Oh! sire, sire, was it not the shades of these martyrs which appeared to you on 24 February, frightening you into the inert and fugitive king who fell down on the place de la Révolution, at the foot of the Obélisque, on the very spot where the head of King Louis XVI. had fallen?
And Italy, stirred up by promises given her by La Fayette, promises which the old general thought he could keep; Italy, who, in order to carry out her revolution, only asked for an Army Corps to be stationed on the Alps, looked in vain towards the West; for the route taken by Hannibal and Charlemagne and Napoleon remained unoccupied.
As for Poland—we know M. Sébastiani's famous saying: "Order reigns at Warsaw!"
In domestic legislation, reaction was just as obvious. First, they had chosen M. Talleyrand as Ambassador to London, that political Mephistopheles, who had watched the Republic, the Directory, the Empire and the Restoration perish in his hands beneath his skeleton smile. The abolition of the penalty of death had miscarried in the Chamber. Lastly, orders had been given to efface the bullet marks of July from the front of all public buildings. Certainly, this latter Ordinance did not pass without raising opposition. Upon my return to Paris the walls were still pasted with a protest, which I may be permitted to quote, as the tone of the times is clearly shown in the few lines of which it is composed; and, further, because the chief merit of these Memoirs should be the preserving intact and reproduction of the character of the times in which I lived, for the benefit of the future, which is always inclined to become hazy. This is it:—
"REVERENCE FOR MONUMENTS"Each glorious epoch of our history has its own special trophies and monuments: the hero has his bronze statue and his Arcs de Triomphe; but what living witness will there beto teach the races to come the doings of that cycle of the Three Days and its immortal people? What pages of history will tell future ages at what a cost the monarchical system of a thousand years, ancient in despotism, was destroyed? What monument will teach our posterity that there, behind these mutilated columns, their fathers fell in defence of liberty? Is our Charter, patched up in a day, a fitting monument to the sovereignty of the people? We have nothing to show but our tombs and the traces of the bullets on our walls and the marks made by grapeshot which adorn the pediments of our palaces. Those are our bas-reliefs and inscriptions, our celebrations of that great week; in them the People read their triumph and the King sees there the lessons he ought to learn. On those blackened walls, the temples of Science and of Art, the bullets of Charles X. have written, in ineffaceable characters, the love and gratitude and impartiality we might have looked for in a Bourbon! There, if the imprint had been religiously preserved, we might, perhaps, have discovered the traces of the balls of yet another Charles! What Vandal hand, then, has dared to attack these noble reliques? Some sacrilegious order, given by I know not what authority, would efface those sublime breaches! If they disappear, it will soon be forgotten that thousands of victims fell for a principle, and that their blood flowed for an ephemeral liberty which only shone upon us for three days! Are they friends? Can they be brothers who dare thus to insult our deeds? The Austrians, Russians and Prussians paid respect to our Column, our Arcs de Triomphe, and shall the shameful insignias of the conqueror of the Trocadéro still soil the Arc-de-Triomphe of the conqueror of Austerlitz?"Courage, men of the morrow! Courage! Continue your heroic work!Tear down those wooden crosses, those tricolour flags that adorn the tombs of our brothers, and then you will have succeeded in effacing every last trace of our Revolution!"(Signed)LANNOY, student of the École polytechnique;PLOCQUE, advocate;TH. MASSOT, advocate;GUYOT, medical student;ÉTIENNE ARAGO;CH. LOTHON, student of the École polytechnique."
"REVERENCE FOR MONUMENTS
"Each glorious epoch of our history has its own special trophies and monuments: the hero has his bronze statue and his Arcs de Triomphe; but what living witness will there beto teach the races to come the doings of that cycle of the Three Days and its immortal people? What pages of history will tell future ages at what a cost the monarchical system of a thousand years, ancient in despotism, was destroyed? What monument will teach our posterity that there, behind these mutilated columns, their fathers fell in defence of liberty? Is our Charter, patched up in a day, a fitting monument to the sovereignty of the people? We have nothing to show but our tombs and the traces of the bullets on our walls and the marks made by grapeshot which adorn the pediments of our palaces. Those are our bas-reliefs and inscriptions, our celebrations of that great week; in them the People read their triumph and the King sees there the lessons he ought to learn. On those blackened walls, the temples of Science and of Art, the bullets of Charles X. have written, in ineffaceable characters, the love and gratitude and impartiality we might have looked for in a Bourbon! There, if the imprint had been religiously preserved, we might, perhaps, have discovered the traces of the balls of yet another Charles! What Vandal hand, then, has dared to attack these noble reliques? Some sacrilegious order, given by I know not what authority, would efface those sublime breaches! If they disappear, it will soon be forgotten that thousands of victims fell for a principle, and that their blood flowed for an ephemeral liberty which only shone upon us for three days! Are they friends? Can they be brothers who dare thus to insult our deeds? The Austrians, Russians and Prussians paid respect to our Column, our Arcs de Triomphe, and shall the shameful insignias of the conqueror of the Trocadéro still soil the Arc-de-Triomphe of the conqueror of Austerlitz?
"Courage, men of the morrow! Courage! Continue your heroic work!Tear down those wooden crosses, those tricolour flags that adorn the tombs of our brothers, and then you will have succeeded in effacing every last trace of our Revolution!
"(Signed)
LANNOY, student of the École polytechnique;PLOCQUE, advocate;TH. MASSOT, advocate;GUYOT, medical student;ÉTIENNE ARAGO;CH. LOTHON, student of the École polytechnique."
You see these poor July fighters did not make any great demands; they, who had seen the Republic snatched from them, who had been enclosed in the treaties of 1815, to whom a king had been given, the son of a regicide, who had renounced the Convention, only asked that the bullet marks of the Swiss and Royal Guards imprinted on the façades of their public monuments should be allowed to remain intact. Their demand, as in reason bound, was judged exorbitant and refused accordingly. Thus, just as I said before, when I returned to Paris, M. Guizot was Minister, and they were scraping the Institut.
[1]Here are King Louis-Philippe's very own words:— "As for Ferdinand VII., they can hang him if they wish: he is the biggest blackguard that ever lived!"
[1]Here are King Louis-Philippe's very own words:— "As for Ferdinand VII., they can hang him if they wish: he is the biggest blackguard that ever lived!"
The drama of Saint-Leu—The bravery of the Duc d'Aumale—The arrest of MM. Peyronnet, Chantelauze, Guernon-Ranville and Polignac—Madame de Saint-Fargeau's servant—Thomas and M. de Polignac—The ex-ministers at Vincennes—The abolition of the death penalty in the Chamber—La Fayette—M. de Kératry—Salverte—Death to the ministers—Vive Odilon Barrot and Pétion!
The drama of Saint-Leu—The bravery of the Duc d'Aumale—The arrest of MM. Peyronnet, Chantelauze, Guernon-Ranville and Polignac—Madame de Saint-Fargeau's servant—Thomas and M. de Polignac—The ex-ministers at Vincennes—The abolition of the death penalty in the Chamber—La Fayette—M. de Kératry—Salverte—Death to the ministers—Vive Odilon Barrot and Pétion!
But, before returning to these patchings up of damaged walls (which played an important part, as we shall see, in due season), let us finish with the dark tragedy of Saint-Leu, and with the last of the Condés, who was found one morning hanging, like an old rusty sword, from the catch of a window. I saylet us finish with the dark tragedy of Saint-Leu, because, in the preceding chapter, I believe I alluded to themysteriousdeath of the Prince of Condé. Now that death was certainly very mysterious; but my reader must not interpret this epithet in any other sense than the one I give to it. One of my most intimate friends (the same who, on the morning of 17 August 1847, on coming out of the sleeping-chamber of Madame la Duchesse de Praslin, had breakfasted with me, after washing his hands a second time from the bloodstains of that unfortunate woman, and who that morning had said to me, "I swear to you that the Duc de Praslin killed his wife!")—this friend, the celebrated Surgeon Pasquier, as skilled as Dupuytren and as honest as Larrey, repeated many times to me the following sentence:—
"I took the body of the Prince of Condé down from the window; well, on my soul and conscience, I declare he hanged himself there!"
I questioned him the more insistently upon this subject,because I had known the poor prince at Villers-Cotterets, I had dined at the same table with him at M. Deviolaine's, and he had been kind to me, when I was quite a boy, and a stranger and totally unknown to him. Well, upon my word of honour, I, too, in my turn, believe implicitly what Pasquier told me many times; which he repeated again exactly in the same terms when, less than a couple of years ago, we both crossed the Channel together to pay our last respects to the dead king at Claremont (a respectful duty, which, from some unknown family susceptibility or other, I regret I was unable to pay personally). I believe that, if the king had not also died before his time, as many of my friends have died, as the one to whom these Memoirs are dedicated has died, I would invoke his testimony, which would be devoid of all affection towards that Royal Family of which he often had reason to complain to others, including myself; his testimony, I say, would not fail me. And I believe it is right to say and write and print this, and to swear to it by the dead man, as I should have done were he alive, when the rumour reached me in the retreat I had voluntarily chosen in a foreign land, that they were going to raise a doubt as to the question of its being suicide. However, it matters little. Had Madame de Feuchères been accused and convicted of the crime of which science and the law have declared her innocent; had Madame de Feuchères confessed this crime; had Madame de Feuchères been condemned to expiate it on the scaffold; had Madame de Feuchères, in a last confession, accused of moral or material complicity those whom vile hatred has tried to stain with this complicity; had Madame de Feuchères uttered this monstrous lie; had she published this dastardly slander; even then, for all noble minds, for all honest hearts, no shadow of suspicion could ever have attached to those whom she tried to reach—cursed be the parties which make use of such weapons for attacking their enemies! As in the case of the dauphin, when he tried to snatch the sword from the Duc de Raguse, they only wound and stain their own hands with blood! The author who writes history is bound to tell the truth, and Ibelieve I have ever done so: it is cowardly for such as wield the pen, and write for the public, not to contradict calumnious statements. I therefore emphatically deny this one. It would certainly have been finer and nobler of the Duc d'Orléans, who was already rich in his own rights as a prince, and also drawing wealth, as king, from the civil list; it would have been a grand act, I repeat, if the duke had renounced the fatal succession, and handed over the vast legacy to a benevolent institution, a foundation in the cause of art, in aid of a national misfortune at that time or in the future. But those who have read these Memoirs know how miserly the king was, and if they may have blamed me for publishing the fact, they will understand what I now wish people to infer. Well, then, the prince's character being realised and his temperament admitted, we declare that it would have been altogether beyond the power of the man who could cover six pages with figures to discover a bonus of sixty-six centimes, to renounce a legacy of sixty-six millions at the moment when that long-wished-for and expected inheritance came, as it were, of its own accord into his hands.
But now let us pass quickly from this subject, as we said at the beginning of this chapter it was our intention to do, and let us be particularly careful not to fix the responsibility for this fortune, which was left him, on the young and noble hero of La Smala.
Alas! so many calumnies, so much indifference and forgetfulness follow exiles that it is, indeed, necessary that some voices should, from time to time, recall to the country that produced them the names of those beloved sons who were worthy of her love!
An officer who had received his first epaulettes from the Duc d'Aumale once replied to me, when I was praising the bravery of the poor exiled duke in his presence—
"Brave? Why, he was no braver than anybody else!"
No braver than anybody else! As to this, I heard Yousouf, whose own courage I hope nobody will dare to dispute, tell what I am sure he will be ready to repeat:—
"When we found ourselves with only our two hundred and fifty men face to face with the forty thousand souls that composed La Smala, I asked the prince, 'Monseigneur, what are we to do?' He replied, 'Go in, by Jove!' When he said it I thought I must have misunderstood him, so I repeated my question, and when he again said, 'Go in, I tell you!'I began to shudder.I took up my sword, of course, because I was a soldier, but I said to myself, 'Then that will be the last of us, for we shall all be lost!'"
No braver than anybody else! though Charras (whom nobody ever accused of Orléanist leanings or of knowing fear, being one of those rare natures who love danger for its own sake,un soldat de nuit, as connoisseurs term them)—Charras himself said to me, in speaking of that same taking of La Smala—
"To go as the Duc d'Aumale did, with two hundred and fifty men, into the midst of such a population as that, onemust either be but twenty-two years of age with no knowledge of the meaning of danger, or else have the very devil inside one! The women had only to stretch the tent ropes in front of the horses, in order to throw them down, and to throw their slippers at the soldiers' heads, to exterminate them ally from the first to the last!"
No, indeed! the Due d'Aumale's courage was of a different order from the rest of the world's: he was braver even than the bravest of men.
In due course I will relate what he himself told me about it at this period, the first time I saw him after his return.
Now let us return to the re-plastering of the walls, from which we have been turned aside by this digression on the death of the Prince de Condé and the bravery of the Duc d'Aumale; I write, I repeat, as I feel, and, above all, from conviction; and I proclaim with an equally impartial voice the avarice and scheming of the father and the courage and loyalty of his children. Moreover, the discussion which arose as to whether the walls of Paris should remain in their mutilated condition or not; whether they should bear theimmutable impression of the dates of 27, 28 and 29 July; or whether those dates should be effaced from the stones as it was hoped they would be effaced from people's hearts; this discussion, we say, had a far more significant meaning than the scrapers of houses and restorers of buildings were ready to acknowledge. It was really a question of the saving of the heads of the ex-king's ministers, which were violently imperilled by this public prosecution. Four of them had been arrested: these were, in the order of their arrest, MM. de Peyronnet, de Guernon-Ranville, de Chantelauze and de Polignac.
Let us give a few details concerning these different arrests; the papers of their day duly register the facts and they are talked of, discussed at the time and then gradually forgotten; only the cruel, stupid fact remains; then history steps in, which limits itself to stating the mere fact, robbed of all its details and of its picturesque side.
What does it matter to history?—does it not represent the 1 bare bones of events and nothing more?...
Well, we much prefer a living being to a mummy, and a mummy to a skeleton. Consequently, we will always try to write living history, and it shall not be our fault if it appears in the dryasdust form of mummy or skeleton.
M. de Peyronnet was the first to be arrested at Tours. On Monday, 6 August, at two o'clock in the afternoon, a post-chaise, passing through that town, having awakened suspicions, was surrounded by the National Guard. There was but a single person in the chaise, who affected to speak no language but German. He first of all represented himself to be a courier from the House of Rothschild and refused to answer the questions put to him, pretending he did not understand them; but, when his postillions were questioned, they declared that a second traveller had got out of the carriage a kilometre's distance before they reached the first houses probably with the intention of going round outside the town. Two of the National Guardsmen were at once sent off in the direction of the Bordeaux road and they soon caught sight ofa man walking with long strides over the rising ground by Grammont. A gamekeeper, who had just passed the man, was signalled to by the Guardsmen and accordingly arrested him. Ordered to say who he was, the stranger showed a passport giving the name of Cambon; but they searched him and the letter P embroidered on his handkerchief and snuff-box awoke doubts on the subject of his identity. Two other persons coming up, one of whom gazed attentively at the stranger, declared that he recognised him to be M. de Peyronnet. The ex-minister was unlucky: the new arrival, who had recognised him, happened to be an ex-magistrate whom he had deprived of his post. The other, without knowing him personally, had had dealings with him connected with a young man of Tours, called Sir jean, who had been sentenced for a political offence; he had asked M. de Peyronnet to pardon the young man, or, at all events, to lessen his punishment, and he only received a brutal refusal in return. So both these people had a particular hatred towards M. de Peyronnet, and, seizing him by his coat collar, they took him into the town. Taken to the prison at Tours, without the insults and ill-treatment he had been subjected to in the least affecting the calm expression of his countenance, M. de Peyronnet had been put into the cells.
Another arrest was made at Tours that same day: that of MM. de Chantelauze and Guernon-Ranville. The day previously, they had presented themselves at the top of the embankment of Barthélemy; but, learning that carriages and travellers were being searched, they withdrew. The following morning, peasants came across two men in the country who seemed to have lost their bearings, and arrested them, taking them to a little village called la Membrole and handing them over to the police, who took both of them bound to Tours. It was not until after some time of hunting that they found the Prince de Polignac; it was believed he must have crossed the frontier, when it was discovered, from a telegraphic despatch on 18 August, that he had just been arrested at Granville. This was how the arrest was made. He was travelling with the Marquise de Saint-Fargeau, passing for her servant, andwas clad in livery. When they reached the neighbourhood of Granville, he put himself under the protection of a gentleman named M. Bourblanc d'Apreville, who hid him in a seaport inn. In spite of his disguise, perhaps even because of it, suspicions were aroused and were increased by the fact of his landing in the night. When he was the least expecting to be recognised, two of the National Guards suddenly entered his room. The prince turned away when he saw them and hid his face in his hands.
"Have you your papers?" they asked.
"By what authority do you put such a question to me?" the prince responded.
"Have you your papers?" the men asked a second time and more imperatively.
"No."
"Well, in that case, you must come with us to prison."
At that moment, Madame de Saint-Fargeau, who had been warned of what was happening, entered the room, laid claim to her servant and protested against the rude treatment to which they were subjecting him. But M. de Polignac was arrested in spite of the marquise's protests, bound and taken to prison in the town. Next day, he confessed to the mayor that he was the Prince de Polignac. He was taken under an escort of the National Guard that same day away from Granville. His journey through Coutances and his arrival at Saint-Lo were very nearly fatal to him: the population threatened to tear him in pieces; and, for a brief period, it seemed as though the efforts of his guards, who tried to defend him, would prove useless; arms were stretched over the guard of soldiers and policemen, endeavouring to hook him out from their ranks; one man even managed to get a pistol put to his throat and would probably have fired if, by good fortune, someone had not held up his arm. The prince was very pale, but whether from fatigue or terror could not be told. From Saint-Lô, M. de Polignac had written to the Minister of the Intérieur to protest against his arrest and to plead his rank as a peer of France, which allowed him theprivilege of not being arrested except by an order from the Chamber of Peers itself.
By a strange chance, I happened to be able to give details of M. de Polignac's journey that no one else received, and probably I, and the principal actors, are the only persons now who recollect them.
The prince was placed in the care of Thomas. When I say Thomas, my readers will know quite well to whom I refer. He was that brave and loyal friend of Bastide who, like Bastide, risked his life and sacrificed his fortune for the cause of liberty. He had promised to take the prince safe and sound to Paris, at the price of his own life if need be. From that moment, the prince could rest easy, for he knew he would either reach his destination safely with his conductor or neither of them would do so. The carriage which took the ex-minister of France to Paris started in the dark. But, although Thomas had undertaken to conduct M. de Polignac safe and sound to Paris, he had no intention whatever of letting him escape on the way thither. And this was the dialogue that took place between prisoner and conductor. Thomas, with that astonishingsang-froidwhich never deserted him, whether he was threatener or threatened, drew forth a dagger and pistol from his pocket and showed them to the prince.
"You see, monsieur, I have taken my precautions: if you were to try to escape, I should kill you, it's my duty. But, as I do not desire to restrict your liberty at all during our journey, nor to humiliate an unfortunate man like yourself, whom I respect, give me your word of honour that you will make no kind of attempt to escape and you shall be as free as I am."
"I give it you, monsieur," replied the prince, who believed he was safer in Thomas's hands than fleeing alone across country.
From that moment, the prince could get down from the carriage when he liked, walk up the hills on foot, and wander about at his own pleasure. The conversation, of course, was likely to turn upon one topic only, namely, the events that hadjust transpired, in which these two actors had each played his own part—one in the high quarters of the palace, the other in the streets. Replying to Thomas's conscientious and somewhat severe reflections upon what he looked upon as thecrimeof the Ordinances, which had led to the fall of Charles X. and the arrest of the prince, M. de Polignac replied, with a sigh—
"Oh, my poor Thomas, who would ever have thought things would have come to such a pass and ended in such a wreck as this?"
And once, the prince, who knew his Corneille, followed this melancholy expression with these lines:—
"Chimène, qui l'eût dit?Rodrigue, qui l'eût cru?"
The prince sighed at the thought of the lot that awaited him, but resignedly: he wore more the expression of a Christian martyr than of a vanquished general. He interrogated Thomas as to the probable issue of the great trial that would ensue.
"Good Heavens!" replied Thomas, "the whole matter depends on the type of jury that is summoned to judge your case. If you are tried by a jury, both you and your colleagues will be condemned to death; if you are tried before the Chamber of Peers, you will be merely sentenced to imprisonment."
"That is exactly my own opinion," M. de Polignac calmly replied.
After this coincidence of ideas, silence fell between the two travellers, during which time daylight began to lighten the darkness that had enshrouded the first portion of their journey.
Thomas was struck with the sight of the ex-minister's long, easily recognisable profile, sharply defined against the increasing light as the horses' feet rattled on the pavement of a town where the shops were being cheerily opened, and the citizens were leisurely standing in little groups in the square, eager for any fresh news that might be going about. Thomas thought their carriage was the object of some attention. He was, however,obliged to change horses at the hôtel de la poste, which was situated in the square, and, short though their halt was, it might prove quite long enough for the prince to be recognised and for the news to create a sensation throughout the town, with what result it was impossible to calculate. Thomas wore a cap with a broad peak; he threw this over the prince's aristocratic face and wrapped his comforter round his neck. Thomas called this proceedingextinguishinghis prisoner. When the inquisitive townsfolk came and looked in at the door of the carriage and saw, by the side of Thomas's round, open, cool face, a bonneted figure shrouded in a neck-wrapper, no suspicion was aroused in their breasts, and the carriage started off with fresh horses at a tearing pace. This manœuvre was repeated at nearly every place of relay. When Thomas related these incidents, it was with a certain degree of melancholy. He did not forget that prison, and perhaps even death, awaited his travelling-companion at their journey's end, he who on more than one occasion, indeed, was to confront in a court of justice the alternative of death or imprisonment.
On 28 August, the three prisoners from Tours and the one from Saint-Lo reached Paris almost simultaneously. They were all four shut up in that portion of the château of Vincennes that was called the Queen's pavilion (pavillon de la Reine). Three of them were new men. Indeed, they were scarcely known to anybody before the fatal day of misfortune that overtook them. They had gained their notoriety, or, rather, their unpopularity, by the printing of a hundred thousand copies of Barthélemy's and Méry's verses, and by the oral skits recited against M. de Peyronnet in particular, by the celebrated Chodruc-Duclos. We shall have occasion, later, to speak of this modern Diogenes (we allude, of course, to Chodruc-Duclos and not M. de Peyronnet), who, for seven or eight years, troubled the galleries of the Palais-Royal, where, at all hours of the day, he displayed his unbuttoned coat, his hardly decent trousers, his waistcoat fastened together with string, his sandal-shoes, his battered old hat and the thick growth which covered the lower half of his face, which hadearned him the nickname ofthe man with the long heard.Then, as we have said, apart from these verses of Barthélemy's and Méry's, and the Bordelaisian legends made up by Chodruc-Duclos, MM. de Chantelauze, Guernon-Ranville and de Peyronnet were almost unknown. It was very different in the case of M. de Polignac: apart from the claim of his family that they had descended from the same stock as Sidoine Apollinaire, the Polignacs are of historic celebrity.
In the first place, they were old conspirators: Cardinal Melchior de Polignac, the author of l'Anti-Lucrèce, had plotted against the regent at the beginning of the previous century; Prince Jules de Polignac had conspired against Napoleon in the beginning of the present one; and their women had played their part during the French Revolution: the Comtesse Diane and the Duchesse Jules, those two inseparable friends of the queen, will both be remembered; the Duchesse Jules in particular, to whom Marie-Antoinette gave alayetteof a hundred thousand crowns and a duchy worth a million and a half.
Comte Jules de Polignac, the promoter of the Ordinances, was her second son: he was made prince in 1817 or 1818, by Pius VII., a prince of Rome, of course.
Having emigrated in 1789, he had returned to France in 1804, together with his eldest brother, Armand, on purpose to take part in the conspiracy of Cadoudal and Pichegru; he was about to be condemned, or was, I believe, even condemned, to death, but the persistent intercession of Josephine saved his life.
All these facts went to magnify the importance of the prisoner, whose trial was soon to take place. After an exile of twenty-six years, including imprisonment, ambassadorship, peer-age and ministry, he returned in 1830, under the incubus of a second fatal accusation, to the same dungeon at Vincennes where he had been incarcerated for the same cause of Monarchism in 1804. The order had been issued for the transference of the prisoners from the pavillon de la Reine to the dungeons. M. de Polignac was the first to leave it.
I have seen him several times at the house of Madame du Cayla: he was an extremely fine-looking man, with his white hair and lordly bearing, his haughty manners and a pre-eminent air of distinction. But it should be admitted that none of these qualities impressed the people very much: they are often a reason for condemning a person: in the first Revolution, a fine skin and beautiful linen were quite sufficient grounds for sending a man to execution.
There were several courts to pass through before you could get from the pavillon de la Reine to the dungeon, and these courts were crowded with soldiers of the Gardes Nationaux and from the garrison. M. de Polignac appeared bare-headed, between two grenadiers: there was some slight disorder in his dress which was not usual; when he reached the staircase, his strength, if not his courage, failed him: he reeled and kept himself from falling by leaning his hand on the end of a grenadier's gun. The bearing of M. de Peyronnet was quite different: extremely brave, he sometimes made the mistake of extending his courage to the point of insolence; he also kept his hat on and looked to left and right disdainfully as he went. A low man out of the crowd took aim at him, crying—
"Down on your knees, you who ordered the people to be fired upon!"
M. de Peyronnet shrugged his shoulders, remained with folded arms and never either hastened or slackened his pace. M. de Chantelauze looked ill and pale and downcast and seemed overcome by the gravity of the situation. M. de Guernon-Ranville showed a nervous courage and ill temper.
The three commissioners appointed to examine the ex-ministers were MM. de Bérenger, Madier de Montjau and Mauguin.
From 17 August, directly the arrest of the ministers was known, the abolition of the death penalty was proposed in the Chamber by M. Victor de Tracy and supported by La Fayette. On the 6th of the following October M. de Bérenger, charged with the report of the examination of the prisoners, asked for the adjournment of the proposition. Then La Fayette rose asecond time, and, with that weighty personal bearing which men who have seen, and done, and suffered much acquire, he exclaimed—
"It is proposed to adjourn the question of the abolition of the death penalty, gentlemen; but, doubtless, those who propose to do so have never had the misfortune to see, as I myself have seen, their families, friends and the leading citizens of France dragged off to the scaffold; they have not, I say, had the misfortune of seeing unfortunate persons sacrificed under the pretext that they wereFayettists.I am entirely opposed to the death penalty, especially for political offences. I therefore implore the Chamber to take M. de Tracy's proposal into consideration."
M. de Kératry immediately mounted the tribune and, with that eloquence which is more remarkable for heart than head, made the following speech:—
"I attest before you all that, were it possible to assemble the parents and friends of the courageous victims of July in this building and to ask them 'Do you demand blood for blood? Decide!' the silent jury would shake their heads in token of refusal and return to their noble griefs and deserted hearths.... If I am wrong, I will appeal in spirit to the manes of the noble victims themselves; I will call upon them to reform this unworthy sentence; for I know that brave souls, who risk their lives for a sacred cause, do not shed blood except during the conflict."
These two speeches, of which I have only given the most salient points, roused such enthusiasm in the Assembly, that it was decided, there and then, to send an address to the king, to propose the suppression of the death penalty in cases laid down by the Commission. That same evening, a special sitting was held and the address was read and sent.
But it must be mentioned that the enthusiasm which had carried away the Chamber did not lay hold of the people, nor move the Republicans in the very slightest degree. Now, why did the people, usually generous, why did the Republicans, thoroughly interested in the abolition of thescaffold on which the heads of some among their number might easily fall, declare in favour of the death penalty? Because they knew very well that this Augustan clemency was artificial, that it would be proclaimed loudly as long as it might be useful to the political situation of the moment; but that they would soon return to following the old track from the place de Grève and the place de la Révolution. Because, with gloomy looks and pressed lips, they said to themselves what Eusèbe Salverte alone had had the courage to say in the Chamber:—
"A man urged by hunger and misery, by the sight of his wife and children without bread, a man who has not eaten anything for three days, attempts to steal and is taken in the act, kills in order to escape the galleys and is condemned to death and executed. Then Society cries out, 'Bravo, quite right! the man was a thief, an assassin and an infamous wretch; he deserved the scaffold: long live the scaffold!' But a statesman in cold blood orders the massacre of ten thousand of his fellow-citizens, on purpose to climb to his ambitious ends across their heaped up bodies. Such a man inspires you with pity and not with horror. You would say to him, 'You wished to have our heads chopped off, but to keep your own on your shoulders, and go into a foreign country to enjoy the riches you have amassed. Time will look after such a theft, passions will die down, public and private grievances be appeased; the history of our troubles, written on our walls by the print of bullets and grapeshot, will no longer be legible; then, public compassion will rise up against the length of your exile: it will demand your respite, and, for the third or fourth time, you will bring your country to the edge of the abyss, into which you will finally succeed in flinging it.' Why should such a distinction be made? Unless it is, because, not having had the courage to strike down your victim yourself, as the poor starved wretch did, you pay soldiers and make them the instruments of your crime!"
This is what M. Salverte had said; this is what the people and the Republicans were saying.
Now, as they are soon going to begin again to fire upon the people and the Republicans; as they are going to begin July over again with diametrically opposite results; as for eighteen years it is the conquerors of the Three Days who are going to be the conquered, it is good to draw the dividing line very distinctly and not merely to state, as they did—
"The Chamber and Royalty of July desired the abolition of the death penalty, but the people and Republicans would not agree to it."
You are mistaken, they did wish it; but, as a principle which should safeguard humanity at large, and not as a means of delivering a few privileged guilty people from justice. What they did not want was that as exceptional tribunals are created for the purpose of punishing, there should not be established, this time, exceptional tribunals for absolving. They wanted the people to be looked on as a sovereign power, and that those who had caused them to be shot down, should be dealt with in the same way as those who, later, were to fire on the king. Why, therefore, should a greater indulgence be granted to MM. Polignac, de Peyronnet, de Chantelauze and de Guernon-Ranville, who killed or wounded three thousand citizens, than to Alibaud, Meunier and Lecomte, whose plot fell through, when firing on the king, and who neither killed nor wounded a single person? It will probably be argued that the difference in punishment arose from sentence being delivered by different tribunals. But this was not so: the sentence which condemned some to prison, and others to the scaffold, came from the same jury—the Court of Peers.
The people were right, then, after seeing Maréchal Ney condemned to death, to complain loudly when they knew the ministers were going to be let off. They did not wish their heads to fall, guilty though they were; no, the people wished they should do in 1830 what they failed to do in 1793. They wanted their condemnation and that they should appeal against the sentence to the people direct. Then, as M. de Kératry said, they would have received pardon. But they were noteven consulted: it was the king, who owed his crown to the Revolution, his civil list of eighteen millions of income and ten or twelve royal castles, who pardoned them, and not the people who had been shot down, assassinated and decimated.
Thus an undertone of discontent spread over the city, whilst the anger that was settling in the base of the social scale began to rise to the surface in hot bubbles.
On 18 October the walls of the Luxembourg were covered in the night with menacing placards. Two or three of those bands of men, only to be found during ill-omened seasons, came out of the catacombs, so to speak, and spread through the town singingLa Parisienneand crying, "Death to the ministers!" Some even went further and carried a flag on which the above bloodthirsty wish was written in huge letters.
This band started from the Panthéon, crossed the Pont Neuf and went in the direction of the Palais-Royal.
The ministers held counsel together. At these rumours and cries and the uproar which filled the square, as on the day when they carried the head of the Princesse de Lamballe on a pike, the king and M. Odilon Barrot advanced to the edge of the terrace. The people never uttered a single cry of "Vive le roi!" but shouted "Vive Odilon Barrot!" at the top of their voices.
M. Odilon Barrot was greatly embarrassed by this popularity, which was thus contrasted publicly with the unpopularity shown towards the king.
But Louis-Philippe laughed.
"Oh!" said the king, "don't heed their cries, Monsieur Barrot; in 1792, I heard the fathers of these very people shout, 'Vive Pétion!' as now these men are shouting 'Vive Barrot!'"
Oudard tells me that Louis-Philippe wishes to see me—Visit to M. Deviolaine—Hutin, supernumerary horse-guardsman—My interview with the king about la Vendée and the policy ofjuste milieu—Bixio an artilleryman—He undertakes to get me enrolled in his battery—I send in my resignation to Louis-Philippe
Oudard tells me that Louis-Philippe wishes to see me—Visit to M. Deviolaine—Hutin, supernumerary horse-guardsman—My interview with the king about la Vendée and the policy ofjuste milieu—Bixio an artilleryman—He undertakes to get me enrolled in his battery—I send in my resignation to Louis-Philippe
It was in the midst of all these troubles that I had arrived; and what I have just told in the preceding chapter and the very want of method in my telling it, depict plainly enough the strange state of exasperation which people's minds had reached. I had handed my report to General La Fayette and he, no doubt, had sent it to the king; for, five or six days after my return, I received a letter from Oudard asking me to go and see him. I therefore at once presented myself at the Palais-Royal; in spite of all that the old head of my office had done to me, I had a real affection for him. My conviction was that, like M. Deviolaine, he had thought me stupid, and that, under this delusion, he had set himself to oppose my work.
"How is it," Oudard asked me, "that you have been back in Paris eight or ten days and we have not seen you sooner?"
"But, my dear Oudard," I said, "you know very well I no longer regard myself as a member of these offices."
"Allow me to reply to this, that, so long as you do not send in your resignation, we look upon you as belonging to us."
"Is that all?" I said, picking up a pen and paper. "Then it won't take long to alter it!"
"There!" said Oudard, stopping my hand, "you always find time to commit some foolish act or other.... At all events, I should be much obliged if you would do it somewhere else than in my office."
I laid down the pen and resumed the seat I had been occupying in front of the fireplace. There was a moment's silence.
"Do you not wish to see the king?"
"What for?"
"Why, if only to thank him for the pardon he granted you for your false money-coiner."
"It was not for me that he did that, it was for you."
"You are mistaken: your letter was laid before him and on it he wrote 'Granted.'"
"You shall thank him for me, dear friend: you know much better than I do how to address crowned heads."
"Bah! You were very particular as to how one should address Charles X."
"Ah! that was a different thing! he was a king of the old order with the tradition of his race.... He was a Bourbon and not a Valois."
"Chut! Don't say such things here!"
"Because they will cause shame or, perhaps, feelings of remorse?"
Oudard shrugged his shoulders.
"You are incorrigible!" he said.
Another short silence intervened.
"So," said he, "you have no desire to see the king?"
"None whatever."
"But suppose he wants to see you?"
"The king? Go along, you are joking!"
"Suppose I was commissioned to settle the hour for an audience with him!"
"You know, of course, my dear fellow, I should not have such bad taste as to refuse.... But I do not believe you have received any such commission."
"Then you are wrong again: the king expects you at eight o'clock to-morrow morning."
"Oh! my dear fellow, how disagreeable the king will find me!"
"Why?"
"Because I am a perfect bear when I am made to get up at such early hours as that."
"Will you dine to-day with me?"
"With whom beside?"
"Lamy and Appert.... Will that please you?"
"Excellently well."
"Then at six o'clock to-night."
We shook hands and separated. I took advantage of being at the Palais-Royal to pay a series of calls. I went first to see Lassagne, who was as good-natured and amusing as ever; then I saw Ernest, who had risen a peg higher; then my friend de la Ponce who, from my old habits, thought I had come to ask him to put on his coat and hat; then, lastly, on M. Deviolaine. I entered his room, as usual, unannounced. He was as short-sighted as a mole and was writing with his face close to his paper, effacing the letters that he traced with his pen with the hairs of his nostrils. At the noise I made as I approached his writing-table, he lifted his head and recognised me.
"Ah! there you are," he said, "Monsieur Bully!"
"Here I am, true enough."
"I advise you to return to Soissons!"
"Why?"
"Because you will get a warm reception there."
"Bah! have they become wicked there?"
"I wonder you weren't ashamed to cause such a scandal in your own part of the country."
"By-the-bye, I have something to ask of you."
"For yourself?"
"God forbid!"
"Then for whom?"
"For my fellow-companion on that occasion."
"Which? There were three of you."
"Hutin."
"What do you want for him?"
"I want a place as supernumerary in the Horse Guards!"
"Good! Do you think such posts are given away like that!"
"Of course!"
"What has he done to deserve such a favour?"
"Done? Why, you know he went to Soissons with me."
"A fine recommendation, indeed!"
"What will you bet that you will give me the post for him?"
"What will you bet?"
"Twenty-five louis."
"Did one ever see such a rascal as you are!"
"Let us bet...."
"Why? You may put a pistol to my head, as you did to the commandant of Soissons."
"Oh dear no! I know well enough such a method would not succeed with you."
"That is a fortunate thing for me."
"But I shall get someone to ask you for the favour whom you will not care to refuse."
"Who is that?"
"General La Fayette."
"General La Fayette! He has something better to do than to draw up petitions!"
"You are right; I will ask it direct from the king."
"From the king?"
"Yes; I shall see him to-morrow."
"Have you asked for an audience?"
"I?"
I shook my head.
"If you have not, how can you see him?"
"I shall see him because he wishes to see me."
"The king wishes to see you?"
"At least, so he has sent me word by Oudard."
"What does he want to see you about?"
"I have no idea.... To converse with me, I suppose."
"To converse with him! Good heavens, what an incredible cheek the fellow has! What shall you tell the king if you do talk to him?"
"What he is quite unaccustomed to hearing ... the truth."
"If you think you will make your way with such principles as that, you are greatly mistaken."
"My way is made ... and you know better than anybody else in the world that neither you nor he helped me to make it."
"Oh! by the gods! I feel as though I were talking to his father once more."
"We might be more unlike, you will admit."
"I thought your friend Hutin was well off."
"Ah! we are coming back to him?"
"Why not?"
"He is rich, since he is asking for a place as supernumerary."
"A runner after young ladies!"
"What the devil else should he run after? After boys?"
"A poacher!"
"I have heard you say a score of times that it was good poachers who made good keepers."
"We will see. Send him to me the first time he comes to Paris."
"I will bring him along myself."
"Nothing of the kind! You have such a way of getting round me...."
"Ah! yes, say that toHenri III.andChristine, and you will see what they will reply!"
"What are you doing now?"
"Nothing."
"Idle fellow."
"But I shall soon be at work again in all probability."
"What will you do?"
"I shall fight."
"Fight against whom?"
"Against the powers that be: there!"
"Be off with you, and the quicker the better! I never heard such a thing—Fancy coming to talk such treason to me!"
"Au revoir, cousin!"
"I your cousin? It is a lie; I'd rather be cousin to the devil! Féresse! Féresse!"
Féresse appeared.
"Do you see this gentleman?" M. Deviolaine said, pointing at me with his finger.
"Yes," replied the astonished Féresse.
"Well, when he presents himself at my office, you can tell him I am not at home."
"I don't care a —— for Féresse! I shall enter without his leave!"
"You would enter without asking him?"
"Most certainly."
"Well, then, I shall fling you out of the door!"
"You?"
"Do you suppose I should hesitate to do so?"
"You?"
"Would you like a sample now?"
"Upon my word I should!"
"Ah! you dare me to it? Then look out."
M. Deviolaine got up and flew furiously at me. I threw my arms round his neck, and kissed him on both cheeks. He stopped short, and something very like a tear glistened on his eyelid.
"You can go, Féresse," he said.
Then laying his hand on my shoulder—
"What troubles me is that with such a character as yours, you will die in a garret like your father before you!... Come, Hutin shall have his post—off with you. I must get to work."
But before I left the building I had posted a letter to Hutin telling him to come to Paris as fast as he could, and telling him the news which he was not expecting. Let us say at once, that three months later Hutin was made a supernumerary, and eighteen months later he wasentered on the lists, which in bureaucratic parlance means that he received a salary.
Next day I was at the king's palace as eight o'clock was striking. I had donned my riding uniform of the National Guards for this important occasion. Whether by chance orby premeditation, the king received me in the same chamber in which he had given me audience the day before the first representation of myHenri III., when he was Duc d'Orléans. I did not find him changed either in looks or manner; he had the same affectionate smile and good-natured expression that were so difficult to resist; the smile which had won him Laffitte's fortune, Casimir Périer's health and M. Thiers' reputation.
"Good-day, Monsieur Dumas," he said to me.
I bowed.
"So you have returned from la Vendée."
"Yes, sire."
"How long were you there?"
"Six weeks, sire."
"I have been told that you made a very exhaustive study of the country, and one deserving enough to be brought under my notice ..."
"By General La Fayette, doubtless?"
"Precisely."
"I thought he had done more than that, and had himself presented my report to you, sire."
"Quite true.... But I find a lacuna in that report."
I bowed in token that I was waiting to hear more.
"You were sent by General La Fayette," the king continued, "to study the possibility of establishing a National Guard in la Vendée, and you hardly mention either the possibility or impossibility of such a thing."
"True, sire, on the ground that the study of the locality convinced me that the establishment of a National Guard in the departments of la Loire-Inférieure, Maine-et-Loire, la Vendée and Deux-Sèvres would for the time being be ruinous to the middle classes of society, which have their business to attend to as notaries, drapers, cloth-weavers, locksmiths, joiners, barristers,—trading either wholesale or retail, in a word,—but have no time for horse exercise and drilling. It would, moreover, be a dangerous measure for this reason: the citizens who wore the uniform would becomeBluesagain, and thosewho did not wear it would beChouans.That is why I have nearly abandoned the idea and laid stress on the opening out of roads, on the furthering of communication, to act, as they say in medicine, as a species of dissolvent, rather than by revulsives: let the Vendeans get away from the influence of the nobles, and their women from the influence of the priests, and no more Vendean insurrections will be possible."
"Well, Monsieur Dumas, I am of a different opinion from yours. I believe that a Vendée is no longer possible, because there are no Vendeans left. Tell me where are the Elbées, the Bonchamps, the Lescures, the Laroche-Jaquelins and the Charettes?"
"Sire, where they were in 1789.... However, la Vendée need not be feared, now, or in the immediate future; I would go further still, and say that it would never again rise by itself, but somebody might throw himself into la Vendée and cause it to rise."
"Who? Not the dauphin—he has not energy enough for that; nor the Duc de Bordeaux—he is too young; nor Charles X.—a king would be out of place at the head of a handful of rebels."
"The king knows general history too well not to be acquainted with the history of Hungary:Moriamur pro nostro rege Maria-Theresa!"
"The Duchesse de Berry?"
"She is much talked about."
"You are right. I have myself thought so often; but, remember carefully what I tell you, Monsieur Dumas: there will be no Vendean rising without England, and I am sure of England."
I did not urge on the king that there might be a terrible, implacable, fierce Vendean outburst, like that of '92 and '93; I did not tell him that there might, perhaps, be twenty, thirty, or forty thousand men in arms as before; nor that there would be disastrous, fatal and deadly battles, such as those of Ponts-de-Cé, Torfou and Antrain; I did not tell him that the rising of the west would be supported by a rising in the south and by a foreign invasion. I said that there was a chance, aprobability and almost a certainty of fighting, and that men would be killed, that fresh hatreds would be born out of the renewed bloodshed, and that the king would be too careful of the spilling of French blood not to set himself in opposition to such proceedings as far as he had means in his power.
The king smiled.
"I tell you, Monsieur Dumas, that I have put my finger on the pulse of la Vendée.... I am a bit of a doctor, as you know."
I bowed.
"Well! there is nothing going on there, nor will there be."
"The king will allow me not to attempt to combat his opinion," I replied, laughing, "but to remain of my own way of thinking?"
"Of course! You know that my influence does not extend over people's opinions, unfortunately, or I should have tried to modify yours and those of some other friends of yours."
"Meanwhile, as the conversation has fallen on this subject, your Majesty may wish me to say what I think?"
"On the disposition of la Vendée?"
"And on the policy of the king...."
"Tell me what you think of both."
"Well, I think that a foreign war, upon the Rhine or in Italy, would be a popular one at the present moment; that the king does not care to bring about such a war, and that he is not sorry to have an excuse for not doing so."
"Ah! indeed!"
"La Vendée would offer him such an excuse."
"How so?"
"No doubt, as the king said just now, he is a doctor; when he has to answer those who talk of the Belgian, Italian or Polish nationality, he will say: 'Pardon, messieurs; before busying ourselves with the affairs of other peoples, France has first to cure herself of an internal inflammation.' When they turn their gaze in the direction of la Vendée, and hear the sound of firing and see the smoke of battle, no one will have anything to reply, the king will then only concern himselfwith people of his own nationality and even the most fiery propagandists will see that we have not taken upon us the responsibility of foreign bloodshed."
The king bit his lips; I had evidently hit home.
"Monsieur Dumas," he said, "politics are a melancholy profession.... Leave it to kings and governors. You are a poet; attend to your poetry."
"Pardon me. I do not follow."
"I merely mean that, being a poet, you see things as a poet." I bowed again.
"Sire," I said to him, "the ancients called their poetsVates."
The king signed with his hand, implying, "Monsieur Dumas, your audience is at an end; I know what I wanted to know from you and you can retire."
I understood the sign, and I did not wait to have it repeated. I went out as far as I could backwards, so as not to shock those ideas of etiquette of which the Duc d'Orléans had tried hard to give me a lesson one day when King Charles X. had come to the famous ball at the Palais-Royal.
I met Oudard on the staircase.
"Have you seen the king?" he asked me.
"I am just leaving him," I replied.
"Well?"
"Yesterday we were only half at variance."
"And now?"
"To-day it is otherwise; we are wholly so."
"Blockhead!" he muttered.
I waved him an adieu with my hand, and ran laughing down the stairs.
As I was returning home I met Bixio on the Pont des Tuileries; he was clad in a blue military coat with red epaulettes and forage cap and had a ball of red horsehair on his shako with stripes of red down his trousers.
"Hullo," I said, "what are you in?"
"In the artillery."
"Is there an artillery, then?"
"Certainly."
"Of whom does it consist?..."
"Of all our Republican friends: Grouvelle, Guinard, Cavaignac, Étienne Arago, Bastide, Thomas and myself, etc...."
"I should like to join it too."
"That will be difficult because of your position near the king."
"Mine? I have broken off with him completely!"
"Then you are free?"
"As free as air! Besides, there is another way of making myself freer still...."
"Which is?"
"To send in my resignation this very day."
"If that be the case, I will undertake to get you admitted. ... I believe they are one or two men short in the 4th Battery; you haven't any special preference, have you?"
"No."
"Besides, it is mine."
"In that case, I have a preference; have me received into the 4th Battery."
"I will mention it to-night to Cavaignac and Bastide."
"Is it agreed upon?"
"Rather, yes!"
"Au revoir."
"Au revoir."
I went home; took paper, pen and ink and wrote the following letter of resignation:—
"SIRE,—My political opinions being entirely out of harmony with those your Majesty has the right to insist upon in persons who compose your Household, I beg your Majesty to accept my resignation of the post of Librarian. I have the honour to remain, yours respectfully, etc.,"ALEX. DUMAS"
"SIRE,—My political opinions being entirely out of harmony with those your Majesty has the right to insist upon in persons who compose your Household, I beg your Majesty to accept my resignation of the post of Librarian. I have the honour to remain, yours respectfully, etc.,
"ALEX. DUMAS"
I apologise for the style, which was that of the period. Then I put a short note to Bixio in the post containing this one line:—
"Alea jacta est!"
We shall see later how, as my letter never reached the hands of the king, I was obliged to send in my resignation a second time, which was inserted in the papers and repeated in the Preface toNapoleon.
First performance ofla Mère et la Fille—I have supper with Harel after the performance—Harel imprisons me after supper—I am sentenced to eight days' enforced work atNapoléon—On the ninth day the piece is read to the actors and I am set at liberty—The rehearsals—The actor Charles—His story about Nodier
First performance ofla Mère et la Fille—I have supper with Harel after the performance—Harel imprisons me after supper—I am sentenced to eight days' enforced work atNapoléon—On the ninth day the piece is read to the actors and I am set at liberty—The rehearsals—The actor Charles—His story about Nodier
On the same table upon which I had just written my letter of resignation lay a letter in a handwriting that I recognised as Harel's. I opened it in fear and trembling that he was going to speak to me again about the wretchedNapoléondrama, which had become quite a nightmare to me. But nothing of the kind: he sent me a box for the first performance ofla Mère et la Filleand an invitation to supper with him afterwards. I sent my ticket to Marie Nodier, keeping one place for myself. I had neglected my dear friends of the Arsenal for a long time and was very anxious to see them again. I reached the Odéon by eight o'clock.
I have previously expressed my opinion uponla Mère et la Fille: it is one of Mazères' best plays, and quite Empis' best. Frédéric was sublime in his artless, poignant grief, his restrained despair. The other parts were, in theatrical parlance,bien tenus—well sustained. Marie and Madame Nodier wept, and so did Madame de Tracy; the authors won a triumphant ovation in tears.
Lockroy, Janin and I reached Harel's house by midnight, when we congratulated him on his success. Harel received our compliments rubbing his hands together and stuffing snuff up his nostrils with never a word about theNapoléonplay. I could not tell what had come over him, and began to think that he had given the play to another to write. This silenceseemed all the stranger to me since M. Crosnier was making fabulous sums with hisNapoléon à Schoenbrünn.
The supper was in the style of those sumptuous delightful ones that Georges was wont to give us. She made a glorious queen at such feasts, as she dispensed the finest fruits from Chevet with her beautiful, goddess-like hands. When Harel, Janin and Lockroy were present, there was the very finest flow of wit imaginable. At three in the morning we were still at table. Notwithstanding all this, there were signs in the atmosphere which savoured of some conspiracy: glances were exchanged, smiles returned and significant words bandied about. When I asked for explanations, everybody gazed in astonishment; they laughed in my face, and I felt as though I had just come from Carpentras. True enough, I had come from Quimper, which was nearly the same thing. We all rose from the table, and Georges took me into another room with the excuse that she wanted to show me something extremely beautiful. What was it she showed me? I cannot say: but, whatever it was, it was fascinating enough to keep me from returning to the salon for over a quarter of an hour. When I returned, Lockroy and Janin had disappeared and only Harel remained. It struck half-past three, and I thought it about time to retire; I picked up my hat and was preparing to depart the way I came, when Harel said—
"No, no, everybody has gone to bed.... Follow me this way."
I followed him unsuspectingly.
We went through Georges' room again, then through a dressing-room and finally passed into a room with which I was unacquainted. Two candles were burning on a table which was piled up with books and papers of all sizes and dimensions, with pens too of every description. A comfortable bed was resplendent in the gloom with its purple eiderdown in striking contrast with its white sheets and counterpane. On the bearskin rug by the bedside lay slippers all ready to put on. On one side of the fireplace was a velvet sofa, and on the other a great big tapestry-covered arm-chair.
"Well," I said, "what an invitingly comfortable-looking room! Anybody ought to sleep and work well in such a one."
"Ah!" said Harel, "I am indeed enchanted that it pleases you."
"Why?"
"Because it is for you."
"How for me?"
"It is yours; and as you will not leave it until you have written me myNapoléon, I had to make things as comfortable as I could for you, to prevent your being in a bad temper during your imprisonment"
A shiver passed over me from head to foot.
"Harel!" I exclaimed, "don't let us have any foolish tricks, my friend!"
"Exactly so. You made a big mistake in not starting the work when I first asked you.... And I made just as stupid a mistake in not giving it to someone else to write ... but I had spoken to you; and I keep my word. I therefore think we have both shown ourselves quite stupid enough for two men of intellectual attainment, and it is high time we came to our senses once more."
"Come now! you cannot be thinking what you are doing! I have not even the very faintest plan drawn up for yourNapoléon."
"You told me you re-wroteChristinein one night."
"I should need all kinds of books: Bourrienne, Norvins,Victoires et Conquêtes..."
"There isVictoires et Conquêtesin that corner, there is Bourrienne in another and Norvins is on the table."
"I should want theMémorial de Sainte-Hélène."
"There it is on the mantelpiece."
"My son...."
"He shall come and dine with you."
"And my mistress?"
"Ah!" said Georges, who now came into the room, "you have just done without her for six weeks, you can surely do without her for another fortnight."
I began to laugh.
"At least you will tell her what has happened?"
"She has been told."
"By whom?"
"By me," said Harel, "and she has already received her reward."
"What was it?"
"A bracelet."
I seized hold of Georges' lovely hands, and addressing my remarks to Harel, I said—
"Upon my word, my dear friend, you do things in a way it is impossible to get round.... To-morrow I will set to work on yourNapoléonand in a week you shall have it."
"You are in a great hurry to leave us, my dear boy!" Georges said, curling her queenly lip.
"Good!" I said. "The play will be finished when I say it is finished.... It is Harel who is in a hurry, not I ..."
"Harel will wait," said Georges in her grand Cleopatra and Medea style.
I bowed; I had nothing further to say.
Harel pointed out a toilet table and its fittings, and observed that my room had no other means of access than through that belonging to Georges; then he went away with her and shut me in. They had even gone so far as to send to my rooms for my trousers. That same night, or rather morning, I set to work and thought out the part of the spy, and the way to divide up the drama. When the rôle of the spy was thought out, the rest was clear enough. History itself provided the divisions of the play.