Another time, again, matters became more serious. The riot—I don't remember which it was now, there were so many of them!—became very threatening at one moment. I see my father still, taking Casimir Perier by the arm, and shouting in his ear, "Tell them to serve out ball cartridge, ball cartridge, do you hear?" Casimir Perier, as excited as himself, was rushing away, when he was stopped by an officer, who said, "There are three students of the Ecole Polytechnique, sent to parley, waiting below."
"Parley for whom? For the rioters? For the insurrection? Lay hands on them! Lock them up in prison."
"But, sir," said the officer, himself a former student at the Ecole Polytechnique, "I can't: I've given them my word!" But Casimir Perier was not there to listen even just then I observed a man of woebegone appearance, sitting in a corner of the drawing-room in which the foregoing scene had taken place. One of my eldest brother's aides-de-camp, General Marbot, was walking up and down in front of him, never taking his eyes off him. "What are you doing there?" I asked the general.
"I'm keeping my eye on that gentleman you see there."
"Who is he?"
"The Prefect of Police."
"Really?"
"They say he is playing us false"
And there you see a specimen of the plight you find yourself in on the morrow of a revolution, when order needs restoring not only in the open streets but in the highest quarters in the State.
For my own part, I was always delighted to hear the drums call the National Guard—and consequently all our masters, tutors, and professors, who served in it—to arms, at each fresh outbreak of disturbance.
It meant interrupted studies, and, above all, interrupted attendance at school, where, however, luckily for me, I was not to stay much longer. Seeing that I did no good there whatever, my father decided, in the spring of 1831, to remove me altogether, and as my taste for a naval career was growing stronger and stronger, he resolved to make a sailor of me But before I seriously entered the profession he wished me to make a sea-voyage. So I was sent to Toulon, to be shipped as volunteer pilot's apprentice, on board the Arthemise frigate, commander Latreyte. I was barely thirteen I could not have begun at a better age.
After bidding the tenderest farewell to my father and mother, my aunt, and my brothers and sisters, from whom I had never been parted before, I was packed into a post-chaise with Monsieur Trognon, and off we started.
As far as Lyons our journey was uneventful, but when we got there M. Paulze d'Ivoy, the prefet, and M. Vitet, author of Barricades des Etats de Blois, took possession of me, nominally to show me the town—in reality to make me the pretext for certain demonstrations in favour of the new order of things. I was driven about, to Fourvieres, to La Croix-Rousse, and so forth, and had the best of receptions from their sturdy inhabitants. Thirteen-year-old lad as I was, I had to receive the officers of the National Guard—very military indeed they were, with their uniform with its white facings, copied from that of the Imperial Guard. And these receptions and official entertainments, which were not at all to my personal taste, were repeated all along the road till we got to Toulon, marked by increasing animation and fervour as we got farther south, and as the population through which we passed became more and more divided by political passions. At Valence I found an enormous crowd of people, and the garrison and National Guard both under arms, while a tall lieutenant-colonel, of the 49th Regiment of the Line, insisted on my inspecting the troops in person.
He took my hand with one of his, with the other he waved his sword, and led the plaudits. His name was Magnan, and he was a Marshal of France before he died. At Mornas, the native place of the famous Baron des Adrets, the reception took a very original shape. As we drove up to the posting-house, I saw a great crowd, and the National Guard drawn up in two ranks, on the right and left of the postilions who were to take us on. The carriage pulled up between the ranks, and I fancied I saw a sort of suppressed smile on the countenances of the National Guard. It did not last long, for the commandant in the wildest excitement rapidly gave the words of command: "Present arms—Fire!" And they were followed by the most abominable noise, every man having presented arms with his finger on the trigger of his musket. The crowd cheered tremendously, the horses plunged and reared, and there was a terrible disturbance, which seemed to afford the keenest joy to the officer in command. There was nothing very striking at Orange, nor at Avignon. Speeches by the authorities, visits to the public buildings, very much the same routine as that which official receptions have nowadays made so familiar to everybody. But at Orgon, between Avignon and Aix, it was a very different matter. An immense and excited crowd awaited our arrival, shouting all manner of things. Then the carriage was seized upon by people who looked drunk, but who were drunk with political passion alone. It seems the town of Orgon was not reckoned to favour the regime of 1830. So from every side I was greeted with shouts of "We are Cavaillon's men! … We've come down from the mountains so that you may tell your papa there are no Carlists in Provence." And then they sang the Marseillaise The horses were taken out of the carriage, the crowd surrounded it, climbing on the steps, the wheels, the fore-carriage, the roof. I was like a prisoner in a cage; all I could see out of the window was the boots of the people who were sitting on the top. They sang all the verses of the Marseillaise, and bawled between them. A gentleman contrived to slip up to the carriage door, gave himself out to be the mayor, and tried to rescue us, calling out: "Gentlemen, this really is not decent behaviour." All he got for his pains was a shout of "What the devil do we care about a mayor like you?" I don't know how long it would have gone on, if a detachment of the battalion of Government workmen quartered at Orgon, which had been sent for, had not come to our rescue.
Between Orgon and Marseilles we met the "Regiment de la Charte" marching from Paris on their way to Algiers, and their passage through the country did not a little to excite the inhabitants. At Marseilles the National Guard lined the Allees de Meillan, each man with a bouquet stuck into the muzzle of his rifle, which he took out and threw into the barouche in which I sat with General Gazan, so that I was soon fairly buried, with nothing but my head sticking out, while the crowd shouted at the top of its voice: "Vive le Prinnche!—Long live the Prince!" and I heard women's voices adding, "Que sis poulid! Qui est si joli!"
I had hardly reached Toulon, ere the frigate I had joined put to sea, my apprenticeship began, and I soon made myself at home among our sailors, who all of them, officers, petty officers, and seamen alike, not only showed me an affection which won my heart from the very outset, but took every pains to make my stay amongst them a pleasant one, while each in his own special sphere initiated me into all the details of my duty.
The Arthemise was a fine sailing frigate, of fifty-two guns, with huge spars—one of the most elegant types of the old-fashioned ships, but an old-fashioned ship she was indeed. We even had hempen cables instead of chain ones! The crew, drawn almost exclusively from the lists of registered seamen, was active and bold on the rigging, but somewhat insubordinate. The words of command were given amidst volleys of oaths, and carried out under a hail of blows dealt by the petty officers. The superior officers, who had all belonged to the old Imperial Navy, clung to that detestable habit, which has cost us so many reverses, of completely neglecting the military side of the ship's drill. The only thing they looked to was navigation. There was indeed a routine of regulation practice carried out, but it was utterly ridiculous. The ne plus ultra of perfection in artillery drill, for instance, was supposed to be when at the word "Ram" all the thirteen rammers of the ship's battery struck the bore of the guns with irreproachable simultaneity! Now and then there was a rehearsal of the drill book, but it was always done amidst universal sleepiness and inattention. There never was one day's practice, nor even one shot fired, during the whole cruise.
The commander gave me boatswains and sailors to teach me the various details of my duty, and I soon learnt to give things their right names, to tie knots, and to climb about the rigging too, though I did not manage that, the first time, without being horribly frightened. I remember, when I got as far as the topgallant crosstrees, clinging on, and not daring to come down till I was driven to it by the jeers of the on-lookers. But I learnt most of all by observation, and from the outset I had that indescribable thing that nobody can teach another, the seafaring instinct. Our cruise was a pleasant one, and our stays in port were interesting. At Ajaccio I came upon more public functions, and was the hero of a Bonapartist demonstration. I was borne as though in triumph to the house where Napoleon was born, where I was received by a very old Signor Ramolino, brother to Madame Letitia. In common with my sisters, who drew pictures of Napoleon all over the place, I professed the greatest admiration for the great warrior. So I asked his uncle for some souvenir of him, and he presented me with a red armchair, out of the room in which he was born.
After a visit to the Dey of Algiers, the last representative of those Barbary Moors who were the "Terror of the Seas," as the Muette de Portici has it, I received at Leghorn an invitation from the Grand Duke of Tuscany to come to Florence, and was taken thither by the French Minister, M. de Ganay, a charming man. There was nothing that excellent good Grand Duke and his family did not do for me while I staid at the Pitti Palace, and the only acknowledgment I could make of it all was to turn my schoolboy talents to constructing a jointed jumping jack, that turned head over heels, for one of the young princesses whom we used to call the Archduchess Mimi, and who afterwards married Prince Luitpold of Bavaria. I returned on board the Arthemise full of gratitude for my reception, and of admiration for the monuments and artistic marvels I had seen at Florence and Pisa and Pistoja, and in which, in spite of my youth, I had taken the deepest interest.
At Naples I found fresh delights in the midst of my mother's family and my young cousins, of both sexes, one of whom, Antonietta, an admirably beautiful girl, later became Grand Duchess of Tuscany in her turn. Nothing indeed could have been more charming than the Naples of those days. I do not speak of that wondrous setting which will last to all eternity, but of the Naples of the Neapolitans, gay, noisy, and teeming with wit, as it was before the plague of politics fell on it, bringing divisions and gloom, and despoiling it of all its charm of originality; Naples, with its lazzaroni and its macaroni, and its "corricoli" tearing along with tinkling bells, crammed with monks and women in their costumes—the Naples, in fine, of Pulcinella and of Leopold Robert.
After Naples came Palermo, and then Malta, where we found the magnificent British squadron, and received the most hospitable of welcomes from General and Lady Emily Ponsonby, the governor and his charming wife.
Our stay at Malta ended with a disagreeable incident, hardly conceivable in these days, when naval discipline may be held up as a model to every one. On the evening of the day before that on which we were to weigh anchor, our whole crew deserted in a body. In spite of the efforts of the officer of the watch, and some others of inferior rank, who were present, over 300 men seized the boats and dories that lay alongside of us, and took "French leave" on shore. The next day we could not start, for we had no crew. We had to apply to the police and the English garrison, who sent out pickets, collected our rovers, and brought almost all of them back in the course of the evening, and we started somewhat humiliated at having given the English such a sad specimen of the insubordination which always follows on revolutions. The English have had their revolution too, but they have taken good care to have no more than the one, and above all not to make laws which render a periodical recurrence of revolution inevitable. As we had over 300 delinquents, it was impossible to punish them. The men felt this, and, with the evident intention of setting their officers at defiance, they spent the next few evenings singing revolutionary songs, some verses of which they came and yelled on their knees on the quarterdeck. The firmness of the commanding officers got the better of these saturnalia, by degrees.
Storms delayed us in the Maltese waters, and we only just missed being on the spot on the very day when an eruption threw up an island and a volcano from the depths of the sea, to which they have now returned. After a long passage, the frigate anchored at Algiers, which in 1831 was still the city of the Deys. Not a street had been widened, nor a European house built. It was still inhabited by a numerous native population. The Rue de la Marine, which was like a narrow winding staircase, was crowded with negro women street sellers, the cafes filled with Moors wearing huge turbans. To increase the picturesqueness of the situation, there was fighting going on at the city gates. Berthezene, the Governor-General, had just been forced to beat a retreat from Medeah. I could see the firing on the slopes of Kouba from the frigate, and a column had to be sent out to revictual the Maison-Carree! Under these circumstances, the Governor bethought himself that it would be a good thing to show "the King's son" to the troops, and settled to hold a review the next day. The troops were to be withdrawn for the moment from the line of defense, and the review was to be held at Mustapha. I had ventured to suggest that I might go and see the soldiers in their own lines, hoping thus to get near the firing, a natural desire enough, seeing I wore a volunteer uniform in spite of my thirteen years, but nobody listened to me, and to Mustapha I was taken, mounted on the ex-Dey's white mule, which an artilleryman persisted in leading by the bridle, in spite of all my indignant protests.
A real downright review that was! The men had been fighting all the morning, and Zouaves and linesmen alike looked fierce indeed, with tanned faces, eyes reddened by the smoke, and a black mark at the corner of every mouth, from biting off the ends of the cartridges. The Zouaves had only just been raised, and were not a bit like the Zouaves of the present day. The ranks consisted mostly of Arabs, who wore almost the same uniform as the present one, only with bare legs and slippers on their feet, mingled with Parisian roughs, drafted out of the "Regiments de la Charte," most of them wearing blouses and caps. Many of the non-commissioned officers had come from the Royal Guard, and still wore their blue cloaks. The excessively whimsical get-up of the officers put the finishing touch to this motley show. Most of them had adopted the Mameluke dress—white turbans, huge trousers, yellow boots, a sun embroidered on their backs, and a scimitar. After the Zouaves I saw the squadron of "Chasseurs Algeriens," the nucleus of the future "Chasseurs d'Afrique," march past. They wore Turkish dress and turbans too, all but their commanding officer, a big bearded artillery captain, who wore a burnous and Arab pistols over his uniform. His name was Marey-Monge, and he was a general of division when he died.
After the review I was taken back to my ship. The frigate sailed for Port Mahon, where we underwent a long quarantine, and thence to Toulon, where we arrived just as the squadron which had forced the mouth of the Tagus, under the orders of Admiral Roussin, returned, I went over those fine ships, and especially the Algesiras, with many a regret that the Arthemise had had no share in the fray. The commander of the Algesiras, M. Moulac, a tall, strongly built, grey-headed man, the bravest of the brave, who had fought boldly in all our naval struggles with England, told me a story which impressed me deeply, and which I here transcribe just as it remains fixed in my memory:—
"It has been blowing great guns, as you know, all the last few days. The ship was running under easy sail when I heard a shout of 'Man overboard!' The lifebuoy was thrown, and, looking astern, I saw the man had caught it. But it was a raging sea—I saw and felt that to try and lower a boat to save the poor wretch must expose the men who manned it to the greatest danger. The crew read in my face the fearful struggle going on within me, and twenty, thirty, perhaps forty volunteers, headed by officers and midshipmen, crowded round me, beseeching me almost on their knees: 'Let us save our comrade, sir! we can't desert him!' I was weak enough to yield. By unexpected good luck, we managed to lower a boat without accident, and she started manned by a dozen men. We saw her, by still greater good fortune, get to the poor fellow and save him, and I was steering about so as to make it easier for her to get back, when a huge wave broke over her. A shout of horror went up from her, and then silence. In another minute I saw my boat capsized, on the crest of a wave, with two or three men, one of them a midshipman, clinging to the keel. To shorten their agony, I made as though I was going ahead. The middy understood that I was forced to abandon them, for he waved a farewell and let himself go. I had been weak, but I was cruelly punished. Thirteen men drowned instead of one, and by my fault!"
I shall never forget the severe expression that came over the commander's face as he added, laying his hand on my shoulder, "Some day, boy, you may be in command. May the thought of me remind you always that duty is inexorable!"
After this final episode in my first cruise I went ashore, but I went ashore a sailor to the core, and my one idea, when I got back to Paris, was to acquire the technical information needed for my profession. To this the years 1832 and 1833 were devoted. M. Guerard, a charming fellow, universally liked and an incomparable instructor, was my mathematical teacher. A lieutenant in the navy, M. Hernoux, put me through the course of study of the Naval School. At the same time I set assiduously to work to learn drawing. My first master in this line was M. Barbier, the father of Jules Barbier, the poet and librettist, who, with Emile Augier, was a class-mate of my young brothers. I did watercolours too, under an Englishman, William Callow, and oils in Gudin's studio. But my real master, who taught me to draw, and led and guided me, and gave me my taste for things artistic, was Ary Scheffer, with whom I remained on terms of the closest intimacy until his death.
It was somewhere about this time that a French army entered Belgium, and besieged and took the citadel of Antwerp, and during this campaign my elder brothers first had the honour of leading our soldiers under fire. Antwerp once taken, the French Government, content with having given a proof of activity to Europe, and shown everybody what our legions could do, at once recalled the army, and my father went to review it in the cantonments on the frontier where it lay. I made this journey with him. The troops were splendid, full of zeal and confidence. I was shown one infantry brigade, which at the time of mobilization had done marches of sixty to seventy kilometres, so as to reach the given point at the hour fixed upon. It was an interesting journey, though a very trying one. Every day there was an entry into some town, and a partial review, in Siberian cold. And every evening there was a banquet, and every night a ball. The chief review was held at Valenciennes. The troops looked magnificent, drawn up on the snow, and, though it was so terribly cold, a brilliant sun lighted up the splendid military scene. It was enlivened by a little incident. The commandant of the fortress of Valenciennes was an old colonel, who had re-engaged in 1830, after having dabbled somewhat in conspiracy, under the Restoration. His name was M. de la Huberdiere, and he had had himself a hat made exactly like Napoleon's, and wore it just after the same fashion.
During the march past, either from sheer keenness or because he wanted to attract attention to himself, he edged himself gradually in front of the staff, on the side where the troops advanced, till at last he was abreast of the King, so that the troops appeared to be marching past him. This provoked one of my father's aides-de-camp, Heymes, who went up to him, and said, saluting, "It seems to me, Colonel, you would be better placed still if you were on the King's horse!" The shriek of laughter which greeted this remark may be imagined.
This same Heymes, one of the few survivors of General Leclerc's expedition to St. Domingo, had, on leaving that charnel-house, become aide-de-camp to Marshal Ney. He it was who, during the famous retreat from Russia, was sent to ask the general who was blowing up the Beresina bridges to suspend the work of destruction, so as to allow of the passage of the column with the wounded, who must otherwise be doomed to death. It was worth seeing the expression of his face, severe enough already, when he repeated the answer the general in question gave him, with the most southern of accents, "What, my dear fellow! The wounded! The Emperor has decided to sacrifice them!"
The worthy Heymes did my father a great service a short time after the review which has led me to mention him. It was at the moment of the insurrection in June 1832. We were at St. Cloud. It was well known that the agitators of every description intended to make a demonstration on the occasion of General Lamarque's funeral, but the demonstration was not expected to be of any importance. However, at about five in the evening, we beheld Heymes, in plain clothes, gallop into the courtyard, on a dragoon's charger, covered with foam. He had just come from the demonstration, and had witnessed that ordinary prologue to revolutions, pillage and massacre—pillage of gunsmiths' shops, and massacre of the officers of the 6th Dragoons, shot down with pistols, without any provocation whatever, at the head of their squadrons in line.
"You must come to Paris, Sire," he said, as he dismounted. My father did not wait for him to say it twice, and an hour later he was at the Tuileries, thence giving the impulse which nipped the revolutionary attempt in the bud. The next morning he was on horseback amidst the troops and the National Guard, which hemmed the rioters into the ward of St. Merri. An incident occurred there which was highly characteristic of that Parisian population, in whom a generous chord will always thrill, even in its maddest moments. The King, with my brother Nemours and his staff, had gone down the Rue des Arcis, at the end of which lively firing was heard. The troops who were massed in the street greeted the sovereign with cheers, and he, going forward, reached a square in which the fighting was actually going on. The cheering ran from one to another, the soldiers who were engaged ceasing their fire to join in. This change in the music struck the insurgents also at last. They stopped firing too, and were to be seen appearing at the windows, rifle in hand, taking off their caps to the plucky King, whom they would not have hesitated to shoot at a minute before.
I need not say that as soon as the King and his escort disappeared down a side street the fight began again, merrier than ever, and the 42nd Regiment of the line carried the monastery of St. Merri. An historic regiment that 42nd! After having fought against the "White" insurrection in the Vendee and the republican insurrection at the St. Merri monastery, caused the breakdown of Prince Napoleon's Boulogne adventure, occupied the Chamber of Deputies on the 2nd of December, and heroically lost its whole strength twice over in the siege of Paris, it has had the good fortune of being almost the only one of our regiments to keep its arms and its colours amidst all our mishaps.
There was no further interruption to the course of my studies, except a journey of the King's to Normandy, on which I accompanied him. The official object of this journey was to hold a review, at Cherbourg, of the squadron which had operated, in concert with an English one, in the North Sea, during the arrangement of the Belgian question. But its chief end was to go through the Departments in Normandy and enter into relations with the honest folk who populated them.
The trip was fruitful in incident. The first happened at Bernay, the native town of the virtuous Dupont de l'Eure, one of those virtuous individuals who would virtuously have your head cut off sooner than drop the smallest iota of their vulgar and utopian ideas. The prefect, M. Passy, had warned the King that amongst the addresses that would be read to him on his arrival there would be one which would give him a lecture. Thus warned, we arrived, and having mounted a platform in the open air, with a verdant dome above it, the reception and the addresses began. There was nothing very particular at first; at last a "President de Tribunal" advanced, and the way he made his bow with his prim look, and the curiosity which stretched every neck, told me at once that the King was to get the promised lecture. It came, indeed, very studied, and very impertinent too. Everybody listened in silence. It was all about courtiers, the danger of listening to flatterers, and so forth. As it ended, the heads of the president and his friends all came up with a "Take that, my fine fellow" look.
Then the King replied with the utmost politeness, thanking M. le President for the advice he had been good enough to give him. "Flatterers and courtiers," he said, "have indeed done much mischief, and, sad to say, the race is not yet extinct, for nowadays there are courtiers who are far more dangerous than the flatterers of princes and of kings—those courtiers and flatterers of the people, who to buy a vain and contemptible popularity suggest to them dreams which are unrealizable and which bring them to misfortune," &c. On this head my father bestowed a well-directed hiding on the president, which was constantly interrupted by a running fire of applause, so that the worthy gentleman ended by not knowing which way to look. Amongst other eminently French qualities, my father possessed the gift of repartee to the highest degree. He always knew how to use it, though with a politeness and good nature which softened whatever might be too sharp about its sting. This time the blow went home. Our journey, thus begun, was continued amid constantly increasing cordiality and success. It was a somewhat tiring manner of life. We went by short stages, from one reception to another. Everywhere the National Guard and the troops were under arms. When they were in considerable numbers, we mounted horses, either lent or requisitioned beforehand. In the evening, wherever we slept, there would be a great banquet, and generally a ball as well. It was the duty of us young folk to lead the dancing—a pleasant task enough, if we could have chosen our partners among the pretty women whom I was beginning to notice, in spite of my being only fourteen, and of whom there were many, especially at Grandville and St. Lo. But our partners were given to us officially, and were chosen from the families of the authorities. We exerted ourselves to be pleasant in spite of that. I do not know whether I was succeeding too much or too little at a ball one night, but I saw the husband's head suddenly appear between my partner and myself, with the observation, "Well, my wife's not bad-looking, is she?" and he smacked his lips like a man who has eaten a good thing.
Falaise was the culminating point in our journey as far as incidents went. We were to make a halt there, and, as fifteen battalions of the National Guard were collected, the aide-de-camp, who did duty as quartermaster too, had seen to getting suitable mounts for the King, for us, and for Marshals Soult and Gerard, who accompanied us. The famous fair at Guibray, near Falaise, was just over, and a circus which had come to enliven it was still there. The circus horses were laid hands on, and when we arrived we were agreeably surprised to find fine white horses awaiting us instead of the ordinary nags and troop-horses we generally had to ride. So we got into the saddle, and the review began. Just as the King reached the right flank of the line, the band began to play, and then an unforeseen event occurred Our proud coursers, thinking that they were at a performance, set each of them to do his own particular duty. The King, Marshal Soult, and two others of our party were riding the horses who did that trick called the "Grand-Ecart," in which all four horses draw together at the same moment. When their riders pulled at their bridles, the four horses, feeling themselves reined up, instantly fell into the usual circus canter. Another horse kept wheeling round and round, and confusion became general, nobody guessing what had happened until the aide-de-camp smote his brow, and stopped the band.
The trouble did not end there. The National Guard was in proud possession of one gun, which it had horsed somehow or other. A jolt broke the axle-tree, just as it was going past. Then there was a half-squadron of cavalry mounted on stallions or geldings. But the trumpeter was on a mare, which fact brought difficulty on poor Rosinante during the march past. In the evening there was a great ball in a huge temporary shed, with tiers of seats all round it. All of a sudden half the tiers collapsed, like cards, and all the ladies were to be seen, though almost unhurt, on their backs with their legs in the air, amidst a most awful dust! I must confess we ungallantly seized the opportunity of the confusion to go off to our beds. The King, too, did the same, thus escaping from the persecutions of the Polish refugees, interned at Falaise, who had come to the ball in lancer uniforms worthy of the merry-andrews at the opera balls, to pester him with their petitions.
1834-1836
My technical education recommenced more vigorously than ever when this journey was over. It had been decided that before being definitely placed on the Navy List I must pass my public examination as a first-class pupil at Brest. So I was prepared accordingly, and received those successive doses of instruction which the English designate by the characteristic word "cramming," for which the only French equivalent I can find is "gaver." My mathematical teacher held a class for a limited number of youths in a house in the Rue Git-le-Coeur, and thither I went, to gain the habit of speaking the language of algebra in public. In contrast to my memories of school lessons, I have the pleasantest recollections of those I received in that den—for den it was! This, perhaps, is on account of the good fellows I met there, and who have been my friends ever since, and also owing to the charm our kindly instructor wielded over us all. I do not believe there is a single one of his pupils, from the illustrious Marshal Canrobert down through my contemporaries, Excelmans, Bonie, Morny, Daumesnil, the Greffulhe brothers, Friant, Baudin, Valbezen, and many more, to the younger generation that came after me, who does not cherish the most grateful and affectionate feelings for the worthy Guerard. When we were close on the time for my examination, he had me questioned several times over by the official examiners of the Ecole Polytechnique and others, so as to accustom me to the surprises of public examinations. I thus passed through the hands of Baron Reynaud, and of Messieurs Bourdon, Delille, and Lefebure de Fourcy. This last inspired me with downright terror, on account of his reputation for methodical brutality. One of my class-mates had reported to me that well-known colloquy between him and a candidate who got confused, at he stood chalk in hand before the black board, and who heard M. Lefebure de Fourcy's voice saying calmly, "Waiter, just bring a bundle of hay for this pupil's breakfast." To which the indignant pupil promptly added, "Waiter, bring two: the examiner will breakfast with me." At length, crammed to the muzzle with nautical and astronomical calculations, and all the other sciences the official programme demanded, I started for Brest, kept up even as I drove along, in the highest state of preparation. There were a few interludes during the journey. Certain spots in Brittany were still, early in that year 1834, disturbed by the consequences of the rising in 1831, and my passage was the signal in several places for what we call, in parliamentary language, "mouvements en sens divers," conflicting emotions. Sometimes I saw white handkerchiefs waving or twisted round hats, doing duty for cockades. At other points the tricolour demonstrations took a quaint form. I remember at one place where we changed horses my carriage drew up between two rows of National Guards, who were keeping back a considerable crowd of people. At the carriage door appeared the Mayor with his scarf round his waist, saluting me with this remark: "Sir, this place is but a hole, but it is a hole in which hearts devoted to your august family are throbbing;" while at the other the village priest and his clergy, all in surplice and alb, struck up
Soldats du drapeau tricoloreD'Orieans toi qui la's Porte,
and so right through the Parisian to a brass accompaniment.
My examination was held in the great hall of the Prefecture of the Navy at Brest, before a board of officers, engineers, and professors. It was a public one; but what alarmed me most at its outset was the presence of all the pupils of the Naval School, who riled the tiers of seats on one side of the hall. Luckily the sight of some old chums amongst them cheered me up, and as the examination went pretty well I soon saw on their youthful faces, just as actors, they say, read their coming success on their audience at the theatre, that my cause was won, and that I was accepted, not only by the scientific big-wigs but by the universal suffrages of my contemporaries. Yet I was rejoiced when the sitting was over!
Some days later, at L'Orient, I joined the Sirene frigate, Commander d'Oysonville, as midshipman, and started on an ocean voyage. This cruise was uneventful, except for a few little incidents such as always occur in a sailor's life.
Thus, being in the maintop one day, when topsails were being reefed in a strong breeze, a rope chanced to break, twisted round my legs, and carried me into mid air, head downwards. If the sinewy arms of the captain of the maintop and one of the top men had not caught me as I passed, I should have fallen into the sea or on the deck, and either alternative would have been disagreeable. Later on, at the end of the cruise, we re-entered Brest in a south-westerly squall, under circumstances which made a very useful impression on me.
We had bad weather for some days, no reliable observations had been taken, and we were very doubtful as to the frigate's position. Driving as we were at a great rate, before the gale, we were reckoning on the occasional partial lightening of the fog to catch sight of and recognize some point of land or rock, according to which we might steer our course amongst the reefs which swarm at the entrance of Brest harbour. We had to be ready to change our course and go about at any moment. Everybody was on deck, straining his eyes to try and see something, cool, and steady in nerve, as a well-disciplined body of men is in face of any danger. But one man was not present, our commanding officer, whose prompt judgment and word of command alone could bring us from perilous uncertainty into safety. Our commander was below, in his cabin, and there he persisted in staying, in spite of the indirect efforts made by the officer of the watch, the second in command, and the navigating officer to get him out of it. It was incomprehensible, and at the same time very alarming. Commander d'Oysonville, who was churchwarden of St. Roch when he died, was a kind and very honourable man, but nobody could possibly have been less of a sailor. He was a first-class organizer, and he carried his theories to the extremist possible limit. He had one, amongst others, that the captain of a ship ought to command her from his cabin, so as never to appear before his crew except on the most solemn occasions, and it was for the sake of being true to this principle that he refused to show himself in the circumstances I speak of. His obstinacy very nearly cost us dear, for on the earnestly longed-for break in the fog suddenly taking place a point of land was seen. We thought we recognized the Island of Molenes: the commander was hurriedly informed, and he sent an order to change our course. A lightening at another point in the horizon showed us some rocks. "The Pierres Vertes ahead!" sang out a coasting pilot specially shipped for the voyage, who was looking out from his perch on the foreyards, and the navigating officer tore off again to warn the commanding officer. During all these comings and goings the curtain of fog came down again, and we went driving on towards the reefs at the rate of twelve knots an hour. It could not be allowed to go on! With or without leave the second officer took the command, and put an end to an impossible situation. Our worthy commander only appeared just as we were dropping anchor in the roadstead, when all uncertainty was over, and I seem yet to see the looks that greeted his tardy appearance. Everybody's anxiety had been increased by knowing how he had lost the ship Le Superbe, seventy-four guns, off the Island of Paros, some years before, and under very peculiar circumstances. For my own part, I learnt on this occasion what everything has confirmed me in since—the danger of uncertain and divided authority either at sea or elsewhere.
When I got back to Paris, having finished the technical portion of my education, I went on with a course of history, with my sisters, especially my sister Mary, I applied myself with the utmost fervour to my drawing. I worked with her daily, under the direction of Ary Scheffer, and I recollect our grief one morning on finding the Jeanne d'Arc she was modelling in wax for Versailles, melted by an overheated stove, had collapsed the whole length of its framework, to such an extent as to become the merest cripple. By dint of lowering the temperature, and the use of a screw-jack applied in a peculiar manner, and vigorously turned by Ary Scheffer and myself, Jeanne d'Arc rose up again upon her framework, and the damage was soon made good.
About that time too, influenced by the genius of Victor Hugo, my sister Clementine and I were seized with a perfect passion for old Paris, that delightful Paris of ancient story. We had Sauval's thick volumes, we had searched all the old books for traces of the ancient legends, and we used to spend our afternoons going to see the sites and hunt for the remains of the places we had read about, There is not a church or a monument of which we did not know every detail, nor an alley or a corner in the quarters of the Halles, the Hotel de Ville, the Arsenal, the Temple, and the Pantheon that we had not carefully explored with the most fervent interest. What joy it was to us one day when we were trying to trace the Hotel St. Paul, the old palace of our kings, to come upon a course of masonry which had undoubtedly belonged to it!
Although I was on shore, I was still devoted to my profession. I used to see almost all the naval officers who passed through Paris, and tried to push forward those whom the general body of the profession singled out as being likely commanding officers. These matters of promotion, as well as any others that affected naval interests, brought me into daily touch with the ministers, and my relations with M Theirs date from that time. Yet, oddly enough, it was riding on horseback that brought us together! During the King's stays at Camping and Fontainebleau, and his country trips to Versailles, St. Cloud, and Raunchy, when he used to invite foreign visitors and his ministers, and great personages in general, to join in his excursions, M. Thiers was as much bored as I was at having to go in the carriages and chars a bancs which drove in a long line one behind the other. We much preferred accompanying them on horseback, and nothing delighted the little minister more than to let his mount tear along full gallop with a loose rein. He had a very firm seat, and was very plucky, especially on a horse of ours called "Le Vendome," which in his southern accent he pronounced "Le Vanndomme." I remember one day, at Fontaineblean, as he was galloping along beside me on that same "Vanndomme," we passed by a young fagot-gatherer, bending under her load. She straightened herself at the noise; it was very hot, her jacket had come unbuttoned, and showed a bare white very well furnished bust. She smiled to M. Thiers, who pulled his horse up short, turned back to thrust a handful of small change into the young woman's palm, and started off again full tear, as if he had had an electric shock, jumping the fallen trees with a resolution and energy which I had never known him show before.
On another occasion he proved himself a less brilliant horseman. The statue of Napoleon, that statue which is put up and taken down in every Revolution, was to be ceremoniously replaced on the top of its column. The troops and the National Guard were under arms, with their bands and drums, headed by a splendid drum-major, massed at the foot of the column. We arrived in state by the Rue Castiglione, so that the column surmounted by the statue, covered by a veil that was to drop at a given signal, faced us just as we came out upon the square M. Thiers, in full uniform, with his minister's hat and feathers, and again riding "Vanndomme," struck in his spurs, left the procession at full gallop, and passed before my father, shouting at the very top of his falsetto voice, "I take your Majesty's pleasure" the words being accompanied by a wave of his hat which ill-natured people might have said was copied from General Rapp's gesture in Gerard's picture of the Battle of Austerlitz at the Louvre. On this signal the drums beat, the bands played, the statue was unveiled—but M. Thiers had lost control of "Vanndomme," who, wild with enthusiasm, bolted head down, overthrowing drums and drum-major, while the little minister clung to his back like a monkey in a circus. It was a comical sight! But far from laughable under this same ministry of M. Thiers were the perpetual attempts upon my father's life. The speculators in revolution, who had been encouraged by their easy success in 1830, grew discouraged after several like essays at risings had been severely put down. They then fell back on assassination. The most serious attempt was Fieschi's, on July 28, 1835. Together with my two eldest brothers I was to accompany the King to a review of the National Guard and the regular army, drawn up on the Boulevards. All of us who were to take part in the procession, princes, marshals, generals, and aides-de-camp, were assembled in the drawing-room at the Tuileries, next to the Throne Room, when the Minister of the Interior, M. Thiers, burst in like a whirlwind, and, beckoning to my two brothers and me, led us into the embrasure of a window. "My dear princes," said he, looking at us over his spectacles, "it is more than likely there will be an attempt on the life of the King, your father, to-day. We have been warned from several quarters. They say there will be an infernal machine somewhere near the Ambigu Theatre. It is very vague, but there must be something at the bottom of it all. We have had all the houses near the Ambigu searched this morning to no purpose. Should the King be warned? Should the review be put off?"
We answered unanimously that the King must be warned but that, brave as he was well known to be, he would never consent to having the review put off. So it turned out.
"Look well after your father," repeated M. Thiers, and we mounted our horses. The review went on well enough, except that we all remarked the presence of a large number of insolent-looking individuals, with red carnations in their button-holes—the members, evidently, of the secret societies, who had not been warned of what was going to happen, but to be ready for anything that might happen We had not been able to take any precautions, beyond dividing the care of watching over the King's person between my brothers and myself and the aides-de-camp on duty One of us with an aide-de-camp, was to take it in turn to keep just behind his horse, with our eye on the troops and the crowd, so as to interpose if we noticed any suspicious gesture. My turn had come to take the post of watcher, with General Heymes, aide-de-camp in waiting, on my right. On my left I had Lieutenant-Colonel Rieussec, commanding the legion of the National Guard before which we were passing. Close to the Ambigu, not the present theatre—the neighbourhood of which had been searched—but a former Ambigu, which had been shut up, opposite the Jardin Turc cafe, we heard a sort of platoon firing like the discharge of a mitrailleuse, and raising my eyes at the noise I saw smoke coming from a window which was half closed by an outside shutter.
I had no time to notice more, and at the moment I did not perceive that my left-hand neighbour, Colonel Rieussec, was killed, that Heymes' clothes were riddled with bullets and his nose carried away, nor that my own horse was wounded. All I saw was my father holding his left arm, and saying to me over his shoulder, "I'm hit!" And so he was: one bullet had grazed his forehead, another spent one had given him the blow of which he complained, and a third had passed through his horse's neck. But that we only knew afterwards, and it was only afterwards too that we learnt the instrument of the crime had been an infernal machine. Our first thought was that the firing would go on, so I struck spurs into my horse, and seizing my father's by the bridle, while my two brothers struck it behind with their swords, we led him swiftly through the scene of immense confusion that ensued—horses riderless, or bearing wounded men, swaying in their seats, broken ranks, and people in blouses, who rushed upon the King, to touch him or his horse, with frantic shouts of "Long live the King!" As we retired, I just saw the taking by assault of the house whence the discharge had come. The young aides-de-camp had dismounted, leaving their horses loose, and with the Municipal Guards and the police they scaled the house and the one next door (the Cafe Barfetti), climbing on to the verandah and smashing in the windows. Then the review began again. We had ascertained the King was not wounded, nor we ourselves, but we were not aware as yet either of the great number or of the names of the victims. Hereupon M. Thiers appeared beside us, with his white kerseymere trousers covered with blood. All he said to us was, "The poor Marshal!"
"Whom do you mean?"
"Mortier! He fell dead across me, crying out, 'Oh, my God!'"
We reckoned ourselves up as we went along. Forty-two dead or wounded: dead—Marshal Mortier, General Lachasse de Verigny, Colonels Raffet and Rieussec, Captain Willatte, aide-de-camp to the Minister of War, seven others, and two women; wounded—Generals Heymes, Comte de Colbert, Pelet, Blin, and many more. The Due de Broglie was hit full in the chest by a bullet that flattened out on his star of the Legion of Honour.
It was not far from the scene of the crime to the farthest end of the line of troops, so the procession soon retraced its steps. The roadway where the blow had been struck was nothing but a pool of blood. The wounded and almost all the dead had been carried away, and I only saw one corpse, flat on its face in the mud, among the dead horses, but all the blood about frightened our horses so that we had hard work to get on.
On the square of the Chateau d'Eau a huge and furious crowd surging round the station house, which was protected by numerous Municipal Guards, showed us the assassin, or one of them, had been arrested. The review was concluded, and my father's self-control was sorely tried by the unanimity and fervour of the acclamations of which he was the object from all sides, from soldiers and civilians alike. It is unnecessary to add that we did not see any more red carnations.
The march past was to take place in the Place Vendome, and the chancellor's offices were full of ladies of the official world, gathered round my mother. We dismounted for a moment to go and speak to them, and here again a moving scene took place. We had been able to send on an aide-de-camp to assure my mother and aunt and my sisters that we were safe and sound, but our messenger had not had time to learn the names of all the victims. So when we mounted the stairs of the chancellor's offices, some of us all bespattered with blood, all these women, their brilliant dresses contrasting sadly with their terrified eyes, rushed upon us to see whether those they loved were amongst us. Some of them were never to see their dear ones again!
Shortly after this bloody episode in our national history I joined the Didon frigate, Captain de Parseval, as enseigne de vaisseau. My new commanding officer, who had joined the navy at a very early age, had served as a midshipman on board Villeneuve's vessel, the Bucentaure, at Trafalgar. He was in command of the mizzentop, and saw Nelson's ship, the Victory, pass slowly astern of the Bucentaure—so close that her yards caught the other's ensign—while the fifty guns of the British ship poured their fire one after the other into the stern of the French one, sweeping her gun-deck from end to end, and laying low four hundred of her crew. After this commencement of his career, Commander de Parseval had spent his whole life in fighting and adventure. He had been in three shipwrecks, one specially terrible one on the Isle de Sable, near the coast of Nova Scotia, in which (he was a lieutenant at the time) he swam ashore to get help and save the crew of his frigate. He died with the rank of admiral, after having had the chief command of the Baltic Fleet during the Crimean War. He was a charming fellow, slight and smart-looking, very carefully dressed, as resolute in command as he was formal as to politeness, a consummate seaman, managing his ship in first-rate style. I sailed a great deal with him, and learned much from him, and from the very first I felt a personal affection for him, which was never belied, and which he reciprocated. An extra bond of sympathy existed between us—when I was just becoming deaf, he was deaf already.
We made a cruise for drill, on the Didon, doing a deal of navigation in all sorts of weathers, and I performed the duties of captain of the watch—my first attempt at command, my first trial in a responsible position.
The winter season of 1836 found me back in Paris, where I began my classes again, and gave myself up in particular to my passion for the fine arts. This taste of mine was the cause of a terrible blowing up I got from my father. The jury of the Salon of 1836 refused a picture of Marilhat's—I think it was his first. Some of the artists who had seen the young painter's work thought this decision unjust. They grumbled, and their grumbling got as far as the newspapers. I was curious enough to go and see the picture at Durand-Ruel's. It was a view of Rome by twilight, seen between great umbrella pines, I thought it a splendid picture, and spurred somewhat, I confess, by a spirit of contradiction, I was seized with an eager desire to acquire it. But I had not a halfpenny of my own, there was my difficulty! To overcome it, I laid siege to my aunt Adelaide, who doted on her brother's children as if they had been her own, and who never (and well the rogues knew it!) could resist their wheedling. I succeeded, as I had hoped, and Marilhat's picture became my property. But certain of the jury went and complained to the King, and I was greeted with, "Oho! so you are going to set yourself up in opposition! I've trouble enough already with those artists! It's the Civil List (that means it's me) that takes them in at the Louvre. I can't be the only judge as to what is accepted and what isn't. I have to have a jury, the Institute is good enough to undertake the job—all its members are dying of fright, and I shield them under my own responsibility, just as I do my ministers, although it's contrary to the letter of the law—and it's you, one of my own sons, who comes and sets an example of insubordination! Much obliged to you, sir!"
My picture was inspected all the same I need hardly say the grand-parents pronounced it frightful, a regular daub. I hung my head under this double-barrelled censure, and drooped my ears like a whipped spaniel, but I stuck to my opinion, and likewise to my Marilhat. I think it was shortly after this little adventure that I added another "daub" to my "gallery." One morning as I was busy modelling (for I dabbled in sculpture too) in my sister Marie's studio, Ary Scheffer came in, and began telling me about an unknown artist he had met, quite young, a man of undoubted talent, who was in a terribly poverty-stricken condition. Six hundred francs would take him out of his difficulties, and he would give two small pictures, pendants, which he had just finished, in exchange.
"What do they represent?" I inquired.
"They are both landscapes, connected with episodes in Walter Scott's novels. One represents the charge of Claverhouse in the Covenanters, and the other the Army of Charles the Bold crossing the Alps. Come!" added Scheffer, turning to me. "Be good-natured. If you have six hundred francs, give them to me!"
I chanced to have the money, and gave it him. "What's your protege's name?" asked I.
"Theodore Rousseau." Fancy that great artist selling his pictures in pairs, as furniture, in fact—for bread!
In 1836, too, on February 28, I was present at the first performance of Les Huguenots, an opera which enchanted me. The action, the music, the stage setting, the interpretation, made an ensemble that was unique, a work of art that defied comparison. Nothing on the stage to my mind, has ever surpassed the duet in the fourth act as created and sung by Nourrit and Mlle. Falcon. Inspired by the musical and dramatic situation, these two artists were completely carried away, and their emotion was as infectious as it was apparent. Mlle. Falcon had a way of interrupting her singing, to speak the words, "Raoul, ils te tueront!" with an expression into which her whole soul was thrown, which was the very embodiment of passion. Ah! Passion indeed! Passion it is that thrills in every page of that admirable book of Merimee's, La Chronique de Charles IX., which has given birth in succession to those two masterpieces, Le Pre aux Clercs and Les Huguenots. And what indeed would life be without passion? If Fieschi's crime marked the year 1835 with a crimson letter, 1836 was the year of Alibaud's attempt. The history of my father's reign is nothing but an innumerable succession of such attempts, some of which came to the birth, while others, again, miscarried. Alibaud, as my readers are aware, fired point-blank at the King with a walking-stick gun, which he steadied on the door of the carriage, as it passed slowly through the Tuileries archway, and missed him, except that his whiskers were singed by the wad. Neither my father's courage nor that of my mother and aunt, who were with him, failed them for a moment. I saw them get out of the carriage at Neuilly, without for an instant suspecting the risk they had run.
But the time soon came for me to go to sea again, and I was ordered to join the frigate Iphigenie, of which my old captain, M. de Parseval, had taken command, as full lieutenant, and we started for the Levant station. The recollection of a very extraordinary accident which occurred during this cruise remains with me. We were in the Archipelago, off the Island of Andros. I had just come off the first night watch, at midnight, and had got into bed, when I heard somebody say our consort, a twenty-gun brig, the Ducouedic, Commander Bruat, was making signals of distress, I got back on deck without delay. The brig's lights had disappeared. Nothing could be seen of her. It was blowing great guns, with a heavy sea. We continued in a state of great anxiety till morning. At last, by the first rays of daylight, we saw our consort dismasted. She signalled to us for a tow, which was quite impracticable in the state of the sea. All we could do was to stand by her, while she tried to get to Syra with her foresail, the only one left her. This she succeeded in doing. But the extraordinary thing is that what dismasted her was the contrary action of a tremendous roll, and a heavy squall, which came just at midnight, when the whole crew was mustered on deck, to change the watch, and that the mainmast with all its spars and gear and the maintopmast as well, fell on to the deck without hurting anybody.
Except for this one accident, all the interest of this fresh cruise of mine lay on the side of the picturesque. Greece with her mythological, poetic, and historical memories, and the great severe outlines of her landscapes, struck me with admiration. But this was quickly overshadowed by the impression made upon me by my first glimpse of Asia—the Mussulman East, which Lamartine's Voyage and Decamps' pictures had made me long so eagerly to know. My joy, therefore, may be conceived, when I saw, as I landed at Smyrna, the living image of Decamps' masterpiece, La Patrouille de Smyrne, now at Rotterdam, passing by me—the very same police officer trotting along on his hunched-up Turcoman horse, surrounded by his policemen, regular bandits, running beside him, covered with brilliant rags and glistening weapons. This worthy police agent, whose name was Hadgy-Bey (which we promptly turned into "Quat'Gibets"), very soon became our ally. I did his likeness. He was all smiles whenever we met, and he winked at all our young midshipmen's pranks One they played was rather too strong, and roused the fury of the Turks. Smyrna was at that time the most Eastern of Eastern towns, full of tortuous bazaars, and narrow alleys winding in and out, in which circulation, difficult enough at all times, sometimes became impossible for hours, when long strings of camels, fastened together with ropes, were going along them. Nothing could have been more vexatious than these blocks, which man and beast alike seemed to take pleasure in prolonging, whenever the Giaours seemed annoyed by them.
What, think you, did our middies do? A great many of them together (for we had a very strong naval squadron at Smyrna just then) hired donkeys, tied them together with long cords, mounted them, each rider with a long pipe in his mouth and affecting a quiet Eastern gravity of demeanour, and off they started.
This farandole, which was quite a kilometre long, went round and round the bazaars all day, up and down and in and out, stopping all the traffic, as if a real caravan was passing' through. At first the "true believers" were puzzled, but when they realized they were being laughed at they grew furious, and rushed off to get "Quat'Gibets," who held his fat sides and roared with laughter when they told him what was amiss. Our midshipmen gave him a regular ovation. We were avenged on camels and camel men alike. The neighbourhood of Smyrna was delightful, and brigandage quite unknown. Civilization had not yet taught that refinement of the art, as practised nowadays, whereby people are carried off and called upon to get themselves ransomed, on pain of having their noses or ears, or finally their heads, cut off. It was quite safe to go anywhere, to canter far along the road to Magnesia, or to stop and take coffee beside some cool spring in the shadow of the huge plane-trees, and watch the whole East pass by—caravans from Diarbekir, half-wild Turcoman tribes, bashi-bazouks from the four corners of Asia, all of them worthy subjects for an artist's pencil, and I never stopped drawing them. Coming back to the town, which had been cooled by the sea-breeze, the "Imbat," we used to spend our evenings in the Levantine or Armenian society of the place, amongst grandfathers who were still faithful to their old costume, wrapped in kaftans, and charming young ladies, with Tacticos on their heads, and their beautiful figures, which no stays had ever tortured, draped in half-oriental costumes. Native music, soft and plaintive, sounded, as we would watch Mademoiselles Peiser, Athanaso, Fonton, Tricon, &c., dance the Romaika. Nothing exists, nowadays, of what was so seductive then. The Orient has kept its sunshine and its colouring, but that horrible cosmopolitanism has invaded everything. Everywhere there are stays! and stays steal charm away!
We were young and gay at the time I speak of, and passionate too! Two of my brother lieutenants fought a duel, much more serious than those pin-prick encounters which are now the fashion. They fought with pistols, on the very marine promenade where they had been joking with young ladies the evening before. Just as the seconds gave the signal to fire, the sun rose on the horizon. Its first ray glinted on a breast button on the uniform of one principal: the other man's bullet, as though drawn by some fatal attraction, struck the button, and killed our unhappy comrade dead. A midshipman carried off a charming Greek lady, who was discovered in his cabin after his ship had got out to sea. And many another strange incident occurred! On leaving Smyrna, the Iphigenie cruised all about the Archipelago, and along the Anatolian, Caramanian, and Syrian coasts. Whenever I was not on duty my pencil was in my fingers, for I had the most enchanting and picturesque of models under my hand. From Tripoli in Syria I climbed to the top of Mount Lebanon, whence I saw an immense panorama, with the ruins of Baalbec and the Desert. We picnicked with the patriarch of the Lebanon and his monks, under the world-famed cedars, and Bruat had a perfect duel of jokes there with a witty ship's surgeon named Camescasse, who was one of our party. I remember a funny saying of this same Camescasse, about a brother medico of his who retired into Brittany, where his practice was specially among the local aristocracy. He always called him "The Avenger of the People."
At Eden, the chief town of the Maronites, the old shiek Boutrouss-Karam received me with the greatest honours, and I was half drowned with sprinklings of rose-water, the smell of which I detest. Apart from my presence, there was a great fete going on at Eden for the marriage of Boutrouss-Karam's daughter, and the whole Maronitenation had hurried to it in their best clothes. Such handsome types, such costumes, such turbans! I was one of the bride's witnesses: she and I had each to keep a bracelet balanced on our heads during the whole of the ceremony. The bride shook, and her bracelet fell down. After the ceremony she received me unveiled. She was a fine tall dark girl, but not a pretty woman. From Jaffa I journeyed to Jerusalem, and travelled all through the Holy Land, with a feeling of deep emotion, which was only disturbed by one vexatious incident. On the day I was to go to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a great crowd had got there before me, and a quarrel, which degenerated into a general melee, forthwith arose between Greeks, Jews, and Armenians. It was only by dint of hard knocks that the Turkish police made way for me to enter the Holy Place, and to crown the scandal, just as I knelt in deep devotion, before the altar, the organ began to play the Marseillaise. There was yet another episode during my stay at Jerusalem. The Governor of the Province waited upon me to say he had Mehemet Ali's orders to place himself at the disposal of the son of the King of France, and to do whatever he desired. I caught the ball on the hop, and replied he was just in time, for I had just been going to ask his leave to enter the Mosque of Omar, which stands on the site of the ancient Temple of Solomon. It should be added that this fine mosque, which is next in holiness in Mussulman eyes to that at Mecca, and which is now open to all the world, had at that date never been seen except by the famous traveller Ali Bey.
Governor Hassan Bey tugged his beard when he heard my request, and seemed very much put out indeed. After a moment's silence he made up his mind, and said, "Come to-morrow: I'll take you there myself." The next day I kept my appointment, bringing Bruat and two or three officers who were making the same trip with me. We entered the mosque, which is really very beautiful, and went all over it. The Imaums and Softas, the priests and students, had cast horrified glances upon us from the moment of our entry. Suddenly one of them began to intone in a falsetto voice a sort of Litany, to which the crowd replied in chorus. Soon the Litany turned into angry shouts, and the crowd, led by an old Negro Imaum, in a yellow robe, who seemed to have worked himself into a perfect paroxysm of fury, rushed at us with threatening gestures. This was by no means reassuring, but Hassan Bey was equal to the emergency. Seizing me by the arm, he put me behind him, with Bruat and the other gentlemen grouped round me. Then he ordered a dozen Kavasses he had brought with him to charge, which they did, laying out heavily with their sticks. Not content with that, he had the most turbulent of the Softas seized, thrown down at his feet, and beaten without mercy. The blows hailed down on the poor wretch as if they had been beating a carpet. This determined attitude cowed the crowd, which fell back to the far end of the mosque, grumbling. "We will go now," said the Bey. Once we were outside, he shut us up in a neighbouring mosque, which was empty, begging us to wait there for him. Soon we heard a great noise and yelling outside. Presently Hassan Bey reappeared smiling, and let us out. The crowd had disappeared, and a battalion of Egyptian infantry had taken its place. Advised by the Bey, we left Jerusalem a day after this scuffle, with much regret on my part. The sight of all the spots which are glorified by the splendid stories of our religious history had impressed me deeply. My imagination had conjured up the very pictures in Royaumont's illustrated Bible, out of which I had learnt both the Old and the New Testament. And just as I was about to start, when I opened the window of the room I occupied in the Latin convent, I saw just in front of me the picture in that same Bible which represents David, with hands uplifted in admiration, as he gazes at Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite. I was the David, and Bathsheba was a woman, looking really magnificent in her eastern robes, who was sitting on the terrace facing me. Only she was not combing out her hair like the woman in the Bible picture: she was hunting it for vermin!
I returned from Jerusalem by the Dead Sea, Nazareth, and Acre.
As we were riding along one night, to escape the heat, not far from Nazareth, we met a troop of horsemen headed by an individual in Egyptian dress, who announced himself as Ibrahim Aga, sent by Soliman Pasha to meet me. Just as I was calling up the dragoman to translate what I had to say to him, Ibrahim Aga said to me in a drawling voice, "Don't give yourself that trouble, it isn't the least necessary. I am the Marquis de Beaufort, captain on the staff." He was in fact one of the very many French officers, who were detached to the Egyptian army then lying in cantonments in Syria, after its victories over the Turks at Homs and Konieh. I had seen and greatly admired these troops all over Syria and at Acre. I was soon to see Soliman Pasha—in other words, Colonel Selves, a Frenchman, who had organized them, and under the energetic and iron-willed son of Mehemet Ali, Ibrahim Pasha, had led them to victory. I beheld a little man, whom long residence in Egypt had quite orientalized in appearance but who had preserved all the vivacity of his Gallic wit. The Iphigenie returned to France by Malta, where I made the acquaintance of Lord Brudenell, since celebrated under the name of Lord Cardigan, for his famous Balaclava charge and of Major Rose, a charming fellow, who later became the Sir Hugh Rose of the Crimean War, and after that Field-Marshal Lord Strathnairn of the Indian Mutiny. At that moment Major Rose commanded the 42nd Highlanders, the famous "Black Watch," a splendid regiment, especially so then, when it consisted of nothing but veterans of Herculean build. It furnished the Guard of Honour that received me at the Palace of the Grand Masters when I went to pay my respects to the governor, and the salute of that splendid body of men in full-dress uniform and feathered bonnets, with their colours lowered to the ground, their band playing God save the Queen, and their bagpipes shrieking under the arches of the palace, was a most striking sight. That was the first time I heard the bagpipes of the Highland regiments. I have often heard them since, and they always remind me of that wonderfully dramatic incident in the great Indian Mutiny, the relief of Lucknow. In Lucknow, the capital of the kingdom of Oude, a handful of British soldiers, with the women and children who had escaped the massacre, had taken refuge in a huge and strongly built place called the Residency. Isolated in the heart of India, besieged for months on end, without any outside news, starving, decimated by sickness and the enemy's fire, women and soldiers alike, with true British pluck, and having lost all hope of succour, had no thought but to sell their lives as dearly as possible. All at once the noise of the daily cannonade and the rifle fire seem to be doubled, and unaccustomed shouts are heard, like the national "hurrah." The cheering seems to get nearer, but the Sepoys have so often cheered derisively! Suddenly another sound strikes on the ear of the besieged. The bagpipes! The bagpipes! And soon they make out the famous Highland march, The Campbells are coming! Reinforcements they were, collected from all quarters, English and Scotch, soldiers and sailors too, commanded by old Lord Clyde of Balaclava fame. By main force they carried the works the mutineers, tenfold their strength, had thrown up round Lucknow, bringing unhoped-for succour from the mother country, nay, bringing actual salvation with them. A wonderful moment!
I got back to Paris to hear the news of the failure of the first expedition against Constantine, and the brilliant part my brother Nemours had played in that terrible business. I never doubted that signal revenge would soon be taken for the check, and I was in despair that my being a sailor stood in the way of my asking to be allowed to have a share in it.
Meanwhile, I was present at a fresh attempt on my father's life. A man of the name of Meunier fired a pistol at him the day the Chamber of Deputies was opened. Some movement in the crowd shook the would-be assassin's arm, but the bullet came into the carriage, smashing the front window, and my brothers and I were all cut with the broken glass. I remember a very characteristic remark by one of the Deputies on this occasion. After the King had departed, as the Members of the Chamber were talking over the attempt, one of them said, "Ought we to congratulate the King?"
"Certainly," was the reply; "we always do it."
Shortly afterwards an emulator of Fieschi invented a perfected machine which should have mowed us all down at the earliest opportunity, but he was discovered, and destroyed himself, just as he was going to be arrested, carrying the secret of his accomplices with him.
Amidst political agitation and ministerial ambitions, with which I troubled myself but very little, the marriage of my eldest brother, the Duc d'Orleans, and its attendant festivities, took place. The wedding was at Fontainebleau; there was a great fete at the Hotel de Ville in Paris, and the formal inauguration of the Museum at Versailles.
The marriage was settled without my brother and Princess Helene ever having seen each other. Impatient to know her, and anxious to be the first to greet her on French soil, my brother went to meet her at Nancy, where she was to arrive with her mother and a lady in waiting. He rushed forward, saw three ladies, caught his fiancees hand and carried it to his lips. Not at all! It was the lady-in-waiting's. This momentary hitch was soon forgotten, and when the Princess entered the Cour du Cheval-Blanc at Fontainebleau, in her state coach and eight, amidst the roar of cannon and the beating of drums, we all went down the great staircase to receive her, with the King at our head, just like the great lords going down the staircase at Chenonceaux in the second act of the Huguenots. It was Champs-Elysees, and through the Gardens to the Tuileries, we on horseback and the Princesses in the state carriages, with the Orleans state liveries, surrounded by an immense multitude of people, all the women in brilliant spring toilettes, and in the loveliest weather, was a splendid sight too. Then there was a very fine ball at the Hotel de Ville—rather clouded, though, by a prediction coming from all quarters, that it would be the occasion of another attempt on my father.
Old Prince Talleyrand, who was almost dying, begged my eldest brother to go and see him, so that he might add his warning to all the others. Raising himself to a sitting posture, and with death in his face, he said: "It won't be a knife or a pistol, it will be a hail of paving-stones thrown from the roofs, which will crush you all!" We were grateful for the warning, and we were glad it did not come to pass. Nothing happened, either in the street or at the ball, where we were surrounded by an army of chosen 'guests,' and from which we were driven back at a great pace, escorted by squadrons of cuirassiers, who glittered in the torchlight. But the crowning point of the fetes was the inauguration of the Versailles Museum, that museum and dedicated by my father "To all the Glories of France!" Others besides himself have given the sadness of irony to that inscription! Every revolution must be paid for with a price!
On the occasion of this inauguration the King gave a dinner to twelve hundred people in the galleries of the Palace. Each of us had to preside over a table, and I should have found mine a somewhat tiresome task, if among my guests I had not met some very clever men, whose conversation amused me much. Such were Alphonse Karr, Leon Gozlan, Nestor Roqueplan, &c.
After dinner there was a theatrical performance—the Misanthrope, given for the first time with Louis XIV. dresses, acted by Perrier, Provost, Samson, Firmin, Menjaud, Monrose, and Regnier, with Mmes. Mars, Plessy, and Mante; and then one act of Robert le Diable, with Duprez, Levasseur, and Mile. Falcon—and the ballet.
After the performance there was a general promenade in the galleries, which were lighted up brilliantly. I lay claim to two good ideas, which came to me during the evening. The first was to plague the King and the ministers to such an extent, after the act out of Robert le Diable, that Meyerbeer, whom I fetched, was then and there nominated an officer of the Legion of Honour, a commonplace distinction enough nowadays, but which at that time was very exceptional. The second was to ask the King, also, if he would graciously permit the artists who had taken part in the performance to join the guests in the promenade in the galleries. Of this permission I was myself the bearer, and I naturally extended it to the corps de ballet. When all these young ladies in their morning dress, and many of them bandbox in hand, appeared walking about amongst the gaily bedizened folk, some of the fine ladies turned up their noses. But the medley was a charming one, nevertheless.