1818-1830
I was born at Neuilly-sur-Seine, on the outskirts of Paris, on the 14th
of August, 1818. Immediately after my birth, and as soon as the
Chancellor of France, M. Dambray, had declared me to be a boy, I was
made over to the care of a wet nurse and another attendant. Three years
later I passed out of female hands, earlier, somewhat, than is
generally the case, for a little accident befell my nurse, in which my
eldest brother's tutor, an unfrocked priest, as he was then discovered
to be, was also concerned. My earliest memory, and a very hazy one it
is, mixed up with some story or other about a parrot, is of having seen
my grandmother, the Duchesse d'Orleans-Penthievre, at Ivry. After that
I recollect being at the Chateau of Meudon with my great-aunt, the
Duchesse de Bourbon, a tiny little woman; and being taken to see the
Princesse Louise de Conde at the Temple, and then I remember seeing
Talma act in Charles the Bold, and the great impression his gilt
cuirass made upon me.
But the first event that really is exceedingly clear in my recollection
is a family dinner given by Louis XVIII. at the Tuileries on Twelfth
Night, 1824. Even now, sixty-six years after, I can see every detail of
that party, as if it had been yesterday. Our arrival in the courtyard
of the Tuileries, under the salute of the Swiss Guard at the Pavillon
Marsan and the King's Guard at the Pavillon de Flore. Our getting out
of the carriage under the porch of the stone staircase to the deafening
rattle of the drums of the Cent Suisses. Then my huge astonishment when
we had to stand aside halfway up the stairs, to let "La viande du Roi,"
in other words, his Majesty's dinner, pass by, as it was being carried
up from the kitchen to the first floor, escorted by his bodyguard.
At the head of the stairs we were received by a red-coated Steward of
the Household, who, as I was told, bore the name of de Cosse, and,
crossing the Salle des Gardes, we were ushered into the drawing-room,
where the whole family soon assembled: to wit, Monsieur, who afterwards
became Charles X., the Duc and Duchesse d'Angouleme, the Duchesse de
Berri, my father and mother, my aunt Adelaide, my two elder brothers,
Chartres and Nemours, my three sisters, Louise, Marie, and Clementine,
and last and youngest of all, myself. There was only one person present
who did not belong to the Royal House of France, and that was the
Prince de Carignan, afterwards known as Charles Albert, a tall, thin,
severe-looking person. He had just served in the ranks of the French
army, with all the proverbial valour of his race, through the Spanish
campaign of 1823, and he wore on his uniform that evening the worsted
epaulettes given him on the field of battle by the men of the 4th
Regiment of the Guard, with whom he had fought in the assault on the
Trocadero. Presently the door of the King's study opened, and Louis
XVIII. appeared, in his wheeled chair, with that handsome white head
and in the blue uniform with epaulettes which the pictures of him have
rendered so familiar. He kissed each of us in our turn, without
speaking to any of us except my brother Nemours, whom he questioned
about his Latin lessons. Nemours began to stammer, and was only saved
from disgrace by the opportune entrance of the Prince de Carignan.
At dinner the Twelfth Night customs were duly observed, and when I
broke my cake I found the bean within it. I must confess the fact had
not been altogether unforeseen, and my mother had consequently primed
me as to my behaviour. This did not prevent me from feeling heartily
shy when I saw every eye fixed on me. I got up from the table, and
carried the bean on a salver to the Duchesse d'Angouleme. I loved her
dearly even then, that good kind Duchess! for she had always been so
good to us, ever since we were babies, and never failed to give us the
most beautiful New Year's gifts. My respectful affection deepened as I
grew old enough to realize her sorrows and the nobility of her nature,
and I was always glad, after we were separated by the events of 1830,
to take every opportunity of letting her know how unalterable my
feelings for her were. She broke the ice by being the first to raise
her glass to her lips, when I had made her my queen, and Louis XVIII.
was the first to exclaim, "The Queen drinks." A few months later the
king was dead, and I watched his funeral procession from the windows of
the Fire Brigade Station in the Rue de la Paix, as it passed on its way
to Saint-Denis.
Then came the echo of the excitement caused by the coronation of
Charles X., that great ceremonial of which the Cathedral of Rheims was
the scene, and which, coming as it did after all the horrors of the
Revolution, gave rise to the sanguine hope that the ancient monarchy
would repair every disaster now, just as it had in the time of Charles
VII. But our childish ideas were not of so far-reaching a nature. It
was the splendour displayed that interested us--the dresses, the
carriages, and so on, of the princes and ambassadors who came from all
parts of the world to greet the opening of the new monarch's reign.
Numbers of artists solicited my father's permission to do his portrait,
in the gold and ermine robes of a prince of the blood which he wore at
the coronation, and our pet amusement at the time was to go and see
papa "sitting as Pharamond." I said Pharamond, like my elders, although
my own historical knowledge was of the most elementary description. To
be frank, I was exceedingly backward, and have always remained so. My
mother had taught me to read, but beyond that I had reached the age of
six knowing nothing or hardly anything. But I was a very good rider and
went out alone on a pony Lord Bristol had given my father, which I rode
boldly, and I might even say recklessly. The pony's name was Polynice.
He and I understood each other perfectly, and I was his friend to the
last. I took care he should end his days in the park at St. Cloud,
where he roamed in freedom, with a stable of his own to retire into if
the fancy took him. Often and often I have been to see him, in that
same stable, which he ended by never leaving except to come and greet
us, and warm himself in the sunshine. He died, there, fortunately for
himself, full of years, just before the pleasant revolutionary
occurrences of 1848, in which he would certainly have had his share.
But my father desired me to be something more than a mere horseman. He
got me a tutor, and from that day out, for several years, my
recollections are divided, to the exclusion of everything else, between
my education and my life with my family. My tutor was called M.
Trognon, and his name brought many a jest upon him, amongst others a
line of Victor Hugo's in Ruy Bias about that
Affreuse compagnonne,
Dont la barbe fleurit et dont le nez trognonne.
[Illustration: Looks a little like a courtroom unfortunately without a
caption.]
"Fleurit" was an allusion to Cuvillier-Fleury, my brother Aumale's
tutor, and Victor Hugo thought he owed both the gentlemen a grudge. M.
Trognon, a distinguished pupil of the Ecole Normale, had begun his
teaching career as professor of rhetoric at the college at Langres,
where, coming in one day to take his class, he found his desk occupied
by a donkey, which his pupils had established in his seat "Gentlemen,"
he said as he went out, "I leave you with a professor who is worthy of
you." Soon after, he was recalled to Paris, as assistant to M. Guizot
in his courses of historical lectures at the College of France.
He was not only an accomplished university man, but something else
besides, as we learnt from a copy of the Figaro, which our eldest
brother brought back from college. In this newspaper we read, in fact,
a set of verses by Baour-Lormian, beginning thus:--
Que me veut ce Trognon, pedagogue en besicles,
Dans la fosse du Globe enterrant ses articles!
There was no doubt about it. My tutor was a journalist, and these lines
a revengeful answer to an article of his in the Globe, a newspaper
which, as we soon learnt, he had founded in concert with Pierre Leroux,
Dubois, Jouffroy, Remusat, and some others. We discovered too that our
journalist was a freethinker as well, and author of a thick octavo book
which had been condemned by the Index at Rome, a fact which did not
prevent his dying in the most religious frame of mind possible, well
nigh in the odour of sanctity. My tutor was, in truth, of too lofty an
intelligence to persevere long in that religious nihilism, that denial
of the existence of a future state, which, spreading from religion to
family life, and from thence again to the affairs of the State, ends by
leaving nothing standing but animal man and his animal passions and
appetites. The long death-struggle of a passionately loved sister, who
was supported by the constant ministrations of the Bishop of Beauvais,
M. Feutrier, and her calm end, of which he was an eyewitness, began the
change within him. When, in later years, the Abbe Dupanloup, then Vicar
of the Church of the Assumption, was charged with the care of my
religious education, he and Trognon became very intimate, and death
alone interrupted the close communion then established between these
two great minds.
The first years of my education were very happy. Anything dry about it
was liberally compensated for by the constant intimacy of the family
circle. We were three sisters and six brothers (this last number soon
reduced to five by the death of my brother Penthievre), all living
together, eating together, often doing lessons together, together
always in all games and pleasure parties and excursions. What a joyous
band we were may easily be guessed. Each boy had his own tutor, and two
governesses were in charge of my sisters. So long as tutors and
governesses only had to deal with their own pupils, all went well, but
when the brothers and sisters were all together, and influenced by the
spirit of insubordination and love of playing pranks which the elder
ones brought back from school, we made life hard and sour to the
preceptorial body. But they got on, somehow. The GRANDSPARENTS, as we
called our parents, taken up as they were by their social engagements,
left all initiative to the tutors. Each of these was only expected to
enter daily in a book his report and opinion of the pupil committed to
his care. This book was seen by my father, and he added his own remarks
and orders, and then returned it.
Our day generally began at five o'clock in the morning. The elder ones
went to school to attend their classes, took their meals and played
with the boarders, and came home after evening school. The boys who
were not at school and the girls spent the day doing their lessons. In
the evening, pupils and teachers of both sexes all dined together, and
then went to the drawing-room, where there was always company, for my
parents received every evening. Thursdays and Sundays, which were
school holidays, were given up specially to lessons in what were known
as accomplishments: drawing, music, physical exercises, riding,
fencing, singlestick, dancing, &c. On Sundays, every one, great and
small, dined at "THE GREAT TABLE," and this life of ours was as regular
as clockwork summer and winter alike.
In winter time we lived in the Palais-Royal, which then was not at all
what it is nowadays. Where the Galerie d'Orleans is now to be seen,
there were hideous wooden passages, with muddy floors, exclusively
occupied by milliners' shops, and peopled, it was said, by thousands of
rats. To get rid of this collection of shanties, they were sawn through
below, and allowed to come down with a crash. Crowds of people came to
witness the collapse, in the hope of seeing the expected multitude of
rats rush out. There was not a single one! They had all cleared out in
good time. Such is the wisdom of the brute creation!
When I first lived at the Palais-Royal, I had a room in the Rue de
Valois, which overlooked the Boeuf a la Mode restaurant, and opposite
there dwelt an old lady, always dressed in black, who regularly every
day, at the very same hour, placed an indispensable article of domestic
use upon her window-sill, so that it was as good as a clock to us.
Later on, I changed my room for one looking over the courtyard, facing
the rooms occupied by an actor at the Comedie-Francaise named
Dumilatre, and his daughters; Dumilatre, whom I knew well, having seen
him play those small tragedy parts which consist in making a dignified
exit and saying, "Yes, my lord," had the same habits as my black lady,
and the same object used to appear upon his window-sill with equal
regularity. I had only changed my clock!
It was during the winter sojourn at the Palais-Royal, too, that our
masters and their lessons multiplied. And several of these masters were
oddities, amongst others our professor of German. Picture a little
bland-mannered old man, dressed all in black, with satin breeches,
woollen stockings, enormous shoes, and a broad-brimmed hat. He had been
tutor to Prince Metternich in his youth. I know not what chance had
later driven him into France--where, during the Terror, he became one
of the secretaries of the much-dreaded Committee of Public Safety at
Strasbourg. He lived alone with his daughter, whom he often sent to
Germany, not by the ordinary means of communication, but concealed in
the van which was sent periodically into Hungary to fetch supplies of
leeches for the hospitals, which circumstance made us conclude that the
simple name of "Herr Simon" by which he called himself probably
concealed some deep mystery. Nothing, alas! remains to me of his
German, nor of that of a valet of the same race, who had been put about
me, so ill adapted has my mental constitution always proved to any
foreign language.
Another oddity was our dancing master, an Opera dancer, named Seuriot.
What a fine presence that man had! His lesson, which we all took
together, like a little corps de ballet, was a great amusement to us,
especially because of the theatrical stories we used to make him tell
us. One day he arrived in a great state of excitement, and addressing
the governesses he said, "Ladies, you see before you a man who had a
remarkable escape yesterday. The ballet called Les Filets de Vulcain
was being danced, I was playing Jupiter, and I was just going to ascend
in my glory, with Mercury beside me, when I felt that same glory was
out of order, and I had only just time to jump off, and to shout to
Mercury, 'Jump, my friend, jump, don't lose an instant!' Well, well!"
During the pauses in the lesson, when his fiddle ceased, and while he
wiped the perspiration from his brow, we used to crowd round him and
ask him questions. The elder ones always tried to get him on the
subject of a danseuse named Mademoiselle Legallois, one on which he
would descant unendingly. This was the lady who on one occasion
appeared in a ballet as the allegorical representative of Religion,
which fact caused it to be said of a certain [Illustration: Man and
woman dancing.] Marshal of France "qu'il s'etait eteint dans les bras
de la religion" (that he had passed away peacefully in the arms of
religion). But the moment we were seen crowding round and whispering
with the old dancer, the governesses would charge down upon us with
their "What is it? What is it?" and we began our BATTEMENTS and our
steps again. Personally I owed one of the earliest successes in my life
to old Seuriot. I had profited so much by his lessons, that I appear to
have danced the minuet in a quite remarkable way, so much so that my
parents had a complete crimson velvet dress in the style of the last
century made for me, with the indispensable three-cornered hat and a
sword with knots of ribbon. Thus accoutred, with powdered head and
pigtail, I had to give several performances of my minuet, which I
danced with my sister Clementine, both of us displaying all the airs
and graces of bygone times. My marquis's dress, of which I was
excessively proud, served me also for a fancy dress ball given by the
Duchesse de Berri, at which, identifying myself too much with my
character, I had a quarrel with a Cossack of my own age, young de B--
about a partner. In my fury I drew my sword, he did likewise, and we
were just falling on each other, when the Duchesse rushed up crying,
"Stop, you naughty children! Take their swords away, M. de Brissac!" As
for my sister Clementine, who was at the ball too, wearing her minuet
gown, and looking utterly bewitching in her powder and her looped-up
dress, she attracted the notice of Charles X., to whom she doubtless
brought back memories of his own youth. He came to her and kissed her,
and gazed at her for a long time, holding her hand. Then, turning to my
father, he said, "Monsieur, if I were forty years younger, your
daughter should be Queen of France," whereupon he kissed her over again.
Our dancing lessons, which were looked upon as recreation, alternated
with walks about Paris. The girls went in one direction, and the boys
in another. When we went out thus, one tutor alone took the extra duty
of looking after us. When it was Trognon who came out, we always
expected to be taken to Sautelet's, a bookseller in the Rue de
Richelieu, whose establishment became, I recollect, in later days, the
head office of the NATIONAL. There Trognon would hold forth amongst the
journalists, while the clerks talked to us. I remember their showing me
the splendid manuscript of the Memoirs of Saint-Simon, which Sautelet
was then publishing. When, on the other hand, it was Cuvillier-Fleury
who marshalled us, the objects of our walks became more varied, and we
soon began to discover that there was not unfrequently a petticoat
somewhere about. Yet I owe to him the precious memory of a visit to the
studio of Eugene Delacroix; and also of one to M. de Lavalette,
Postmaster-General under the first Napoleon, a most interesting man,
well known for his celebrated escape on the eve of the day appointed
for his execution, after the Hundred Days, when his wife came and took
his place, and brought him garments to escape in. But oftenest of all
we used to go to a bookseller's in the Rue Saint-Andre-des-Arts, who
was a great friend of Fleury's, and we were always sure to find either
him or his charming wife at home.
Fleury's friendship for this bookseller was indeed the cause of a
comical adventure. In the confusion of the first few days of the
Revolution of 1830, the gentleman in question appeared before us with
white belt and a sword over his civilian's dress. "Look here, Fleury,"
said he, "what use can I be to you today?" Fleury considered for a
minute, and then he said he really didn't quite see, but that after all
he thought nobody had troubled their heads about the Prefecture of
Police. "I'll be off there," said my bookseller, and off he went,
appointed himself Prefect of Police, and performed all his functions
for several days. I have never heard of him since.
Turn about with these walks, too, we had lessons in gymnastics, of
which science a certain Colonel Amoros was the apostle. This worthy
colonel gave prizes to everybody, so as to make his classes popular.
These prizes took the form of collars, inscribed in large painted
letters with the particular merit of the pupil rewarded, such as
agility, courage, strength, &c. One pupil was given a prize for "hidden
virtue." After the gymnastic lessons came riding lessons, for which we
were taken to the Cirque Olympique, I and my two elder brothers being
always put in the charge of a single tutor. But as he invariably found
the riding school too cold, he used to go and shut himself up in the
manager's room, and leave us to the tender care of Laurent Franconi and
the rough riders, which amounted to leaving us to ourselves. This icy
cold arena, in the Place du Chateau-d'Eau consisted of one immense
hall, where the place of the pit was taken up by the circus or riding
school for all sorts of horsemanship, which circus was connected with
the stage by inclined planes, whenever a military piece with battles in
it was performed. In this circus Laurent Franconi made us practise "la
haute ecole," and his assistants. Bassin and Lagoutte, taught us to
vault on horseback, astride and sitting, and standing upright--after
every fashion, in fact. And to our great amusement, too, these lessons,
falling as they did on Sunday afternoons, generally coincided with the
rehearsals on the stage, in which we joyfully took our share during the
intervals we were allowed for rest, scaling the practicable scenery, or
taking part with the artists in certain interludes not mentioned on the
programme. This was not indeed our only initiation into theatrical art,
a career bearing so much analogy to that of every prince. Taking
advantage of the close proximity of the Palais-Royal to the
Comedie-Francaise, my father had added a regular course of dramatic
literature to the educational plan he had laid out for us. So very
often when the old stock plays were being given at the Francais, he
would take us by a door leading from his drawing-room into the passage
which separates the side scenes from the artists' green-room, and leave
us in his box--the three centre ones on the grand tier thrown
together--returning to fetch us at the end of the performance. Those
evenings at the Comedie-Francaise were our greatest joy, and taught us
many a useful lesson, filling our heads with classic literature far
more efficiently than all the reading and courses of lectures in the
world. But those unlucky classics were very much neglected. They were
not a bit the fashion. There would hardly be two hundred people in the
theatre, and all the boxes were empty. A wretched orchestra, conducted
by a stout man of the name of Chodron, squeaked a tune that set
everybody's teeth on edge. Up would go the curtain, without any
warning, in the very middle of some phrase in the music which would
break off with a sigh from the clarionet, and drearily the play would
begin. We were all eyes and ears in spite of that, and nothing in the
play of the tragic actresses--Madame Duchesnois, Madame Paradol, and
Madame Bourgoin--ever escaped us. I can see and hear yet all
Corneille's plays, and Racine's too, and Zaire, and Mahomet, and
L'Orphelin de la Chine, and many more. But what we longed for most
impatiently were Moliere's plays. They were our prime favourites, and
what actors too! Monrose, Cartigny, Samson, Firmin, Menjaud, and Faure,
whose appearances as Fleurant in Le Malade and Truffaldin in L'Etourdi
we always greeted with delight, on account of the properties he carried
in his hand. This same Faure, an old soldier of 1782, never failed to
say to my father, as he escorted him to the door, taper in hand, "Ha,
Sir! this is not the camp at la Lune!" referring to a bivouac just
before the battle of Valmy. It was always a great amusement to us to go
along the passages behind the scenes, especially when the classic Roman
processions were being formed up there for the tragedies, for among the
lictors and the other Romans we recognized many of the clerks and
workmen employed about the Palais-Royal, and we used to bid them good
day, and call them by their names, and be very proud indeed of speaking
to artists, and we went home to our own fold, imitating the call in the
theatre: "On va-a commmencer! On co-mmence!" (Going to begin, just
beginning).Sometimes too we were taken to see modern plays, but that
did not happen often. Yet even now I seem to hear the actor Armand,
just before 1830, talking thick behind his Directoire cravat, in TOM
JONES:--
Point d'amis, point de grace,
A la session prochaine il faudra qu'on y passe!
and the whole house rose at him! I remember also being taken to the
first night of Henri III., and being very much amused by the cups and
balls and the pea-shooters. I was much affected too by the death of
Arthur, a charming page in a violet dress, played by Mile. Despreaux,
who afterwards became Madame Allan. I had no eyes for anybody else. As
we were going away, my father leading me by the hand, we found the
Duchesse de Guise, Mademoiselle Mars, panting, and wrapped in a
rose-coloured satin cloak lined with swansdown, waiting for the
compliments which my father showered on her. She had not impressed me
nearly so much as the page in violet.
Talking of Henri III., a play we took great interest in, because its
author, quite unknown at the time, belonged to our household, I will
recall here a recollection connected with the name of Alexandre Dumas.
Everybody knows he began life as a clerk in my father's library at the
Palais-Royal. The chief librarian was Vatout, whose works, and perhaps
too some well-known songs, have gained him a seat in the Academy. But
Vatout was never in the library by any chance. The real librarian, and
a very worthy fellow he was, was a man of the name of Tallencourt. He
was an old soldier, and this caused him to be elected captain of a
grenadier company in the Citizen Guard--a position to which, in the
first blush of his enthusiasm, he attached an exaggerated importance.
Well, some time after Dumas had resigned his position in the library,
in the midst of the riots which occurred so frequently about that
period, we saw Tallencourt come home one day in full warlike attire,
with his bearskin cap and his cloak, and a very gloomy countenance.
"What do you think has just happened to me? I was in command of a patrol
in my ward--as we had heard several shots, we were advancing with the
greatest caution, in double file, keeping close to the walls, with our
eyes and ears open. All at once I heard a shout--'Here's for you, de
Tallencourt!' and then a shot. Well, the shout--that voice--it was
Alexandre Dumas' voice!" "Oh, nonsense!" we all cried. But he stuck to
it--and we resisted the violent inclination to laugh that assailed us,
convinced as we were that if the worthy man really had recognized the
voice, he had been the victim of a prank of Alexandre Dumas, who had
doubtless enjoyed the fun of seeing the rout of his former chief and
his brave "guernadiers"!
When our father did not take us to the Theatre Francais, we spent our
evenings in those beautiful rooms in the Palais-Royal where he had
gathered together so many admirable pictures and works of art,
plundered and dispersed since by the revolutionists and their tribe,
together with the splendid furniture which was used to burn a
detachment of the 14th Regiment of the Line alive, on the 24th of
February, on which day it was on guard at the Palais-Royal. And to
think that a French Chamber actually voted national rewards to people
who had made an AUTO DA FE of French soldiers who were guilty of
defending till death the post which duty and honour at once made sacred
to them! But let that pass; worse things happen nowadays, but at the
happy time I speak of nobody thought of the possibility of such
shameful doings. This is what men call progress! As far as we ourselves
were concerned, we spent our evenings in all the carelessness of our
youth, playing together merrily and noisily in the family drawing-room,
a large gallery running from the courtyard to the Rue de Valois. The
games were liveliest on Sundays and Thursdays, because, those days
being school holidays, our merry band was reinforced by my brothers'
class-mates, MM. de Laborderie, Guillermy, d'Eckmul, Albert, &c., &c.,
and by Alfred de Mussetas well, whom I still seem to see, with his blue
coat and gilt buttons, his fair curly hair, and his melancholy and
somewhat affected ways. We generally played "prisoners' base"--a game
to which the great gallery was very well suited. Sometimes there was
dancing, and then my mother's eye was always on de Musset, who seemed
to scorn our games and to be inclined to pay assiduous court to my big
sisters.
Our games never interfered with the coming and going of visitors and
habitual guests and old friends of my father's, who had been his
friends before the Revolution. There was the Duc de la Rochefoucauld,
"the good Duke," as he was called, very much dreaded by us children
because he was always kissing us, and smelt so strongly of tobacco; and
M. de Lally-Tollendal; and then friends of more recent date, General
Gerard, Raoul de Montmorency, Madame de Boigne, the Princesse de Poix,
the Princesse de Vaudemont, besides many others, soldiers, artists,
diplomats, and ladies--every one, in fact, who was distinguished either
by their personal charm, by mental qualities, or by the brilliancy of
their career. Some amongst the number were more congenial to me than
others; such as Francois Arago, the astronomer, inexhaustible in wit
and humour, whether he was recounting his adventures when he was in
captivity in the Barbary States, or the way he plagued his colleague
Ampere, a soldier like himself in the regiment of the "Parrots in
mourning," as he dubbed the Institute, in his southern accent, because
of its green and black uniform. And then Macdonald, Marmont, Molitor,
and Mortier, the four Marshals whose name began with M, the heroes of a
hundred fights, the living embodiment of the renown our arms had won.
We used all of us to try and hear whatever they said, whatever stories
they told, and to gather up any information or anecdote touching the
military glory of our country.
The diplomats interested us less--I will not speak of M. de Talleyrand,
whose face and figure were striking enough, though they made but little
impression on our uninformed imaginations. Yet I remember the fits of
laughter we went into one day, when my father, in a fit of absence,
aped the great man's limp as he crossed the drawing-room to receive
him. We delighted in Pozzo di Borgo, the Russian Ambassador, because as
soon as his burly presence appeared his jokes and witty sallies and his
stories provoked loud and inexhaustible shouts of laughter. All
children love cheery people. There was another diplomat whose arrival
we always looked forward to, the Bailli de Ferrette, Minister of the
Grand Duke of Baden--and this for two reasons. First of all because of
that title of "Bailli," which seemed to belong to another world, or at
all events to a harlequinade, and then on account of the extraordinary
appearance of the man--he looked like a skeleton in powder. We were
quite ignorant in those days, it is needless to remark, of the fact
that this cool, proper-looking Bailli was a great musician, a
first-class performer of the STABAT MATER, whose inspiration however
depended on his having the shoulders, very DECOLLETEE ones too, of a
charming nightingale, over whom the Opera and Opera-Comique fought for
many a day, as the desk he laid his music on. Sometimes when the
evening was half over a bell was heard like the one in the fourth act
of the HUGUENOTS. "There's the big bell," we would cry. It was the
signal that Madame la Dauphine or Madame la Duchesse de Berri was
coming to pay us a visit, and my father would tear off, with all of us
after him, to receive the visitor on the staircase. But our season at
the Palais-Royal closed with the winter, and the first fine days saw us
migrate to Neuilly, to the general delight.
Neuilly! I can never write the word without feeling moved, for it is
bound up with all the happiest memories of my childhood, and I salute
that name with respect akin to that which I would show a dead man!
Those who never knew the Neuilly of which I would speak must imagine to
themselves a very large country house, of no architectural pretension,
consisting almost exclusively of sets of ground-floor rooms, tacked one
on to the other on much the same level, with delightful gardens, and
standing in the middle of a very large park which stretched from the
fortifications to the Seine, just where the Avenue Bineau now runs.
Within the park walls there were fields and woods and orchards, and
even islands, the chief of which was called the "Ile de la Grande
Jatte," and the whole of one reach of the Seine, the whole within a
quarter of an hour's journey from Paris. This beautiful demesne, the
favourite residence of my father and mother, who had made it, and were
always adding new beauties to it, and who lived there in those days,
far from political cares, and surrounded by their many children, who
were all devoted to them, was also the place that we loved best. We
were so near town that our education, our masters, our lessons at home
or in school, went on just as if we were in Paris, while we had the
advantage of fresh air and country life, with all its liberty and its
natural and spontaneous exercise. At five o'clock in the morning,
before lessons or school began, we were galloping about in the big
park. In play hours, and on the Thursday and Sunday holidays, the whole
troop of children roamed the fields, almost unaccompanied, the older
ones looking after the youngest. We used to make hay, and get on the
hay-cocks, and dig potatoes, and climb the fruit-trees, and beat the
walnut-trees. There were flowers everywhere, fields of roses, where we
gathered splendid bouquets every day, without their ever being missed
even. Then we used to go boating and swimming. Boys and girls, equally
good swimmers all, would plunge in turn into the little arm of the
Seine enclosed within the park, and nothing more delicious can be
imagined than to cast oneself into deep water near the bridge at
Neuilly, and to let oneself drift down almost as far as Asnieres, under
the great willows, returning afterwards on foot by the "Ile de la
Grande Jatte."
This island, laid waste now and turned into a slum, was covered then
with venerable trees, and intersected by those "shady paths" sung by
Gounod, in which we loved to lose ourselves in all the carelessness of
our childhood, and perhaps too in the first awakening instincts of our
youth. Nothing but a memory remains of that enchanting spot. It was
confiscated by Napoleon III. on some flimsy pretext or other, and
forthwith cut to pieces, so as to destroy every trace of those who had
owned and lived in it. It is as much as I can do, as I drive along the
Avenue Bineau, to find, among the villas which have been built all over
it, some well-known tree or other, behind which I used to lie in wait
to shoot the hares, which a big dog I had trained to the work used to
put up for me As for the house itself, after being the scene of a
terrible orgie, it was sacked and burnt down by the conquerors in the
glorious fight of February 1848. Not a stone of it remains. All the
works of art within it were destroyed But I know of one stray bit saved
from the wreck. The traveller who goes to see the museum at Neufchatel,
in Switzerland, may observe, alongside of the picture which represents
M. de Montmolin, an officer of the Swiss Guard, allowing himself to be
murdered on the 10th of August, sooner than give up the flag which was
intrusted to his loyal care, a very small canvas, carefully mended up.
That fragment is the principal figure in Leopold Robert's first
picture, and his masterpiece, L'IMPROVISATEUR, which used to hang in
the billiard-room at Neuilly. Either a salvage man, or a looter of
enlightened taste, cut it out with a penknife, in the midst of the
conflagration, and it is the only thing that was saved.
But let me come back to my story.
In my father's sitting-room at Neuilly, and the billiard-room more
especially, with the doors on the terrace open, the evenings used to be
spent, in a circle of neighbours, friends, and habitual visitors.
These evenings had such a decisive influence on my future destiny that
I cannot do otherwise than speak of them.
That billiard-room is before me now, with the pictures that adorned it,
all of them masterpieces--L'Improvisateur, by Leopold Robert; La Feeme
du Brigand, by Schnetz, Faust and Marguerite, by Ary Scheffer; Venice,
by Ziegler--hanging round.
I see the most frequent guests too. First two abbes, whose names--the
Abbe de Saint-Phar and the Abbe de Saint-Albin--were a significant
inheritance due to the frailty of their great-grandparents many years
before the Revolution And yet another abbe, with powdered side curls,
L'Abbe de Labordere, a former Grand Vicar of Frejus' who somehow or
other, I know not how, had become mayor of Neuilly. Then there was the
Marechal de Gouvion de Saint-Cyr, our near neighbour, who always had a
circle round him; and admirals too, the Comte de Sercey, with his
pigtail--an Indian veteran, Admiral Villaumetz; and generals and
officers besides, whose stories of their campaigns used to fill us with
enthusiasm. Amongst the generals who were friends of the family there
was General Drouot, who was very fond of me, and would take me on his
knee and tell me stories. I had seen Horace Vernet's picture, La
Bataille de Hanau, which represents Drouot on foot amongst his guns,
just as the Bavarian Cuirassiers are charging through them. That had
been quite enough to fire my ardour, and I wanted to be an artilleryman
too. Just about the same time, my father was presented with a
twelve-pounder howitzer by the Vincennes artillery, and Colonel de
Caraman came to try it with us. We fired shots in the park, at the
rising ground near Villiers, and my military enthusiasm was wrought up
to the highest pitch. I tormented my mother till she had an artillery
uniform made for me, and when I had it on my back I thought my fortune
was made. After having been taken to the fair at Neuilly, and seeing
the non-commissioned officers of the Regiment of the Guard quartered at
Courbevoie dancing with the pretty laundresses belonging to the
village, I tried hard to force my sisters to join me in imitating the
particular style of dance I had seen them perform. I have heard it said
that my choregraphic performance was fairly successful, but there my
fancy for the military career ended. General Drouot went back to Nancy;
I did not see him again, and I soon fell under other and more lasting
influences.
Among my father's aides-de-camp there was a young cavalry
lieutenant-colonel, the Comte d'Houdetot, who had begun life as a
midshipman. He was a very clever man, and one of the most delightful
story-tellers imaginable. By birth a creole, from the Mauritius, he and
his family had happened to come back to Europe on board the corvette La
Regeneree, commanded by that same Admiral Villaumetz, our neighbour and
constant visitor in the billiard-room. At the time of the voyage
D'Houdetot was a baby in arms, and in an action between the Regeneree
and the English, at the Loos Islands, his wet nurse was cut in two by a
round shot, which gave rise to a saying of his, "I have more right to
promotion than anybody. Lots of people have had horses killed under
them, but I'm the only man in the French army that ever had a woman
killed under him."
Mutually attracted by this common memory, the former middy and the old
admiral used to spend their evenings relating their adventures to each
other and their stories, which had begun by interesting, ended by
fascinating me. It was worth while to hear D'Houdetot tell about the
battle of Trafalgar, at which he had been present as a midshipman on
board the Algesiras, commanded by his uncle Admiral Magon, how, as he
lay on the poop, with both his legs broken by the bursting of a shell,
he saw his uncle the admiral receive his death-blow, at the very moment
when, wounded already, and his hat and wig carried away by a shot, he
had thrown himself on to the nettings, shouting to his crew, "The first
man who boards that ship with me shall have the Cross;" and how too,
the boarding party having been driven back, the mizzen-mast of the
Algesiras, cut through by a round shot, fell across the British ship,
throwing a comrade of D'Houdetot's, the midshipman of the maintop,
beyond it, into the sea, and how that middy swam back to the Algesiras.
And then came the story of the tempest after the battle, in which
victors and vanquished alike struggled together to escape shipwreck,
under the command of Lieutenant de la Bretonniere, in later days my own
commanding officer, who succeeded in bringing the ship into Cadiz.
There D'Houdetot was lying upon the mole, under a burning sun, feverish
and exhausted with pain, when the hand of a woman, whom his youth had
touched, spread a fan over "the poor little fellow's" head, to protect
him from the blaze. He drew the ministering hand to him, and kissed it,
and to that simple act he owed his escape from the horrors of an
overcrowded hospital, teeming with typhus. He recovered, re-embarked on
board the frigate Hermione, and was wrecked with her. "Trafalgar and a
shipwreck in the space of two years," he used to say, "gave me enough
of a seafaring life." He got leave to be transferred to the cavalry,
and covered himself with glory in the heroic charges at the battle of
the Moskowa; but his heart always remained with his old sailor
comrades, and he never tired of talking about them.
As for old Villaumetz, his whole life had been spent on board ship. He
had gone with M. d'Entrecasteaux to search for La Peyrouse; he had
commanded the squadron from which Prince Jerome Bonaparte deserted with
his ship the Veteran, and his stories of sea fights and adventures were
endless. Listening to them first inspired me with that longing to enter
the naval career which never left me again.
My first attempts at seafaring were made at Treport, during the short
holiday trips we used to take to the Chateau d'Eu. I was dreadfully
sea-sick every time, but that did not dismay me; and then the honest
sailors, with their simple, open, resolute faces, attracted me
irresistibly I used to envy them their risky life, as I watched their
boats from the jetty at Treport, running in before the gale. That
settled the matter; I was regularly fascinated, in short. And that love
of my life will last as long as I do. Besides the sailoring charm which
Treport had for me, many a pleasant memory of my life is bound up with
Eu and Randan. My parents were accustomed in holiday times to take us
for a little trip either to Eu or to Randan, a large property in the
Auvergne belonging to my aunt. During these journeys, lessons and
school hours and study of every kind were intermitted, and this alone
sufficed to give them a sovereign charm. It should be added that in
those days travelling was not what it is now, and that these trips gave
rise to many little adventures, for which we were always on the look
out. My father had had a big carriage built with room for twelve people
in it, which held the whole family, and which, with all due deference,
was very like a travelling menagerie-van. A courier used to ride on
ahead to order post horses; another rode just in front of the carriage.
When each stage was finished, the six horses that were to draw us for
the next were led up: wicked, cross-grained stallions they were, that
squealed and bit and kicked. They got harnessed somehow or other; and
then out came the dapper postilions, with their hats trimmed with gay
ribbons, cocked on one side, some of them still wearing powder and with
their hair tied in a club. They had waistcoats trimmed with dozens of
silver buttons, and close-fitting pantaloons covered their legs. Margot
would bring out the great iron-bound boots, into which they shoved
those same legs; they were hoisted laboriously on to their horses; the
postmaster shouted, "Now then, in with your spurs, and let them go!"
and off we went full tear, bells jingling and whips cracking, to the
admiration of the women and children of the village gathered round to
see the show. Once we were off, things calmed down; but the postboys
had no control whatever over their horses, who knew the road, and did
the stage, from force of habit, at their own pace. If we came across
other carriages or wagons on the road, it was just a question as to
whether our team would take us too much out of their way, or not
enough. Such meetings were proclaimed by yells from the postilions. If
the horses did not go far enough to one side, there would be a terrible
collision, and a volley of oaths, together with a clashing of lanterns
and a clatter of broken windows. If the horses got too far out of the
way, the carriage would first of all tilt towards the sideway, slope
more and more, and frequently end by turning over gently into the
ditch. Then a clamour would rise from the menagerie, everybody first
feeling themselves all over, and then laughing, while the great machine
was being lifted up, preparatory to a fresh start. A little farther on,
it might be, another accident would occur. We would be passing through
a village, and, to create a sensation, the postboys would begin
cracking their whips in concert. The horses would get excited, and the
pace would increase. It was all very well if the village street was a
straight one, but if there was an angle in it the horses would take it
too short, and there would be a violent collision with the kerbstone at
the corner. Then all the wheelwrights and all the innkeepers, ever on
the watch for such mishaps, would hurry up. The repairs would take four
hours perhaps, whereat the GRANDSPARENTS would storm, but we children
were jubilant. Confusion reigned supreme, and we could write to our
little friends, "We were upset at such and such a place; we broke down
at such another." We got lots of copy out of it.
There was no great interest about our visits to Randan. We used to
leave the high-road at Aigueperse. Six or eight pairs of oxen were
harnessed to the carriage, and Auvergnats in their costumes and
broad-brimmed hats (there were still costumes there, in those days),
with goads in their hands, drove the team, the carriage swinging
backwards and forwards on the muddy roads, up hill and down dale; it
was hard work getting there, but we did get there at last. The great
entertainment of the visit was to go and see Madame la Dauphine, who
went through a cure at Vichy every year.
It was far pleasanter to stay at Eu. The old castle of the Guises was a
mere tumbledown barrack at the time I speak of. The passages had waves
in them like the sea. When there was a storm the whole house shook, and
the smaller children used to feel quite frightened, when, after
listening to Anatole de Montesquiou's ghost stories, of an evening,
they had to go through the Guise Gallery, with all its dreadful
portraits which seemed to step out of their frames to the dreary
whistle of the sea-wind. But all the same we loved the old place. It
was quite out of the common run. Just as we used to go and see Madame
la Dauphine at Vichy from Randan, we used to go from Eu to see Madame
la Duchesse de Berri, at Dieppe, which she had made her summer
residence. We accompanied her once to the lighthouse at Ailly under the
escort of her guard of honour, a squadron of Cauchoise women on
horseback. In illo tempore--those days; all Norman women, and those of
the Caux district especially, did their errands and their marketing on
horseback. There were very few vehicles to be seen. The prettiest of
the peasant girls had been selected; and it was really a pleasure to
see them prancing, to the number of forty, round the Duchess's
carriage, with their captain and lieutenant riding at each door, all
dressed alike, in white, in the full Cauchoise costume, chignon and cap
with lace lappets, each on her pacing hack, which she managed to
perfection. When a halt was made, the squadron dismounted, each girl
holding her horse--a most charming effect it made in the Norman
landscape. I never heard where the guard was quartered, but I am quite
convinced there never can have been any difficulty about finding the
necessary billets. I M de Murat, Prefect of the Lower Seine, was the
originator of this idea. He was a charming fellow, but so absent, that
one morning, when the Duchesse de Berri sent for him, he hastily put
on his sword and his smartest uniform, and hurried in his
three-cornered hat to wait on Madame, without discovering, till he got
there, that he had forgotten his breeches!
[Illustration: Ladies and men on horseback.]
A great change came into my life in 1828. I was ten years old; my turn
had come; I was sent to school, and entered the College Henri IV. Ay di
me! as the Spanish lament has it. When I pass by Saint-Etienne du Mont,
and look at the Tower of Clovis, and the great walls of that learned
prison in which I spent three years, the memories that come back to me
are not pleasant--far from it. My life there was mortally tedious, and
I did no good whatsoever. My whole education has been gained by reading
(I was and I have always remained passionately fond of reading), by
observation, and by listening to those people who know how to hold my
attention. I listened with all my ears and all my heart to the Abbe
Dupanloup, when he gave me religious instruction; to Pouillet, when he
taught us physical science; to the great Arago, when he put a sextant
into my hands for the first time in my life. Later on, to Michelet,
when I attended the course of historical lectures he gave to my sister
Clementine; and later yet, to the lessons on law which were given us by
M. Rossi, the minister of Pius IX. But Greek and Latin, and hours spent
over an exercise or a translation with a fat dictionary to keep me
company! Oh, mercy on me! From the scholastic point of view I was
simply a DUNCE, nothing but a dunce. Yet I managed to scramble one
prize--the shabbiest of them all--the second for Latin versions in the
seventh class! I was presented with my reward at the prize
distribution, to the tune of "Vive Henri IV." Vive ce roi vaillant, ce
diable a quatre . . .! "At the same moment I received, from a stout
red-faced gentleman, a wet kiss--much too wet a kiss--which gave me no
pleasure whatsoever. I recollect the porter at the college was
nicknamed "Boit-sans-soif"; that my greatest joy was to go out by his
door, after evening school, and go down the Rue de la Montagne or the
Rue des Sept-Voies playing a thousand pranks as I went, and that my
grief used be keen indeed when I had to go back the next morning. Yet
some good comrades I had whom I dearly loved, and amongst whom I
improved in playing various games, and learned the art of both giving
and receiving kicks and cuffs. But, take it all in all, my schooldays
are, as they say in mathematics, "a minus quantity" to me.