1834-1836
My technical education recommenced more vigorously than ever when this
journey was over. It had been decided that before being definitely
placed on the Navy List I must pass my public examination as a
first-class pupil at Brest. So I was prepared accordingly, and received
those successive doses of instruction which the English designate by
the characteristic word "cramming," for which the only French
equivalent I can find is "gaver." My mathematical teacher held a class
for a limited number of youths in a house in the Rue Git-le-Coeur, and
thither I went, to gain the habit of speaking the language of algebra
in public. In contrast to my memories of school lessons, I have the
pleasantest recollections of those I received in that den--for den it
was! This, perhaps, is on account of the good fellows I met there, and
who have been my friends ever since, and also owing to the charm our
kindly instructor wielded over us all. I do not believe there is a
single one of his pupils, from the illustrious Marshal Canrobert down
through my contemporaries, Excelmans, Bonie, Morny, Daumesnil, the
Greffulhe brothers, Friant, Baudin, Valbezen, and many more, to the
younger generation that came after me, who does not cherish the most
grateful and affectionate feelings for the worthy Guerard. When we were
close on the time for my examination, he had me questioned several
times over by the official examiners of the Ecole Polytechnique and
others, so as to accustom me to the surprises of public examinations. I
thus passed through the hands of Baron Reynaud, and of Messieurs
Bourdon, Delille, and Lefebure de Fourcy. This last inspired me with
downright terror, on account of his reputation for methodical
brutality. One of my class-mates had reported to me that well-known
colloquy between him and a candidate who got confused, at he stood
chalk in hand before the black board, and who heard M. Lefebure de
Fourcy's voice saying calmly, "Waiter, just bring a bundle of hay for
this pupil's breakfast." To which the indignant pupil promptly added,
"Waiter, bring two: the examiner will breakfast with me." At length,
crammed to the muzzle with nautical and astronomical calculations, and
all the other sciences the official programme demanded, I started for
Brest, kept up even as I drove along, in the highest state of
preparation. There were a few interludes during the journey. Certain
spots in Brittany were still, early in that year 1834, disturbed by the
consequences of the rising in 1831, and my passage was the signal in
several places for what we call, in parliamentary language, "mouvements
en sens divers," conflicting emotions. Sometimes I saw white
handkerchiefs waving or twisted round hats, doing duty for cockades. At
other points the tricolour demonstrations took a quaint form. I
remember at one place where we changed horses my carriage drew up
between two rows of National Guards, who were keeping back a
considerable crowd of people. At the carriage door appeared the Mayor
with his scarf round his waist, saluting me with this remark: "Sir,
this place is but a hole, but it is a hole in which hearts devoted to
your august family are throbbing;" while at the other the village
priest and his clergy, all in surplice and alb, struck up
Soldats du drapeau tricolore
D'Orieans toi qui la's Porte,
and so right through the Parisian to a brass accompaniment.
My examination was held in the great hall of the Prefecture of the Navy
at Brest, before a board of officers, engineers, and professors. It was
a public one; but what alarmed me most at its outset was the presence
of all the pupils of the Naval School, who riled the tiers of seats on
one side of the hall. Luckily the sight of some old chums amongst them
cheered me up, and as the examination went pretty well I soon saw on
their youthful faces, just as actors, they say, read their coming
success on their audience at the theatre, that my cause was won, and
that I was accepted, not only by the scientific big-wigs but by the
universal suffrages of my contemporaries. Yet I was rejoiced when the
sitting was over!
Some days later, at L'Orient, I joined the Sirene frigate, Commander
d'Oysonville, as midshipman, and started on an ocean voyage. This
cruise was uneventful, except for a few little incidents such as always
occur in a sailor's life.
Thus, being in the maintop one day, when topsails were being reefed in
a strong breeze, a rope chanced to break, twisted round my legs, and
carried me into mid air, head downwards. If the sinewy arms of the
captain of the maintop and one of the top men had not caught me as I
passed, I should have fallen into the sea or on the deck, and either
alternative would have been disagreeable. Later on, at the end of the
cruise, we re-entered Brest in a south-westerly squall, under
circumstances which made a very useful impression on me.
We had bad weather for some days, no reliable observations had been
taken, and we were very doubtful as to the frigate's position. Driving
as we were at a great rate, before the gale, we were reckoning on the
occasional partial lightening of the fog to catch sight of and
recognize some point of land or rock, according to which we might steer
our course amongst the reefs which swarm at the entrance of Brest
harbour. We had to be ready to change our course and go about at any
moment. Everybody was on deck, straining his eyes to try and see
something, cool, and steady in nerve, as a well-disciplined body of men
is in face of any danger. But one man was not present, our commanding
officer, whose prompt judgment and word of command alone could bring us
from perilous uncertainty into safety. Our commander was below, in his
cabin, and there he persisted in staying, in spite of the indirect
efforts made by the officer of the watch, the second in command, and
the navigating officer to get him out of it. It was incomprehensible,
and at the same time very alarming. Commander d'Oysonville, who was
churchwarden of St. Roch when he died, was a kind and very honourable
man, but nobody could possibly have been less of a sailor. He was a
first-class organizer, and he carried his theories to the extremist
possible limit. He had one, amongst others, that the captain of a ship
ought to command her from his cabin, so as never to appear before his
crew except on the most solemn occasions, and it was for the sake of
being true to this principle that he refused to show himself in the
circumstances I speak of. His obstinacy very nearly cost us dear, for
on the earnestly longed-for break in the fog suddenly taking place a
point of land was seen. We thought we recognized the Island of Molenes:
the commander was hurriedly informed, and he sent an order to change
our course. A lightening at another point in the horizon showed us some
rocks. "The Pierres Vertes ahead!" sang out a coasting pilot specially
shipped for the voyage, who was looking out from his perch on the
foreyards, and the navigating officer tore off again to warn the
commanding officer. During all these comings and goings the curtain of
fog came down again, and we went driving on towards the reefs at the
rate of twelve knots an hour. It could not be allowed to go on! With or
without leave the second officer took the command, and put an end to an
impossible situation. Our worthy commander only appeared just as we
were dropping anchor in the roadstead, when all uncertainty was over,
and I seem yet to see the looks that greeted his tardy appearance.
Everybody's anxiety had been increased by knowing how he had lost the
ship Le Superbe, seventy-four guns, off the Island of Paros, some years
before, and under very peculiar circumstances. For my own part, I
learnt on this occasion what everything has confirmed me in since--the
danger of uncertain and divided authority either at sea or elsewhere.
When I got back to Paris, having finished the technical portion of my
education, I went on with a course of history, with my sisters,
especially my sister Mary, I applied myself with the utmost fervour to
my drawing. I worked with her daily, under the direction of Ary
Scheffer, and I recollect our grief one morning on finding the Jeanne
d'Arc she was modelling in wax for Versailles, melted by an overheated
stove, had collapsed the whole length of its framework, to such an
extent as to become the merest cripple. By dint of lowering the
temperature, and the use of a screw-jack applied in a peculiar manner,
and vigorously turned by Ary Scheffer and myself, Jeanne d'Arc rose up
again upon her framework, and the damage was soon made good.
About that time too, influenced by the genius of Victor Hugo, my sister
Clementine and I were seized with a perfect passion for old Paris, that
delightful Paris of ancient story. We had Sauval's thick volumes, we
had searched all the old books for traces of the ancient legends, and
we used to spend our afternoons going to see the sites and hunt for the
remains of the places we had read about, There is not a church or a
monument of which we did not know every detail, nor an alley or a
corner in the quarters of the Halles, the Hotel de Ville, the Arsenal,
the Temple, and the Pantheon that we had not carefully explored with
the most fervent interest. What joy it was to us one day when we were
trying to trace the Hotel St. Paul, the old palace of our kings, to
come upon a course of masonry which had undoubtedly belonged to it!
Although I was on shore, I was still devoted to my profession. I used
to see almost all the naval officers who passed through Paris, and
tried to push forward those whom the general body of the profession
singled out as being likely commanding officers. These matters of
promotion, as well as any others that affected naval interests, brought
me into daily touch with the ministers, and my relations with M Theirs
date from that time. Yet, oddly enough, it was riding on horseback that
brought us together! During the King's stays at Camping and
Fontainebleau, and his country trips to Versailles, St. Cloud, and
Raunchy, when he used to invite foreign visitors and his ministers, and
great personages in general, to join in his excursions, M. Thiers was
as much bored as I was at having to go in the carriages and chars a
bancs which drove in a long line one behind the other. We much
preferred accompanying them on horseback, and nothing delighted the
little minister more than to let his mount tear along full gallop with
a loose rein. He had a very firm seat, and was very plucky, especially
on a horse of ours called "Le Vendome," which in his southern accent he
pronounced "Le Vanndomme." I remember one day, at Fontaineblean, as he
was galloping along beside me on that same "Vanndomme," we passed by a
young fagot-gatherer, bending under her load. She straightened herself
at the noise; it was very hot, her jacket had come unbuttoned, and
showed a bare white very well furnished bust. She smiled to M. Thiers,
who pulled his horse up short, turned back to thrust a handful of small
change into the young woman's palm, and started off again full tear, as
if he had had an electric shock, jumping the fallen trees with a
resolution and energy which I had never known him show before.
On another occasion he proved himself a less brilliant horseman. The
statue of Napoleon, that statue which is put up and taken down in every
Revolution, was to be ceremoniously replaced on the top of its column.
The troops and the National Guard were under arms, with their bands and
drums, headed by a splendid drum-major, massed at the foot of the
column. We arrived in state by the Rue Castiglione, so that the column
surmounted by the statue, covered by a veil that was to drop at a given
signal, faced us just as we came out upon the square M. Thiers, in full
uniform, with his minister's hat and feathers, and again riding
"Vanndomme," struck in his spurs, left the procession at full gallop,
and passed before my father, shouting at the very top of his falsetto
voice, "I take your Majesty's pleasure" the words being accompanied by
a wave of his hat which ill-natured people might have said was copied
from General Rapp's gesture in Gerard's picture of the Battle of
Austerlitz at the Louvre. On this signal the drums beat, the bands
played, the statue was unveiled--but M. Thiers had lost control of
"Vanndomme," who, wild with enthusiasm, bolted head down, overthrowing
drums and drum-major, while the little minister clung to his back like
a monkey in a circus. It was a comical sight! But far from laughable
under this same ministry of M. Thiers were the perpetual attempts upon
my father's life. The speculators in revolution, who had been
encouraged by their easy success in 1830, grew discouraged after
several like essays at risings had been severely put down. They then
fell back on assassination. The most serious attempt was Fieschi's, on
July 28, 1835. Together with my two eldest brothers I was to accompany
the King to a review of the National Guard and the regular army, drawn
up on the Boulevards. All of us who were to take part in the
procession, princes, marshals, generals, and aides-de-camp, were
assembled in the drawing-room at the Tuileries, next to the Throne
Room, when the Minister of the Interior, M. Thiers, burst in like a
whirlwind, and, beckoning to my two brothers and me, led us into the
embrasure of a window. "My dear princes," said he, looking at us over
his spectacles, "it is more than likely there will be an attempt on the
life of the King, your father, to-day. We have been warned from several
quarters. They say there will be an infernal machine somewhere near the
Ambigu Theatre. It is very vague, but there must be something at the
bottom of it all. We have had all the houses near the Ambigu searched
this morning to no purpose. Should the King be warned? Should the
review be put off?"
We answered unanimously that the King must be warned but that, brave as
he was well known to be, he would never consent to having the review
put off. So it turned out.
"Look well after your father," repeated M. Thiers, and we mounted our
horses. The review went on well enough, except that we all remarked the
presence of a large number of insolent-looking individuals, with red
carnations in their button-holes--the members, evidently, of the secret
societies, who had not been warned of what was going to happen, but to
be ready for anything that might happen We had not been able to take
any precautions, beyond dividing the care of watching over the King's
person between my brothers and myself and the aides-de-camp on duty One
of us with an aide-de-camp, was to take it in turn to keep just behind
his horse, with our eye on the troops and the crowd, so as to interpose
if we noticed any suspicious gesture. My turn had come to take the post
of watcher, with General Heymes, aide-de-camp in waiting, on my right.
On my left I had Lieutenant-Colonel Rieussec, commanding the legion of
the National Guard before which we were passing. Close to the Ambigu,
not the present theatre--the neighbourhood of which had been
searched--but a former Ambigu, which had been shut up, opposite the
Jardin Turc cafe, we heard a sort of platoon firing like the discharge
of a mitrailleuse, and raising my eyes at the noise I saw smoke coming
from a window which was half closed by an outside shutter.
I had no time to notice more, and at the moment I did not perceive that
my left-hand neighbour, Colonel Rieussec, was killed, that Heymes'
clothes were riddled with bullets and his nose carried away, nor that
my own horse was wounded. All I saw was my father holding his left arm,
and saying to me over his shoulder, "I'm hit!" And so he was: one
bullet had grazed his forehead, another spent one had given him the
blow of which he complained, and a third had passed through his horse's
neck. But that we only knew afterwards, and it was only afterwards too
that we learnt the instrument of the crime had been an infernal
machine. Our first thought was that the firing would go on, so I struck
spurs into my horse, and seizing my father's by the bridle, while my
two brothers struck it behind with their swords, we led him swiftly
through the scene of immense confusion that ensued--horses riderless,
or bearing wounded men, swaying in their seats, broken ranks, and
people in blouses, who rushed upon the King, to touch him or his
horse, with frantic shouts of "Long live the King!" As we retired, I
just saw the taking by assault of the house whence the discharge had
come. The young aides-de-camp had dismounted, leaving their horses
loose, and with the Municipal Guards and the police they scaled the
house and the one next door (the Cafe Barfetti), climbing on to the
verandah and smashing in the windows. Then the review began again. We
had ascertained the King was not wounded, nor we ourselves, but we were
not aware as yet either of the great number or of the names of the
victims. Hereupon M. Thiers appeared beside us, with his white
kerseymere trousers covered with blood. All he said to us was, "The
poor Marshal!"
"Whom do you mean?"
"Mortier! He fell dead across me, crying out, 'Oh, my God!'"
We reckoned ourselves up as we went along. Forty-two dead or wounded:
dead--Marshal Mortier, General Lachasse de Verigny, Colonels Raffet and
Rieussec, Captain Willatte, aide-de-camp to the Minister of War, seven
others, and two women; wounded--Generals Heymes, Comte de Colbert,
Pelet, Blin, and many more. The Due de Broglie was hit full in the
chest by a bullet that flattened out on his star of the Legion of
Honour.
It was not far from the scene of the crime to the farthest end of the
line of troops, so the procession soon retraced its steps. The roadway
where the blow had been struck was nothing but a pool of blood. The
wounded and almost all the dead had been carried away, and I only saw
one corpse, flat on its face in the mud, among the dead horses, but all
the blood about frightened our horses so that we had hard work to get
on.
On the square of the Chateau d'Eau a huge and furious crowd surging
round the station house, which was protected by numerous Municipal
Guards, showed us the assassin, or one of them, had been arrested. The
review was concluded, and my father's self-control was sorely tried by
the unanimity and fervour of the acclamations of which he was the
object from all sides, from soldiers and civilians alike. It is
unnecessary to add that we did not see any more red carnations.
The march past was to take place in the Place Vendome, and the
chancellor's offices were full of ladies of the official world,
gathered round my mother. We dismounted for a moment to go and speak to
them, and here again a moving scene took place. We had been able to
send on an aide-de-camp to assure my mother and aunt and my sisters
that we were safe and sound, but our messenger had not had time to
learn the names of all the victims. So when we mounted the stairs of
the chancellor's offices, some of us all bespattered with blood, all
these women, their brilliant dresses contrasting sadly with their
terrified eyes, rushed upon us to see whether those they loved were
amongst us. Some of them were never to see their dear ones again!
Shortly after this bloody episode in our national history I joined the
Didon frigate, Captain de Parseval, as enseigne de vaisseau. My new
commanding officer, who had joined the navy at a very early age, had
served as a midshipman on board Villeneuve's vessel, the Bucentaure, at
Trafalgar. He was in command of the mizzentop, and saw Nelson's ship,
the Victory, pass slowly astern of the Bucentaure--so close that her
yards caught the other's ensign--while the fifty guns of the British
ship poured their fire one after the other into the stern of the French
one, sweeping her gun-deck from end to end, and laying low four hundred
of her crew. After this commencement of his career, Commander de
Parseval had spent his whole life in fighting and adventure. He had
been in three shipwrecks, one specially terrible one on the Isle de
Sable, near the coast of Nova Scotia, in which (he was a lieutenant at
the time) he swam ashore to get help and save the crew of his frigate.
He died with the rank of admiral, after having had the chief command of
the Baltic Fleet during the Crimean War. He was a charming fellow,
slight and smart-looking, very carefully dressed, as resolute in
command as he was formal as to politeness, a consummate seaman,
managing his ship in first-rate style. I sailed a great deal with him,
and learned much from him, and from the very first I felt a personal
affection for him, which was never belied, and which he reciprocated.
An extra bond of sympathy existed between us--when I was just becoming
deaf, he was deaf already.
We made a cruise for drill, on the Didon, doing a deal of navigation in
all sorts of weathers, and I performed the duties of captain of the
watch--my first attempt at command, my first trial in a responsible
position.
The winter season of 1836 found me back in Paris, where I began my
classes again, and gave myself up in particular to my passion for the
fine arts. This taste of mine was the cause of a terrible blowing up I
got from my father. The jury of the Salon of 1836 refused a picture of
Marilhat's--I think it was his first. Some of the artists who had seen
the young painter's work thought this decision unjust. They grumbled,
and their grumbling got as far as the newspapers. I was curious enough
to go and see the picture at Durand-Ruel's. It was a view of Rome by
twilight, seen between great umbrella pines, I thought it a splendid
picture, and spurred somewhat, I confess, by a spirit of contradiction,
I was seized with an eager desire to acquire it. But I had not a
halfpenny of my own, there was my difficulty! To overcome it, I laid
siege to my aunt Adelaide, who doted on her brother's children as if
they had been her own, and who never (and well the rogues knew it!)
could resist their wheedling. I succeeded, as I had hoped, and
Marilhat's picture became my property. But certain of the jury went and
complained to the King, and I was greeted with, "Oho! so you are going
to set yourself up in opposition! I've trouble enough already with
those artists! It's the Civil List (that means it's me) that takes them
in at the Louvre. I can't be the only judge as to what is accepted and
what isn't. I have to have a jury, the Institute is good enough to
undertake the job--all its members are dying of fright, and I shield
them under my own responsibility, just as I do my ministers, although
it's contrary to the letter of the law--and it's you, one of my own
sons, who comes and sets an example of insubordination! Much obliged to
you, sir!"
My picture was inspected all the same I need hardly say the
grand-parents pronounced it frightful, a regular daub. I hung my head
under this double-barrelled censure, and drooped my ears like a whipped
spaniel, but I stuck to my opinion, and likewise to my Marilhat. I
think it was shortly after this little adventure that I added another
"daub" to my "gallery." One morning as I was busy modelling (for I
dabbled in sculpture too) in my sister Marie's studio, Ary Scheffer
came in, and began telling me about an unknown artist he had met, quite
young, a man of undoubted talent, who was in a terribly
poverty-stricken condition. Six hundred francs would take him out of
his difficulties, and he would give two small pictures, pendants, which
he had just finished, in exchange.
"What do they represent?" I inquired.
"They are both landscapes, connected with episodes in Walter Scott's
novels. One represents the charge of Claverhouse in the Covenanters,
and the other the Army of Charles the Bold crossing the Alps. Come!"
added Scheffer, turning to me. "Be good-natured. If you have six
hundred francs, give them to me!"
I chanced to have the money, and gave it him. "What's your protege's
name?" asked I.
"Theodore Rousseau." Fancy that great artist selling his pictures in
pairs, as furniture, in fact--for bread!
In 1836, too, on February 28, I was present at the first performance of
Les Huguenots, an opera which enchanted me. The action, the music, the
stage setting, the interpretation, made an ensemble that was unique, a
work of art that defied comparison. Nothing on the stage to my mind,
has ever surpassed the duet in the fourth act as created and sung by
Nourrit and Mlle. Falcon. Inspired by the musical and dramatic
situation, these two artists were completely carried away, and their
emotion was as infectious as it was apparent. Mlle. Falcon had a way of
interrupting her singing, to speak the words, "Raoul, ils te tueront!"
with an expression into which her whole soul was thrown, which was the
very embodiment of passion. Ah! Passion indeed! Passion it is that
thrills in every page of that admirable book of Merimee's, La Chronique
de Charles IX., which has given birth in succession to those two
masterpieces, Le Pre aux Clercs and Les Huguenots. And what indeed
would life be without passion? If Fieschi's crime marked the year 1835
with a crimson letter, 1836 was the year of Alibaud's attempt. The
history of my father's reign is nothing but an innumerable succession
of such attempts, some of which came to the birth, while others, again,
miscarried. Alibaud, as my readers are aware, fired point-blank at the
King with a walking-stick gun, which he steadied on the door of the
carriage, as it passed slowly through the Tuileries archway, and missed
him, except that his whiskers were singed by the wad. Neither my
father's courage nor that of my mother and aunt, who were with him,
failed them for a moment. I saw them get out of the carriage at
Neuilly, without for an instant suspecting the risk they had run.
But the time soon came for me to go to sea again, and I was ordered to
join the frigate Iphigenie, of which my old captain, M. de Parseval,
had taken command, as full lieutenant, and we started for the Levant
station. The recollection of a very extraordinary accident which
occurred during this cruise remains with me. We were in the
Archipelago, off the Island of Andros. I had just come off the first
night watch, at midnight, and had got into bed, when I heard somebody
say our consort, a twenty-gun brig, the Ducouedic, Commander Bruat, was
making signals of distress, I got back on deck without delay. The
brig's lights had disappeared. Nothing could be seen of her. It was
blowing great guns, with a heavy sea. We continued in a state of great
anxiety till morning. At last, by the first rays of daylight, we saw
our consort dismasted. She signalled to us for a tow, which was quite
impracticable in the state of the sea. All we could do was to stand by
her, while she tried to get to Syra with her foresail, the only one
left her. This she succeeded in doing. But the extraordinary thing is
that what dismasted her was the contrary action of a tremendous roll,
and a heavy squall, which came just at midnight, when the whole crew
was mustered on deck, to change the watch, and that the mainmast with
all its spars and gear and the maintopmast as well, fell on to the deck
without hurting anybody.
Except for this one accident, all the interest of this fresh cruise of
mine lay on the side of the picturesque. Greece with her mythological,
poetic, and historical memories, and the great severe outlines of her
landscapes, struck me with admiration. But this was quickly
overshadowed by the impression made upon me by my first glimpse of
Asia--the Mussulman East, which Lamartine's Voyage and Decamps'
pictures had made me long so eagerly to know. My joy, therefore, may be
conceived, when I saw, as I landed at Smyrna, the living image of
Decamps' masterpiece, La Patrouille de Smyrne, now at Rotterdam,
passing by me--the very same police officer trotting along on his
hunched-up Turcoman horse, surrounded by his policemen, regular
bandits, running beside him, covered with brilliant rags and glistening
weapons. This worthy police agent, whose name was Hadgy-Bey (which we
promptly turned into "Quat'Gibets"), very soon became our ally. I did
his likeness. He was all smiles whenever we met, and he winked at all
our young midshipmen's pranks One they played was rather too strong,
and roused the fury of the Turks. Smyrna was at that time the most
Eastern of Eastern towns, full of tortuous bazaars, and narrow alleys
winding in and out, in which circulation, difficult enough at all
times, sometimes became impossible for hours, when long strings of
camels, fastened together with ropes, were going along them. Nothing
could have been more vexatious than these blocks, which man and beast
alike seemed to take pleasure in prolonging, whenever the Giaours
seemed annoyed by them.
What, think you, did our middies do? A great many of them together (for
we had a very strong naval squadron at Smyrna just then) hired donkeys,
tied them together with long cords, mounted them, each rider with a
long pipe in his mouth and affecting a quiet Eastern gravity of
demeanour, and off they started.
This farandole, which was quite a kilometre long, went round and round
the bazaars all day, up and down and in and out, stopping all the
traffic, as if a real caravan was passing' through. At first the "true
believers" were puzzled, but when they realized they were being laughed
at they grew furious, and rushed off to get "Quat'Gibets," who held his
fat sides and roared with laughter when they told him what was amiss.
Our midshipmen gave him a regular ovation. We were avenged on camels
and camel men alike. The neighbourhood of Smyrna was delightful, and
brigandage quite unknown. Civilization had not yet taught that
refinement of the art, as practised nowadays, whereby people are
carried off and called upon to get themselves ransomed, on pain of
having their noses or ears, or finally their heads, cut off. It was
quite safe to go anywhere, to canter far along the road to Magnesia, or
to stop and take coffee beside some cool spring in the shadow of the
huge plane-trees, and watch the whole East pass by--caravans from
Diarbekir, half-wild Turcoman tribes, bashi-bazouks from the four
corners of Asia, all of them worthy subjects for an artist's pencil,
and I never stopped drawing them. Coming back to the town, which had
been cooled by the sea-breeze, the "Imbat," we used to spend our
evenings in the Levantine or Armenian society of the place, amongst
grandfathers who were still faithful to their old costume, wrapped in
kaftans, and charming young ladies, with Tacticos on their heads, and
their beautiful figures, which no stays had ever tortured, draped in
half-oriental costumes. Native music, soft and plaintive, sounded, as
we would watch Mademoiselles Peiser, Athanaso, Fonton, Tricon, &c.,
dance the Romaika. Nothing exists, nowadays, of what was so seductive
then. The Orient has kept its sunshine and its colouring, but that
horrible cosmopolitanism has invaded everything. Everywhere there are
stays! and stays steal charm away!
We were young and gay at the time I speak of, and passionate too! Two
of my brother lieutenants fought a duel, much more serious than those
pin-prick encounters which are now the fashion. They fought with
pistols, on the very marine promenade where they had been joking with
young ladies the evening before. Just as the seconds gave the signal to
fire, the sun rose on the horizon. Its first ray glinted on a breast
button on the uniform of one principal: the other man's bullet, as
though drawn by some fatal attraction, struck the button, and killed
our unhappy comrade dead. A midshipman carried off a charming Greek
lady, who was discovered in his cabin after his ship had got out to
sea. And many another strange incident occurred! On leaving Smyrna, the
Iphigenie cruised all about the Archipelago, and along the Anatolian,
Caramanian, and Syrian coasts. Whenever I was not on duty my pencil was
in my fingers, for I had the most enchanting and picturesque of models
under my hand. From Tripoli in Syria I climbed to the top of Mount
Lebanon, whence I saw an immense panorama, with the ruins of Baalbec
and the Desert. We picnicked with the patriarch of the Lebanon and his
monks, under the world-famed cedars, and Bruat had a perfect duel of
jokes there with a witty ship's surgeon named Camescasse, who was one
of our party. I remember a funny saying of this same Camescasse, about
a brother medico of his who retired into Brittany, where his practice
was specially among the local aristocracy. He always called him "The
Avenger of the People."
At Eden, the chief town of the Maronites, the old shiek Boutrouss-Karam
received me with the greatest honours, and I was half drowned with
sprinklings of rose-water, the smell of which I detest. Apart from my
presence, there was a great fete going on at Eden for the marriage of
Boutrouss-Karam's daughter, and the whole Maronitenation had hurried to
it in their best clothes. Such handsome types, such costumes, such
turbans! I was one of the bride's witnesses: she and I had each to keep
a bracelet balanced on our heads during the whole of the ceremony. The
bride shook, and her bracelet fell down. After the ceremony she
received me unveiled. She was a fine tall dark girl, but not a pretty
woman. From Jaffa I journeyed to Jerusalem, and travelled all through
the Holy Land, with a feeling of deep emotion, which was only disturbed
by one vexatious incident. On the day I was to go to the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre, a great crowd had got there before me, and a quarrel,
which degenerated into a general melee, forthwith arose between Greeks,
Jews, and Armenians. It was only by dint of hard knocks that the
Turkish police made way for me to enter the Holy Place, and to crown
the scandal, just as I knelt in deep devotion, before the altar, the
organ began to play the Marseillaise. There was yet another episode
during my stay at Jerusalem. The Governor of the Province waited upon
me to say he had Mehemet Ali's orders to place himself at the disposal
of the son of the King of France, and to do whatever he desired. I
caught the ball on the hop, and replied he was just in time, for I had
just been going to ask his leave to enter the Mosque of Omar, which
stands on the site of the ancient Temple of Solomon. It should be added
that this fine mosque, which is next in holiness in Mussulman eyes to
that at Mecca, and which is now open to all the world, had at that date
never been seen except by the famous traveller Ali Bey.
Governor Hassan Bey tugged his beard when he heard my request, and
seemed very much put out indeed. After a moment's silence he made up
his mind, and said, "Come to-morrow: I'll take you there myself." The
next day I kept my appointment, bringing Bruat and two or three
officers who were making the same trip with me. We entered the mosque,
which is really very beautiful, and went all over it. The Imaums and
Softas, the priests and students, had cast horrified glances upon us
from the moment of our entry. Suddenly one of them began to intone in a
falsetto voice a sort of Litany, to which the crowd replied in chorus.
Soon the Litany turned into angry shouts, and the crowd, led by an old
Negro Imaum, in a yellow robe, who seemed to have worked himself into a
perfect paroxysm of fury, rushed at us with threatening gestures. This
was by no means reassuring, but Hassan Bey was equal to the emergency.
Seizing me by the arm, he put me behind him, with Bruat and the other
gentlemen grouped round me. Then he ordered a dozen Kavasses he had
brought with him to charge, which they did, laying out heavily with
their sticks. Not content with that, he had the most turbulent of the
Softas seized, thrown down at his feet, and beaten without mercy. The
blows hailed down on the poor wretch as if they had been beating a
carpet. This determined attitude cowed the crowd, which fell back to
the far end of the mosque, grumbling. "We will go now," said the Bey.
Once we were outside, he shut us up in a neighbouring mosque, which was
empty, begging us to wait there for him. Soon we heard a great noise
and yelling outside. Presently Hassan Bey reappeared smiling, and let
us out. The crowd had disappeared, and a battalion of Egyptian infantry
had taken its place. Advised by the Bey, we left Jerusalem a day after
this scuffle, with much regret on my part. The sight of all the spots
which are glorified by the splendid stories of our religious history
had impressed me deeply. My imagination had conjured up the very
pictures in Royaumont's illustrated Bible, out of which I had learnt
both the Old and the New Testament. And just as I was about to start,
when I opened the window of the room I occupied in the Latin convent, I
saw just in front of me the picture in that same Bible which represents
David, with hands uplifted in admiration, as he gazes at Bathsheba, the
wife of Uriah the Hittite. I was the David, and Bathsheba was a woman,
looking really magnificent in her eastern robes, who was sitting on the
terrace facing me. Only she was not combing out her hair like the woman
in the Bible picture: she was hunting it for vermin!
I returned from Jerusalem by the Dead Sea, Nazareth, and Acre.
As we were riding along one night, to escape the heat, not far from
Nazareth, we met a troop of horsemen headed by an individual in
Egyptian dress, who announced himself as Ibrahim Aga, sent by Soliman
Pasha to meet me. Just as I was calling up the dragoman to translate
what I had to say to him, Ibrahim Aga said to me in a drawling voice,
"Don't give yourself that trouble, it isn't the least necessary. I am
the Marquis de Beaufort, captain on the staff." He was in fact one of
the very many French officers, who were detached to the Egyptian army
then lying in cantonments in Syria, after its victories over the Turks
at Homs and Konieh. I had seen and greatly admired these troops all
over Syria and at Acre. I was soon to see Soliman Pasha--in other
words, Colonel Selves, a Frenchman, who had organized them, and under
the energetic and iron-willed son of Mehemet Ali, Ibrahim Pasha, had
led them to victory. I beheld a little man, whom long residence in
Egypt had quite orientalized in appearance but who had preserved all
the vivacity of his Gallic wit. The Iphigenie returned to France by
Malta, where I made the acquaintance of Lord Brudenell, since
celebrated under the name of Lord Cardigan, for his famous Balaclava
charge and of Major Rose, a charming fellow, who later became the Sir
Hugh Rose of the Crimean War, and after that Field-Marshal Lord
Strathnairn of the Indian Mutiny. At that moment Major Rose commanded
the 42nd Highlanders, the famous "Black Watch," a splendid regiment,
especially so then, when it consisted of nothing but veterans of
Herculean build. It furnished the Guard of Honour that received me at
the Palace of the Grand Masters when I went to pay my respects to the
governor, and the salute of that splendid body of men in full-dress
uniform and feathered bonnets, with their colours lowered to the
ground, their band playing God save the Queen, and their bagpipes
shrieking under the arches of the palace, was a most striking sight.
That was the first time I heard the bagpipes of the Highland regiments.
I have often heard them since, and they always remind me of that
wonderfully dramatic incident in the great Indian Mutiny, the relief of
Lucknow. In Lucknow, the capital of the kingdom of Oude, a handful of
British soldiers, with the women and children who had escaped the
massacre, had taken refuge in a huge and strongly built place called
the Residency. Isolated in the heart of India, besieged for months on
end, without any outside news, starving, decimated by sickness and the
enemy's fire, women and soldiers alike, with true British pluck, and
having lost all hope of succour, had no thought but to sell their lives
as dearly as possible. All at once the noise of the daily cannonade and
the rifle fire seem to be doubled, and unaccustomed shouts are heard,
like the national "hurrah." The cheering seems to get nearer, but the
Sepoys have so often cheered derisively! Suddenly another sound strikes
on the ear of the besieged. The bagpipes! The bagpipes! And soon they
make out the famous Highland march, The Campbells are coming!
Reinforcements they were, collected from all quarters, English and
Scotch, soldiers and sailors too, commanded by old Lord Clyde of
Balaclava fame. By main force they carried the works the mutineers,
tenfold their strength, had thrown up round Lucknow, bringing
unhoped-for succour from the mother country, nay, bringing actual
salvation with them. A wonderful moment!
I got back to Paris to hear the news of the failure of the first
expedition against Constantine, and the brilliant part my brother
Nemours had played in that terrible business. I never doubted that
signal revenge would soon be taken for the check, and I was in despair
that my being a sailor stood in the way of my asking to be allowed to
have a share in it.
Meanwhile, I was present at a fresh attempt on my father's life. A man
of the name of Meunier fired a pistol at him the day the Chamber of
Deputies was opened. Some movement in the crowd shook the would-be
assassin's arm, but the bullet came into the carriage, smashing the
front window, and my brothers and I were all cut with the broken glass.
I remember a very characteristic remark by one of the Deputies on this
occasion. After the King had departed, as the Members of the Chamber
were talking over the attempt, one of them said, "Ought we to
congratulate the King?"
"Certainly," was the reply; "we always do it."
Shortly afterwards an emulator of Fieschi invented a perfected machine
which should have mowed us all down at the earliest opportunity, but he
was discovered, and destroyed himself, just as he was going to be
arrested, carrying the secret of his accomplices with him.
Amidst political agitation and ministerial ambitions, with which I
troubled myself but very little, the marriage of my eldest brother, the
Duc d'Orleans, and its attendant festivities, took place. The wedding
was at Fontainebleau; there was a great fete at the Hotel de Ville in
Paris, and the formal inauguration of the Museum at Versailles.
The marriage was settled without my brother and Princess Helene ever
having seen each other. Impatient to know her, and anxious to be the
first to greet her on French soil, my brother went to meet her at
Nancy, where she was to arrive with her mother and a lady in waiting.
He rushed forward, saw three ladies, caught his fiancees hand and
carried it to his lips. Not at all! It was the lady-in-waiting's. This
momentary hitch was soon forgotten, and when the Princess entered the
Cour du Cheval-Blanc at Fontainebleau, in her state coach and eight,
amidst the roar of cannon and the beating of drums, we all went down
the great staircase to receive her, with the King at our head, just
like the great lords going down the staircase at Chenonceaux in the
second act of the Huguenots. It was Champs-Elysees, and through the
Gardens to the Tuileries, we on horseback and the Princesses in the
state carriages, with the Orleans state liveries, surrounded by an
immense multitude of people, all the women in brilliant spring
toilettes, and in the loveliest weather, was a splendid sight too. Then
there was a very fine ball at the Hotel de Ville--rather clouded,
though, by a prediction coming from all quarters, that it would be the
occasion of another attempt on my father.
Old Prince Talleyrand, who was almost dying, begged my eldest brother
to go and see him, so that he might add his warning to all the others.
Raising himself to a sitting posture, and with death in his face, he
said: "It won't be a knife or a pistol, it will be a hail of
paving-stones thrown from the roofs, which will crush you all!" We were
grateful for the warning, and we were glad it did not come to pass.
Nothing happened, either in the street or at the ball, where we were
surrounded by an army of chosen 'guests,' and from which we were driven
back at a great pace, escorted by squadrons of cuirassiers, who
glittered in the torchlight. But the crowning point of the fetes was
the inauguration of the Versailles Museum, that museum and dedicated by
my father "To all the Glories of France!" Others besides himself have
given the sadness of irony to that inscription! Every revolution must
be paid for with a price!
On the occasion of this inauguration the King gave a dinner to twelve
hundred people in the galleries of the Palace. Each of us had to
preside over a table, and I should have found mine a somewhat tiresome
task, if among my guests I had not met some very clever men, whose
conversation amused me much. Such were Alphonse Karr, Leon Gozlan,
Nestor Roqueplan, &c.
After dinner there was a theatrical performance--the Misanthrope, given
for the first time with Louis XIV. dresses, acted by Perrier, Provost,
Samson, Firmin, Menjaud, Monrose, and Regnier, with Mmes. Mars, Plessy,
and Mante; and then one act of Robert le Diable, with Duprez,
Levasseur, and Mile. Falcon--and the ballet.
After the performance there was a general promenade in the galleries,
which were lighted up brilliantly. I lay claim to two good ideas, which
came to me during the evening. The first was to plague the King and the
ministers to such an extent, after the act out of Robert le Diable,
that Meyerbeer, whom I fetched, was then and there nominated an officer
of the Legion of Honour, a commonplace distinction enough nowadays, but
which at that time was very exceptional. The second was to ask the
King, also, if he would graciously permit the artists who had taken
part in the performance to join the guests in the promenade in the
galleries. Of this permission I was myself the bearer, and I naturally
extended it to the corps de ballet. When all these young ladies in
their morning dress, and many of them bandbox in hand, appeared walking
about amongst the gaily bedizened folk, some of the fine ladies turned
up their noses. But the medley was a charming one, nevertheless.