Guizot, Lamartine, and Béranger — Public opinion at sea with regard to the real Guizot — People fail to see the real man behind the politician — Guizot regrets this false conception — "I have not the courage to be unpopular" — A tilt at Thiers — My first meeting with him — A picture and the story connected with it — M. Guizot "at home" — His apartment — The company — M. Guizot on "the Spanish marriages" — His indictment against Lord Palmerston — An incident in connection with Napoléon's tomb at the Invalides — Nicolas I. and Napoléon — My subsequent intimacy with M. Guizot — Guizot as a father — His correspondence with his daughters — A story of Henry Mürger and Marguerite Thuillier — M. Guizot makes up his mind not to live in Paris any longer — M. Guizot on "natural scenery" — Never saw the sea until he was over fifty — Why M. Guizot did not like the country; why M. Thiers did not like it — Thiers the only man at whom Guizot tilted — M. Guizot died poor — M. de Lamartine's poverty did not inspire the same respect — Lamartine's impecuniosity — My only visit to Lamartine's house — Du Jellaby doré — With a difference — All the stories and anecdotes about M. de Lamartine relate to his improvidence and impecuniosity — Ten times worse in that respect than Balzac — M. Guizot's literary productions and M. de Lamartine's — The national subscription raised for the latter — How he anticipates some of the money — Béranger — My first acquaintance with him — Béranger's verdict on the Second Republic — Béranger's constant flittings — Dislikes popularity — The true story of Béranger and Mdlle. Judith Frère.
That sentence of Louis-Philippe to Lord ——, quoted elsewhere: "Guizot is so terribly respectable; I am afraid there is a mistake either about his nationality or his respectability, for they are badly matched," reflected the opinion of the majority of Frenchmen with regard to the eminent statesman. The historian who was supposed to know Cromwell and Washington as well as if he had lived with them, was credited at last with being a stern rigid Puritan in private life like the first, impatient of contradiction like the second—in short, a kind of walking copy-book moral, who never unbent, whose slightest actions were intended by him to convey a lesson to the rest of mankind. Unable to devote much time to her during the week, Guizot was in the habit of taking his mother for a stroll in the Park of St. Cloud on Sundays. The French, who are never tired of shouting, "Oh, ma mère! oh, ma mère!" resented such small attentionson the part of the son, because, they maintained, they were meant as exhibitions. Even such a philosopher as Ernest Renan failed to see that there were two dissimilar men in Guizot, the Guizot of public life and the Guizot of home life; that, behind the imperious, haughty, battlesome orator of the Chamber, with his almost marble mask, there was a tender and loving heart, capable of the most deep-seated devotion; that the cares of State once thrown off, the supercilious stare melted like ice beneath the sun of spring into a prepossessing smile, captivating every one with whom he came in contact.
Guizot regretted this erroneous conception the world had formed of his character. "But what can I do?" he asked. "In reality, I haven't the courage to be unpopular any more than other people; but neither have I the courage to prance about in my own drawing-room as if I were on wires"—this was a slight slap at M. Thiers,—"nor can I write on subjects with which I have no sympathy"—that was a second,—"and I should cut but a sorry figure on horseback"—that was a third;—"consequently people who, I am sure, wish me well, but who will not come and see me at home, hold me up as a misanthrope, while I know that I am nothing of the kind."
With this he took from his table an article by M. Renan on the first volume of his "Mémoires," an article couched in the most flattering terms, but giving the most conventional portrait of the author himself. "Why doesn't he come and see me? He would soon find that I am not the solitary, tragic, buckram figure that has already become legendary, and which, like most legendary figures, is absolutely false."
This conversation—or rather monologue, for I was careful not to interrupt him—took place in the early part of the Second Empire, in the house in the Rue de la Ville-Levêque he occupied for five and twenty years, and until 1860. The Coup d'État had irretrievably shattered Guizot's political career. It had destroyed whatever hopes may have remained after the flight of Louis-Philippe. Consequently Guizot's proper place is among the men of that reign; the reason why I insert him here is because my acquaintance with him only began after his disappearance from public life.
It occurred in this way. One evening, after dinner at M. de Morny's, we were talking about pictures, and especially about those of the Spanish school, when our host turned to me. "Have you ever seen 'the Virgin' belonging to M.Guizot?" he asked. I told him I had not. "Then go and see it," he said. "It is one of the finest specimens of its kind I ever saw, I might say the finest." Next day I asked permission of M. Guizot to come and see it, and, almost by return of post, I received an invitation for the following Thursday night to one of his "at homes."
Until then I had never met M. Guizot, except at one of his ministerial soirées under the preceding dynasty. The apartment offered nothing very striking: the furniture was of the ordinary kind to be found in almost every bourgeois drawing-room, with this difference—that it was considerably shabbier; for Guizot was poor all his life. The man who had said to the nation, "Enrichissez vous, enrichissez vous," had never acted upon the advice himself. I know for a fact that, while he was in power, he was asked to appoint to the post of receiver-general of the Gironde one of the richest financiers in France, who had expressed the intention to share the magnificent benefits of the appointment with him. M. Guizot simply and steadfastly refused to do anything of the kind.
On the evening in question, a lamp with a reflector was placed in front of the picture I had come to see, probably in my honour. M. de Morny had not exaggerated the beauty of it, but it bore no signature, and M. Guizot himself had no idea with regard to the painter. "There is a curious story connected with it," he said, "but I cannot tell it you now; come and see me one morning and I will. As an Englishman it will interest you; especially if you will take the trouble to read between the lines. I will tell you a few more, perhaps, but the one connected with the picture is 'la bonne bouche.'"
The company at M. Guizot's, on that and other occasions, mainly consisted of those who had been vanquished in the recent struggle with Louis-Napoléon, or thought they had been; for a great many were mere word-spinners, who had been quite as vehement in their denunciations of the man they were now surrounding when he was in power, as they were in their diatribes against the man who, after all, saved France for eighteen years from anarchy, and did not indulge more freely in nepotism, peculation, and kindred amenities than those who came after him. But, at the outset of these notes, I took the resolution to eschew politics, and I will endeavour to keep it as far as possible.
As a matter of course, I soon availed myself of M. Guizot's permission to call upon him in the morning, and it was thenthat he told me the following story connected with the picture.
"After the Spanish marriages, Queen Isabella wished to convey to me a signal mark of her gratitude—for what, Heaven alone knows, because it is the only political transaction I would willingly efface from my career. So she conferred upon me the dukedom of San Antonio, and sent me the patent with a most affectionate letter. Honestly speaking, I was more than upset by this proof of royal kindness, seeing that I had not the least wish to accept the title. I felt equally reluctant to offend her by declining the high distinction offered, I felt sure, from a most generous feeling. I went to see the King, and explained my awkward position, adding that the name of Guizot was all sufficient for me. 'You are right,' said the King. 'Leave the matter to me; I'll arrange it.' And he did, much to the disgust of M. de Salvandy, who had received a title at the same time, but who could not accept his while the Prime Minister declined.
"Then she sent me this picture. Some witty journalist said, at the time, that it was symbolical of her own married state; for let me tell you that the unfitness of Don Francis d'Assis was 'le secret de polichinelle,' however much your countrymen may have insisted that it only leaked out after the union. Personally I was entirely opposed to it, and, in fact, it was not a ministerial question at all, but one of court intrigue. Lord Palmerston chose to make it the former, and he, and your countrymen through him, are not only morally but virtually responsible for the subsequent errors of Isabella. Do you know what his ultimatum was when the marriage had been contracted, when there was no possibility of going back? You do not. Well, then, I will tell you. 'If Isabella has not a child within a twelvemonth, then there will be war between England and France.' I leave you to ponder the consequences for yourself, though I assure you that I washed my hands of the affair from that moment. But the French as well as the English would never believe me, and history will record that 'the austere M. Guizot,' for that is what they choose to call me, 'lent his aid to proceedings which would make the most debased pander blush with shame.'
"It is not the only time that my intentions have been purposely misconceived and misconstrued; nay, I have been taxed with things of which I was as innocent as a child. In 1846, almost at the same period that the Spanish imbrogliotook place, Count de Montalembert got up in the Upper House one day and declared it a disgrace that France should have begged the tomb of Napoléon I. from Russia. Now, the fact was that France had not begged anything at all. The principal part of the monument at the Invalides is the sarcophagus. The architect Visconti was anxious that it should consist of red porphyry; M. Duchâtel and myself were of the same opinion. Unfortunately, we had not the remotest notion where such red porphyry was to be found. The Egyptian quarries, whence the Romans took it, were exhausted. Inquiries were made in the Vosges, in the Pyrenees, but without result, and we were going to abandon the porphyry, when news arrived at the Ministry of the Interior that the kind of stone we wanted existed in Russia.
"Just then my colleague, M. de Salvandy, was sending M. Léouzon le Duc to the north on a special mission, and I instructed him to go as far as St. Petersburg and consult Count de Rayneval, our ambassador, as to the best means of getting the porphyry. A few months later, M. le Duc sent me specimens of a stone from a quarry on the banks of the Onega Lake, which, if not absolutely porphyry, was the nearest to it to be had. M. Visconti having approved of it, I forwarded further instructions for the quantity required, and so forth.
"The quarry, it appears, belonged to the Crown, and had never been worked, could not be worked, without due permission and the payment of a certain tax. After a great many formalities, mainly raised by speculators who had got wind of the affair, and had bribed various officials to oppose, or, at any rate, intercept the petition sent by M. le Duc for the necessary authorization, Prince Wolkonsky, the Minister of State, acquainted the Czar himself with the affair, and Nicholas, without a moment's hesitation, granted the request, remitting the tax which M. le Duc had estimated at about six thousand francs. This took place at a cabinet council, and, unfortunately for me, the Czar thought fit to make a little speech. 'What a strange destiny!' he said, rising from his seat and assuming a solemn tone—'what a strange destiny this man's'—alluding to Napoléon—'even in death! It is we who struck him the first fatal blow, by the burning of our holy and venerable capital, and it is from us that France asks his tomb. Let the French envoy have everything he requires, and, above all, let no tax be taken.'
"That was enough; the German and French papers got hold of the last words with the rest; they confounded the tax with the cost of working, which amounted to more than two hundred thousand francs; and up to this day, notwithstanding the explanations I and my colleagues offered in reply to the interpellation of M. de Montalembert, the story remains that Russia made France a present of the tomb of Napoléon."
From that day forth I often called upon M. Guizot, especially in the daytime, when I knew that he had finished working; for when he found that his political career was irrevocably at an end, he turned very cheerfully—I might say gladly—to his original avocation, literature. Without the slightest fatigue, without the slightest worry, he produced a volume of philosophical essays or history every year; and if, unlike Alexandre Dumas, he did not roar with laughter while composing, he was often heard to hum a tune. "En effet," said one of his daughters, the Countess Henriette de Witt (both his daughters bore the same name and titles when married), "notre père ne chante presque jamais qu'en travaillant." This did not mean that work, and work only, had the effect of putting M. Guizot in good humour. He was, according to the same authority, uniformly sweet-tempered at home, whether sitting in his armchair, surrounded by his family, or gently strolling up and down his library. "C'est la politique qui le rendait méchant," said Madame de Witt, "heureusement il la laissait à la porte. Et très souvent il l'oubliait de parti-pris au milieu du conseil et alors il nous écrivait des lettres, mais des lettres, comme on n'en écrit plus. En voilà deux qu'il m'a écrites lorsque j'étais très jeune fille." Whereupon she showed me what were really two charming gossiping little essays on the art of punctuation. It appears that the little lady was either very indifferent to, or ignorant of the art; and the father wrote, "My dear Henriette, I am afraid I shall still have to take you to task with regard to your punctuation: there is little or none of it in your letters. All punctuation, commas or other signs, mark a period of repose for the mind—a stage more or less long—an idea which is done with or momentarily suspended, and which is being divided by such a sign from the next. You suppress those periods, those intervals; you write as the stream flows, as the arrow flies. That will not do at all, because the ideas one expresses, the things of which wespeak, are not all intimately connected with one another like drops of water."
The second letter showed that Mdlle. Guizot must have taken her revenge, either very cleverly, or that she was past all redemption in the matter of punctuation; and as the latter theory is scarcely admissible, knowing what we do of her after-life, we must admit the former. The letter ran as follows:
"My Dear Henriette,"I dare say you will find me very provoking, but let me beg of you not to fling so many commas at my head. You are absolutely pelting me with them, as the Romans pelted that poor Tarpeia with their bucklers."
"My Dear Henriette,
"I dare say you will find me very provoking, but let me beg of you not to fling so many commas at my head. You are absolutely pelting me with them, as the Romans pelted that poor Tarpeia with their bucklers."
It reminds one of Marguerite Thuillier, who "created Mimi" in Mürger and Barrière's "Vie de Bohème," when Mürger fell in love with her. "I can't do with him," she said to his collaborateur, who pleaded for him,—"I can't do with him; he is too badly dressed, he looks like a scarecrow." Barrière advised his friend to go to a good tailor and have himself rigged out in the latest fashion. The advice was acted upon; Barrière waited anxiously for the effect of the transformation upon the lady's heart. A fortnight elapsed, and poor Mürger was snubbed as usual. Barrière interceded once more. "I can do less with him than before," was the answer; "he is too well dressed, he looks like a tailor's dummy."
To return to M. Guizot, whom, in the course of the whole of our acquaintance, I have only seen once "put out." It was when the fiat went forth that his house was to come down to make room for the new Boulevard Malesherbes. The authorities had been as considerate as possible; they had made no attempt to treat the eminent historian as a simple owner of house-property fighting to get the utmost value; they offered him three hundred thousand francs, and M. Guizot himself acknowledged that the sum was a handsome one. "But I have got thirty thousand volumes to remove, besides my notes and manuscripts," he wailed. Then his good temper got the better of him, and he had a "sly dig" at his former adversary, Adolphe Thiers. "Serves me right for having so many books; happy the historian who prefers to trust to his imagination."
M. Guizot made up his mind to have his library removed to Val-Richer and never to live in Paris again; but his children and friends prevailed upon him not to forsake society altogether, and to take a modest apartment near his old domicile, in the Faubourg St. Honoré, opposite the English embassy, which, however, in those days had not the monumental aspect it has at present.
"It is doubtful," said M. Guizot afterwards to me, "whether the idea of living in the country would have ever entered my mind ten or fifteen years ago. At that time, I would not have gone a couple of miles to see the most magnificent bit of natural scenery: I should have gone a thousand to see a man of talent."
And, in fact, up till 1830, when he was nearly forty-four, he had never seen the sea, "And if it had not been for an electoral journey to Normandy, I might not have seen it then." I pointed out to him that M. Thiers had never had a country house; that he did not seem to care for nature, for birds, or for flowers.
"Ah, that's different," he smiled. "I did not care much about the country, because I had never seen any of it. Thiers does not like it, because the birds, the flowers, the trees, live and grow without his interference, and he does not care that anything on earth should happen without his having a hand in it."
Thiers was the only man at whom M. Guizot tilted in that way. Though brought up in strict Protestant, one might almost say Calvinistic principles, he was an ardent admirer of Roman Catholicism, which he called "the most admirable school of respect in the world." No man had suffered more from the excesses of the first Revolution, seeing that his father perished on the scaffold, yet I should not like to say that he was not somewhat of a republican at heart, but not of a republic "which begins with Plato and necessarily ends with a gendarme." "The republic of '48," he used to say, "it had not even a Monk, let alone a Washington or a Cromwell; and Louis-Napoléon had to help himself to the throne. And depend upon it, if there had been a Cromwell, he would have crushed it as the English one crushed the monarchy. As for Washington, he would not have meddled with it at all."
"Yes," he said on another occasion, "I am proud of one thing—of the authorship of the law on elementary education;but, proud as I am of it, if I could have foreseen the uses to which it has been put, to which it is likely to be put when I am gone, I would sooner have seen half of the nation unable to distinguish an 'Afrom a bull's foot,' as your countrymen say."
With Guizot died almost the last French statesman, "who not only thought that he had the privilege to be poor, but who carried the privilege too far;" as some one remarked when he heard the news of his demise. Towards the latter years of his life, he occupied a modest apartment, on the fourth floor, in the Rue Billaut (now the Rue Washington). Well might M. de Falloux exclaim, as he toiled up that staircase, "My respect for him increases with every step I take."
Since M. de Falloux uttered these words, and very long before, I have only known one French statesman whose staircase and whose poverty might perhaps inspire the same reflections and elicit similar praise. I am alluding to M. Rouher.
M. de Lamartine's poverty did not breed the same respect. There was no dignity about it. It was the poverty of Oliver Goldsmith sending to Dr. Johnson and feasting with the guinea the latter had forwarded by the messenger pending his own arrival. Méry had summed up the situation with regard to Lamartine's difficulties on the evening of the 24th of February, '48, and there is no reason to suspect that his statement had been exaggerated. The dynasty of the younger branch of the Bourbons had been overthrown because Lamartine saw no other means of liquidating the 350,000 francs he still owed for his princely journey to the East. I had been to Lamartine's house once before that revolution, and, though his wife was an Englishwoman, I felt no inclination to return thither. The household gave me the impression of "Du Jellaby doré." The sight of it would have furnished Dickens with as good a picture as the one he sketched. The principal personage, however, was not quite so disinterested as the future mother-in-law of Prince Turveydrop. Of course, at that time, there was no question of a republic, but the politics advocated and discussed during the lunch were too superfine for humble mortals like myself, who instinctively felt that—
"Quelques billets de mille francs feraient bien mieux l'affaire"
of the host. And the instinct was not a deceptive one. Four months after February, 1848, M. de Lamartine hadvirtually ceased to exist, as far as French politics were concerned. From that time until the day of his death, the world only heard of him in connection with a new book or new poem, the avowed purpose of which was, not to make the world better or wiser, but to raise money. He kept singing like the benighted musician on the Russian steppes keeps playing his instrument, to keep away the wolves.
I knew not one but a dozen men, all of whom visited M. de Lamartine. I have never been able to get a single story or anecdote about him, not bearing upon the money question. He is ten times worse in that respect than Balzac, with this additional point in the latter's favour—that he never whines to the outside world about his impecuniosity. M. Guizot produces a volume every twelvemonth, and asks nothing of any one; he leaves the advertising of it to his publisher: M. de Lamartine spends enormous sums in publicity, and subsidizes, besides, a crowd of journalists, who devour his creditors' substance while he keeps repeating to them that his books do not sell. "If, henceforth, I were to offer pearls dissolved in the cup of Cleopatra, people would use the decoction to wash their horses' feet." And, all the while, people bought his works, though no one cared to read the later ones. The golden lyre of yore was worse than dumb; it emitted false and weak sounds, the strings had become relaxed, the golden tongue alone remained.
When a national subscription is raised to pay his debts, the committee are so afraid of his wasting the money that they decide to have the proceeds deposited at the Comptoir d'Escompte, and that de Lamartine shall not be able to draw a farthing until all his affairs are settled. One morning he deputes a friend to ask for forty thousand francs, in order to pay some bills that are due. They refuse to advance the money. De Lamartine invites them to his own house, but they stand firm at first. Gradually they give way. "How much do you really want?" is the question asked at last. "Fifty thousand francs," is the answer; "but I fancy I shall be able to manage with thirty thousand francs."
"If we gave you fifty thousand francs," says M. Émile Pereire, "would you give us some breathing-time?"
"Yes."
And Lamartine pockets the fifty thousand francs, thanks to his eloquence.
A better man, though not so great a poet, was Béranger,whom I knew for many years, though my intimacy with him did not commence until a few months after the February revolution, when I met him coming out of the Palais-Bourbon. "I shall feel obliged," he said, "if you will see me home, for I am not at all well; these violent scenes are not at all to my taste." Then, with a very wistful smile, he went on: "I have been accused of having held 'the plank across the brook over which Louis-Philippe went to the Tuileries.' I wish I could be the bridge across the channel on which he would return now. Certainly I would have liked a republic, but not such a one as we are having in there," pointing to the home of the Constituent Assembly. A short while after, Béranger tendered his resignation as deputy.
He lived at Passy then, in the Rue Basse; the number, if I mistake not, was twenty-three. He had lived in the same quarter fifteen years before, for I used to see him take his walks when I was a lad, but it was difficult for Béranger to live in the same spot for any length of time. He was, first of all, of a very nomadic disposition; secondly, his quondam friends would leave him no peace. There was a constant inroad of shady individuals who, on the pretext that he was "the people's poet," drained his purse and his cellar. Previous to his return to Passy, he had been boarding with a respectable widow in the neighbourhood of Vincennes. He had adopted the name of Bonnin, and his landlady took him to be a modest, retired tradesman, living upon a small annuity. When his birthday came round, she and her daughters found out that they had entertained an angel unawares, for carriage after carriage drove up, and in a few hours the small dwelling was filled with magnificent flowers, the visitors meanwhile surrounding Béranger, and offering him their congratulations. As a matter of course, the rumour spread, and Béranger fled to Passy, where he invited Mdlle. Judith Frère to join him once more. The retreat had been discovered, and he resigned himself to be badgered more than usual for the sake of the neighbourhood—the Bois de Boulogne was hard by; but the municipal council of Passy, in consideration of the honour conferred upon the arrondissement and Béranger's charity, took it into their heads to pass a resolution offering Béranger the most conspicuous place in the cemetery for a tomb. The poet fled once more, this time to the Quartier-Latin; but the students insisting on pointing him out to their female companions, who, in their enthusiasm,made it a point of embracing him on every possible occasion, especially in the "Closerie des Lilas"—for to the end Béranger remained fond of the society of young folk,—Béranger was compelled to flit once more. After a short stay in the Rue Vendôme, in the neighbourhood of the Temple, he came to the Quartier-Beaujon, where I visited him.
There have been so many tales with regard to Béranger's companion, Mdlle. Judith Frère, and all equally erroneous, that I am glad to be able to rectify them. Mdlle. Frère was by no means the kind of upper servant she was generally supposed to be. A glance at her face and a few moments spent in her company could not fail to convince any one that she was of good birth. She had befriended Béranger when he was very young, they had parted for some time, and they ended their days together, for the poet only survived his friend three months. Béranger was a model of honesty and disinterestedness. Ambition he had little or none; he was somewhat fond of teasing children, not because he had no affection for them, but because he loved them too much. His portrait by Ary Scheffer is the most striking likeness I have ever seen; but a better one still, perhaps, is by an artist who had probably never set eyes on him. I am alluding to Hablot Browne, who unconsciously reproduced him to the life in the picture of Tom Pinch. As a companion, Béranger was charming to a degree. I have never heard him say a bitter word. The day I saw him home, I happened to say to him, "You ought to be pleased, Victor Hugo is in the same regiment with you." "Yes," he answered, "he is in the band." He would never accept a pension from Louis-Napoléon, but he had no bitterness against him. Lamartine was very bitter, and yet consented to the Emperor's heading of the subscription-list in his behalf. That alone would show the difference between the two men.
Some men of the Empire — Fialin de Persigny — The public prosecutor's opinion of him expressed at the trial for high treason in 1836 — Superior in many respects to Louis-Napoléon — The revival of the Empire his only and constant dream — In order to realize it, he appeals first to Jérôme, ex-King of Westphalia — De Persigny's estimate of him — Jérôme's greed and Louis-Napoléon's generosity — De Persigny's financial embarrassments — His charity — What the Empire really meant to him — De Persigny virtually the moving spirit in the Coup d'État — Louis-Napoléon might have been satisfied with the presidency of the republic for life — Persigny seeks for aid in England — Palmerston's share in the Coup d'État — The submarine cable — Preparations for the Coup d'État — A warning of it sent to England — Count Walewski issues invitations for a dinner-party on the 2nd of December — Opinion in London that Louis-Napoléon will get the worst in the struggle with the Chamber — The last funds from London — General de Saint-Arnaud and Baron Lacrosse — The Élysée-Bourbon on the evening of the 1st of December — I pass the Élysée at midnight — Nothing unusual — London on the 2nd of December — The dinner at Count Walewski's put off at the last moment — Illuminations at the French Embassy a few hours later — Palmerston at the Embassy — Some traits of De Persigny's character — His personal affection for Louis-Napoléon — Madame de Persigny — Her parsimony — Her cooking of the household accounts — Chevet and Madame de Persigny — What the Empire might have been with a Von Moltke by the side of the Emperor instead of Vaillant, Niel, and Lebœuf — Colonel (afterwards General) Fleury the only modest man among the Emperor's entourage — De Persigny's pretensions as a Heaven-born statesman — Mgr. de Mérode — De Morny — His first meeting with his half-brother — De Morny as a grand seigneur — The origin of the Mexican campaign — Walewski — His fads — Rouher — My first sight of him in the Quartier-Latin — The Emperor's opinion of him at the beginning of his career — Rouher in his native home, Auvergne — His marriage — Madame Rouher — His father-in-law.
"A man endowed with a strong will and energy, active and intelligent to a degree, with the faculty of turning up at every spot where his presence was necessary either to revive the lagging plot or to gain fresh adherents; a man better acquainted than all the rest with the secret springs upon which the conspiracy hung."
This description of M. de Persigny is borrowed from the indictment at the trial for high treason in 1836. Every particular of it is correct, yet it is a very one-sided diagnosis of the character of Napoléon's staunchest henchman. If I had had to paint him morally and mentally in one line, I should,without intending to be irreverent, have called him the John the Baptist of the revived Napoleonic legend. There could be no doubt about his energy, his activity, and his intelligence; in respect to the former two he was absolutely superior to Louis-Napoléon, but they, the activity and energy and intelligence, would only respond to the bidding of one voice, that of the first Napoléon from the grave, which, he felt sure, had appointed him the chief instrument for the restoration of the Empire. It was the dream that haunted his sleep, that pursued him when awake. Let it not be thought, though, that Louis-Napoléon appeared to him as the one selected by Providence to realize that dream. Loyal and faithful as he was to him from the day they met until his (Persigny's) death, he would have been equally loyal and faithful, though perhaps not so deeply attached, to Jérôme, the ex-King of Westphalia, to whom he appealed first. But the youngest of the great Napoléon's brothers did not relish adventures, and he turned a deaf ear to Persigny's proposals, as he did later on to those of M. Thiers, who wished him to become a candidate for the presidency of the Second Republic.
I was talking one day on the subject of the latter's refusal to De Persigny, several years after the advent of the Empire, and commending Jérôme for his abnegation of self and his fealty to his nephew. There was a sneer on Persigny's face such as I had never seen there before; for though he was by no means good-tempered, and frequently very violent, he generally left the members of the Imperial family alone. He noticed my surprise, and explained at once. "It is very evident that you do not know Jérôme, nor did I until a few years ago. There is not a single one of the great Napoléon's brothers who really had his glory at heart; it meant money and position to them, that is all. Do you know why Jérôme did not fall in with my views and those of M. Thiers? Well, I will tell you. He was afraid that his nephew Louis and the rest of the family would be a burden on him; he preferred that others should take the chestnuts out of the fire and that he should have the eating of them. That is what his self-abnegation meant, nothing more."
I am afraid that De Persigny was not altogether wrong in his estimate of the ex-King of Westphalia. He was insatiable in his demands for money to his nephew. In fact, with the exception of Princesse Mathilde, the whole of the Emperor's family was a thorn in his side.
The Emperor himself was absolutely incapable of refusing a service. I have the following story on very good authority. De Persigny, who was as lavish as his Imperial master, was rarely ever out of difficulties, and in such emergencies naturally appealed to the latter. He had wasted on, or sunk enormous sums in, his country estate of Chamarande, where he entertained with boundless hospitality. As a matter of course, he was always being pursued by his creditors. One early morn—Persigny always went betimes when he wanted money—he made his appearance in the Emperor's private room, looking sad and dejected. Napoléon refrained for a while from questioning him as to the cause of his low spirits, but finally ventured to say that he looked ill.
"Ah, sire," was the answer, "I am simply bent down with sorrow. This Chamarande, which I have created out of nothing as it were"—it had cost nearly two millions of francs—"is ruining me. I shall be forced to give it up."
De Persigny felt sure that he would be told there and then not to worry himself; but the Emperor was in a jocular mood, and took delight in prolonging his anxiety. "Believe me, my dear duc," said Napoléon with an assumed air of indifference, "it is the best thing you can do. Get rid of Chamarande; it is too great a burden, and you'll breathe more freely when it's gone."
De Persigny turned as white as a ghost; whereupon Napoléon, who was soft-hearted to a degree, took a bundle of notes from his drawer and handed them to him. De Persigny went away beaming.
It must not be inferred from this that De Persigny was grasping like Prince Jérôme and others, who constantly drained Napoléon's purse. De Persigny's charity was proverbial, but he gave blindly, and as a consequence, was frequently imposed upon. When young he had joined the Saint-Simoniens; his great aim was to make everybody happy. To him the restoration of the Empire meant not only the revival of Napoléon's glory, but the era of universal happiness, of universal material prosperity. As a rule, he was thoroughly unpractical; the whole of his life's work may be summed up in one line—he conceived and organized the Coup d'État. As such he was virtually the founder of the Second Empire. In that task practice went hand in hand with theory; when the task was accomplished, his inspiration was utterly at fault.
Historians have been generally content to attribute theprincipal rôle in the Coup d'État, next to that of Louis-Napoléon, to M. de Morny. Of course, I am speaking of those who conceived it, not of those who executed it. The parts of Generals Magnan and De Saint-Arnaud, of Colonel de Bèville and M. de Maupas, scarcely admit of discussion. But the fact is that De Morny did comparatively nothing as far as the conception was concerned. The prime mover was undoubtedly De Persigny, and it is a very moot question whether, but for him, it would have been conceived at all. I know I am treading on dangerous ground, but I have very good authority for the whole of the following notes relating to it. In De Persigny's mind the whole of the scheme was worked out prior to Louis-Napoléon's election to the presidency, though of course the success of it depended on that election. He did not want a republic, even with Louis-Napoléon as a president for life; he wanted an empire. I should not like to affirm that Prince Louis wouldnothave been content with such a position; it was Persigny who put down his foot, exclaiming, "Aut Cæsar, aut nullus!" That the sentence fell upon willing ears, there is equally no doubt, and when the Prince-President had his foot upon the first rung of the ladder, he would probably have rushed, or endeavoured to rush, to the top at once, regardless of the risk involved in this perilous ascent, for there would have been no one, absolutely no one, to steady the ladder at the bottom. De Persigny held him back while he busied himself in finding not only thepersonnelthat was to hold the latter, but the troops that would prevent the crowd from interfering with the ladder-holders. It was he who was the first to broach the recall of De Saint-Arnaud from Africa; it was he who drew attention to M. de Maupas, then little more than an obscure prefect; it was he who was wise enough to see that "the ladder-holders" would have to be sought for in England, and not in France. "The English," he said to Napoléon, "owe you a good turn for the harm they have done to your uncle. They are sufficiently generous or sufficiently sensible to do that good turn, if it is in their interest to do so; look for your support among the English."
I fancy it was Lord Palmerston's dislike of Louis-Philippe on account of "the Spanish marriages," rather than a sentiment of generosity towards Louis-Napoléon, that made him espouse his cause, but I feel certain that he did espouse it. I have good ground for saying that his interviews with Comte Walewski were much more frequent than his ministerial colleaguessuspected, or the relations between England and France, however friendly they may have been, warranted. But everything was not ready. Palmerston and Walewski on the English side of the Channel, Louis-Napoléon and De Persigny on the French side, were waiting for something. What was it? Nothing more nor less than the laying of the submarine cable between Dover and Calais, the concession for which was given on the 8th of January, 1851, and on which occasion the last words to Mr. Walker Breit were to hurry it on as much as possible, "seeing that it is of the utmost importance for the French Government to be in direct and rapid communication with the Cabinet of St. James." The Cabinet meant Lord Palmerston. Nevertheless, it is not until ten months later that the cable is laid, and from that moment events march apace. Let us glance at them for a moment. Telegraphic communication between Dover and Calais is established on the 13th of November. On the 15th, General Saint-Arnaud gives orders that the degree of 1849, conferring on the president of the National Assembly the right of summoning and disposing of the military forces which had hitherto been hung up in every barracks throughout the land, shall be taken down. On the 16th, Changarnier, Leflo, and Baze, with many others, decide that a bill shall be introduced immediately, conferring once more that right on the president of the Assembly. The opponents of the Prince-President are already rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of their success, for it means that Prince Louis and his adherents will be in their power, and in their power means removal to Vincennes or elsewhere, as prisoners of State. On the 18th, the bill is thrown out by a majority of 108, and the Assembly is virtually powerless henceforth against any and every attack from the military. It was on that very evening that the date of the Coup d'État was fixed for the 2nd of December, notwithstanding the hesitation and wavering of Louis-Napoléon. On the 26th a young attaché is despatched from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the French Embassy in London, instead of the ordinary cabinet (or queen's) messenger, which proves that the despatches are more important than usual. They contain letters from the Prince-President himself to Comte Walewski, the contents of which are probably known to the Marquis de Turgot, but which are despatched in that way, instead of being sent directly from the Élysée by a trustworthy person, because thepresidential residence is watched day and night by the "counter-police" of the Assembly. The reason why the Marquis de Turgot selects a young aristocrat is because he feels certain that he cannot be tampered with. On the 29th of November a connection of mine receives a letter from a friend in London, who is supposed to be behind the scenes, but who this time is utterly in the dark. It is to the following effect: "There is something in the wind, but I know not what. Both yesterday morning (27th) and to-day Walewski has been closeted for more than two hours each time with Palmerston. There is to be a grand dinner at Walewski's on the second of next month, to which I received an invitation. Can you tell me what mischief is brewing?"
The recipient of the letter was neither better nor worse informed than the rest of us, and in spite of all the assertions to the contrary which have been made since, no one foresaw the crisis in the shape it came upon us. On the contrary, the general opinion was that in the end Louis-Napoléon would get the worse, in spite of the magic influence of his name with the army. It was expected that if the troops were called upon to act against the National Assembly, they would refuse and turn against their leaders. I am by no means certain that the Prince-President did not entertain a similar opinion up to the last moment, for I have it on excellent authority that as late as the 26th of November he endeavoured to postpone the affair for a month. It was then that De Persigny showed his teeth, and insisted upon the night of the 1st or 2nd of December as the latest. The interview was a very stormy one. On that very morning De Persigny had received a letter from London, not addressed to his residence. It contained a draft for £2000, but with the intimation that these would be the last funds forthcoming. He showed the Prince-President the letter, and Napoléon gave in there and then. The letters spoken of just now were despatched on the same day. It was with that money that the Coup d'État was made, and all the stories about a million and a half of francs being handed respectively to De Morny, De Maupas, Saint-Arnaud, and the rest are so much invention.
Up to six o'clock in the afternoon of the 1st of December, General de Saint-Arnaud was virtually undecided, not with regard to the necessity of the Coup d'État, but with regard to the opportuneness of it within the next twelve hours. Ihave the following story from the lips of Baron Lacrosse, who was one of the actors in it. On the eve of the Coup d'État he was Minister of Public Works, and as such was present at the sitting of the Assembly on the 1st of December. A member ascended the tribune to interpellate the Minister for War, and, the latter being absent, the question was deferred until next day. That same evening, 1st of December, there was an official dinner at M. Daviel's, the Minister of Justice, and at the termination of the sitting, M. Lacrosse called in his carriage at the Ministry for War to take his colleague. "You may make up your mind for a warm half-hour to-morrow," he said with a smile, as he entered General Saint-Arnaud's room. "Why?" asked the general. "You are going to be interpellated." "I expected as much, and was just considering my answer. I am glad you warned me in time. I think I know what to say now."
I do not believe that Baron Lacrosse had the faintest inkling of the real drift of the remark, nor have I ever asked him directly whether he had. As far as I could gather afterwards from one or two people who were there, the Élysée presented no unusual feature that night. The reception was well attended, as the ordinary receptions on Mondays generally were, for the times had gone by when the courtyard was a howling wilderness dotted with two, or perhaps three, hackney cabs. It would appear that a great many well-known men and a corresponding number of pretty women moved as usual through the salons, only one of which was shut up, that at the very end of the suite, and which did duty as a council-chamber, and contained the portrait of the then young Emperor of Austria, Francis-Joseph. But this was scarcely noticed, nor did the early withdrawal of the Prince-President provoke any comment, for it happened pretty often. Very certain is it that at twelve o'clock that night the Élysée was wrapt in darkness, for I happened to pass there at that hour. Standing at the door, or rather inside it, was the captain of the guard, smoking a cigar. I believe it was Captain Desondes of the "Guides," but I will not be sure, for I was not near enough to distinguish plainly. The Faubourg St. Honoré was pretty well deserted, save for a few individuals prowling about; they were probably detectives in the pay of the Prince-President's adversaries.
Let me return for a moment to London, and give an account of what happened there on the 2nd of December, assupplied by the writer of the above-mentioned letter, in an epistle which reached Paris only on the 7th.
It appears that on the day of the Coup d'État London woke up amidst a dense fog. Virtually the news of what happened in Paris early that morning did not spread until between two and three o'clock. Our informant had been invited to a dinner-party at the French Embassy that night, and though in no way actively connected with politics, he was asking himself whether he should go or stay away, when, at five o'clock, he received a note from the Embassy, saying that the dinner would not take place. The fact was that at the eleventh hour the whole of the corps diplomatique had sent excuses. Our friend went to his club, had his dinner, and spent part of the evening there. At about eleven a crony of his came in, and seeing him seated in the smoking-room, exclaimed, "Why, I thought you were going to Walewski's dinner and reception." "So I was," remarked our friend, "but it was countermanded at five." "Countermanded? Why, I passed the Embassy just now, and it was blazing with light. Come and look."
They took a cab, and sure enough the building was positively illuminated. Our friend went in, and the salons were crammed to suffocation. Lord Palmerston was talking animatedly to Count Walewski; the whole corps diplomatique accredited to the court of St. James was there. The fact was that about nine or half-past the most favourable news from Paris had reached London. The report soon spread that Lord Palmerston had officially adhered to the Coup d'État, and that he had telegraphed in that sense to the various English embassies abroad without even consulting his fellow-ministers.
I believe our friend was correctly informed, for it is well known that Palmerston did not resign, but was virtually dismissed from office. He never went to Windsor to give up the seals; Lord John Russell had to do it for him. Persigny, therefore, considered that he had fallen in the cause of Louis-Napoléon, and as such he became little short of an idol. The Prince-President himself was not far from sharing in that worship. Not once, but a hundred times, his familiars have heard him say, "Avec Palmerston on peut faire des grandes choses." Nevertheless, Palmerston appealed more to De Persigny's imagination than to Louis-Napoléon's. After all, he was perhaps much more of a Richelieu than a constitutionalminister in a constitutional country has a right to be nowadays, and that was what Persigny admired above all things. His long stay in England had by no means removed his inherent dislike to parliamentary government, and, rightly or wrongly, he credited Palmerston with a similar sentiment.
De Persigny was amiable and obliging enough, provided one knew how to manage him, and with those whom he liked, but exceedingly thin-skinned and often violent with those whom he disliked. He was, moreover, very jealous with regard to Louis-Napoléon's affection for him. I doubt whether he really minded the influence wielded by the Empress, De Morny, and Walewski over the Emperor, but he grudged them their place in the Emperor's heart. This was essentially the case with regard to the former. He would have been glad to see his old friend and Imperial master contract a loveless marriage with some insignificant German or Russian princess, who would have borne her husband few or many children, in order to secure the safety of the dynasty, but the passion that prompted the union with Eugénie de Montijo he considered virtually as an injury to himself. I give his opinion on that subject in English, because, though expressed in French, it had certainly been inspired by his sojourn in England. "When love invades a man's heart, there is scarcely any room left for friendship. You cannot drive love for a woman and friendship for a man in double harness, you are obliged to drive them tandem; and what is worse in a case like that of the Emperor, friendship becomes the leader and love the wheeler. Of course, to the outsider, friendship has the place of honour; in reality, love, the wheeler, is in closest contact with the driver and the vehicle, and can, moreover, have a sly kick at friendship, the leader. Personally, I am an exception—I may say a phenomenal exception—because my affection for the Emperor is as strong as my love for my wife."
Those who knew both the Emperor and Madame de Persigny might have fitly argued that this equal division of affection was a virtual injustice to the sovereign, who was decidedly more amiable than the spouse. The former rarely did a spiteful thing from personal motives of revenge; I only know of two. He never invited Lady Jersey to the Tuileries during the Empire, because she had shown her dislike of him when he was in London; he exiled David d'Angers because the sculptor had refused to finish the monumentof Queen Hortense after the Coup-d'État. David d'Angers was one of the noblest creatures that ever lived, and I mean to speak of him at greater length. On the other hand, Madame de Persigny made her husband's life, notwithstanding his love for her, a burden by her whimsical disposition, her vindictive temperament, and her cheeseparing in everything except her own lavish expenditure on dress. She was what the French call "une femme qui fait des scènes;" she almost prided herself upon being superior in birth to her husband, though in that respect there was really not a pin to choose between her grandfather, Michel Ney, the stable-boy, who had risen to be a duke of the First Empire, and her husband, the sergeant-quartermaster Fialin, who became Duc de Persigny under the second. She was always advocating retrenchment in the household. "True," said Persigny, "she cuts down her dresses too, but the more she cuts, the more they cost." For in his angry moments he would now and then tell a story against his wife. Here is one. Persigny, as I have already said, was hospitable to a fault, but he had always to do battle when projecting a grand entertainment. "There was so much trouble with the servants, and as for the chef, his extravagance knew no bounds." So said madame; and sick at last of always hearing the same complaints, he decided to let Chevet provide. All went well at first, because he himself went to the Palais-Royal to give his orders, merely stating the number of guests, and leaving the rest to the famous caterers, than whom there are no more obliging or conscientious purveyors anywhere. After a little while he began to leave the arrangements to madame; she herself sent out the invitations, so there could be no mistake with regard to the number. He soon perceived, however, that the dinners, if not inferior in quality to the former ones, were decidedly inferior in quantity. At last, one evening, when there were twenty-six people round the board, there was not enough for twenty, and next day De Persigny took the road to the Palais-Royal once more to lodge his complaint personally. "Comment, monsieur le comte," was the reply of one of the principals, "vous dites qu'il y avait vingt-six convives et qu'il n'y avait pas de quoi nourrir vingt; je vous crois parfaitement; voilà la commande de madame la comtesse, copiée dans notre registre: 'Dîner chez M. de Persigny pour seize personnes.'"
Madame had simply pocketed, or intended to pocket, fifteenhundred francs—for Chevet rarely charged less than a hundred and fifty francs per head, wines included—and had endeavoured to make the food for sixteen do for twenty-six. Of course there was a scene. Madame promised amendment, and the husband was only too willing to believe. The amendment was worse than the original offence, for one night the whole of the supper-table, set out à la Française,i. e., with everything on it, gave way, because, her own dining-table having proved too small, she had declined Chevet's offer of providing one at a cost of seven or eight francs, and sent for a jobbing carpenter to put together some boards and trestles at the cost of two francs. Chevet managed to provide another banquet within three quarters of an hour, which, with the one that had been spoiled, was put in the bill. Within a comparatively short time of her husband's death, early in the seventies, Madame de Persigny contracted a second marriage, in direct opposition to the will of her family.
Most of the men in the immediate entourage of the Emperor were intoxicated with their sudden leap into power, but of course the intoxication manifested itself in different ways. A good many considered themselves the composers of the Napoleonic Opera—for it was really such in the way it held the stage of France for eighteen years, the usual tragic finale not even being wanting. With the exception of De Persigny, they were in reality but the orchestral performers, and he, to give him his utmost due, was only the orchestrator of the score and part author of the libretto. The original themes had been composed by the exile of St. Helena, and were so powerfully attractive to, and so constantly haunting, the ears of the majority of Frenchmen as to have required no outward aid to remembrance for thirty-five years, though I do not forget either Thiers' works, Victor Hugo's poetry, Louis-Philippe's generous transfer of the great captain's remains to France, nor Louis-Napoléon's own attempts at Strasburg and Boulogne, all of which contributed to that effect. Nevertheless, all the artisans of the Coup d'État considered themselves nearly as great geniuses as the intellectual and military giant who conceived and executed the 19th Brumaire, and pretended to impose their policy upon Europe by imposing their will upon the Emperor, though not one could hold a candle to him in statecraft. Napoléon with a Moltke by his side would have been a match for Bismarck, and the left bank of the Rhinemighthave beenFrench; Alsace-Lorraine would certainly not have been German. It is not my purpose, however, to enter upon politics. I repeat, De Persigny, De Morny, and to a certain extent Walewski, endeavoured to exalt themselves into political Napoléons at all times and seasons; De Saint-Arnaud felt convinced that the strategical mantle of the great warrior had fallen upon him; De Maupas fancied himself another Fouché. The only one who was really free from pretensions of either kind was Colonel (afterwards General) Fleury. He was the only modest man among the lot.
The greatest offender in that way was, no doubt, De Persigny. During his journey to Rome in 1866 he did not hesitate to tender his political advice to such past masters in diplomacy as Pius IX. and Cardinal Antonelli. Both pretended to profit by the lesson, but Mgr. de Mérode,[52]who was not quite so patient, had many an animated discussion with him, in which De Persigny frequently got the worst. One evening the latter thought fit to twit him with his pugnaciousness. "I suppose, monsignor," he said, "it's the ancient leaven of the trooper getting the upper hand now and then." "True," replied the prelate; "I was a captain in the foreign legion, and fought in Africa, where I got my cross of the Legion of Honour. But you, monsieur le duc, I fancy I have heard that you were more or less of a sergeant-quartermaster in a cavalry regiment."
Mgr. de Mérode could have done De Persigny no greater injury than to remind him of his humble origin. He always winced under such allusions; his constant preoccupation was to make people forget it, and he often exposed himself to ridicule in the attempt. He knew nothing about art, and yet he would speak about it, not as if he had studied thesubject, but as if he had been brought up in a refined society, where the atmosphere had been impregnated with it. As a matter of course, he became an easy victim to the picture-dealers and bric-à-brac merchants. I remember his silver being taken to the mint during the Siege. He had paid an enormous price for it on the dealer's representation that it was antique: "C'est du Louis XV. tout pur." "Tellement pur que c'est du Victoria," said a connoisseur; and he was not mistaken, for it had been manufactured by a firm of London silversmiths. But it was a compliment for all that to the Queen.
With all his faults, De Persigny was at heart a better man than De Morny, who affected to look down upon him. True, the latter had none of his glaring defects, neither had he any of his sterling virtues. One evening, in January, 1849, when the Prince-President had been less than a month at the Élysée, a closed carriage drove into the courtyard and stopped before the flight of steps leading to the hall, which, like the rest of the building, was already wrapt in semi-darkness. A gentleman alighted who was evidently expected, for the officer on duty conducted him almost without a word to the private apartments of the President, where the latter was walking up and down, the usual cigarette between his lips, evidently greatly preoccupied and visibly impatient. The door had scarcely opened when the Prince's face, generally so difficult to read, lighted up as if by magic. Before the officer had time to announce the visitor, the prince stepped forward, held out his hand, and with the other clasped the new-comer to his breast. The officer knew the visitor. It was the Comte Auguste de Morny. As a matter of course he retired, and saw and heard no more. I had the above account from his own lips, and he felt certain that this was the first time the brothers had ever met.
The Comte de Morny was close upon forty then, and for at least half of that time had been emancipated from all restraint; he was a well-known figure in the society of Louis-Philippe's reign; he had been a deputy for one of the constituencies in Auvergne; at the period of his first meeting with Louis-Napoléon he was at the head of an important industrial establishment down that way, and one fain asks one's self why he had waited until then to shake his brother's hand. The answer is not difficult. There is an oft-repeated story about De Morny having been at the Opéra-Comiqueduring the evening of the 1st of December, 1851. Rumours of the Coup d'État were rife, and a lady said, "Il paraît qu'on va donner un fameux coup de balai. De quel côté serez vous, M. de Morny?" "Soyez sure, madame, que je serai du côté du manche." Morny always averred that he had said nothing of the kind. "They invented it afterwards, perhaps because they credited me with the instinctive faculty of being on the winning side, the side of the handle, in any and every emergency."
I think one may safely accept that version, and that is why he refrained from claiming his brother's friendship and acquaintance until he felt almost certain that the latter was fingering the handle of the broom that was to make a clean sweep of the Second Republic. It is difficult to determine how much or how little he contributed to the success of that sweep, but I have an idea that it was very little. One thing is very certain, for I have it on very good—I may say, the best—authority. He did not contribute any money to the undertaking; he endeavoured to raise funds from others, but he himself did not loosen his purse-strings; when, curiously enough, he was the only one among the immediate entourage of Louis-Napoléon whose purse-strings were worth loosening.
Allowing for the difference of sex, better breeding and better education, De Morny often reminded one of Rachel. They possessed the same powers of fascination, and were, I am afraid, equally selfish at heart. To read the biographies of both—I do not mean those that pretend to be historical—one would think that there had never been a grande dame on the stage of the Comédie-Française before Rachel or contemporary with her, though Augustine Brohan was decidedly more grande dame than Rachel in every respect. It is the same with regard to De Morny. To the chroniqueur during the Second Empire he was the only grand seigneur—the rest were only seigneurs; but I am inclined to think that the chroniqueur of those days had seen very few real grand seigneurs. To use a popular locution, "they did not go thirteen to the dozen" at the court of Napoléon III.; and among the people with whom De Morny came habitually in contact, in the course of his financial and industrial schemes, a grand seigneur was even a greater rarity than at the Tuileries. If a kind of quiet impertinence to some of one's fellow-creatures, and a tacitly expressed contempt for nearly the whole of therest, constitute the grand seigneur, then certainly De Morny could have claimed the title. I have elsewhere noted the meeting of Taglioni with her husband at De Morny's dinner-party. If it had been arranged by the host with the view of effecting a reconciliation between the couple, then nothing could have been more praiseworthy; but I am not at all sure of it. If it were not, then it became an unpardonable joke at the woman's expense, and in the worst taste; but the chroniqueur of those days would have applauded it all the same.
Here are two stories which, at different times, were told by De Morny's familiars and sycophants in order to stamp him the grand seigneur. Late in the fifties he was an assiduous frequenter of the salons of a banker, whose sisters-in-law happened to be very handsome. One evening, while talking to one of them, they came to ask him to take a hand at lansquenet. He had evidently no intention of leaving the society of the lady for that of the gaming-table, and said so. Of course, his host was in the wrong in pressing the thing, nevertheless one has yet to learn that "two wrongs make one right."
"What will you play?" they asked, when they had as good as badgered him away from his companion.
"The simple rouge and the noir. That's the quickest."
"How much for?"
"Ten thousand francs."
The stake seemed somewhat high, and no one cared to take it up. But the host himself felt bound to set the example, and the sum was made up. De Morny lost, and was about to rise from the table, when they said—
"Have your revenge."
"Very well; ten thousand on the black."
He lost again. Most grand seigneurs would have got up without saying anything. Twenty thousand francs was, after all, not an important sum to him, and I feel, moreover, certain that it was not the loss of the money that vexed him. But he felt bound to emphasize his indifference.
"There, that will do. I trust I shall be left in peace now."
My informant considered this exceedinglytalon rouge; I did not.
A story of a similar kind, when he was a simple deputy. A bigwig, with an inordinate ambition to become a minister,invited him to dinner. He had been told that his host was in the habit of drinking a rare Bordeaux which was only offered to one or two guests, quietly pointed out by the former to the servant. At the question of the latter whether he (M. de Morny) would take Brane-Mouton or Ermitage, he pointed to the famous bottle that had been hidden away. The servant, as badly trained as the master, looked embarrassed, but at last filled De Morny's glass with the precious nectar. De Morny simply poured it into a tumbler and diluted it with water.
Ridiculous as it may seem, De Morny often spoke and acted as if he had royal blood in his veins, and in that respect scarcely considered himself inferior to Colonna Walewski, of whose origin there could be no doubt. A glance at the man's face was sufficient. Both frequently spoke and acted as if Louis-Napoléon occupied the Imperial throne by their good will, and that, therefore, he was, in a measure, bound to dance to their fiddling. Outwardly these two were fast friends, up to a certain period; I fancy that their common hatred of De Persigny was the strongest link of that bond. In reality they were as jealous of one another and of their influence over the Emperor as they were of De Persigny and his. The latter, who was well aware of all this, frankly averred that he preferred Walewski's undisguised and outspoken hostility to De Morny's very questionable cordiality. "The one would take my head like Judith took Holofernes', the other would shave it like Delilah shaved Samson's, provided I trusted myself to either, which I am not likely to do."
It was De Persigny who told me the substance of the following story, and I believe every word of it, because, first, I never caught De Persigny telling a deliberate falsehood; secondly, because I heard it confirmed many years afterwards in substance by two persons who were more or less directly concerned in it.
In the latter end of 1863 one of the sons of Baron James de Rothschild died; I believe it was the youngest of the four, but I am not certain. The old baron, who was generosity itself when it came to endowing charitable institutions, was absolutely opposed to any waste of money. Amidst the terrible grief at his loss, he was still the careful administrator, and sent to M. Émile Perrin, the then director of the Grand Opéra, and subsequently the director of the Comédie-Française,asking him to dispose of his box on the grand tier, under the express condition that it should revert to him after a twelvemonth. It was the very thing M. Perrin was not empowered to do. Though nominally the director, he was virtually the manager under Comte Bacciochi, the superintendent of the Imperial theatres; that is, the theatres which received a subsidy from the Emperor's civil list. The subscriber who wished to relinquish his box or seat, for however short a time—of course without continuing to pay for it—forfeited all subsequent claim to it. In this instance, though, apart from the position of Baron James, the cause which prompted the application warranted an exception being made; still M. Perrin did not wish to act upon his own responsibility, and referred the matter to Comte Bacciochi, telling him at the same time that Comte Walewski would be glad to take the box during the interim. The latter had but recently resigned the Ministry of State by reason of an unexpected difficulty in the "Roman Question;"[53]the ministerial box went, as a matter of course, with the appointment, and Comte Walewski regretted the loss of the former, which was one of the best in the house, more than the loss of the latter, and had asked his protégé—M. Perrin owed his position at the Opéra to him—to get him as good a one as soon as possible.
It so happened that Comte Bacciochi had a grudge against Walewski for having questioned certain of his prerogatives connected with the superintendence of the Opéra. The moment he heard of Walewski's wish, he replied, "M. de Morny applied to me several months since for a better box, and I see no reason why Comte Walewski should have it over his head."
Vindictive like a Corsican, he laid the matter directly before the Emperor, and furthermore did his best to exasperate the two postulants against one another. De Morny had the box; Bacciochi had, however, succeeded so well that the two men were for a considerable time not on speaking terms.
Meanwhile the Mexican question had assumed a very serious aspect. In spite of his undoubted interest in theJecker scheme, or probably because it had yielded all it was likely to yield, De Morny had of late been on the side of Walewski, who strongly counselled the withdrawal of the French troops. But the moment the incident of the opera-box cropped up, there was a change of front on his part. He became an ardent partisan for continuing the campaign, systematically siding against Walewski in everything, and tacitly avoiding any attempt of the latter to draw him into conversation. Walewski felt hurt, and gave up the attempt in despair. A little before this, Don Gutierrez de Estada had landed in Europe with a deputation of notable Mexicans to offer the crown to Maximilian. The latter made his acceptance conditional on the despatch of twenty thousand French troops and the promise of a grant of three hundred millions of francs.
In a council held at the Tuileries these conditions were unhesitatingly declined. "That was, if I am not mistaken, on a Saturday," said De Persigny; "and it was taken for granted that everything was settled. On Monday morning the council was hurriedly summoned to the Tuileries, and having to come from a good distance, Walewski arrived when it had been sitting for more than an hour. What had happened meanwhile? Simply this. Don Gutierrez had been informed of the decision of the Emperor's advisers, and Maximilian had been communicated with by telegraph to the same effect. On the Sunday morning the Archduke telegraphed to the Mexican envoy that unless his conditions were subscribed toin totohe should decline the honour. Don Gutierrez, determined not to return without a king, rushed there and then to De Morny's and offered him the crown. The latter immediately accepted, in the event of Maximilian persisting in his refusal. The Emperor was simply frantic with rage, but nothing would move De Morny. The only one who really had any influence over him was 'the other prince of the blood,' meaning Walewski, for, according to him, the real and legitimate Bonapartes counted for nothing. Walewski was telegraphed for, as I told you, early in the morning. When he came he found the council engaged in discussing the means of raising a loan. The Empress begged him to dissuade De Morny from his purpose, telling him all I have told you. Walewski refused to be the first to speak to De Morny. I think that both Walewski and De Morny have heaped injury and insult upon me more thanupon any man; I would have obeyed the Empress for the Emperor's sake, but 'the two princes of the blood' only consulted their own dignity. I need not tell you what effect the elevation of De Morny to the throne of Mexico would have produced in Europe, let alone in France. Rather than risk such a thing, the money was found; Bazaine was sent, and that poor fellow, Maximilian, went to his death, because M. Bacciochi had sown dissension between the brother and the cousin of the Emperor about an opera-box. Such is history, my friend."
I repeat, De Persigny was a better man at heart than De Morny, or perhaps than Walewski, though the latter had only fads, and never stooped to the questionable practices of his fellow "prince of the blood" in the race for wealth. The erstwhile sergeant-quartermaster refrained from doing so out of sheer contempt for money-hunters, and from an inborn feeling of honesty. The son of Napoléon I., though illegitimate, felt what was due to the author of his being, and absolutely refused to be mixed up with any commercial transactions. He was never quietly insolent to any one, like the natural son of Hortense; he rarely said either a foolish or a wise thing, but frequently did ill-considered ones, as, for instance, when he wrote a play. "What induced you to do this, monsieur le comte?" said Thiers, on the first night. "It is so difficult to write a play in five acts, and it is so easy not to write a play in five acts." Among his fads was the objection to ladies in the stalls of a theatre. In 1861 he issued an order forbidding their admission to that part of the house, and could only be persuaded with difficulty, and at the eleventh hour, to rescind it. In many respects he was like Philip II. of Spain; he worried about trifles. One day he prevailed upon M. de Boitelle, the Prefect of police, a thoroughly sensible man, to put a stop to the flying of kites, because their tails might get entangled in the telegraph wires, and cause damage to the latter. I happened to meet him on the Boulevards on the very day the edict was promulgated. He felt evidently very proud of the conception, and asked me what I thought of it. I told him the story of "the cow on the rails," according to Stephenson. Napoléon, when he heard of Walewski's reform, sent for Boitelle. "Here is an 'order in council' I want you to publish," he said, as seriously as possible. It was to the effect that "all birds found perching on the wires would be fined, and, in default of payment,imprisoned." Curiously enough, though a man of parts, and naturally intelligent, satire of that kind was lost upon him, for not very long after he prevailed upon M. de Boitelle to revive an obsolete order with regard to the length of the hackney-drivers' whips and the cracking thereof. It was M. Carlier, the predecessor of M. de Maupas, who had originally attempted a similar thing. He was rewarded with a pictorial skit representing him on the point of drowning, while cabby was trying to save him by holding out his whip, which proved too short for the purpose.