."
It will be understood that with such lucid questions and answers the
proceedings would be brief. The jury retired to a room to deliberate
and brought in a verdict of not guilty. Did they consider Gallois mad,
or were they of his opinion? Gallois was instantly set at liberty.
He went straight to the desk on which his knife lay open as damning
evidence, picked it up, shut it, put it in his pocket, bowed to the
bench and went out. I repeat, those were rough times! A little mad,
maybe; but you will recollect Béranger's song about _Les Fous._
[1] TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.--D = _Demande_ (Question). R = _Réponse_
(Answer).