1837-1838
After the wedding festivities I went back to sea, a lieutenant still,
on board the Hercule, 100 guns--Captain Casy. Captain, petty officers,
crew, all hands in fact save a few officers, were Provencal. Before a
week was out I caught myself talking with their accent!
We were bound for South America Gibraltar was our first port, and our
reception by the governor, Sir Alexander Woodford, Lady Woodford, and
their charming children was of the kindest. I have a recollection of it
which I treasure all the more in that later in the day I had to do with
another governor with whom I had no cause at all to be satisfied. From
Gibraltar we went to Tangier, the Moorish town I was to bombard some
years afterwards, but where on this occasion I fought with wild boars
only under the guidance of that first-class sportsman, Mr. Drummond
Hay. The beauty of the eyes and colouring and the originality of the
costume of the Jewish girls at Tangier delighted me, but not to the
extent of chasing a certain melancholy from my heart, which had clung
about it ever since the beginning of my cruise, through the long night
watches, and even amidst the amusements of our stays in port. I was
thinking of HER! There always is a HER when one is only twenty! After
Tangier the ship stopped at Santa Cruz in Teneriffe, to take in water,
and during this operation I organized a scientific expedition to the
famous Peak of Teneriffe, which is nearly twelve thousand feet high,
and from which my professor M. Pouillet had asked me to take some
scientific observations. My brother officer, Rigaud de Genouilly, one
of the ship's lieutenants, accompanied me. After two days climbing and
bivouacking for one night at a great height, we were only about five or
six hundred feet or so from the summit, when we were caught up by a
messenger bringing us the captain's orders to get back as fast as we
could. A despatch boat had just anchored at Santa Cruz bringing news
that in consequence of some foreign complication a French squadron had
been ordered to Tunis, and would probably go on to the East. The
Hercule was to join it immediately. We tore down the mountain,
rejoicing in the thought that we were most likely going to do some
firing, and after a passage of twenty days, spent in all sorts of
fighting drill, we cast anchor in the Bay of Tunis, only to have a
bucket of cold water thrown over our heads. The complications on which
we had built a whole structure of danger and glory had passed away. The
squadron we were to have joined had departed, and orders awaited us to
resume our interrupted cruise, and bear away for South America. One
piece of news was we were told was that the expedition which was to go
and avenge our last year's defeat at Constantine was fitting out at
Bona, and that my brother Nemours commanded one of the brigades. Now my
big ship was to revictual at Algiers, and I besought the captain, who
had a free hand, to touch at Bona and give me a chance of seeing my
brother. The passage from Tunis to Bona was delayed by calms, and when
we got in, I found to my great regret that the expedition had started,
but that a small column was being formed which was to join it, starting
on the following morning. At this news I rushed to my captain, and
calling all the resources of persuasion and every wile of diplomacy to
my aid, I strove to convince him that there would be time for me,
during his revictualling, whereat I should be practically useless, to
make a rush to the expeditionary force and get back again, and that if
the King, my father, knew I had happened to be where I was, he would be
much displeased at my turning my back on an enterprise which was to
avenge our national honour. There were no telegraph wires in those
days, and I contrived to get the desired permission. Twenty-four hours
later I turned soldier for the nonce, and started off, mounted and
accoutred and full of fresh dreams of glory, destined once more to
disappointment--a disappointment shared by various engineer and
artillery officers and three Prussians, Messieurs von Willisen,
[Footnote: H. de Willisen, aide-de-camp to the Prince of Prussia, who
afterwards became the Emperor William, was in chief command of the
Holstein army.] von Noville, and Oelrichs, who had arrived too late to
start with the expeditionary force, and, like myself, were endeavouring
to rejoin it. What shall I say about the march of the column to which I
was attached upon Constantine? It lasted over twelve days of fearful
weather, during which no discomfort was spared us. Torrents of rain,
rivers in flood, snowfalls, men dying of cold, stragglers whose shouts
for help only brought us to them to find them lying headless on the
ground, and last of all, a terrible outbreak of cholera, which one of
the regiments in the column brought with it from France. And we had the
mental agony to boot of being kept ever so long at the foot of a
mountain, the Raz el Akbah, which was so sodden that no gun nor vehicle
could get up it, even with triple teams, and listening to the firing of
the attacking batteries before Constantine without being able to get
there.
One day, during this delay, the chief medical officer, by way of
consolation, greeted us with these words at breakfast: "Bad news,
gentlemen; we have just discovered that the cesspools of the hospital
(a miserable hut) have burst, and for the last twenty-four hours they
have been leaking into the spring where we get our drinking water."
"Hang it all, doctor, you really might have kept that to yourself," we
all cried in a breath!
Amid all this suffering and discomfort, physical and moral, the
courage, spirits, good humour and downright gaiety of the soldiers
never failed for a single moment. I had never seen them before under
such trying circumstances, and I thought them quite admirable, and
their officers too,--the very embodiment of devotion. One day, the rear
guard detachment had dropped some way behind the main column, and found
itself stopped by an impetuous torrent, which was swelling visibly
under a deluge of rain. The first men who tried to cross were carried
off their feet, thrown down, and only pulled out with great difficulty.
Without a moment's hesitation all the officers plunged into the water,
though it was up to their arm-pits, and holding on to each other's arms
they formed a sort of animated dam, above which they made their men
cross over, and it was all done in the simplest way. Frenchmen of all
classes, soldiers, sailors, what-not, a splendid race they are, when
the spirit of obedience and discipline inspires them with a sense of
duty! At last we came in sight of Constantine, and shortly after of a
body of cavalry, the Third Chasseurs d'Afrique, sent out to meet us.
From an officer detached in advance we learnt the place had been taken
by assault three days previously, and that the Comte de Damremont,
general in command, had been cut in two by a round shot, while he was
talking to my brother Nemours. Very soon, galloping up to the
Coudiat-Ati, I was in the arms of that good brother, who had behaved so
brilliantly during the whole campaign. He was in the act of inspecting
his brave little army, and we finished the inspection together. Then he
scanned me from top to toe, and the smart soldier spoke instead of the
brother "You can't go about like that, haven't you anything else to put
on?"
"I'm afraid I haven't," I sadly replied, with a humiliated glance at my
short jacket, my trousers turned up with a bit of gutta percha, and my
straw hat covered with waxed cloth, none of which had been improved by
camping out in the mud. The only soldier-like things about me were my
sword and my lieutenant's epaulettes. But they manufactured me a cap, a
naval lieutenant, Fabre Lamaurelle, who had come up with me, lent me
his coat, and so I became presentable.
The sight of the breach excited me greatly, and my first care was to
mount it. If my readers will call up the appearance of the buildings
pulled down when a new street is opened in Paris, they will get some
idea of the picture the top of the breach presented. It was a chaos of
ruins, caused by cannon shot and explosions, without any apparent way
out. The ground was like the moraine of a glacier, scattered over with
caps, epaulettes, and human remains. A soldier of the 2nd Light
Infantry was standing sentry beside a big stone.
"What are you doing there?"
"Do you see that bit of a blue cloak down that hole? The colonel is
underneath that stone, and the bayonets sticking out of the rubbish
belong to the men he was leading. The explosion buried them all alive!"
A terrible trial that explosion was for assaulting columns scattered
through a labyrinth of ruins, and barricaded lanes, and fired at from
all sides by an invisible foe.
But nothing dismayed our brave fellows for an instant. I was told that
at the moment of the catastrophe, when the staff, which was following
the progress of the fight with anxious ears, for there was no seeing
anything, saw the cloud caused by the explosion shrouding the
neighbourhood of the breach, and hundreds of wounded and burnt and
maimed men coming down it, they thought the assault had been repulsed
and that the game was up.
Lamoriciere, commanding the first attacking column, was carried back
blinded, and to everybody's astonishment the commanding officer of the
2nd column, Colonel Combes, was seen returning also. He advanced, sword
in hand, to the General commanding, over whose face an expression first
of wonder and then of anger spread, at the sight of a commanding
officer quitting his post. Nothing daunted, the colonel informed him,
in a few curt sentences, of the state of the fight, and of his own
confidence in its success, ending with these words: "It will be another
glorious day for France and for those who live to see the end of it."
He saluted, tottered--he was dead! No sign of his had betrayed that he
was mortally wounded.
As I listened to the tale I asked General Vallee,--"But what would you
have done, General, if the assault had been repulsed?"
"We should have begun again." As he said it he pressed his lips
together with that fearfully stern expression which, with his short
stature, had earned him the nickname in the army of "Little Louis XI.,"
and an officer behind me who wad heard my question and the answer,
added in an undertone, "And he had taken all his precautions."
"What do you mean?"
"When he was told, the night before the assault, that the ammunition
was giving out, he ordered one round to be kept in reserve for the
battery that played upon the breach--"
"Well?"
"Don't you understand? He meant to fire on the attacking column if it
gave any sign of wavering. He did it once in Spain at the siege of
Tarragona."
There was another scene of war at the opposite end of the town from the
breach at the Kasbah. During the assault all the non-combatant
Mussulman population had taken refuge there, crowding and cramming it
up to the very edge of the ramparts that crowned the precipices of the
Rummel, and either from sheer terror or by dint of the pressure of the
crowd, a cascade of human beings fell from the ramparts on to the rocks
and terraces of the precipice. Heaps of corpses, men, women and
children, but especially women, were caught here and there, and on one
of the heaps an old white-bearded Arab was turning over the dead, one
by one, seeking doubtless for some one who was dear to him.
Having no official position in the army, and as I could not well rest
on laurels I had not won, I spent my time sketching. I began, of
course, with the breach, and installed myself, for that purpose, beside
a human head severed from the trunk, which lay on the ground alongside
of a dead horse in the torn open belly of which a dog had made its
lair. While I was drawing, I heard a bugle sounding a march and soon I
saw the bugler coming out. Upon the breach; behind him marched a
sub-lieutenant, sword in hand, and then in place of men, a string of
donkeys, led by about a dozen Zouave irregulars. Puzzled, I went up to
the bugler and, stopping him, I asked what he was blowing for. "Why,"
he replied rocking from one foot to another with his bugle on his hip,
"this is the volunteer company from Bougie going back to headquarters."
"What?"
"Those are the rifles on the donkeys, there--everybody killed in the
assault; there is nobody left but us." He began blowing again. The
donkeys passed on and I bared my head to them.
Confident in the impregnability of his town, the Bey of Constantine had
left his harem there and the ladies of it were shut up in the palace,
which had been turned into head-quarters, and where I was living with
Nemours. As may be imagined, this harem gave me subjects for many
sketches, which disappeared, unluckily for me, in the sacking of the
Tuileries on February 24th, 1848. In one of the courtyards, planted
with orange-trees and roses, and surrounded by the elegant Moorish
balconies of the Bey's Palace, there was a little door, which had been
confided to the care of the vivandiere of the 47th Regiment and of a
sergeant major of spahis, of the name of Bel-Kassem. It was the door
into the harem and gave access to several courts, surrounded by
galleries, both on the ground floor and first story, on which opened
spacious rooms carpeted with divans and cushions and with shelves all
round piled with quantities of things, knick-knacks, and, above all,
stuffs, especially silken ones. The women--there were over two hundred
of them--spent their lives night and day alike, squatting or lying on
the cushions in these apartments. They were divided into two
categories. The negresses, who formed the great majority, occupied two
court-yards, and these courts exhaled a fetid odour which poisoned the
whole of the Bey's palace, whenever the wind blew from that quarter.
The white and sallow-complexioned women all lived together, they all
wore Arab dress, with more or fewer trinkets, and there were some
pretty women among them. Two were Greeks and there was one really
beautiful Moorish woman, called Ayescha. I did her likeness, and that
of the chief eunuch as well. He was a negro, growing grey, with a
deceitful hypocritical eye all muffled up in very fine haiks which
showed nothing but the tip of his nose, and legs which were entirely
guiltless of calf. That sitting would have been a good subject for a
picture--I drawing, the ladies of the harem hanging over me watching me
work, and the negro standing and swearing as he stood, while Ayescha
went to and fro lavishing the quaintest caresses on him, to keep him in
good temper.
One evening, General Vallee had an entertainment got up for him in the
harem. There were great illuminations, singing, music with tambourine
accompaniment and the danse du ventre. Amongst those present was
General de Caraman, who commanded the artillery. He was seized with
cholera just as he was going away, and was dead by six o'clock the next
morning. Such is life! Several adventures arose out of the fact of the
harem's presence. One fine night, when everybody was asleep, two of the
officers of infantry irregulars on guard took it into their heads to
knock at the door, and were filled with delighted surprise on hearing
the gentle voice of the good-natured cantiniere reply, "Is that you?
Well upon my word," and the door opened. But within less than two
minutes the frightful uproar caused by two hundred women shrieking at
once roused the whole of head-quarters, and our two officers tore full
pace back to the guardroom and got the men under arms. This scare, and
it may be some others too, added to the pestiferous smell from the
negresses' quarters, made the authorities resolve to get rid of all
this human cattle and distribute it amongst the most well-to-do of the
Mussulman population. I went to look on at their departure, which was
presided over by a major on the staff, assisted by a detachment of
irregulars. The women had been warned the evening before, and leave had
been given for each to take away as much as she herself could carry. So
they had spent the whole night rolling as many precious stuffs round
their waists as they could support the weight of, and we found
ourselves face to face with human balloons, like monstrous gourds. They
could hardly walk, even when held up by the soldiers, and getting
through the doorways was more difficult still. Some of them, hauled at
in front and pushed from behind, shot through like the cork of a
champagne bottle. Others, who could not squeeze through at all, were
made over to the soldiers to be reduced to the necessary size, the
whole thing accompanied by a chorus of shouts and objurgations of every
kind. But to pass from the harem to graver subjects. On October 18th, I
was present at the military funeral of the Comte Damremont. It was a
moving sight. Some few hundred yards from the spot where he had been
killed, just at the foot of the breach, a cenotaph had been built of
sand-bags, on which the coffin, with his General's cloak, and his sword
and white feathered hat laid on it, had been placed. The weather had
gone into mourning too, for the occasion. It was a very gloomy day. The
whole Arab population was looking on, squatting on the walls. On the
top of the breach were planted the colours of the 47th Regiment. Below
it the Zouaves' drums rolled a funeral march, while the officers did
obeisance for the last time to the remains of their former general. And
what officers they were too! How many future men of mark there were in
that assemblage, which, not to mention its chiefs, numbered Captains
Niel, Canrobert, MacMahon, St. Arnault, Le Boeuf, Ladmirault, Morris,
Leflo, and many another in its ranks!
The army left Constantine in two detachments. I returned with the
second, which escorted the general in command, who had fallen sick, and
an enormous convoy of fever patients and cripples of all sorts. It was
a dreary journey back, for the column was decimated by cholera, and the
road was strewed with corpses. Every minute soldiers were to be seen
dropping their muskets and writhing in the most awful convulsions. My
brother, who commanded the rear-guard, spent his whole time having the
poor wretches picked up and tied into mule litters. They were thence
drafted into the ambulance wagons, which were crowded already, and
there they died like flies. As soon as a man died, the other occupants
of the wagon united their efforts and heaved him overboard. When the
convoy started every morning a row of corpses marked the spot the
wagons had been on during the night. A detachment of engineers covered
them over with a little soil, but we had hardly moved off before the
Arabs swooped down from all directions and uncovered and stripped them.
I was ill myself by the time the columns got to Bona--fever had me in
its grip, but thanks to severe physicking I was almost my own man again
by the time I rejoined my ship at Algiers. She went to sea almost at
once. I had a relapse at Senegal, but the ocean passage completely
cured me, and I was quite in smooth water by the time we reached the
South American coast. Rio de Janeiro was our first port. I need not
enlarge on the magnificent view presented by the Bay of Rio, which has
been so frequently described by travellers. It was during this stay in
harbour that I first saw the young princess who was later to become the
Princess de Joinville, the devoted companion of my whole life. During
this stay, too, I made an expedition to Minas, the gold mine country, a
long journey on mule-back, through the magnificent monotony of the
virgin forest. One of the mines I went to see, called Gongo-Soco, was
worked by the labour of four hundred slaves, and owned by an English
company who made an enormous profit out of it. I went down it, and,
under the guidance of some Cornish miners, I had a try with a pick and
succeeded in getting out several nuggets as thick as my little finger.
As the vein was principally manganese, we were black all over when we
came out of the mine, but a body of negresses came at once to wash us.
Another expedition I made into the "camp" initiated me into a sort of
sport which was new to me--hunting wild horses with a lasso. After
having admired the extraordinary skill of the camperos in doing this, I
tried it myself, and that not altogether unsuccessfully--it is a
fascinating occupation.
To finish up our stay at Rio, we gave the emperor and his family, and
the whole of society both foreign and Brazilian, a ball on board our
ship. Towards the end of the evening, I turned a young lion I had been
given in Senegal loose in the ball-room, and his appearance somewhat
disturbed the figures of the cotillon.
From Rio the Hercule called in succession at Guiana, Martinique and
Guadaloupe. The low shores of Guiana are clothed with mangrove swamps,
the trees of which seemed scarlet, so covered were they with red
ibises! Nothing more gay-looking can be imagined than the Cayenne
River, and the pretty town standing on its banks--the wooden houses all
separated from each other by gardens in which the tropical vegetation
displays an unexampled luxuriance and variety. Flowers of every hue,
set among huge calabash trees, gigantic palms of every kind, such as
the traveller's palm with its immense fan-shaped leaves, bread-fruit
trees, and many more, charm the eye with a wealth of colour which must
be seen before it can be realized. Though the Cayenne River may be
charming, the other arms of the Guiana delta, great rivers, hedged in
by thick dark forest walls, are far gloomier to the sight. But those
magnificent forests, peopled with creatures of all sorts, and
especially with an infinite number of birds, of the most varied and
dazzling plumage, have the irresistible attraction that hangs about
life in the wilds.
I went up several of these rivers, such as the Aprouague and the Mana
River, and visited the carbets, or villages, of several Indian tribes,
the Norags, and the Galibis, which last were still quite savage at the
time of which I write, armed with bows and arrows, and obtaining a
light by rubbing two bits of stick together--a thing I actually saw
them do. Men and women alike were red-skinned, tartar-eyed, their
smooth hair dyed with "rocou," a sort of madder, and with a small strip
of cotton passed between the legs as their only garment. The women were
particularly frightful. Almost all of them had huge stomachs, which
they held up with their hands just like a monkey's pouch, and all wore
a kind of tight bracelet above and below their knees and ankles, which
caused the intervening parts to swell, and gave their legs the
appearance of skewers with Dutch cheeses on them. Apart from the
savages, the general impression of Guiana remaining with me is that of
a great hot-house, in which everything was as improbably huge as in one
of Gustave Dore's illustrations--where I came across apricots as big as
my head, and caimans ten yards long. As regards the inhabitants, I
recollect Creoles, enervated by the climate, who were as kindly as they
were intelligent; pale-faced women, languorous and seductive, with soft
low murmuring voices; and lastly, just as I passed through, a negro
drum-major of the National Guard, with a great big busby and a plume
that was a dream!
My recollection of Martinique and Guadaloupe bring them back to me as
lovely green islands of volcanic outline. The former especially struck
me as being exceedingly picturesque, its hills covered with
pleasant-looking habitations with the peaks of the Carbet veiled in the
dark clouds brought by the trade winds, for background. I had to review
the troops on the Savana, the promenade of Fort Royal, but I confess I
took more interest in the costume of the beautiful quadroons, or
quarterbred mulatto women, than in the review itself. This costume is
worth describing. A brilliant-coloured bandanna, knotted round the head
in the most fanciful manner, no stays of course, nothing but an
embroidered chemise, showing a magnificent outline, and a
bright-coloured skirt, yellow or rose-coloured, trained at the back,
but gathered up on one side, to show a beautiful bare leg. When I add
that these women often have a creamy white complexion which many a
European would envy, the proud exclamation of the old householder,
dragged I know not why before a court of justice, will be appreciated.
To the Judge's question "What is your profession?" he replied "My
profession! I keep up the supply of Mulattos!" "Je fais des mulatres!"
It was in the days of the greatest prosperity of our beautiful Antilles
that the old boaster spoke. When I arrived, this was already on the
wane, and it really was tiresome not to be allowed to talk about
anything but sugar and emancipation by the Creoles.
Nowadays what we call progress has done its work, and these colonies,
which used to be an element of national wealth, employing a whole navy
of merchantmen, and which served as nursery for the sailors of our
warships, are now no more than machines for electing Radical Deputies,
and thus increasing the number of agents of the national destruction.
At Martinique, we joined the flag of the admiral in command of the
station. I have served under many admirals, one more eccentric than the
other. One of the first, an excellent seaman, had one passion only,
music--and his instrument was the double bass. He spent his time
performing solos on this cumbrous instrument, which he would then put
away in a small apartment known in the old-fashioned navy as la
bouteille. Sometimes the sea-water came through the port, and flooded
everything. When the admiral fetched his double bass out, and began his
tunes, he would notice from the sound that the body was full of water,
and then every sort of dodge would be resorted to, to get the liquid
poured out by the sound holes. The poor admiral! There is a story that
his double bass was victim one day of the spite of certain seamen, who
marked their displeasure by pouring something less clean than sea-water
into the big fiddle. This same gallant admiral having gone ashore once
upon a time, at St. Louis in Senegal, and finding the bar there
continued so impassable that he could not rejoin his ship, sent her
round to Goree, and went there himself overland slung under a camel's
belly, and armed with an umbrella,--which proved his complete ignorance
of the miracles of the Prophet Mohammed.
My commanding officer at the time of which I write was another oddity.
Imagine a thin little man, as hot as pepper, adorned with a hooked nose
and chin, one as huge as the other. A real old-fashioned gentleman,
always tightly buttoned up in the most irreproachably correct of
garments, and with all the exquisite and formal politeness of the old
school. Everybody was fond of the good old fellow, who heightened the
oddity of his appearance on board his own ship by wearing a huge straw
hat like the bell-crowned hat Eugene Sue puts on the head of M. Pipelet
in the Mysteres de Paris, and a song had been composed about him, which
we used to sing together and the chorus of which began "Bon! bon! de la
Bretonniere! Bon Bon!"--la Bretonniere being his name. This same
officer saved Admiral Magon's ship after Trafalgar, and later on he
commanded the Breslaw at Navarino and showed the most consummate
bravery there. His flagship was the Didon, which ship, having run
aground several times, had earned the nickname of "Dido the touching"
(la touchante Didon). Poor old Didon! I had sailed with her before and
the sight of her gave me the same feeling of grateful recollection that
stirs within a man who meets an old love. After a short cruise with the
whole squadron the admiral led the way to the British island of Jamaica.
*******
We had hardly cast anchor before he sent to ask the British Governor
when he would receive him, and, the appointment duly made, he sent for
me to go with him. An aide-de-camp received us at the landing-stage,
silently pointed to the governor's carriage, which awaited us, and
disappeared. The carriage in question was a phaeton with room for two
people in it, and a little seat behind for the groom, who was standing
at the horses' heads with true British correctness. Says the admiral to
me, "Are we to go in that?"
"Yes, sir."
"But," and he took two steps to the rear, "there isn't any coachman."
"You are to drive yourself, sir."
With a half turn to the right he replied, "I! Impossible! I've never
been able to get a horse to go in my life. Do you know how to drive?"
"A little, sir."
"Then take the reins, sir!"
Into the carriage then we got, to the great satisfaction of the groom,
who had guessed rather than understood the misgivings of the French
admiral in the cocked hat. At first, things went pretty well. The groom
showed me the way to Spanish Town, saying "left" or "right" as the case
might be, when, presently we came to a great market crowded with
negresses with blue cotton stuffs twisted round their haunches, all
screaming at the top of their voices. The horses in our phaeton took
fright at the noise, their alarm communicated itself to the negresses,
who ran away, upsetting everything. I lost command of the horses, which
swerved to one side, knocking over the heaps of gourds and water melons
and bananas. There was a terrible scene of confusion. The admiral clung
on with both hands, never stopping shouting "Oh the devil! the devil!
the devil!" However we got through without any serious accident. On the
return journey, conscious of my own incapacity, I offered to give up my
place as whip to the admiral, but he refused with a most determined
"No, no, no; oh NO!"
At the time of my visit, Jamaica was still celebrated for its rum, and
my father had charged me not to forget to bring him a barrel, a
commission I did not fail to execute. But a lamentable accident
happened in connection with that same barrel. It was brought back to
France and duly placed in the cellars at Neuilly, and had been
forgotten for ever so long, when one fine day the King, recollecting
it, ordered some of the contents to be handed round at the end of
dinner. All the guests smacked their lips before-hand; but
disappointment awaited them, and the first taste was followed by a
general grimace of horror. It was simply beastly. Enquiries were set on
foot and here is their result! A distinguished mental specialist, who
had been ordered to take a sea voyage for the benefit of his health,
which had broken down, had got leave from the Minister for Naval
Affairs to sail on board the Hercule. Deeply interested as he was in
his own special subject, he had occupied himself during all our stays
in port in collecting brains, both human and animal, which he
immediately labelled and shut up in a barrel of alcohol, which was
exactly like my barrel of rum. The two barrels had got mixed and my
father and his guests had been drinking rum flavoured with brains!
Our squadron dispersed on leaving Jamaica. The admiral, I think, was to
go to San Domingo, we ourselves to Havana. One of our ships, a
beautiful despatch boat, the Fabert, bore us company the first day. In
the evening, the weather being calm, her commander, a lieutenant, M. de
Pardeillan, came on board us to dine. Little did we think, as we
accompanied him to the head of the companion, that we were bidding him
an eternal farewell. The ship, the crew, and their young captain all
disappeared, and have never been heard of again. The sea swallowed them
all up, and the sea has kept the secret.
As we entered Havana, I was struck by the sight of a whole fleet of
strange-looking ships which lay at anchor under the Morro citadel. They
were long boats, built for speed, with immense sloping spars, like
racing yachts. They were not warships, though they were heavily armed.
They were slavers, for the negro trade was still in full swing in Cuba.
The demand for black labour being constantly on the increase, the
slavers went to fetch it from Africa, and brought it back at all risks,
in spite of the British cruisers. But this importation of black cattle,
which had been humane and kindly enough while it was free, had grown
frightfully barbarous since the successful landing of each cargo had
been exposed to every chance imaginable. The trade, nevertheless, fed
the extraordinary prosperity of the fair Spanish colony, Queen of the
Antilles, and especially that of her capital town, the Havana. The stir
in the port itself was prodigious, and how shall I describe the
animated appearance of the streets, the splendid houses, and the
innumerable churches that met my gaze, and the evidence of luxury
betrayed everywhere, and by everything I saw?
In the days of his wandering exile, my father had sojourned at Havana,
and my first care was to seek out the friends he had left behind him
there. Thanks to them, I soon found myself at home, in the Montalvo,
Penalver, Arminteros, Arastegui, O'Reilly and de Arcos families, whose
charming companionship formed the chief delight of my own stay. My
cousinship with the Queen of Spain caused me to be received with great
honour, also, by the authorities, especially by the Captain General,
Espeieta. A review was arranged for me on the Paseo Tacon, and of that
same review I have an undying recollection. Let my readers imagine a
line formed by the Espana, Barcelona and Habana regiments, the
artillery, and a lancer regiment, splendid troops all of them, under
the command of General Count de Mirasol, with his baton slung at his
buttonhole. And, facing this line, another of the most exquisitely
charming aspect. All the volantes in Havana drawn up in battle array!
The said volantes, peculiar to the place, are gigs without hoods or
aprons, perched on two huge wheels, and each drawn by one horse in
silver-mounted trappings, ridden by a calassero or negro postilion in
flaming livery, laced on every seam. In each volante two ladies
lounged, in evening dress, low-necked, bare-headed, and armed with
fans. Every pretty woman in Havana was there, talking to the occupiers
of the next carriage, looking on and being looked at, and all under a
lovely tropical sunset, which lighted up the sea, whence a soft
refreshing breeze was blowing, on one side, and on the other a forest
of cocoa palms with the fortress of Principe rising above them. The
ensemble of the picture and its details were alike charming, and to us
sailors, just off the sea, it was heightened by contrast. These Havana
ladies add all the charm of Spaniards to a mingling of Creole
indifference with the confidence of well-born women. Their eyes and
complexions are magnificent, their wrists and ankles exquisitely
delicate, and their feet! I never saw anything like them--the feet of a
Chinese woman, only natural, not produced by torture, I brought away a
precious souvenir from Havana, in the shape of a shoe which I knew to
be genuine, but which never met with anything but incredulity till the
sacking of the Tuileries in 1884 bereft me of it altogether.
I remember yet a beautiful excursion in the interior of the island,
partly by rail, partly by volante, along splendid avenues of palmettos,
and thick shady mango trees, to the country house belonging to Dona
Matilda de Casa Calvo, Marquise de Arcos, where I spent two days in the
pleasantest of company, and where Lord Clarence Paget, who was of the
party, astonished us by his talent as a singer. Our delightful stay in
port was brought to a close by a ball given to me by the town of Havana
at the Societad Philarmonica. I had just been dancing that pretty
dance, a sort of slow valse, which is called the Habanera, and I was
walking with my partner, a beautiful Spanish Mexican, with tiny feet,
under the arcades which ran round the patio, when she pulled a
straw-covered cigarette out of her pocket and lighted it. "Don't you
smoke?" she enquired.
"No, Mademoiselle."
"Oh, but yes, I'm sure you will smoke," and she took her cigarette from
her pretty lips and gave it to me to smoke, which I did without
hesitation. That sudden conversion has been a durable one. But I have
often regretted that I could not begin it all over again!
Twenty-four hours later, at two o'clock in the morning, I was wakened
in my cabin by a violent shock. The Hercule had just run aground in the
dangerous waters of the Bahama Channel. Whatever the weather may be,
the running aground of a huge body like a hundred gun ship is a serious
matter. To crown our disgrace, the corvette La Favorite, which sailed
in company with us and had followed us blindly, ran aground at the same
instant. Luckily it was almost calm, and the great Hercule lay quietly
on the sand like a stranded whale. Whenever the least suspicion of a
swell came, she gave a shudder, a sort of wag of her tail, which was
very alarming. If the swell increased she would soon go to pieces, and
every boat we had to launch would never be enough to save the crew. It
was one of those anxious moments in a sailor's life when each man makes
it his business to conceal his own feelings. We set hard to work to get
down a big anchor on the deep-water side. Once it was down and the
cable taut, we began to lighten the ship, pouring all the water
overboard, and getting ready to put the guns over the side. Then
daylight came, and showed us our real position. A long way off we could
see a low island on the coast of Florida, called Looe-Key. The dawn
also showed us, in the offing, the British corvette Pearl, commanded by
our pleasant comrade of some days before, Lord Clarence Paget, who had
sailed from Havana at the same time as we ourselves. As soon as he
perceived our position he hurried to our assistance, and steering with
all the decision and seafaring good sense of the British sailor, he got
as close as possible to us, put down his two anchors at once, and came
to us, saying, "I bring you the only thing I can, a fixed point to work
on."
We thanked him cordially, but, just at that moment, thanks to our
having lightened the ship, and also to the tide, which fortunately
began to rise, the Hercule swayed for a few minutes on her sandy bed,
and then began to float. A sigh of relief broke from every breast,
especially from those of the captain and the unlucky officer of the
watch, whose carelessness had been the original cause of the accident.
A few hours more, and everything but a trifling leak had been put to
rights, and we were on our way to the United States--to a new country,
a young nation, which attracted me as by instinctive sympathy. On our
very arrival in the Chesapeake river, I came across a characteristic
trait. "Can you speak French?" I asked the pilot who hailed us.
Instantly he answered me, in English, "No, I only speak American!" The
claim to separate nationality extended even to the language.
Shortly afterwards I went ashore, and, armed with an itinerary, kindly
drawn up for me by Michel Chevalier, in which he had mentioned all he
advised my seeing, both as to men and things, during the short time at
my disposal, I started on a hasty tour through that splendid country.
That first glimpse of America fulfilled all my expectations, and
delighted me. A young country it was in very deed. Nature itself, to my
European eyes, had a pureness of atmosphere, a richness of vegetation,
a freshness, a general air of youth, unknown in our older countries.
Man too, in his gait, in his independence of mind, and his boldness of
enterprise, betrayed an exuberant vigour of which our populations,
enervated by disappointing experiences, and crushed by routine as they
are, have grown incapable.
As I desired to get from Norfolk in Virginia to Washington, I started
by the Roanoke Railway, on the first day of my trip, and thus crossed
an immense marsh, the "Dismal Swamp." The rails we ran on being laid
open-work fashion on huge piles fifteen feet above the marsh, the whole
road rocked under the weight of the engine, so much as to disturb the
waters of the swamp and startle the numberless snakes and turtles
inhabiting it. It was a most novel sensation. Further on, betwixt
Baltimore and Philadelphia, the train having to cross an arm of the
sea, steamed on full pace; the engine, uncoupling itself, ran ahead on
to a siding, while our train was carried by its own impetus on to the
upper deck of a steam ferry-boat, moored at the end of the line. It
stopped exactly at the right spot, and while the boat crossed the arm
of the sea, we went below and dined at a splendid buffet on the lower
deck, waited on by the prettiest of barmaids.
Further on yet, between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, in that rich
Allegheny country where the coal-beds lie on the surface, and coal
costs five francs a ton, and whence petroleum oil was soon to gush
forth, the travelling was done by canal in the flat country, and by
funicular railways in the mountains, by means of boats built in
sections which hooked together on the water, and were taken apart when
there was a question of climbing up inclined planes. All public works
and means of communication were full of daring things like these, while
in Europe (I speak of the year 1838) we were still at our first
timorous essays at railway travelling.
I travelled through Virginia, passing by all those spots where four and
twenty years later I was to watch the bloodiest battles of the War of
Secession, that first and awful convulsion of the great Republic's
manhood. Reaching Washington, I was most courteously received by
President Van Buren. How often since then I have been back at the White
House, under Presidents Tyler, Buchanan, and Lincoln! How many a
curious scene I have witnessed there, under the rule of the last-named
President, rich as it was in dramatic incident! During that first stay
of mine at Washington I made the acquaintance of three of the greatest
men in the United States--Calhoun, Webster, and Clay--Calhoun of
Carolina, the impassioned Southerner; Webster, the eloquent
representative of New England Puritanism; and Clay of Kentucky, with
his angular face and powerful frame, and a curious mixture of extreme
gentleness and energy in his manner and ways--the very type of the
Western population, the advance-guard of civilization. I was present at
several sittings of the Senate, and heard these gentlemen speak with an
authority which seemed to fascinate their auditors. Washington as a
city, did not interest me at all--bits of town, scattered about in an
ocean of dust, which later on I knew as an ocean of mud; hotels crowded
with canvassers, all devouring so hurriedly at table d'hote time, that the
first arrivals were rising from table when the last ones were sitting
down, and all this amidst a noise of jaws that reminded me of the dogs
being fed in a kennel; the whole population, whether politicians or
canvassers, chewing and spitting everywhere; little society or none at
all, save that formed by the foreign diplomats, most of them clever
men, but bored by their isolation, and consequently disposed to see
everything around them with unfavouring eyes. One of the chief members
of this society at the time of my sojourn was the British Minister, Mr.
Fox, a diplomatist of the old school, past master in forms, and
proprieties, and social refinements--everything that the English sum up
in the word "proper." I was told that one day as he was leaning against
the chimney-piece in a drawing-room where dancing was going on, in deep
conversation with I know not what other personage, an American couple
came and stood just in front of him in a country-dance. Soon the young
man began to show signs of anxiety; his voice grew thick, his cheeks
swelled alternately, and he cast anxious glances at the chimney-piece.
At last he could hold on no longer, and with the most admirable
precision, he shot all the juice of his quid into the fireplace just
between Mr. Fox and his interlocutor. "Fine shot, sir!" the old
diplomat contented himself with saying, with a bow. It may have been
that little incidents of this kind cast a chill on international
relations!
[Illustration with caption: southern scout]
Philadelphia delighted me. It is a cheerful town, with streets planted
with fine trees. The prison there, the first built on the solitary
system, occupied me for a whole day. I went over every corner of it, in
the company of the directors, and of any other officials who could
inform me on the subject. It will be known to my readers that the
system in this prison, at the time of which I write, was that of
absolute seclusion in cells--complete isolation in fact--during the
whole term of sentence. Soon afterwards I visited Auburn Prison, in New
York State, where the condemned person was subjected to a different
regime,--cells at night, but work in common, though in silence, during
the day. I have been over many prisons since, for I have always held
that the management of such places is a pretty reliable thermometer of
the moral condition of the country to which they belong. I know of some
foul ones in states which set up to be very civilized. In France we are
lamentably behindhand in the matter. Though we have some prisons which
are model, we have a great many more which are shamefully behind the
times. For my own part, I have come to the conclusion, from all I have
seen and heard, that seclusion in cells at night, with work in common
during the daytime in small easily managed workshops, or better still,
in the open air as at Portland Prison in England, is the penitentiary
system which offers the fewest drawbacks. I say drawbacks, for no such
system can offer advantages. All the holding forth of philanthropists
about the sad fate of criminals is empty noise. A prison must be a
place of punishment; it can never be an abode of reformation, nor of
reclamation.
Let us pass, from the prisons, to Mr. Norris's great steam engine, and
especially locomotive engine works, which Michel Chevalier had told me
to be sure to go and see; and most interesting, truly, they were. Great
improvements in the construction of locomotives originated in these
works. Mr. Norris had also had a very original and exceedingly American
idea--to make a great orchestra of musical instruments played by steam
instead of by human lungs. I heard, or at all events I was told I
heard, the "Hunting Chorus" in Robin Hood performed by this orchestra,
in which the conductor's baton was replaced by a tap. It was horrible!
After Philadelphia came Niagara, wonderful and peerless. I admired its
picturesque grandeur, but I admired the rapids before the fall every
bit as much. The mighty power of the huge river, the overflow of all
those great lakes, pouring in foaming fury over its rocky bed, for such
a distance and through such splendid scenery, is indescribably
striking. In the midst of the lovely country of the Hudson Highlands,
stands West Point, the famous military school where all the officers of
the American army are educated. I was the guest, while there, of
Colonel de Russy, who was in command, and my stay was full of interest.
There is a curious point about the school, and it is not the least of
the surprises reserved for us by the American democracy. The cadets do
not enter by examination, but by favour. The Senators, or
representatives of each State in the Union, have a right to a certain
number of nominations. The President has the same. Their choice, as a
rule, falls on lads of intelligence, and the only thing asked of them
on joining, is to give proof of a healthy constitution. They know
nothing, and have to learn everything in the school, at which they
consequently spend four years. Well, in spite of the absence of
selection or competition for entrance, the result is quite excellent.
The knowledge, spirit of discipline and duty of the American officer,
and his adaptability to no matter what task, leave nothing to be
desired.
Everybody knows New York, that huge cosmopolitan city, the commercial
capital of the New World, where colossal fortunes are made and lost
with the giddiest rapidity. Its position as being the chief artery of
human activity, is incomparable, but the town--qua town--has this point
in common with all huge agglomerations of commercial buildings. It is
utterly commonplace. I merely passed through it on my way to rejoin my
ship at Newport, but with me there came on one of those splendid
steamers, veritable floating palaces indeed, which the Americans excel
in building, a huge picnic, at which 150 New York ladies were present.
The night passage across Long Island Sound in lovely weather, with all
this gay party dancing and supping, was most delightful.
I left the United States with a feeling of the deepest gratitude for
the sympathetic, almost affectionate, welcome I had everywhere
received, and the most sincere admiration for that great democracy,
ambitious without being envious, where shabby class rivalry is unknown,
where each man endeavours to rise by his own intelligence, worth, and
energy, but where no one desires to drag others down to the level of
his own idleness or mediocrity.
A great community, in which nobody would for a moment suffer the State
to take to itself the right to interfere between father and child by
denying the free disposal of his property, and thence his paternal
authority to the parent.
A great community, where no man need be a soldier unless he chooses,
and where all are free to bring up their children as they think fit, to
practise the religion that pleases them best, and to combine in perfect
freedom for the endowment of church or school. What an example, in many
matters, the young nation sets the old! We left Newport on our return
to France, and after a quick passage of nineteen days, the Hercule
anchored in Brest Roads, on July 10th, 1838.