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AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS 


AN    ENGLISHMAN 


IN  PARIS 


NOTES    AND    RECOLLECTIONS) 

7-^(3    VOLUMES  IN  ONE 


NEW  YORK 
HOVENDON     COMPANY 

17   AND    19  WAVERLEY  place 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

'  PAGE 

The  Quartier-Latin  in  the  late  thirties— The  difference  between  then  and  now — A  caii- 
cature  on  the  walls  of  Paris — I  am  anxious  to  be  introduced  to  the  quarter  whence 
it  emanated — I  am  taken  to  "La  Childebert,"  and  make  the  acquaintance  of  the 
original  of  the  caricature— The  story  oi  Bouginier  and  his  nose — Dantan  as  a  cari- 
caturist— He  abandons  that  branch  of  art  after  he  has  made  Madame  MaUbran 
burst  into  tears  at  the  sight  of  her  statuette — How  Kouginier  came  to  be  immortal- 
ized on  the  fagade  of  the  Passage  du  Caire— One  of  the  first  co-operative  societies 
in  France— An  artists'  hive— The  origin  of  "  La  Childebert  "—Its  tenants  in  my 
time— The  proprietress— Madame  Chanfort,  the  providence  of  poor  painters— Her 
portraits  soUl  after  her  death— High  jinks  at  "  La  Childebert  "—The  Childebert- 
lans  and  their  peacefully  inclined  neighbours— Gratuitous  baths  and  compulsory 
douches  at  "  La  Childebert  "—The  proprietress  is  called  upon  to  repair  the  roof— 
The  Childebertians  bivouac  on  the  Place  St.  Germain-des-Pres— They  surt  a 
*'  Society  for  the  Conversion  of  the  Mahometans"— The  public  subscribe  liberally 
— What  becomes  of  the  subscriptions ?— My  visits  to  "  La  Childebert"  breed  a 
taste  for  the  other  amusements  of  the  Quartier-Latin— Bobino  and  its  entertain- 
ments—The audience — The  manager— His  stereotyped  speech— The  reply  in 
chorus — Woe  to  the  bourgeois-intruder — Stove-pipe  hats  a  rarity  in  the  Quartier- 
Latin — The  dress  of  the  collegians — Their  mode  of  living — Suppers  when  money 
was  flush,  roils  and  milk  when  it  was  not — A  fortune-teller  in  the  Rue  de  Tournon 
— Her  prediction  as  to  the  future  of  Josephine  de  Beauharnais — The  allowance  to 
students  in  those  days— The  Odeon  deserted— Students'  habits— The  Chaumifere 
— Rural  excursions — Pfere  Bonvin's S 


CHAPTER  II. 

My  introduction  to  the  celebrities  of  the  day— The  Cafe  de  Paris— The  old  Prince 
Demidoff— The  old  man's  mania— His  sons— The  furniture  and  attendance  at  the 
Cafe  de  Paris— Its  high  prices— A  mot  of  Alfred  de  Musset— The  cuisine— A  re- 
buke of  the  proprietor  to  Balzac — A  version  by  one  of  his  predecessors  of  the  cause 
of  Vatal's  suicide— Some  of  the  habitues — Their  intercourse  with  the  attendants— 
Their  courteous  behaviour  towards  one  another — Le  veau  a  la  casserole — What 
Altred  de  Musset,  Balzac,  and  Alexandre  Dumas  thought  of  it — A  silhouette  of 
Alfred  de  Musset — His  brother  Paul  on  his  election  as  a  member  of  the  Academie 
— A  silhouette  of  Balzac,  between  sunset  and  sunrise — A  curious  action  against  the 
publishers  of  an  almanack — A^ull-length  portrait_of  Balzac — His  pecuniary  em- 
barrassments— His  visions  of  wealth  and  speciilations — His  constant  neglect  of 
his  duties  as  a  National  Guard — His  troubles  in  consequence  thereof— L'Hotel 
des  Haricots — Some  of  his  fellow-prisoners — Adam,  the  composer  of  "  Le  Postilion 
de  Lonjumeau  "—Eugene  Sue  ;  his  portrait— His  dandyism — The  origin  of  the 
Paris  Jockey  Club — Eu^^ne  Sue'becomes  a  member — ^The  success  of  *'  Les  Mys- 
t^res  de  Pans  " — The  origin  of"  Le  Juif-Errant" — Sue  makes  himself  obiectionable 
to  the  members  of  the  Jockey  Club — His  name  struck  off  the  list — His  decline  and 
disappearance    .        .        .        ^        > 


VI  CONTENTS, 


CHAPTER  III. 

PAGE 
Alexandre  Dumas  pfere — Why  he  made  himself  particularly  agreeable  to  Englishmen 
— His  way  of  silencing  people — The  pursuit  he  loved  best  next  to  literature — He 
has  the  privilege  of  going  down  to  the  kitchens  of  the  Cafe  de  Paris — No  one  ques- ' 
tions  his  literary  genius,  some  question  his  cuhnary  capacities — Dr.  Veron  and  his 
cordon-bleu — Dr.  Veron's  reasons  for  dining  out  instead  of  at  home— Dr.  Veron's 
friend,  the  philanthropist,  who  does  not  go  to  the  theatre  because  he  objects  to 
be  hurried  with  his  emotions — Dr.  Veron,  instigated  by  his  cook,  accuses  Dumas 
of  having  collaborateurs  in  preparing  his  dishes  as  he  was  known  to  have  coHabo- 
rateurs  in  his  literary  work— Dumas'  wrath — He  invites  us  to  a  dinner  which  shall 
be  wholly  cooke  1  liy  him  in  the  presence  of  a  delegate  to  be  chosen  by  the  guests 
— The  lot  falls  upon  me — Dr.  Veron  and  Sophie  make  the  amende  honorable — A 
dinnerparty  at  Veron's — A  curious  lawsuit  in  connection  with  Weber's  "'  !■  rey- 
schutz" — Nestor  Roqueplan,  who  became  the  successor  of  the  defendant  in  the 
case,  suggests  a  way  out  of  it — Leon  Pillet  virtually  adopts  it  and  wins  the  day 
— A  similar  plan  adopted  years  before  by  a  fireman  on  duty  at  the  opera,  on 
being  tried  by  court-martial  for  having  fallen  asleep  during  the  perfoniiance  of 
*'  Guido  et  Genevra  " — Firemen  not  bad  judges  of  plays  and  operas — They  were 
often  consulted  both  by  Meyerbeer  and  Dumas — Duiuas  at  work — How  he  idled 
his  time  away — Dumas  causes  the  traffic  receipts  of  the  Chemin  de  Fer  de  TOuest 
to  swell  during  his  three  years'  residence  at  Saint-Germain — M.  de  Montalivet 
advises  I^ouis-Philippe  to  invite  Dumas  to  Versailles,  to  see  what  his  presence  will 
do  for  the  royal  city — Louis-Philippe  does  not  act  upon  the  advice — The  relations 
between  Dumas  and  the  d'Orleans  family — After  the  Revolution  of  '48,  Dumas 
becomes  a  candidate  for  parliament — ^The  story  of  his  canvass  and  his  address  to 
the  electors  at  Joigny — Dumas'  utter  indifference  to  monej'  matters — He  casts  his 
burdens  upon  others — Dumas  and  his  creditors — Writs  and  distiaii.ts — How  they 
are  dealt  with — Dumas'  indiscriminate  generosity — .-\  dozen  houses  full  of  new 
furniture  in  half  as  many  years — Dumas'  frugality  at  table — Literary  remuneration 
— Dumas  and  his  son—"  Leave  me  a  hundred  francs  " 4.^ 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Dr.  Louis  Veron— The  real  man  as  distinguished  from  that  of  his  own  "Memoirs" — 
He  takes  the  management  of  the  Paris  Opera— How  it  was  governed  before  his 
advent— Meyerbeer's  "  Robert  le  Diable  "  underlined— ^l&y^xh^^x  and  his  doubts 
upon  the  merits  of  his  work — Meyerbeer's  generosity — Meyerbeer  and  the  beg- 
gars of  the  Rue  Le  Peletier— Dr.  'Veron,  the  inventor  of  the  modern  newspaper 
puff— Some  specimens  of  advertisements  in  their  infancy— Dr.  V'^ron  takes  a  leaf 
from  the  book  of  Molifere— Dr.  Veron's  love  of  money— His  superstition.s— His  ob- 
jections to  travelling  in  railways— He  quotes  the  (^ueen  of  England  as  an  example— 
When  Queen  Victoria  ovc-rcoines  her  objection,  Veron  holds  out—"  Queen  Victoria 
has  got  a  successor  :  the  Veron  dynasty  begins  and  ends  with  me  "—Thirteen  at 
table— I  make  the  acquaintance  of  Taglioni— The  woman  and  the  ballerian— Her 
adventure  at  P.  rih— An  improvised  performance  of  "Nathalie,  la  Latiere  Suisse" 
-—Another  adventure  in  Russia— A  modem  Claude  Du-Val— My  last  meeting 
with  Taglioni— A  dinner-party  at  De  Morny's— A  comedy  scene  between  husband 
and  wife— Flotow,  the  composer  of  "  Martha  "—His  family — His  father's  objection 
to  the  composer's  profession— The  latter's  interview  with  M.  de  Saint  Georges, 
the  author  of  the  libretto  of  Balfe's  '•  Bohemian  Girl"— M.  de  Saint-Georges  pre- 
vails upon  the  father  to  let  his  son  study  in  Paris  for  five  years  and  to  provide  for 
him  during  that  tmie— The  supplies  are  stopped  on  the  last  day  of  the  fifth  year 
— Flotow,  at  the  advice  of  M,  de  Saint-Georges,  stays  on  and  lives  by  giving  piano- 
lessons— His  earthly  possessions  at  his  first  success— •' Rob  Roy"  at  the  Hotel 
Castellane— Lord  Granville's  opinion  of  the  music- The  Hotel  Castellane  and  some 
Paris  salons  during  Louis-Philippe's  reign— The  Princesse  de  Lieven's,  M. 
Thiers',  etc.— What  Madame  de  Girardin's  was  like— Victor  Hugo's — Perpetual 
adoration  :  very  artistic,  hut  nothing  to  eat  or  to-drink— The  salon  of  the  ambassa- 
dor of  the  Two  Sicilies  —Lord  and  Lady  Granville  at  the  English  Embassy— The 
salon  of  Count  Apponyi — A  story  connected  with  it — Furniture  and  entertainments 
— Cakes,  ices,  and  tea ;  no  champagne  as  during  the  Second  Empire— The  Hotel 


CONTENTS,  Vll 


PACK 

Castellane  and  its  amateur  theatricals  -  Rival  companies — No  under-studies — 
Lord  Brougham  at  the  Hotel  Castellane— His  bad  French  and  his  would-be  Don 
Juanism — A  French  rendering  of  Shakespeare's  "  There  is  but  one  step  between 
the  sublime  and  the  ridiculous,"  as  applied  to  Lord  Brougham — He  nearly  accepts 
a  part  in  a  farce  where  his  bad  French  is  likely  to  produce  a  comic  effect — His 
successor  as  a  murderer  of  the  language — M.  de  Saint-Georges— Like  Moliere, 
he  reads  his  plays  to  his  housekeeper— When  the  latter  is  not  satisfied,  the  dinner 
is  spoilt,  however  great  the  success  of  the  play  in  public  estimation — Great  men 
and  their  housekeepers— Turner,  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau,  Eugene  Delacroix        .    60 


CHAPTER  V. 

The  Boulevards  in  the  forties— The  Chinese  Baths — A  favorite  tobacconist  of  Alfred 
de  Musset — The  price  of  cigars — The  diligence  still  the  usual  mode  of  travelling — 
Provincials  in  Paris — Parhamentary  see-saw  between  M.  Thiers  and  M.  Guizot — 
Amenities  of  editors — An  advocate  of  universal  suffrage — Distribution  of  gratu- 
itous sausages  to  the  working  man  on  the  king's  birthday — The  rendezvous  of 
actors  in  search  of  an  engagement — Frederick  Lemaitre  on  the  eve  of  appearing  in 
a  new  part — The  Legitimists  begin  to  leave  their  seclusion  and  to  mingle  with  the 
bourgeoisie — Alexandre  Dumas  and  Scribe — The  latter's  fertility  as  a  playwright 
— The  National  Guards  go  shooting,  in  uniform  and  in  companies,  on  the  Plaine 
Saint-Denis — Vidocq's  private  inquiry  office  in  the  Rue  Vivienne — No  river-side 
resorts — The  plaster  elephant  on  the  Place  de  la  Bastille — The  sentimental  romances 
of  Loisa  Puget— The  songs  of  the  working  classes — Cheap  bread  and  wine — How 
they  enjoy  themselves  on  Sundays  and  holidays — Theophile  Gautier's  pony-car- 
riage— The  hatred  of  the  bourgeoisie — Nestor  Roqueplan's  expression  of  it — Ga- 
varni's — M.  Thiers'  sister  keeps  a  restaurant  at  the  corner  of  the  Rue  Drouot — 
When  he  is  in  power,  the  members  of  the  Opposition  go  and  dine  there,  and  publish 
facetious  accounts  of  the  entertainment — All  appearances  to  the  contrary,  people 
like  Guizot  better  than  Thiers — But  few  entries  for  the  race  for  wealth  in  those 
days — The  Rothschilds  still  live  in  the  Rue  Lafitte — Favorite  lounges — The  Boule- 
vards, the  Rue  Le  Pelletier,  and  the  Passage  de  I'Opera — The  Opera — The  Rue 
Le  Pelletier  and  its  attractions — The  Restaurant  of  Paolo  Broggi — the  Estaminet 
du  Divan — Literary  waiters  and  Boniface — Major  P'raser — Ihe  mystery  surround- 
ing his  origin — Another  mysterious  personage — The  Passage  dcl'Opera  is  invaded 
by  the  stockjobbers,  and  loses  its  prestige  as  a  promenade — Bernard  Latte's,  the 
publisher  of  Donizetti's  operas,  becomes  deserted — Tortoni's — Louis-Blanc — His 
scruples  as  an  editor — A  few  words  about  duelling — Two  tragic  meetings — Lola 
Months — Her  adventurous  career — A  celebrated  trial — My  first  meeting  with  Gus- 
tave  Flaubert,  the  author  of"  Madame  Bovary  "  and  '"  Salambo" — Emile  de  Gi- 
rardin — His  opinion  of  duelling — My  decision  with  regard  to  it— The  original  of 
"La  Dame  aux  Camdlias " — Her  parentage — Alexandre  Dumas  gives  the 
diagnosis  of  her  character  in  connection  with  his  son's  play — L'Hommeau  Camelia 
— M.  Lautour-Mezerai,  the  inventor  of  children's  periodical  literature  in  France — 
Auguste  Lireux — He  takes  the  management  of  the  Odeon — Balzac  again — His 
schemes,  his  greed — Lireux  more  fortunate  with  other  author s=Anglophobia  on 
the  French  stage — Gallophobia  on  the  English  stage 


CHAPTER  VI. 

Rachel  and  some  of  her  fellow-actors— Rachel's  true  character— Her  greediness  and 
spitefulness — Her  vanity  and  her  wit— Her  powers  of  fascination — The  cost  of  be- 
ing fascinated  by  her—Her  manner  of  levying  toll — Some  of.  her  victims.  Comte 
Duchatel  and  Dr.  Veroh — The  storyof  her  guitar— A  little  transactioiT  between  her 
and  M.  Fould — Her.  supposed  charity  and  generosity— Teh  tickets  for  a  charity 
concert— How  she  made  them  into  twenty— How  she  could  have  made  them  into  a 
hundred— Baron  Taylor  puzzled— Her  manner  of  giving  presents — Beauvallet's 
precaution  with  regard  to  one  of  her  gifts — Alexandre  Dumas  the  younger,  wiser, 
or  perhaps  not  so  wise  in  his  generation — Rachel  as  a  racohteuse — 'I'he  story  of  her 
dibut  at  the  Gymnase— What  Rachel  would  have  been  as  an  actor  instead  of  an 


viii  CONTENTS, 

PAGE 

actress— Her  comic  genius— Rachel's  mother— What  became  of  Rachel's  money- 
Mama  F^lix  as  a  pawnbroker — Rachel's  trinkets— Two  curious  bracelets— Her  first 
appearance  before  Nicholas  I.— A  dramatic  recital  in  the  open  air— Rachel's  opin- 
ion of  the  handsomest  man  in  Europe— Rachel  and  Samson— Her  obligations  to 
him— How  she  repays  them — How  she  goes  to  Berryer  to  be  coached  in  ihe  fable 
of  "The  Two  Pigeons" — An  anecdote  of  Berryer — Rachel's  fear  of  a  "warm 
reception"  on  the  first  night  of  "  Adrienne  Lecouvreur" — How  she  averts  the 
danger — Samson  as  a  man  and  as  an  actor — Pettticoat-revolts  at  the  Cumedie- 
Fran^aise — Samson  and  Regnier  as  buffers— Their  different  ways  of  pouring  oil 
upon  the  troubled  waters — Mdile.  Sylvanie  Plessy — A  parallel  between  her  and 
Sarah  Bernhardt— Samson  and  Regnier's  pride  in  their  profession — The  different 
character  of  that  pride — "Apollo  with  a  bad  tailor,  and  who  dresses  without  a  look- 
ing-glass " — Samson  gives  a  lesson  in  declamation  to  a  procureur-imperial — The 
secret.of  Regnier's  greatness  as  an  actor  -A  lesson  at  the  Conservatoire— Regnier 
on  "  make-up  " — Regnier's  opinion  of  genius  on  the  stage — A  mot  of  Augustine 
Brohan— Giovanni,  the  wigmaker  of  the  Comedie  Frangaise- His  pride  in  his  pro- 
fession—M.  Ancessy,  the  musical  director,  and  his  three  wigs         ,        .        .        .  n8 


CHAPTER  VII. 

Two  composers,  Auber  and  Felicien  David — Auber,  the  legend  of  his  youthful  appear- 
ance— How  it  arose— His  daily  rides,  his  love  of  women's  society — His  mot  on 
Mozart's  "  Don  Juan  "—The  only  drawback  to  Auber's  enjoyment  of  women's 
society — His  reluctance  to  take  his  hat  off— How  he  managed  to  keep  it  on  most 
of  the  time — His  opinion  upon  Meyerbeer's  and  Halevy's  genius — His  opinion 
upon  Gerard  de  Nerval,  who  hanged  himself  with  his  hat  on — His  love  of  solitude 
— His  fondness  of  Paris — His  grievance  against  his  mother  for  not  having  given 
him  birth  there — He  refuses  to  leave  Paris  at  the  commencement  of  the  siege — His 
small  appetite — He  proposes  to  write  a  new  opera  when  the  Prussians  are  gone — 
Auber  suffers  no  privations,  but  has  difficulty  in  finding  fodder  for  his  horse — The 
Parisians  claim  it  for  food — Another  legend  about  Aul^er's  independence  of  sleep — 
How  and  where  he  generally  slept — Why  Auber  snored  in  Veron's  company,  and 
why  he  did  not  in  that  of  other  people — His  capacity  for  work — Auber  a  brilliant 
talker — Auber's  gratitude  to  the  artists  who  interpreted  his  work,  but  different 
from  Meyerbeer's— The  reason  why,  according  to  Auber — Jealousy  or  humility — 
Auber  and  the  younger  Coquelin — "The  verdict  on  all  things  in  this  world  may 
be  summed  up  in  the  one  phrase,  '  It's  an  injustice  '  " — Felicien  David — The  man 
— The  beginnings  of  his  career — His  terrible  poverty— He  joins  the  Saint-Simoni- 
enf,  and  goes  with  some  of  them  to  the  East — Their  reception  at  Constantinople — 
M.  Scribe  and  the  libretto  of  "  L'Africaine" — David  in  Egypt  at  the  court  of  Me- 
hemet-Ali — David's  description  of  him — Mehemet's  way  of  testing  the  educational 
progress  of  his  sons — Woe  to  the  fat  kine — Mehemet-AU  suggests  a  new  mode  of 
teaching  music  to  the  inmates  of  the  harem — Felicien  David's  further  wanderings 
in  Egypt — Their  effect  upon  his  musical  genius — His  return  to  France — He  tells 
the  story  of  the  first  performance  of  "  Le  Desert  " — An  ambulant  box-office— His 
success— Fame,  but  no  money — He  sells  the  score  of  "  Le  Desert" — He  loses  his 
savings — "  La  Perle  du  Bresir'and  the  Coup-d'Etat — "No  luck" — Napoleon 
IIL  remains  his  debtor  for  eleven  j'ears — A  mot  of  Auber,  and  one  of  Alexandre 
Dumas  pire — The  story  of '"Aida" — Why  Felicien  David  did  not  compose  the 
music— The  real  author  of  the  libretto  ....... 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


Three  painters,  and  a  school  for  pifferari— Gabriel  Decamps,  Eugene  Delacroix,  and 
Horace  Vernet— The  prices  of  pictures  in  the  forties — Delacroix'  find  no  purchasers 
at  all — Decamps'  drawings  fetch  a  thousand  francs  each — Decamps  not  a  happy 
man— The  cause  of  his  unhappiness — The  man  and  the  painter — He  finds  no  pleas- 
ure in  being  popular — Eugene  Delacroix — His  contempt  for  the  bourgeoisie — A 
Earallel  between  Delacroix  and  Shakespeare — Was  Delacroix  tall  or  short?— His 
>ve  of  flowers— His  delicate  health— His  personal  appearance— His  indifference  to 


CONTENTS.  IX 


PAGK 

the  love-passion — George  Sand  and  Delacroix — A  miscarried  love-scene — Dela- 
croix' housekeeper,  Jenny  Leguillou — Delacroix  does  not  want  to  pose  as  a  model 
for  one  of  George  Sand's  heroes — Delacroix  as  a  writer— His  approval  of  Carlyle's 
dictum,  "  Show  me  how  a  man  sings,"  etc.— His  humour  tempered  by  his  rever- 
ence— His  failure  as  a  caricaturist — His  practical  jokes  on  would-be  art-critics — 
Delacroix  at  home — His  dress  while  at  work — ^^Horace  Vernet's,  Paul  Delaroche's, 
Ingres' — Early  at  work— He  does  not  waste  time  over  lunch— How  he  spent  his 
evenings — His  dislike  of  being  reproduced  in  marble  or  on  canvas  after  his  death — 
Horace  Vernet — The  contrast  between  the  two  men  and  the  two  artists — Vernet's 
appearance — His  own  account  of  how  he  became  a  painter — Moral  and  mental  re- 
semblance to  Alexandre  Dumas  pere — His  political  opinions — Vernet  and  Nicho- 
las I. — A  bold  answer — His  opinion  on  the  mental  state  of  the  Romanoffs— The 
comic  side  of  Vernet's  character— He  thinks  himself  a  Vauban — His  interviews 
with  M.  Thiers — His  admiration  for  everything  military — His  worship  of  Alfred 
de  Vigny — His  ineffectual  attempts  to  paint  a  scene  in  connection  wiHTthe  storm- 
ing oT  Constantine — Laurent-Jan  proposes  to  write  an  e^ic  on  it — He  gives  a  sy- 
nopsis of  the  cantos — Laurent-Jan  lives  "  on  the  fat  of  the  land  "  for  six  months — ^A 
son  of  Napoleon's  companion  in  exile,  General  Bertrand — The  chaplain  of  "  la 
Belle-Poule'"— The  first  French  priest  who  wore  the  English  dress — Horace  Vernet 
and  the  veterans  of'lagrande  armee" — His  studio  during  their  occupancy  of  it 
as  models— His  budget— His  hatred  of  pifferari— A  professor— The  Quartier-Latin 
revisited    ...........  150 


CHAPTER  IX. 

Louis-Philippe  and  his  family — An  unpubHshed  theatrical  skit  on  his  mania  for  shaking 
hands  with  every  one — His  art  of  governing,  according  to  the  same  skit — Louis- 
Philippe  not  the  ardent  admirer  of  the  bourgeoisie  he  professed  to  be — The  Fau- 
bourg Saint-Germain  deserts  the  Tuilerics — The  English  in  too  great  a  majority — 
Lord 's  opinion  of  the  dinners  at  the  Tuilerics— The  attitude  of  the  bour- 
geoisie towards  Louis-Philippe,  according  to  the  King  himself — Louis-Philippe's 
wit — His  final  words  on  the  death  of  Talleyrand — His  love  of  money — He  could  be 
generous  at  times— A  story  of  the  Palais-Royal — Louis-Philippe  and  the  Marseil- 
laise— Two  curious  stories  connected  with  the  Marseillaise—  Who  was  the  composer 
of  it? — Louis-Philippe's  opinion  of  the  throne,  the  crown,  and  the  sceptre  of 
France  as  additions  to  one's  comfort — His  children,  and  especially  his  sons,  take 
things  more  easily — Even  the  P>onaparti>ts  admired  some  of  the  latter — A  mot  of 
an  Imperialist — How  the  boys  were  brought  up — Their  nocturnal  rambles  later  on 
— The  King  himself  does  not  seem  to  mind  those  escapades,  but  is  frightened  at 
M.  Guizot  hearing  of  them — Louis-Philippe  did  not  understand  Guizot— The  recol- 
lection of  his  former  misery  frequently  haunts  the  King — He  worries  Queen  Victoria 
with  his  fear  of  becoming  poor — Louis-Philippe  an  excellent  husband  and  father — 
He  wants  to  write  the  libretto  of  an  opera  on  an  English  subject — HisreHgion — The 
court  receptions  ridiculous — Even  the  proletariat  sneer  at  them — The  entree  of  the 
Duchesse  d'Orleans  into  Paris — ^The  scene  in  the  Tuileries  gardens — A  mot  of 
Princesse  Clementine  on  her  father's  too  paternal  solicitude — A  practical  joke  of 
the  Prince  de  Joinville — His  caricatures  and  drawings — The  children  inherited 
their  talent  for  .drawing  and  modelUng  from  theu-  mother — The  Due  de  Nemours 
as  a  miniature  and  water-colour  painter — Suspected  of  being  a  Legitimist — All 
Louis-Philippe's  children  great  patrons  of  art— How  the  bourgeoisie  looked  upon 
their  intercourse  with  artists — The  Due  de  Nemours'  marvellous  memory — ^The 
studio  of  Eugene  Lami — His  neighbours,  Paul  Delaroche  andHonorede  Balzac — 
The  Due  de  Nemours'  bravery  called  in  question — The  Due  d'Aumale's  exploits 
in  Algeria  considered  mere  skirmishes — A  curious  story  of  spiritism — The  Due 
d'Aumale  a  greater  favourite  with  the  world  than  any  of  the  other  sons  of  Louis- 
Philippe — His  wit — The  Due  d'Orleans  also  a  great  favourite — His  visits  to  De- 
camps' studio — An  indifferent  classical  scholar — A  curious  kind  of  blackmail — His 
indifference  to  rnoney — ^There  is  no  money  in  a  Republic— His  death — A  witty 
reply  to  the  Legitimists  .........  169 


CONTENTS, 


CHAPTER  X. 

PAGE 
The  Revolution  of '48 — ^The  beginning  of  it — ^The  National  Guards  in  all  their  glory — 
The  Cafe  Gregoire  on  the  Place  du  Caire — The  price  of  a  good  breakfast  in  '48 — 
The  palmy  days  of  the  Cuisine  Bourgeoise — The  excitement  on  the  Boulevards  on 
Sunday,  February  20th,  '48 — The  theatres — A  ball  at  Poirson's,  the  erstwhile 
director  of  the  Gymnase — A  lull  in  the  storm — ^I'uesday,  February  22nd — Another 
visit  to  the  Cafe  Gregoire — On  my  way  thither — The  Comedie-Fran^aise  closes  its 
doors — What  it  means  according  to  my  old  tutor — We  are  waited  upon  by  a  ser- 
geant and  corporal — We  are  no  longer  "messieurs,"  but  "citoyens" — An  eye  to 
the  main  chance — The  patriots  do  a  bit  of  business  in  tricolor  cockades — The  com- 
pany marches  away — Casualties — "  Le  patriotisme"  means  the  difference  between 
the  louis  d'or  and  the  ecu  of  three  francs — The  company  bivouacs  on  the  Boulevard 
Saint- Martin — A  tyrant's  victim  "■  malfri  lui'''' — Wednesday,  February  23rd — 
The  Cafe  Gregoire  once  more — The  National  Guards  en  niglige — A  novel  mode 
of  settling  accounts — The  National  Guards  fortify  the  inner  man — A  bivouac  on 
the  Boulevard  du  Temple — A  camp  scene  from  an  opera — I  leave — My  compan- 
ion's account — The  National  Guards  protect  the  regulars— The  author  of  these 
notes  goes  to  the  theatre — The  Gymnase  and  the  Varietes  on  the  eve  of  the  Revo- 
lution— BoufFe  and  Dejazet — Thursday,  February  24th,  '48 — The  Boulevards  at 
9.30  a.m. — No  milk — The  Revolutionaries  do  without  it — The  Place  du  Carrousel — 
The  sovereign  people  fire  from  the  roofs  gn  the  troops — The  troops  do  not  dislodge 
them — The  King  reviews  the  troops — The  apparent  inactivity  of  Louis-Philippe's 
sons — A  theory  about  the  difference  in  bloodshed — One  of  the  three  ugliest  men  in 
France  comes  to  see  the  King — Seditious  cries — The  King  abdicates — Chaos— 
The  sacking  of  the  Tuileries — ^Receptions  and  feastmg  in  the  Galerie  de  Diane — 
"  Du  cafe  pour  nous,  des  cigarettes  pour  les  dames " — The  dresses  of  the 
princesses — The  bourgeois  feast  the  gamins  who  guard  the  barricades — 1  he  Re- 
public proclaimed — The  riff-raff  insist  upon  illuminations — An  actor  promoted  to 
the  Governorship  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville — Some  members  of  the  "provisional 
Government  "  at  work — M^ry  on  Lamariine — Why  the  latter  proclaimed  the  Re- 
public       ...........  190 


CHAPTER    XI. 

The  Second  Republic — Lamartine's  reason  for  proclaiming  it — Suspects  Louis-Napo- 
leon of  similar  motives  for  wishing  to  overthrow  it — lells  him  to  go  back  to  Eng- 
land— De  Persigny's  account  of  I.ou  s-Napoleon's  landing  in  France  after  Febru- 
ary 24th,  '48 — Providential  interference  on  behalf  of  Loui.s-Napoleon — Justification 
of  Louis-Napoleon's  belief  in  his  "  star '" — My  first  meeting  with  him — The  origin  of 
a  celebrated  nickname — Badinguet  a  creation  of  Gavarni — Louis-Napoleon  and  his 
surroundings  at  the  Hotel  du  Rhin — His  appearance  and  dress — Lord  Normanby's 
opinion  of  his  appearance — Louis=Napoleon's  French — A  mot  of  Bismarck — Cavaig- 
nac,  Thiers,  and  Victor  Hugo's  wronc;  estimate  of  his  character-^Cavaignac  and 
his  brother  Godefroi — The  difference  between  Thiers  and  General  Cavaignac — An 
elector's  mot — Some  of  the  candidates  for  the  presidency  of  the  Second  Republic — 
Electioneering  expenses— Impecuniosity  of  Louis-Napoleon — A  story  in  connection 
>yith  it— The  woman  with  the  wooden  legs — The  salons  during  the  Second  Repub- 
lic— The  theatres  and  their  skits  on  the  situation — "  La  Propriete  c'est  le  Vol  " — 
France  governed  by  the  National — A  curious  list  of  ministers  and  officials  of  the 
Second  Republic — Armand  Marrast — His  plans  for  reviving  business — His  recep- 
tions at  the  Palai.s- Bourbon  as  President  of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies — Some  of  the 
guests — The  Corps  Diplomatique — The  new  3eputies,  their  wives  and  daughters  .  21  x 


CHAPTER  XII. 

Guizot,  Lamarrine,  and  Beranger— Public  opinion  at  sea  with  regard  to  the  real  Gui- 
zot — People  fail  to  see  the  real  man  behind  the  politician — CJuizot  regrets  this  false 
conception-;-"  I  have  not  the  courage  to  be  unpopular" — A  tilt  at  Thiers— My  first 
meeting  with   him — A  picture   and  the  story  connected  with  it — M.  Guizot  "at 


[CONTENTS?  xi 


PAGE 

home**— His  apartment-— The  Company— -M,  Guizot  on  "the  Spanish  marriages" 
— His  indictment  against  Lord  Palmerston — An  incident  in  connection  with  Napo- 
leon's tomb  at  the  InvaHdes — Nicolas  I.  and  Napoleon — My  subsequent  intimacy 
with  M.  Guizot— (juizot  as  a  father — His  correspondence  with  his.daughters — A 
story  of  Henry  Miirger  and  Marguerite  Thuillier — M.  Guizot  makes  up  his  mind 
not  to  live  in  Paris  any  longer — M.  Guizot  on  "natural  scenery" — Never  saw  the 
sea  until  he  was  over  fifty — Why  M.  Guizot  did  not  like  the  country  ;  why  M. 
Thiers  did  not  like  it — Thiers  the  only  man  at  whom  Guizot  tilted — M.  Guizot  died 
poor — M.  de  Lamartine's  poverty  did  not  inspire  the  same  respect — Lamartine's 
mnpecuniosity — My  only  visit  to  Lamartine's  house — Du  Jellaby  dore — With  a  dif- 
ference— All  the  stories  and  anecdotes  about  M.  de  Lamartine  relate  to  his  improvi- 
dence and  impccuniosity — Ten  times  worse  in  that  respect  than  Balzac — M. 
Guizot's  literary  productions  and  M.  de  Lamartine's — The  national  subscription 
raised  for  the  latter — How  he  anticipates  some  of  the  money — Beranger — My  first 
acquaintance  with  him — B^ranger's  verdict  on  the  Second  Republic — Beranger's 
constant  flittings — Dislikes  popularity — The  true  story  of  Beranger  and  Mdlle. 
Judith  Frfere         ..........  227 


CHAPTER  XIII. 


Some  men  of  the  Empire — Fialin  de  Persigny — ^The  public  prosecutor's  opinion  of  him 
expressed  at  the  trial  for  high  treason  m  1836— Superior  in  many  respects  to  Louis- 
Napoleon — The  revival  of  the  Empire  his  only  and  constant  dream — In  order  to 
realize  it,  he  appeals  first  to  Jerome,  ex-King  of  Westphalia — De  Persigny's  esti- 
mate of  him — Jerome's  greed  and  Louis-Napoleon's  generosity — De  Persigny's  fi- 
nancial embarrassments — His  charity — What  the  Empire  really  meant  to  him — De 
Persigny  virtually  the  moving  spirit  in  the  Coup  d'Etat — Louis-Napoleon  might 
have  been  satisfied  with  the  presidency  of  therepublic  for  life — Persigny  seeks  for 
aid  in  England — Palrnerston's  share  in  the  Coup  d'Etat — The  submarine  cable — 
Preparations  for  the  Coup  d'Etat — A  warning  of  it  sent  to  England — Count  Walew- 
ski  issues  invitations  for  a  dinner  party  on  the  2nd  of  December — Opinion  in  Lon- 
don that  Louis-Napoleon  will  get  the  worst  in  the  struggle  with  the  Chamber — The 
last  funds  from  London — General  de  Saint- Amaud  and  Baron  Lacrosse — The 
Elys^e-Bourbon  on  the  evening  of  the  ist  of  December — I  pass  the  Elys^e  at  mid- 
night— Nothing  unusual — London  on  the  2nd  of  December — The  dinner  at  Count 
Walewski's  put  off  at  the  last  moment — Illuminations  at  the  French  Embassy  a 
few  hours  later — Palmerston  at  the  Embassy — Some  traits  of  De  Persigny's  char- 
acter— His  personal  affection  for  Louis  -Napoleon — Madame  de  Persigny — Her 
parsimony — Her  cooking  of  the  household  accounts — Chevct  and  Madame  de 
Persigny — What  the  Empire  might  have  been  with  a  Von  Moltke  by  the  side  of  the 
Emperor  instead  of  Vaillant,  Niel,  and  Leboeuf— Colonel  (afterwards  General) 
FJeury  the  only  modest  man  among  the  Emperor's  entourage — De  Persigny's  pre- 
tensions as  a  Heaven-born  statesman — Mgr.  de  Merode — De  Morny — His  first 
meeting  with  his  half-brother — De  Morny  as  a  grand  seigneur — The  origin  of  the 
Mexican  campaign — Walewski — His  fads — Rouher — My  first  sight  of  him  in  the 
Quartier-Latln — ^I'he  Emperor's  opinion  of  him  at  the  beginning  of  his  career — 
Rouher  in  his  native  home,  Auvergne — His  marriage — Madame  Rouher — His 
father-in-law         ..........  237 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

Society  during  the  Second  Empire— The  Court  at  Compi^gne — The  English  element 
— ^I'heir  opinion  of  Louis-Napoleon — The  difference  between  the  court  of  Louis- 
Philippe  and  that  of  Napoleon  III.— The  luggage  of  M.  Villemain— The  hunts  in 
Louis-Philippe's  time — Louis-Napoleon's  advent — Would  have  made  a  better 
poet  than  an  Emperor — Looks  for  a  La  Vallifere  or  Montespan,  and  finds  Mdlle. 
Eugenie  de  Montijo — The  latter  determined  not  to  be  a  La  '(^allifere  or  even  a 
Pompadour — Has  her  great  destiny  foretold  in  her  youth — Makes  up  her  mind 
that  it  shall  be  realized  by  a  right-handed  and  not  a  left-h.anded  marriage — Queen 
Victoria  stands  her  sponsor  among  the  sovereigns  of  Europe — Mdlle.  de  Montijo's 


xii  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

mother— The  Comtesse  de  Montijo  and  Hal^vy's  "  Madame  Cardinal  "—The  first 
invitations  to  Compifegne — Mdlle.  de  Montijo' s  backers  for  the  Imperial  stakes — 
No  other  entries — Louis-Napoleon  utters  the  word  "marriage" — What  led  up  to 
it — The  Emperor  officially  announces  his  betrothal— The  effect  it  produced — The 
Faubourg  St. -Germain — Dupin  the  elder  gives  his  views — The  engaged  couple 
feel  very  uncomfortable — Negotiations  to  organize  the  Empress's  fiuure  household 
— Rebuffs — Louis  Napoleon's  retorts— Mdlle.  de  Moniijo's  attempt  at  wit  and 
sprightliness — Her  iron  will — Her  beauty — Her  marriage — She  takes  Marie-An- 
toinette for  her  model — She  fondly  imagines  that  she  was  born  to  rule — She  pre- 
sumes to  teach  Princess  Clotilde  the  etiquette  of  courts — The  story  of  two  defec- 
tives—The hunts  at  Compi^gne — Some  of  the  mise  en  scene  and  dramatis  per- 
sofice — The  shooting-parties — Mrs.  Grundy  not  banished,  but  specially  invited 
and  drugged — The  programme  of  the  gatherings — Compi^gne  in  the  season — A 
story  of  an  Englishman  accommodated  for  the  night  in  one  of  the  Imperial  lug- 
gage-vans ..........   262 


CHAPTER  XV. 


Society  during  the  Empire— The  series  of  guests  at  Compifegne — The  amusements — 
The  absence  of  musical  taste  in  the  Bonapartes — The  programme  on  the  first,  sec- 
ond, third,  and  fourth  days — An  anecdote  of  Lafontaine,  the  actor — Theatrical 
performances  and  balls — I'he  expenses  of  the  same — The  theatre  at  Compiegne — 
The  guests,  male  and  female — "  Neck  or  nothing"  for  the  latter,  uniform  for  the 
former — The  rest  have  to  take  "  back  seats  " — The  selection  of  guests  among  the 
notabiUties  of  Compiegne — A  mayor's  troubles— The  Empress's  and  the  Emperor's 
conflicting  opinions  with  regard  to  female  charms — Bassano  in  "hot  water"— 
Tactics  of  the  demi-mondaines — Improvement  from  the  heraldic  point  of  view  in 
the  Empress's  entourage — The  cocodettes — Their  dress — Worth — When  every  pre- 
text for  a  change  of  toilette  is  exhausted,  the  court  ladies  turn  themselves  into 
ballerinas — "  Le  Diable  i  Quatre  "  at  Compiegne — The  ladies  appear  at  the  ball 
afterwards  in  their  gauze  skirts — The  Emperor's  dictum  with  regard  to  ballet- 
dancers  and  men's  infatuation  for  them — The  Emperor  did  not  like  stupid  women 
— The  Emperor's  "  eye  "  for  a  handsome  woman — The  Empress  does  not  admire 
the  instinct — William  I.  of  Prussia  acts  as  comforter — The  hunt— Actors, 
"supers,"  and  spectators— "La  Comtesse  d'Escarbagnas"— The  Imperial  pro- 
cession— ^The  Empress's  and  Emperor's  unpunctuality — Louis-Napoleon  not  a 
"  well-dressed  man  "—The  Empress  wished  to  get  back  before  dark— The  reason 
of  this  wish— Though  unpunctual,  punctual  on  hunt  days— The  police  measures 
at  those  gatherings — M.  Hyrvoix  and  M.  Boitelle— The  Empress  did  not  like  the 
truth,  the  Emperor  did— Her  anxiety  to  go  to  St.  Lazare      ....  276 


CHAPTER  XVI. 


The  story  of  a  celebrated  sculptor  and  his  model— David  d'Angers  at  the  funeral  of 
Cortot,  the  sculptor— How  I  became  acquainted  with  him— The  sculptor  leaves  the 
funeral  procession  to  speak  to  a  woman— He  tells  me  the  story— David  d'Angers* 
sympathy  with  Greece  in  her  struggle  for  independence— When  Botzaris  falls  at 
Missolonghi,  he  makes  up  his  mind  to  carve  his  monument — Wishes  to  do  some- 
thing original— He  finds  his  idea  in  the  cemetery  of  P^re-la-Chaise- In  search  of 
a  model— Comes  unexpectedly  upon  her  in  the  Rue  du  Montpamasse.  while  in 
company  of  Victor  Hugo— The  model  and  her  mother— The  bronze  Christ  on  the 
studio  wall— David  gives  it  to  his  model— The  latter  dismissed— A  plot  against 
the  sculptor's  life- His  model  saves  him— He  tries  to  find  her  and  fails— Only 
meets  with  her  when  walking  behind  the  hearse  of  Cortot— She  appears  utterly 
destitute— Loses  sight  of  her  again— Meets  her  on  the  outer  boulevards  with  a 
nondescript  of  the  worst  character— He  endeavours  to  rescue  her,  but  fails— Canler, 
of  the  Paris  police,  reveals  the  tactics  pursued  with  regard  to  "unfortunates"— 
David's  exile  and  death— The  Botzaris  Monument  is  brought  back  to  Paris  to  be 
restored— The  model  at  the  door  of  the  exhibition— Her  death  .  .  .293 


CONTENTS.  xiii 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

P\GE 

Queen  Victoria  In  Paris — ^The  beginning  of  the  era  of  middle-class  excursions—  Eng- 
lish visitors  before  that — The  British  tourist  of  1855 — The  real  revenge  of  Waterloo 
— The  Englishman's  French  and  the  Frenchman's  English — The  opening  of  the 
Exhibition — The  lord  mayor  and  aldermen  in  Paris — 1  he  King  of  Portugal — All 
these  considered  so  much  "small  fry" — Napoleon  III.  goes  to  Boulogne  to  wel- 
come the  Queen — The  royal  yacht  is  delayed — The  French  hotel  proprietor  the 
greatest  artist  in  fleecing — The  Italian,  the  Swiss,  the  German,  mere  bunglers  in 
comparison — Napoleon  III.  before  the  arrival  of  the  Queen — Pondering  the  past 
— Arrival  of  the  Queen — The  Queen  lands,  followed  by  Pnnce  Albert  and  the 
royal  children — The  Emperor  rides  by  the  side  of  her  carriage — Comments  of  the 
population— An  old  salt  on  the  situation — An  old  soldier's  retort — Ihe  general 
feeling — Arrival  in  Paris — The  Parisians'  reception  of  the  Queen — A  description 
of  the  route — ^The  apartments  of  the  Queen  at  St.  Cloud — How  the  Queen  spent 
Sunday — Visits  the  art  section  of  the  Exhibition  on  Monday — Ingres  and  Horace 
Vernet  presented  to  her — Frenchmen's  ignorance  of  English  art  in  those  days — 
English  and  French  art  critics — The  Queen  takes  a  carriage  drive  through  Paris 
—Not  a  single  cry  of  "Vive  I'Angleterre  !  "  a  great  many  of  "  Vive  la  Reine  " — 
England  making  a  cats-paw  of  France— Reception  at  the  Ely s^e- Bourbon  — "  Les 
Demoiselles  de  Saint-Cyr  "  at  St.  Cloud— Alexandre  Dumas  would  have  liked  to 
see  the  Queen— Visit  to  Versailles— State  performances  at  the  Opera— Ball  at  the 
Hotel  de  Ville — ^The  Queen's  dancing— Canrobert  on  "the  Queen's  dancing  and 
her  soldiers' fighting"— Another  visit  to  the  Exhibition— B^ranger  misses  seeing 
the  Queen — "I  am  not  going  to  .<;ee  the  Queen,  but  the  woman  " — A  review  in 
the  Champs-de-Mars — A  visit  to  Napoleon's  tomb — Jerome's  absence  on  the  plea 
of  illness — Marshal  Vaillant's  reply  to  the  Emperor  when  the  latter  invites  him  to 
take  Jerome's  place— His  comments  on  the  receptions  given  by  the  Emperor  to 
foreign  sovereigns — Fetes  at  Versailles — Homeward  .....  305 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Marshal  Vaillant — ^The  beginning  of  our  acquaintance — His  stories  of  the  swash- 
bucklers of  the  First  Empire,  and  the  beaux  of  the  Restauration — Rabelaisian,  but 
clever— Marshal  Vaillant  neither  a  swashbuckler  nor  a  beau  ;  hated  both — Never 
cherished  the  slightest  illusions  about  the  efficiency  of  the  French  army — Acknowl- 
edged himself  unable  to  effect  the  desired  and  necessary  reforms — To  do  that,  a 
minister  of  war  must  become  a  fixture — Why  he  stayed— <;areful  of  the  public 
moneys,  and  of  the  Emperor's  also— Napoleon  III.'s  lavishness— An  instance  of  it 
— Vaillant  never  dazzled  by  the  grandeur  of  court  entertainments — Not  dazzled 
by  anything— His  hatred  of  wind-bags— Prince  de  Canino— Matutinal  inter- 
views— Prince  de  Canino  sends  his  seconds — Vaillant  declines  the  meeting,  and 
gives  his  reason — Vaillant  abrupt  at  the  best  of  times — A  freezing  reception — ^A 
comic  interview — Attempts  to  shirk  military  duty — Tricks — Mistakes — A  story  in 
point— More  Tricks — Sham  ailments  :  how  the  marshal  dealt  with  them — When 
the  marshal  was  not  in  an  amiable  mood— Another  interview — Vaillant's  tactics — 
"D d  annoying  to  be  wrong" — The  marshal  fond  of  science — A  very  interest- 
ing scientific  phenomenon  himself — Science  under  the  later  Bourbons — Suspicion 
of  the  soldiers  of  the  Empire — The  priesthood  and  the  police — ^The  most  godless 
republic  preferable  to  a  continuance  of  their  regime — Tlie  marshal's  dog,  Brusca — 
Her  dislike  to  civilians — Brusca's  chastity — Vaillant's  objection  to  insufficiently 
prepaid  letters— His  habit  of  missing  the  train,  notwithstanding  his  precautions — 
His  objection  to  fuss  and  public  honours  ......  2iZ 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

The  Franco-German  War — Friday,  July  15,  1870,  6  p.  m. — My  friends  "confident  of 
France  being  able  to  chastise  the  insolence  of  the  King  of  Prussia  " — I  do  not  share 
their  confidence  ;  but  do  not  expect  a  crushing  defeat — Napoleon  III.'s  presence 


XIV  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 
aggravated  the  disasters  ;  his  absence  would  not  have  averted  them — He  himself 
had  no  illusions  about  the  efficiency  of  the  army,  did  not  suspect  the  rottenness  of 
it — His  previous  endeavors  at  reorganization — The  real  drift  of  his  proposed  in- 
quiries—His plan  meant  also  compulsory  service  for  every  one— Why  the  legisla- 
ture opposed  it — ^The  makeshift  proposed  by  it — Napoleon  weary,  body  and  soul — 
His  physical  condition — A  great  consultation  and  the  upshot  of  it — Dr.  Ricord  and 
what  he  told  me — I  am  determined  to  see  and  hear,  though  not  to  speak — I  sally 
forth — The  streets  on  the  evening  of  Friday,  the  15th  of  July — The  illuminations- 
Patriotism  or  Chauvinism — The  announcement  of  a  bookseller — What  Moltke 
thought  of  it — The  opinion  of  a  dramatist  on  the  war — The  people  ;  no  horse-play — 
No  work  done  on  Saturday  and  Sunday — Cabmen — "A  man  does  not  pay  for  his 
own  funeral,  monsieur" — The  northern  station  on  Sunday — The  departing  Ger- 
mans— The  Emperor's  particular  instructions  with  regard  to  them — Alfred  de  Mus- 
sel's-" Rhin  Allemand"  — Prevost-Paradol  and  the  news  of  his  suicide— The  prob- 
able cause  of  it— A  chat  with  a  superior  officer— The  Emperor's  Sunday  receptions 
at  the  Tuileries — Promotions  in  the  army,  upon  what  basis— Good  and  bad  officers 
— ^The  officers"  mess  does  not  exist— Another  general  officer  gives  his  opinion — 
Marshal  Niel  and  Leboeuf— The  plan  of  campaign  suddenly  altered — The  reason — 
The  Emperor  leaves  St.  Cloud— His  confidence  shaken  before  then— Some  tele- 
grams fiom  the  commanders  of  divisions — Thiers  is  appealed  to,  to  stem  the  tide 
of  retrenchment;  afterwards  to  take  the  portfolio  of  war — The  Emperor's  opinion 
persistenriy  disregarded  at  the  Tuileries— Trochu— The  dancing  colonels  at  the 
Tuileries  ...........  332 


CHAPTER  XX. 

The  war — Reaction  before  the  Emperor's  ueparture — The  moral  effects  of  the  publica- 
tion of  the  draft  treaty — "  Bismarck  has  done  the  Emperor  " — The  Parisians  did 
not  like  the  Empress — The  latfer"always  anxions  to  assinme  the  regency — A  retro- 
spect— Crimean  war — The  Empress  and  Queen  Victoria — Solferino— The  regency 
of '65 — Bismarck's  milliner>-  bills — Lord  Lj^ons — Bismarck  and  the  Due  de  Gramont 
— I^rd  Lyons  does  not  foresee  war — The  republicans  and  the  war — The  Empress 
— ^Two  ministerial  councils  and  their  consequences — Mr.  Prescott-Hewett  sent  for 
— Joseph  Ferrari,  the  Italian  philosopher — The  Empress — The  ferment  in  Paris — 
"  Too  much  prologue  to  '  The  Taming  of  the  German  Shrew '  " — The  first  engage- 
ment—The "  Marseillaise  "—An  infant  performer— The  "Marseillaise"  at  the 
Com^die-Fran^aise — The  "  Marseillai.se"  by  command  of  the  Emperor — A  patri- 
otic ballet — The  courtesy  of  the  French  at  Fontenoy — The  Cafe  de  la  Paix — Gen- 
eral Beaufort  d'Hautpoul  and  Moltke — Newspaper  correspondents — Edmund 
About  tells  a  story  about  one  of  his  colleagues — News  supplied  by  the  Govern- 
ment— What  it  amounted  to — The  information  it  gave  to  the  enemy — Bazaine, 
"the  glorious"  one — Palik-^o — The  fall  of  the  Empire  does  not  date  from  Sedan, 
but  from  Woerth  and  Speicheren — Those  who  dealt  it  the  heaviest  blow — The  Era- 
pres.s,  the  Empress,  and  no  one  but  the  Empress        .....  348 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

The  4th  of  September— A  comic,  not  a  tragic  revolution— A  burlesque  Harold  and  a 
burlesque  Boadicea— The  news  of  Sedan  only  known  publicly  on  the  3rd  of  Sep- 
tember—Grief and  consternation,  but  no  rage— The  latter  feeling  imported  by  the 
bands  of  Delescluze,  Blanqui,  and  Felix  Pyat— Blanqui,  Pyat,  &  Co.  versus  Favre, 
Gambetta,  &  Co. — The  former  want  their  share  of  the  spoil,  and  only  get  it  some 
years  afterwards— Ramail  goes  to  the  Palais-Bourbon— His  report— Paris  spends 
the  night  outdoors— Thiers  a  second-rate  Talleyrand— His  journey  to  the  differ- 
ent courts  of  Europe — His  interview  with  Lord  Granville — The  4th  of  September — 
The  Imperial  eagles  disappear — The  joyousness  of  the  crowd — The  Place  de  la 
Concorde-^The  gardens  of  the  Tuileries — The  crowds  in  the  Ruede  Rivoli  scarcely 
pay  attention  to  the  Tuileries— The  soldiers  fraternizing  with  the  people,  and  pro- 
claiming the  republic  from  the  barracks'  windows — A  serious  procession — Sam- 
pierro  Gavini  gives  his  opinion — The  ''heroic  struggles  "  of  an  ICmpress,  snd  the 
crownless  coronation  of  "  le  Roi  Petaud  "—Ramail  at  the  Tuileries— How  M.  Sar-w 
dou  saved  the  palace  from  being  burned  and  sacked — The  republic  proclaimed — 
Illuminations  as  after  a  victory  ........   365 


CONTENTS.  XV 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

PAGE 
The  siege— The  Parisians  convinced  that  the  Germans  will  not  invest  Paris— Paris  be- 
comes a  vast  drill-ground,  nevertheless— The  Parisians  leave  off  singing,  but  listen 
to  itinerant  performers,  though  the  latter  no  longer  sing  the  '"  Marseillaise  "—The 
theatres  closed— The  Comedie-hrangaise  and  the  Opera— Influx  ol  the  Gardes 
Mobiles— 'I'he  Parisian  no  longer  chaffs  the  provincial,  but  does  the  honours  of  the 
city  to  him — The  stolid,  gaunt  Breton  and  the  astute  and  cynical  Norm;ind — The 
gardensof  the  Tuileries  an  artillery  park— 'Jhe  mitrailleuse  still  commands  confi- 
dence—'Ihe  papers  try  to  be  comic— Food  may  fail,  drink  will  not— My  visit  to  the 
wine  depot  at  llercy- An  official's  information— Cattle  in  the  public  squares  and 
on  the  outer  f5oulevards— Fear  with  regard  to  them— Every  man  carries  a  rifle — 
The  woods  in  the  suburbs  are  set  on  fire— 'J'he  statue  of  Sirasburg  on  the  Place  de 
la  Concorde— M.  Prudhomme  to  his  sons— The  men  who  do  not  spout— T  he  French 
shopkeeper  and  bourgeois— A  stor^'  of  his  greed— He  reveals  the  whereabouts 
of  the  cable  laid  on  the  bed  of  the  Seme— Obscure  heroes— Would-be  Ravaillacs 
and  Balthazar  Gerards— Inventors  of  schemes  for  the  instant  annihilation  of  all  the 
Germans— A  musical  mitrailleuse— An  exhibition  and  lecture  at  the  Alcazar— The 
last  train— Trains  converted  into  dwellings  for  the  suburban  poor— Interior  of  a 
railway  station— The  spy  mania— Where  the  Parisians  ought  to  have  looked  for 
spies— I  am  arrested  as  a  spy— A  chat  with  the  officer  in  charge— A  terrible-looking 
J^ni^«  •  •  •  .'"—-: r- 373 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

r    . 

The  siege — The  food-supply  of  Paris — Sow  and  what  the  Parisians  eat  and  drink — 
Bread,  meat,  and  wme — Alcoholism — The  waste  among  the  London  poor — The 
French  take  a  lesson  from  the  alien — The  Irish  at  La  Villette — A  whisper  of  the 
horses  being  doomed — M.  Gagne — The  various  attempts  to  introduce  horseflesh — 
The  journals  deliver  their  opinions — The  supply  of  horseflesh  as  it  stood  in  '70 — 
The  Academie  des  Sciences— Gelatine — Kitchen  gardens  on  the  balcony — M. 
Lockroy's  experiment — M.  Pierre  Joigneux  and  the  Englishman— If  cabbages, 
why  not  mushrooms  ? — There  is  still  a  kitchen  garden  left — Cream  cheese  from  the 
moon,  to  be  fetched  by  Gambetta— His  departure  in  a  balloon — Nadar  and  Napo- 
leon III.— Carrier-pigeons— An  aerial  telegraph— Offers  to  cross  the  Prussian  lines 
— The  theatres — A  performance  at  the  Cirque  National — "  Le  Rois'amuse,"  at  the 
Theatre  de  Montmartre— A  dejeuner  at  Du rand's— Weber  and  Beethoven— Long 
winter  nights  without  fuel  or  gas — The  price  of  provisions — The  Parisian's  good- 
humour— His  wit— The  greed  of  the  shopkeeper— Culinary  literature— More's 
"Utopia"— An  ex-lieutenant  of  the  Foreign  Legion— He  gives  us  a  breakfast- 
He  delivers  a  lecture  on  food— Joseph,  his  servant — Milk — The  slender  resources 
of  the  poor— I  interview  an  employ^  of  the  State  Pawnshop — Statistics— Hidden 
provisions — Bread — Prices  of  provisions — New  Year's  Day,  and  New  Year's  din- 
ners— The  bombardment — No  more  bread — The  end  of  the  siege    .  .  .   387 


CHAPTER   XXIV. 

Some  men  of  the  Commune— Cluseret— His  opinion  of  Rossel— His  opinion  of  Bergeret 
—What  Cluseret  was  fighting  for— Thiers  and  Abraham  Lincoln— Raoul  Rigault 
on  horseback — Theophlle  Terre- Ferre  and  Gil-P^r^s,  the  actor— The  comic  men  of 
the  Commune— Gambon — Jourde,  one  of  the  most  vahiable  of  the  lot — His  finan- 
cial abilities— His  endeavours  to  save — Jourde  at  Godillot's— Colonel  Maxime  Lis- 
bonne — The  l-Miror's  recollections  of  him — General  Dombrowski  and  General  la 
Cecilia — A  soiree  at  the  Tuileries — A  gala-performance  at  the  Opera  Comique — 
The  death  knell  of  the  Commune  ..,...,  417 


AN  ENGLISHAUN  IN  PARIS, 


CHAPTER  I. 

Long  before  Baron  Haussmann  began  his  architectural 
transformation,  many  parts  of  Paris  had  undergone  changes, 
perceptible  only  to  those  who  had  been  brought  up  among 
the  inhabitants,  though  distinct  from  them  in  nationality, 
education,  habits,  and  tastes.  Paris  became  to  a  certain 
extent,  and  not  altogether  voluntarily,  cosmopolitan  before  the 
palatial  mansions,  the  broad  avenues,  the  handsome  public 
squares  which  subsequently  excited  the  admiration  of  the 
civilized  world  had  been  dreamt  of,  and  while  its  outer  aspect 
was  as  yet  scarcely  modified.  This  was  mainly  due  to  the 
establishment  of  railways,  which  caused  in  the  end  large  in- 
fluxes of  foreigners  and  provincials,  who,  as  it  were,  drove  the 
real  Parisian  from  his  haunts.  Those  visitors  rarely  penetrated 
in  large  numbers  to  the  very  heart  of  the  Quartier-Latin.  When 
they  crossed  the  bridges  that  span  the  Seine,  it  was  to  see  the 
Sorbonne,  the  Pantheon,  the  Observatory,  the  Odeon,  and  the 
Luxembourg  ;  they  rarely  stayed  after  nightfall.  The  Prado, 
the  Theatre  Bobino,  the  students'  taverns,  escaped  their  observa- 
tion when  there  was  really  something  to  see  ;  and  now,  when 
the  Closerie  des  Lilas  has  become  the  Bal  Bullier,  when  the 
small  theatre  has  been  demolished,  and  when  the  taverns  are  in 
no  way  distinguished  from  other  Parisian  taverns — when,  in 
short,  commonplace  pervades  the  whole — people  flock  thither 
very  often.  But  during  the  whole  of  the  forties,  and  even  later, 
the7m-'e  gauche,  with  its  Quartier-Latin  and  adjacent  Faubourg 
St.  Germain  were  almost  entirely  sacred  from  the  desecrating 
stare  of  the  deliberate  sight-seer ;  and,  consequently,  the  former 
especially,  preserved  its  individuality,  not  only  materially,  but 
mentally  and  morally — immorally  would  perhaps  have  been 
the  word  that  would  have  risen  to  the  lips  of  the  observer  who 
lacked  the  time  and  inclination  to  study  the  life  led  there 
deeper  than  it  appeared  merely  on  the  surface.     For  though 


6  AN-  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

there  was  a  good  deal  of  roystering  and  practical  joking,  and 
short-lasted  liaison,  there  was  little  of  deliberate  vice,  of 
strategic  libertinism — if  I  may  be  allowed  to  coin  the  expression. 
True,  every  Jack  had  his  Jill,  but,  as  a  rule,  it  was  Jill  who  had 
set  the  ball  rolling. 

The  Quartier-Latin  not  only  sheltered  sucking  lawyers  and 
doctors,  budding  professors  and  savants  and  litterateurs,  but 
artists  whose  names  have  since  then  become  world-renowned. 
It  was  with  some  of  these  that  T  was  most  thrown  in  contact 
in  that  quarter,  partly  from  inclination,  because  from  my 
earliest  youth  I  have  been  fonder  of  pictures  than  of  books, 
partly  because  at  that  time  I  had  already  seen  so  many  authors 
of  fame,  most  of  whom  were  the  intimate  acquaintances  of  a 
connection  of  mine,  that  I  cared  little  to  seek  the  society  of 
those  who  had  not  arrived  at  that  stage.  I  was  very  young, 
and,  though  not  devoid  of  faith  in  possibilities,  too  mentally 
indolent  when  judgment  in  that  respect  involved  the  sitting 
down  to  manuscripts.  It  was  so  much  easier  and  charming  to 
be  able  to  discover  a  budding  genius  by  a  mere  glance  at  a 
good  sketch,  even  when  the  latter  was  drawn  in  charcoal  on  a 
not  particularly  clean  "  whitewashed  "  wall. 

I  was  scarcely  more  than  a  stripling  when  one  morning  such 
a  sketch  appeared  on  the  walls  of  Paris,  and  considerably 
mystified,  while  it  at  the  same  time  amused,  the  inhabitants  of 
the  capital.  It  was  not  the  work  of  what  we  in  England  would 
call  a  "  seascape  and  mackerel  artist,"  for  no  such  individual 
stood  by  to  ask  toll  of  the  admirers  ;  it  was  not  an  advertise- 
ment, for  in  those  days  that  mode  of  mural  publicity  was  scarcely 
born,  let  alone  in  its  infancy,  in  Paris.  What,  then,  was  this 
colossal,  monumental  nose,  the  like  of  which  I  have  only  seen 
on  the  faces  of  four  human  beings,  one  of  whom  was  Hyacinth, 
the  famous -actor  of  the  Palais- Royal,  the  other  three  being  M. 
d'Argout,  the  Governor  of  the  Bank  of  France;  M.  de  Jussieu, 
the  Director  of  the  Jardin  des  Plantes  ;  and  Lasailly,  Balzac's 
secretary  ?  What  was  this  colossal  nose,  with  a  ridiculously 
small  head  and  body  attached  to  it  ?  The  nasal  organ  was  cer- 
tainly phenomenal,  even  allowing  for  the  permissible  exagger- 
ation of  the  caricaturist,  but  it  could  surely  not  be  the  only 
title  of  its  owner  to  this  sudden  leap  into  fame  .-*  Was  it  a  per- 
forming nose,  or  one  endowed  with  extraordinary  powers  of 
smell  ?  I  puzzled  over  the  question  for  several  days,  until  one 
morning  I  happened  to  run  against  my  old  tutor,  looking  at  the 
picture  and  laughing  till  the  tears  ran  down  his  wrinkled  cheeks. 
It  was  a  positive  pleasure  to  see  him.     "  C'est  bien  lui,  c'est 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  .         7 

bien  lui,"  he  exclaimed  ;  "  c'est  absolument  son  portrait  crache  !  " 
"  Do  you  know  the  original  ?  "  I  asked.  "  Mais,  sans  doute, 
je  le  connais,  c'est  un  ami  de  mon  fils ;  du  reste,  toutl  le  monde 
connait  Bouginier."  "  But  I  do  not  know  him,"  I  protested, 
feeling  very  much  ashamed  of  my  ignorance.  "  Ah,  you  !  that's 
quite  a  different  thing  ;  you  do  not  live  in  the  Quartier-Latin, 
but  everybody  there  knows  him."  From  that  moment  1  knew 
no  rest  until  I  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  Bouginier,  which 
was  not  very  difficult ;  and  through  him  I  became  a  frequent 
visitor  to  "  La  Childebert,"  which  deserves  a  detailed  descrip- 
tion, because,  though  it  was  a  familiar  haunt  to  many  Parisians 
of  my  time  with  a  taste  for  Bohemian  society,  I  doubt  whether 
many  Englishmen,  save  (the  late)  Mr.  Blanchard  Jerrold  and 
one  of  the  Mayhews,  ever  set  foot  there,  and  even  they  could 
not  have  seen  it  in  its  prime. 

But  before  I  deal  with  "  La  Childebert,"  I  must  say  a  few 
words  about  Bouginier,  who,  contrary  to  my  expectations,  owed 
his  fame  solely  to  \i\s>  proboscis.  He  utterly  disappeared  from 
the  artistic  horizon  in  a  few  years,  but  his  features  still  live  in 
the  memory  of  those  who  knew  him  through  a  statuette  in  ferra 
cotta  modelled  by  Dantan  the  younger.  During  the  reign  of 
Louis-Philippe,  Dantan  took  to  that  branch  of  art  as  a  relaxa- 
tion from  his  more  serious  work ;  he  finally  abandoned  it  after 
he  had  made  Madame  Malibran  burst  into  tears,  instead  of  mak- 
ing her  laugh,  as,he  intended,  at  her  own  caricature.  Those  curi- 
ous in  suchmattersmay  seeBouginier's  presentment  in  a  medal- 
lion on  the  frontispiece  of  the  Passage  du  Caire,  amidst  the  Egyp- 
tian divinities  and  sphinxes.  As  a  matter  of  course,  the  spec- 
tator asks  himself  why  this  modern  countenance  should  find 
itself  in  such  incongruous  company,  and  he  comes  almost  nat- 
urally to  the  conclusion  that  Bouginier  was  the  owner,  or  per- 
haps the  architect,  of  this  arcade,  almost  exclusively  tenanted 
— until  very  recently — by  lithographers,  printers,  etc.  The  con- 
clusion, however,  would  be  an  erroneous  one.  Bouginier,  as 
far  as  is  known,  never  had  any  property  in  Paris  or  elsewhere  ; 
least  of  all  was  he  vain  enough  to  perpetuate  his  own  features 
in  that  manner,  even  if  he  had  had  an  opportunity,  but  he  had 
not ;  seeing  that  he  was  not  an  architect,  but  simply  a  painter, 
of  no  great  talents  certainly,  but,  withal,  modest  and  sensible, 
and  as  such  opposed  to,  or  at  any  rate  not  sharing,  the  crazes 
of  mediaevalism,  romanticism,  and  other /^wj-  in  which  the  young 
painters  of  that  day  indulged,  and  which  they  thought  fit  to 
emphasize  in  public  and  among  one  another  by  eccentricities 
of  costume  and  language,  supposed  to  be  in  harmony  with  the 


8         •  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

periods  they  had  adapted  for  illustration.  This  absence  of  en- 
thusiasm one  way  or  the  other  aroused  the  ire  of  his  fellow- 
lodgers  at  the  "  Childebert,"  and  one  of  them,  whose  pencil 
was  more  deft  at  that  kind  of  work  than  those  of  the  others, 
executed  their  vengeance,  and  drew  Bouginier's  picture  on  the 
"  fag  end  *'  of  a  dead  wall  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Church  of  St. 
Germain-des-Pres.  The  success  was  instantaneous  and  posi- 
tively overwhelming,  though  truth  compels  one  to  state  that  this 
was  the  only  flash  of  genius  that  illumined  that  young  fellow's 
career.  His  name  was  Fourreau,  and  one  looks  in  vain  for  his 
name  in  the  biographical  dictionaries  or  encyclopedias  of  artists. 
Fate  has  even  been  more  cruel  to  him  than  to  his  model. 

For  the  moment,  however,  the  success,  as  I  have  already 
said,  was  overwhelming.  In  less  than  a  fortnight  there  was 
not  a  single  wall  in  Paris  and  its  outskirts  without  a  Bouginier 
on  its  surface.  Though  Paris  was  considerably  less  in  area 
than  it  is  now,  it  wanted  a  Herculean  effort  to  accomplish  this. 
No  man,  had  he  been  endowed  with  as  many  arms  as  Briareus, 
would  have  sufificed  for  it.  Nor  would  it  have  done  to  trust  to 
more  or  less  skilful  copyists — they  might  have  failed  to  catch 
the  likeness,  which  was  really  an  admirable  one  ;  so  the  follow- 
ing device  was  hit  upon.  Fourreau  himself  cut  a  number  of 
stencil  plates  in  brown  paper,  and,  provided  with  them,  an 
army  of  Childebertians  started  every  night  in  various  direc- 
tions, Fourreau  and  a  few  undoubtedly  clever  youths  heading 
the  detachments,  and  filling  in  the  blanks  by  hand. 

Meanwhile  summer  had  come,  and  with  it  the  longing  among 
the  young  Tintos  to  breathe  the  purer  air  of  the  country,  to 
sniff  the  salt  breezes  of  the  ocean.  As  a  matter  of  course, 
they  were  not  all  ready  to  start  at  the  same  time,  but  being 
determined  to  follow  the  same  route,  to  assemble  at  a  common 
goal,  the  contingent  that  was  to  leave  a  fortnight  later  than  the 
first  arranged  to  join  the  others  wherever  they  might  be. 

"  But  how  ?  "  was  the  question  of  those  who  were  left  behind. 
"  Very  simply  indeed,"  was  the  answer ;  "  we'll  go  by  the 
Barriere  dTtalie.  You'll  have  but  to  look  at  the  walls  along 
the  road,  and  you'll  find  your  waybill." 

So  said,  so  done.  A  fortnight  after,  the  second  division 
left  head-quarters  and  made  straight  for  the  Barriere  d'ltalie. 
But  when  outside  the  gates  they  stood  undecided.  For  one 
moment  only.  The  next  they  caught  sight  of  a  magnificent 
Bouginier  on  a  wall  next  to  the  excise  office — of  a  Bouginier 
whose  outstretched  index  pointed  to  the  Fontainebleau  road. 
After  that,  all  went  well.     As  far  as  Marseilles  their  Bouginier 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  9 

no  more  failed  them  than  the  clouds  of  smoke  and  fire  failed 
the  Israelites  in  the  wilderness.  At  the  seaport  town  they  lost 
the  track  for  a  little  while,  rather  through  their  want  of  faith 
in  the  ingenuity  of  their  predecessors  than  through  the  latter's 
lack  of  such  ingenuity.  They  had  the  Mediterranean  in  front 
of  them,  and  even  if  they  found  a  Bouginier  depicted  some- 
where on  the  shore,  his  outstretched  index  could  only  point  to 
the  restless  waves  ;  he  could  do  nothing  more  definite.  Con- 
siderably depressed,  they  were  going  down  the  Cannebiere, 
when  they  caught  sight  of  the  features  of  their  guiding  star  on 
a  panel  between  the  windows  of  a  shipping  office.  His  out- 
stretched index  did  not  point  this  time  ;  it  was  placed  over  a 
word,  and  that  word  spdt  "  Malta."  They  took  ship  as  quickly 
as  possible  for  the  ancient  habitation  of  the  Knights-Templar. 
On  the  walls  of  the  Customs  in  the  island  was  Bouginier,  with  a 
scroll  issuing  from  his  nostrils,  on  which  was  inscribed  the  word 
"  Alexandria."  A  similar  indication  met  their  gaze  at  the 
Pyramids,  and  at  last  the  second  contingent  managed  to  come 
up  with  the  first  amidst  the  ruins  of  Thebes  at  the  very  mo- 
ment when  the  word  "  Suez  "  was  being  traced  as  issuing  from 
Bouginier's  mouth. 

Among  the  company  was  a  young  fellow  of  the  name  of 
Berthier,  who  became  subsequently  an  architect  of  some  note. 
The  Passage  du  Caire,  as  I  have  already  observed,  was  in  those 
days  the  head-quarters  of  the  lithographic-printing  business  in 
general,  but  there  was  one  branch  which  flourished  more  than 
the  rest,  namely,  that  of  lettres  dcfairc part*  menus  of  restau- 
rants and  visiting-cards.  The  two  first-named  documents  were, 
in  common  with  most  printed  matter  intended  for  circulation, 
subject  to  a  stamp  duty,  but  in  the  early  days  of  the  Second 
Empire  Louis-Napoleon  had  it  taken  off.  To  mark  their  sense 
of  the  benefit  conferred,  the  lithographic  firmsf  determines  to 
have  the  arcade,  which  stood  in  sad  need  of  repair,  restored, 
and  Berthier  was  selected  for  the  task.  The  passage  wr.o 
originally  built  to  commemorate  Bonaparte's  victories  in  Egypt, 
and  when  Berthier  received  the  commission,  he  could  think  cf 
no  more  fitting  facade  than  the  reproduction  of  a  house  a!; 
Karnac.  He  fondly  remembered  his  youthful  excursion  to  the 
land  of  Pharaohs,  and  at  the  same  time  the  image  of  Bouginier 

*  The  "  lettre  de  f aire  part"  is  an  intimation  of  a  birth,  [marriage,  or  death  sent  to  the 
friends,  and  even  mere  acquaintances,  of  a  family. — Editor. 

t  The  lithographers  were  almost  the  first  in  France  to  form  a  co-operative  society,  but  not 
in  the  sense  of  the  Rochdale  pioneers,  which  da^s  from  about  the  same  period.  The  La- 
crampe  Association  was  for  supplying  lithograpnrc  work.  It  began  in  the  Passage  du  Caire 
with  ten  members,  and  in  a  short  time  numbered  two  hundred  workmen. — Ediior. 


lo  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

uprose  before  him.  That  is  why  the  presentment  of  the  latter 
may  be  seen  up  to  this  day  on  the  frieze  of  a  building  in  the 
frowsiest  part  of  Paris. 

If  I  have  dwelt  somewhat  longer  on  Bouginier  than  the  im- 
portance of  the  subject  warranted,  it  was  mainly  to  convey  an 
idea  of  the  spirit  of  mischief,  of  the  love  of  practical  joking, 
that  animated  most  of  the  inmates  of  "  La  Childebert."  As  a 
rule  their  devilries  were  innocent  enough.  The  pictorial  per- 
secution of  Bouginier  is  about  the  gravest  thing  that  could  be 
laid  to  their  charge,  and  the  victim,  like  the  sensible  fellow  he 
was,  rather  enjoyed  it  than  otherwise.  Woe,  however,  to  the 
starched  bourgeois  who  had  been  decoyed  into  their  lair,  or 
even  to  the  remonstrating  comrade  with  a  serious  turn  of  mind, 
who  wished  to  pursue  his  studies  in  peace  !  His  life  was  made 
a  burden  to  him,  for  the  very  building  lent  itself  to  all  sorts  of 
nocturnal  surprises  and  of  guerilla  sorties.  Elsewhere,  when  a 
man's  door  was  shut,  he  might  reasonably  count  upon  a  certain 
amount  of  privacy  ;  the  utmost  his  neighbors  could  do  was  to 
make  a  noise  overhead  or  by  his  side.  At  the  "  Childebert  " 
such  privacy  was  out  of  the  question.  There  was  not  a  door 
that  held  on  its  hinges,  not  a  window  that  could  be  opened  or 
shut  at  will,  not  a  ceiling  that  did  not  threaten  constantly  to 
crush  you  beneath  its  weight,  not  a  floor  that  was  not  in  dan- 
ger of  giving  way  beneath  you  and  landing  you  in  the  room 
below,  not  a  staircase  that  did  not  shake  under  your  very  steps, 
however  light  they  might  be  ;  in  short,  the  place  was  a  wonder- 
ful illustration  of  "  how  the  rotten  may  hold  together,"  even 
if  it  be  not  gently  handled. 

The  origin  of  the  structure,  as  it  stood  then,  was  wrapt  in 
mystery.  It  was  five  or  six  stories  high,  and  must  have  at- 
tained that  altitude  before  the  first  Revolution,  because  the 
owner,  a  Madame  Legendre,  who  bought  it  for  assignats 
amounting  in  real  value  to  about  one  pound  sterling,  when 
the  clergy's  property  was  sold  by  the  nation,  was  known  never 
to  have  spent  a  penny  upon  it  either  at  the  time  of  the  pur- 
chase or  subsequently,  until  she  was  forced  by  a  tenant  more 
ingenious  or  more  desperate  than  the  rest.  That  it  could  not 
have  been  part  of  the  abbey  and  adjacent  monastery  built  by 
Childebert  I.,  \/ho  was  buried  there  in  558,  was  very  certain. 
It  is  equally  improbable  that  the  Cardinal  dc  Bissy,  who  opened 
a  street  upon  the  site  of  the  erstwhile  abbey  in  the  year  of 
Louis  XIV.'g  death,  would  have  erected  so  high  a  pile  for  the 
mere  accommodation  of  the  pensioners  of  the  former  monastery," 
at  a  time  when  high  piles  were  the  exception.     Besides,  the 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  1 1 

Nos.  I  and  3,  known  to  have  been  occupied  by  those  pen- 
sioners, all  of  whose  rooms  communicated  with  one  another, 
were  not  more  than  two  stories  high.  In  short,  the  original 
intention  of  the  builder  of  the  house  No.  9,  yclept "  La  Childe- 
bert,"  has  never  been  explained.  The  only  tenant  in  the  Rue 
Childebert  who  might  have  thrown  a  light  on  the  subject  had 
died  before  the  caravansary  attained  its  fame.  He  was  more 
than  a  hundred  years  old,  and  had  married  five  times.  His 
fifth  wife  was  only  eighteen  when  she  became  Madame  Chanfort, 
and  survived  him  for  many,  many  years.  She  was  a  very 
worthy  soul,  a  downright  providence  to  the  generally  impecuni- 
ous painters,  whom  she  used  to  feed  at  prices  which  even 
then  were  ridiculously  low.  Three  eggs,  albeit  fried  in  grease 
instead  of  butter,  for  the  sum  of  three-halfpence,  and  a  dinner, 
including  wine,  for  sixpence,  could  not  have  left  much  profit ; 
but  Madame  Chanfort  always  declared  that  she  had  enough 
to  live  upon,  and  that  she  supplied  the  art-students  with  food 
at  cost  price  because  she  would  not  be  without  their  company. 
At  her  death,  in  '57,  two  years  before  the  ''  Childebert "  and 
the  street  of  the  same  name  disappeared,  there  was  a  sale  of 
her  chattels,  and  over  a  hundred  portraits  and  sketches  of  her, 
"  in  her  habit  as  she  lived,"  came  under  the  hammer.  To 
show  that  the  various  occupants  of  "  La  Childebert "  could 
do  more  than  make  a  noise  and  play  practical  jokes,  I  may 
state  that  not  a  single  one  of  these  productions  fetched  less 
than  fifty  francs — mere  crayon  studies ;  while  there  were  sev- 
eral that  sold  for  two  hundred  and  three  hundred  francs,  and 
two  studies  in  oil  brought  respectively  eight  hundred  francs 
and  twelve  hundred  francs.  Nearly  every  one  of  the  young 
men  who  had  signed  these  portraits  had  made  a  name  for 
himself.  The  latter  two  were  signed  respectively  Paul  Dela- 
roche  and  Tony  Johannot. 

Nevertheless,  to  those  whose  love  of  peace  and  quietude 
was  stronger  than  their  artistic  instincts  and  watchful  admira- 
tion of  budding  genius,  the  neighborhood  of  "  La  Childebert  " 
was  a  sore  and  grievous  trial.  At  times  the  street  itself,  not  a 
very  long  or  wide  one,  was  like  Pandemonium  let  loose ;  it 
was  when  there  was  an  "  At  Home  "  at  "  La  Childebert,"  and 
such  functions  were  frequent,  especially  at  the  beginning  of 
the  months.  These  gatherings,  as  a  rule,  partook  of  the  nat- 
ure of  fancy  dress  conversazio7ies ;  for  dancing,  owing  to  the 
shakiness  of  the  building,  had  become  out  of  the  question, 
even  with  such  dare-devils  as  the  tenants.  What  the  latter 
prided  themselves  upon  most  was  their  strict  adherence  to 


12  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

the  local  color  of  the  periods  they  preferred  to  resuscitate. 
Unfortunately  for  the  tranquillity  of  the  neighborhood,  they 
pretended  to  carry  out  this  revival  in  its  smallest  details,  not 
only  in  their  artistic  productions,  but  in  their  daily  lives. 
The  actor  who  blacked  himself  all  over  to  play  Othello  was  as 
nothing  to  them  in  his  attempted  realism,  because  we  may 
suppose  that  he  got  rid  of  his  paint  before  returning  to  the 
everyday  world.  Not  so  the  inmates  of  "  La  Childebert." 
They  were  minstrels,  or  corsairs,  or  proud  and  valiant  knights 
from  the  moment  they  got  up  till  the  moment  they  went  to 
bed,  and  many  of  them  even  scorned  to  stretch  their  weary 
limbs  on  so  effeminate  a  contrivance  as  a  modern  mattress, 
but  endeavored  to  keep  up  the  illusion  by  lying  on  a  rush- 
bestrewn  floor. 

I  am  not  sufficiently  learned  to  trace  these  various  and  suc- 
ceeding disguises  to  their  literary  and  theatrical  causes,  for  it 
was  generally  a  new  book  or  a  new  play  that  set  the  ball  roll- 
ing in  a  certain  direction ;  nor  can  I  vouch  for  the  chronologi- 
cal accuracy  and  completeness  of  my  record  in  that  respect, 
but  I  remember  some  phases  of  that  ever-shifting  masquerade. 
When  I  was  a  very  little  boy,  I  was  struck  more  than  once 
with  the  sight  of  young  men  parading  the  streets  in  doublets, 
trunk  hose,  their  flowing  locks  adorned  with  velvet  caps  and 
birds'  wings,  their  loins  girded  with  short  swords.  And  yet  it 
was  not  carnival  time.  No  one  seemed  to  take  particular  no- 
tice of  them ;  the  Parisians  by  that  time  had  probably  got  used 
to  their  vagaries.  Those  competent  in  such  matters  have  since 
told  me  that  the  ''  get-up  "  was  inspired  by  "  La  Gaule  Poeti- 
que  "  of  M.  de  Marchangy,  the  novels  of  M.  d'Arlincourt,  and 
the  kindred  stilted  literature  that  characterized  the  beginning 
of  the  Restoration.  Both  these  gentlemen,  from  their  very 
hatred  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans  of  the  first  Empire,  created 
heroes  of  fiction  still  more  ridiculous  than  the  latter,  just  as 
Metternich,  through  his  weariness  of  the  word  "fraternity," 
said  that  if  he  had  a  brother  he  would  call  him  "  cousin."  A 
few  years  later,  the  first  translation  of  Byron's  works  produced 
its  effect ;  and  then  came  Defauconpret,  with  his  very  credita- 
ble French  versions  of  Walter  Scott.  The  influence  of  Paul 
Delaroche  and  his  co-champions  of  the  cause  of  romanticism, 
the  revolution  of  July,  the  dramas  of  Alexandre  Dumas  and 
Victor  Hugo,  all  added  their  quota  to  the  prevailing  confusion 
in  the  matter  of  style  and  period,  and  early  in  the  forties  there 
were  at  the  "  Childebert  "  several  camps,  fraternizing  in  every- 
thing save  in  their  dress  and  speech,  which  were  the  visible 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 


13 


and  audible  manifestation  of  their  individual  predilection  for 
certain  periods  of  history.  For  instance,  it  was  no  uncommon 
thing  to  hear  the  son  of  a  concierge,  whose  real  or  fancied 
vocation  had  made  him  embrace  the  artistic  profession,  swear 
by  "  the  faith  of  his  ancestors,"  while  the  impoverished  scion 
of  a  noble  house  replied  by  calling  him  "  a  bloated  reminis- 
cence of  a  feudal  and  superstitious  age." 

At  the  conversaztofies  which  I  mentioned  just  now,  the  guests 
of  the  inmates  of  "  La  Childebert,"  not  only  managed  to  out- 
Herod  Herod  in  diction  and  attire,  but  to  heighten  illusion 
still  further,  adopted  as  far  as  possible  the  mode  of  convey- 
ance supposed  to  have  been  employed  by  their  prototypes. 
The  classicists,  and  those  still  addicted  to  the  illustration  of 
Greek  and  Roman  mythology,  though  nominally  in  the  mino- 
rity at  the  "  Childebert  "  itself,  were,  as  a  rule,  most  success- 
ful in  those  attempts.  The  ass  that  had  borne  Silenus,  the 
steeds  that  had  drawn  the  chariot  of  the  triumphant  Roman 
warrior,  the  she-goat  that  was  supposed  to  have  suckled  Ju- 
piter, were  as  familiar  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  Rue  Childebert 
as  the  cats  and  mongrels  of  their  own  households.  The  ob- 
structions caused  by  the  former  no  longer  aroused  their  ire  ; 
but  when,  one  evening,  Romulus  and  Remus  made  their  ap- 
pearance, accompanied  by  the  legendary  she-wolf,  they  went 
mad  with  terror.  The  panic  was  at  its  height  when,  with  an 
utter  disregard  of  mythological  tradition,  Hercules  walked  up 
the  street,  leading  the  Nemaean  lion.  Then  the  aid  of  the 
police  was  invoked ;  but  neither  the  police  nor  the  national 
guards,  who  came  after  them,  dared  to  tackle  the  animals, 
though  they  might  have  done  so  safely,  because  the  supposed 
wolf  was  a  great  dane,  and  the  lion  a  mastiff,  but  so  marvel- 
lously padded  and  painted  as  to  deceive  any  but  the  most 
practised  eye.  The  culprits,  however,  did  not  reveal  the  secret 
until  they  were  at  the  commissary  of  police's  office,  enjoying  the 
magnificent  treat  of  setting  the  whole  of  the  neighborhood  in 
an  uproar  on  their  journey  thither,  and  of  frightening  that  offi- 
cial on  their  arrival. 

In  fact,  long  before  I  knew  them,  the  inmates  of  the  "  Childe- 
bert "  had  become  a  positive  scourge  to  the  neighborhood, 
while  the  structure  itself  threatened  ruin  to  everything  around 
it.  Madame  Legendre  absolutely  refused  to  do  any  repairs. 
She  did  not  deny  that  she  had  bought  the  place  cheap,  but  she 
pointed  out  at  the  same  time  that  the  rents  she  charged  were 
more  than  modest,  and  that  eight  times  out  of  ten  she  did  not 
get  them.     In  the  beginning  of  her  ownership  she  had  em- 


14  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

ployed  a  male  concierge,  to  prevent,  as  it  were,  the  wholesale 
flitting  which  was  sure  to  follow  a  more  strenuous  application 
for  arrears  upon  which  she  ventured  now  and  then  in  those 
days.  That  was  towards  the  end  of  the  Empire,  when  the 
disciples  of  David  had  been  reduced  to  a  minority  in  the  place 
by  those  of  Lethiere,  who  sounded  the  first  note  of  revolt 
against  the  unconditional  classicism  of  the  illustrious  member 
of  the  convention.  If  all  the  disciples  of  the  Creole  painter  had 
not  his  genius,  most  of  them  had  his  courage  and  readiness  to 
draw  th-e  sword  on  the  smallest  provocation,*  and  the  various 
Cerberi  employed  by  Madame  Legendre  to  enforce  her  claims 
had  to  fly  one  after  another.  The  rumor  of  the  danger  of  the 
situation  had  spread,  and  at  last  Madame  Legendre  could  find 
no  man  to  fill  it,  except  on  monetary  conditions  with  which  she 
would  not — perhaps  could  not — comply.  From  that  day  forth 
she  employed  a  woman,  who  was  safe,  because  she  had  been 
told  to  let  "lawless  impecuniosity  "  take  its  course,  and  it  was 
recorded  that  pecuniarily  the  proprietress  was  the  better  off 
for  this  change  of  tactics. 

I  am  willing  to  repeat  that  record,  which,  if  true,  did  credit 
to  the  head  of  the  landlady  and  the  hearts  of  her  tenants,  but 
am  compelled  to  supplement  it  by  a  different  version.  When 
I  saw  the  "  Childebert"  in  '37  or  '38,  no  man  in  his  senses 
would  have  paid  rent  for  any  one  room  in  it  on  the  two  top 
stories  ;  he  might  as  well  have  lived  in  the  streets.  It  was  an 
absolute  case  of  the  bottomless  sedan  chair  in  which  two  of  his 
fellow-porters  put  Pat ;  "  but  for  the  honor  of  the  thing,  he 
might  have  walked."  Consequently  the  tenants  there  were 
rarely  harassed  for  their  rent ;  if  they  paid  it  at  all,  it  was  so 
much  unexpected  gain.  It  happened,  however,  that  now  and 
then  by  mistake  a  youngster  was  put  there  who  had  scruples 
about  discharging  his  liabilities  in  that  respect ;  and  one  of 
these  was  Emile  Lapierre,  who  subsequently  became  a  land- 
scape-painter of  note.  One  night,  after  he  had  taken  up  his 
quarters  there,  \\\i  floodgates  of  heaven  opened  over  Paris. 
Lapierre  woke  up  amidst  a  dekige.  I  need  not  say  that  there 
were  no  bells  at  the  "  Childebert ;"  nevertheless  there  was  no 
fear  of  dying  unattended,  provided  one  could  shout,  for  there 
was  always  a  party  turning  night  into  day,  or  hailing  the  smil- 
ing morn  before  turning  in.  Lapierre's  shouts  found  a  ready 
echo  ;  and  in  a  few  moments  the  old  concierge  was  on  the  spot. 

*  Guillaume  Lethiere,  whose  real  name  was  Guillon,  was  a  native  of  Guadeloupe. 
He  fought  and  seriously  wounded  several  officers  because  the  latter  had  objected  to  "  a  mere 
dauber  wearing  moustaches."  He  was  obliged  to  leave  Paris,  but,  thanks  to  the  protection 
of  Lucien  Bonaparte,  was  appointed  Director  of  the  French  Academic  at  Rome.— Editor. 


JjV  englishman  in  PARIS.  15 

"  Go  and  fetch  a  boat — go  and  fetch  a  boat  !  "  yelled 
Lapierre.     "  I  am  drowning  !  "  yelled  Lapierfe. 

"  There  are  none  in  the  quarter,"  replied  the  old  woman 
innocently,  thinking  he  was  in  earnest, 

"  Then  go  and  fetch  Madame  Legendre,  to  show  her  the 
pond  she  is  letting  me  instead  of  the  room  for  which  I  pay 
her." 

"  Madame  would  not  come,  not  even  for  you,  monsieur,  who 
are  the  only  one  punctual  with  your  rent ;  besides,  if  she  did 
come,  she  would  have  no  repairs  done." 

"  Oh,  she'll  have  no  repairs  done  !  We'll  soon  find  out.  I 
think  I'll  make  her,"  screamed  Lapierre  ;  and  he  kept  his 
word. 

It  was  the  only  instance  of  Madame  Legendre  having  had 
to  capitulate,  and  I  have  alluded  to  it  before  r  it  remains  for 
me  to  tell  how  it  was  done. 

Lapierre,  contrary  to  the  precept,  allowed  the  sun  to  go 
down  upon  his  wrath,  in  the  hope  perhaps  of  inducing  Madamo 
Legendre  to  change  her  oft-announced  decision  of  doing  no 
repairs  ;  but  he  rose  betimes  next  morning,  and  when  there 
was  no  sign  of  workmen,  he  proceeded  to  carry  out  his  plan. 
The  floors  of  the  "  Childebert "  were  made  of  brick,  and  he 
simply  removed  three  or  four  squares  from  his,  after  which  ho 
went  downstairs  and  recruited  half  a  dozen  water-carriers,  and 
bade  them  empty  their  full  pails  into  the  opening  he  had  made. 
I  shall  probably  have  some  remarks  to  make  elsewhere  about 
the  water-supply  of  Paris  ;  at  present  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that 
in  those  days  there  was  not  a  single  house  in  the  capital  which 
was  not  dependent  upon  those  Auvergnats  who  carried  the 
commodity  round  in  barrels  on  carts  drawn  by  hand  or  horse. 
These  gentlemen,  though  astonished  at  the  strange  task  re- 
quired of  them,  consented.  In  less  than  ten  minutes  there 
was  a  string  of  water-carts  stationed  in  the  Rue  Childebert, 
and  in  a  few  minutes  more  the  lower  stories  were  simply 
flooded.  Aimd  Millet,  the  sculptor,  whose  room  was  situated 
immediately  beneath  that.gf  Lapierre,  was  the  first  victim.  It 
was  he  who  gave  the  alarm,  but,  as.  a  matter  of  course,  in  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye  there  were  one  or  two  heads  at  every 
window,  and  though  very  early,  there  was  a  stampede  of  very 
primitively  clad  models  (?)  into  the  street,  shouting  and  yelling 
out  at  the  top  of  their  voices.  Outside  no  one  seemed  to 
know  exactly  what  had  occurred  ;  the  prevailing  impression 
was  that  the  place  was  on  fire.  Then  Madame  Legendre  was 
sent  for  in  hot  haste.     By  that  time  the  truth  had  become 


1 6  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

known  in  the  house.  The  alarm  had  subsided,  but  not  the 
noise.  When  the  report  of  Madame  Legendre's  coming  got 
wind,  a  deputation  went  to  the  entrance  of  the  street  to  wel- 
come her.  It  was  provided  with  all  sorts  of  instruments 
except  musical  ones,  and  the  old  dame  was  conducted  in  state 
to  Millet^s  room.  The  cause  of  the  mischief  was  soon  as- 
certained, for  the  water-carriers  were  still  at  work.  The  police 
had  refused  to  interfere  ;  in  reality,  they  would  not  have  been 
sorry  to  see  the  building  come  down  wdth  a  crash,  for  it  was 
as  great  a  source  of  annoyance  to  them  as  to  the  peaceful 
burghers  they  were  supposed  to  protect.  A  move  was  made 
to  the  room  above,  where  Lapierre — without  a  stitch  of  clothing 
— stood  directing  the  operations. 

"  What  are  you  doing.  Monsieur  Lapierre  ?  "  screeched 
Madame  Legendre. 

"  I  am  taking  a  bath,  madame  ;  it  is  very  warm.  You  gave 
me  one  against  my  will  the  night  before  last ;  and  lest  I  should 
be  accused  of  selfishness,  I  am  letting  my  neighbors  partake 
of  vhc  pleasure." 

That  is  how  Madame  Legendre  was  compelled  to  repair  the 
roof  of  "  La  Childebert." 

Such  wac  the  company  amidst  which  I  was  introduced  by 
the  son  of  my  old  tutor.  Many  years  have  passed  since  then, 
during  which  I  have  been  thrown  into  the  society  of  the  great 
and  powerful  ones  of  this  world,  rather  through  the  force  of 
circumstcnces  than  owing  to  my  own  merits,  but  I  have  looked 
*n  vain  for  the  honest  friendships,  the  disinterested  actions, 
the  genuine  enthusiasm  for  their  art,  underlying  their  devilry, 
of  which  these  young  men  were  capable.  The  bourgeois  vices, 
in  the  guise  of  civic  and  domestic  virtues,  entered  the  souls 
of  Frenchmen  early  in  the  reign  of  Louis-Philippe,  and  have 
been  gnawing  since,  with  ever-increasing  force,  like  a  cancer, 
at  everything  that  was  noble  and  worthy  of  admiration  in  a 
nation.  But  those  vices  never  found  their  way  to  the  hearts 
of  the  inmates  of  "  La  Childebert"  while  they  were  there,  and 
rarely  in  after-life.  Many  attained  world-wide  reputations  ;  few 
gathered  riches,  even  when  they  were  as  frugal  as  the  best 
among  them — Eugene  Delacroix. 

To  have  known  these  young  men  was  absolutely  a  liberal 
education.  To  the  Podsnap  and  Philistine  of  no  matter  what 
nationality,  it  seems  a  sad  thing  to  have  no  thought  for  to- 
morrow. And  these  youngsters  had  not  even  a  thought  for 
the  day.  Their  thoughts  were  for  the  future,  when  the  world 
mayhap  would  ring  with  their  names ;  but  their  physical  or 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  1 7 

mental  hearing  never  strained  for  the  ring  of  money.  They 
were  improvident  creatures,  to  be  sure ;  but  how  much  more 
lovable  than  the  young  painters  of  the  present  period,  whose 
ideal*  is  a  big  balance  at  their  bankers  ;  who  would  rather  have 
their  names  inscribed  on  the  registers  of  the  public  debt  than 
in  the  golden  book  of  art ;  whose  dreamt-of  Eden  is  a  bijou 
villa  in  the  Pare  Monceaux  or  in  the  Avenue  Villiers ;  whose 
providence  is  the  richard,  the  parvenu,  the  wealthy  upstart, 
whose  features  they  perpetuate,  regardless  of  the  perpetuation 
of  their  own  budding  fame. 

When  I  began  to  jot  down  these  notes,  I  made  up  my  mind 
to  eschew  comparisons  and  moralizing  ;  I  find  I  have  uncon- 
sciously done  both,  but  will  endeavor  not  to  offend  again. 
Still,  I  cannot  help  observing  how  the  mere  "  moneyed  nobody  " 
rushes  nowadays  to  the  eminent  painter  to  have  his  lineaments 
reproduced,  when  a  guinea  photograph  would  serve  his  purpose 
just  as  well  for  "  family  use  ;  "  for  I  take  it  that  no  one,  besides 
his  relations  and  friends,  cares  or  will  care  to  gaze  upon  his  feat- 
ures. And  yet  our  annual  picture  exhibitions  are  crowded  with 
the  portraits  of  these  nonentities.  They  advertise  themselves 
through  the  painters  that  transfer  them  to  canvas,  and  the 
latter  are  content  to  pocket  heavy  fees,  like  the  advertising 
agents  they  are.  I  am  certain  that  neither  Holbein,  Rubens, 
Van  Dyck,  Hals,  nor  Rembrandt  would  have  lent  themselves 
to  such  transactions.  When  they,  or  a  Reynolds,  a  Lawrence, 
a  Gainsborough,  conferred  the  honor  of  their  brush  upon  some 
one,  it  was  because  he  or  she  was  already  distinguished  from 
his  or  her  fellow-creatures  by  beauty,  social  position,  talents, 
genius,  or  birth  ;  not  because  he  or  she  wanted  to  be,  or  in 
default  of  such  distinction,  wanted  to  attract  the  public  notice 
at  all  costs.  That,  I  fancy,  was  the  way  in  which  painters  of 
other  days  looked  upon  the  thing.  I  know  it  was  the  way  in 
which  the  young  fellows  at  the  "  Childebert  "  did  ;  and  woe  to 
their  comrade  who  ventured  to  apply  in  art  the  principle  of 
international  maritime  law,  that  "  le  pavilion  couvre  la  march- 
andise"  (the  flag  covers  the  cargo).  He  was  scouted  and 
jeered  at,  and,  moreover,  rarely  allowed  to  reap  the  pecuniary 
benefit  of  his  artistic  abasement.  Hence  the  "  patron  for  a  por- 
trait" seldom  found  his  way  to  "  La  Childebert."  When  he  did, 
the  whole  of  the  place  conspired  to  make  his  life  and  that  of 
his  would-be  proteg'e  a  misery. 

To  enumerate  all  the  devices  resorted  to  to  make  the  sittings 
abortive,  to  "  distort  the  features  that  had  donned  the  bland 
smile  of  placid  contentment "  with  the  paralyzing  fear  of  some 

2 


iS  A!^  ENGLISHMAN/  IN  PARIS. 

impending  catastrophe,  would  be  impossible ;  the  mention  of  a 
few  must  suffice.  That  most  frequently  employed,  and  com- 
paratively easy  of  execution,  was  the  setting  alight  of  damp 
straw ;  the  dense  smoke  penetrated  every  nook  and  cranny  of 
the  crazy  building,  and  the  sitter,  mad  with  fright,  rushed 
away.  The  chances  were  a  hundred  to  one  against  his  ever 
returning.  Another  was  the  intrusion  of  a  male  model  offer- 
ing his  services  as  a  Saint-Jerome,  or  a  female  one  offering  hers 
as  Godiva ;  for,  curious  to  relate,  the  devotion  of  the  wife  of 
Leofric  of  Murcia  was  a  favorite  subject  with  the  Childeber- 
tians.  As  a  matter  of  course,  the  applicants  were  in  the  cos- 
tume, or  rather  lack  of  costume,  appropriate  to  the  character. 
The  strait-laced  bourgeois  or  bourgeoise  was  shocked,  and 
did  not  repeat  the  visit.  The  cry  that  there  was  a  mad  dog  in 
the  house  was  a  common  one  on  those  occasions ;  and  at  last 
the  would-be  portrait-painters  had  to  give  in,  and  a  big  pla- 
card appeared  on  the  frontispiece  :  ''  Le  commerce  des  portraits 
a  ete  cede  aux  directeur  et  membres  de  I'Ecole  des  Beaux- Arts." 
The  most  curious  thing  in  connection  with  the  "  Childebert " 
was  that,  though  the  place  was  inexpressibly  ill  kept,  it  escaped 
the  most  terrible  visitations  of  the  cholera.  I  prefer  not  to 
enter  into  details  of  the  absolute  disregard  of  all  sanitary  con- 
ditions, but  in  warm  weather  the  building  became  positively 
uninhabitable.  Long  before  the  unsavory  spectacle  of  "  learned 
fleas  "  became  a  feature  of  the  suburban  fairs,  Emile  Signol, 
who  is  best  known  as  a  painter  of  religious  subjects,  had 
trained  a  company  of  performers  of  a  different  kind  of 
nocturnal  pests.  He  averred  in  his  opening  lecture  that  their 
ingenuity  was  too  great  to  remain  unknown,  and  cited  anec- 
dotes fully  proving  his  words.  Certain  is  it  that  they  were 
the  only  enemies  before  which  the  combined  forces  of  the 
Childebertians  proved  powerless.  But  even  under  such  trying 
circumstances  the  latter  never  lost  their  buoyant  spirits,  and 
their  retreats  e?i  masse  were  effected  in  a  manner  the  reports 
of  which  set  the  whole  of  Paris  in  a  roar.  One  Sunday  morn- 
ing, the  faithful  worshippers,  going  to  matins  at  the  Church  of 
St.  Germain-des-Pres,  found  the  square  occupied  by  a  troop  of 
Bedouins,  wrapt  in  their  burnouses,  and  sleeping  the  sleep  of 
the  just.  Some  had  squatted  in  corners,  calmly  smoking  their 
chibouks.  This  was  in  the  days  of  the  Algerian  campaign, 
and  the  rumor  spread  like  wildfire  that  a  party  of  Arab  pris- 
oners of  war  were  bivouacked  round  the  church,  where  a  spe- 
cial service  would  be  given  in  the  afternoon  as  the  first  step  to 
their  conversion  to  Christianity.     It  being  Sunday,  the  whole 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  19 

of  Paris  rushed  to  the  spot.  The  Bedouins  had,  however,  dis- 
appeared, but  a  collection  was  made  in  their  behalf  by  several 
demure-looking  young  men.  The  Parisians  gave  Uberally. 
That  night,  and  two  or  three  nights  after,  the  nocturnal  pests' 
occupation  was  gone,  for  the  "  Childebert  "  was  lighted  agior- 
?io  from  basement  to  roof,  and  the  Childebertians  held  high 
festival.  The  inhabitants  of  the  streets  adjacent  to  the  Rue 
Childebert  spent  as  many  sleepless  nights,  though  their  houses 
were  perfectly  wholesome  and  clean. 

I  had  the  honor  to  be  a  frequent  guest  at  those  gatherings, 
but  I  feel  that  a  detailed  description  of  them  is  beyond  my 
powers.  I  have  already  said  that  the  craziness  of  the  structure 
would  have  rendered  extremely  dangerous  any  combined  dis- 
play of  choregraphic  art,  as  practised  by  the  Childebertians 
and  their  friends,  male  and  female,  at  the  neighboring  Grande- 
Chaumiere  ;  it  did,  however,  not  prevent  a  lady  or  gentleman 
of  the  company  from  performing  a  pas  seul  now  and  then. 
This,  it  must  be  remembered,  was  the  pre-Rigolbochian  period, 
before  Chicard  with  his  chahut  had  been  ousted  from  his  ex- 
alted position  by  the  more  elegant  and  graceful  evolutions  of 
the  originator  of  the  modern  cancan,  the  famous  Brididi ;  when 
the  Faubourg  du  Temple,  the  Bal  du  Grand  Saint-Martin,  and 
"  the  descent  of  the  Courtille  "  were  patronized  by  the  Paris 
jeimesse  dorke^  and  in  their  halcyon  days,  when  the  habitues  of 
the  establishment  of  Le  Pere  Lahire  considered  it  their  greatest 
glory  to  imitate  as  closely  as  possible  the  bacchanalian  gyrations 
of  the  choregraphic  autocrat  on  the  other  side  of  the  Seine. 
No  mere  description  could  do  justice  to  these  gyrations  ;  only 
a  draughtsman  of  the  highest  skill  could  convey  an  adequate 
idea  of  them.  But,  as  a  rule,  the  soirees  at  the  "  Childebert " 
were  not  conspicuous  for  such  displays ;  their  programme  was 
a  more  ambitious  one  from  an  intellectual  point  of  view,  albeit 
that  the  programme  was  rarely,  if  ever,  carried  out.  This 
failure  of  the  prearranged  proceedings,  mainly  arose  from  the 
disinclination  or  inability  of  the  fairer  portion  of  the  company  to 
play  the  passive  part  of  listeners  and  spectators  during  the  re- 
cital of  an  unpublished  poem  of  perhaps  a  thousand  lines  or 
so,  though  the  reciter  was  no  less  a  personage  than  the  author. 
In  vain  did  the  less  frivolous  and  male  part  of  the  audience 
claim  "  silence  for  the  minstrel ;  "  the  interrupters  could  con- 
ceive no  minstrel  without  a  guitar  or  some  kindred  instrument, 
least  of  all  a  minstrel  who  merely  spoke  his  words,  and  the 
feast  of  reason  and  flow  of  soul  came  generally  to  an  abrupt 
end  by  the  rising  of  a  damsel  more  outspoken  still  than  her 


20  AA^  ENGLISHMAN  IX  PARIS. . 

companions,  who  proposed  an  adjournment  to  one  of  the  ad- 
jacent taverns,  or  to  the  not  far  distant  "  Grande-Chaumiere," 
"  si  on  continue  k  nous  assommer  avec  des  vers."  The  threat 
invariably  produced  its  effect.  The  "  minstrel  "  was  politely 
requested  to  "  shut  up,"  and  Beranger,  Desaugiers,  or  even  M. 
Scribe,  took  the  place  of  the  Victor  Hugo  in  embryo  until  the 
small  hours  of  the  morning ;  the  departure  of  the  guests  being 
witnessed  by  the  night-capped  inhabitants  of  the  Rue  Childe- 
bert  from  their  windows,  amidst  the  comforting  reflections  that 
for  another  three  weeks  or  so  there  would  be  peace  in  the  fes- 
tive halls  of  that  "  accursed  building." 

My  frequent  visits  to  "  La  Childebert"  had  developed  a  taste 
for  the  Bohemian  attractions  of  the  Quartier-Latin.  I  was  not 
twenty,  and  though  I  caught  frequent  glimpses  at  home  of 
some  of  the  eminent  men  with  whom  a  few  years  later  I  lived 
on  terms  of  friendship,  I  could  not  aspire  to  their  society  then. 
It  is  doubtful  whether  I  would  have  done  so  if  I  could.  I  pre- 
ferred the  Theatre  Bobino  to  the  Opera  and  the  Comddie-Fran- 
9aise;  the  Grande-Chaumiere — or  the  Chaumiere,  as  it  was 
simply  called — to  the  most  brilliantly  lighted  and  decorated 
ball-room ;  a  stroll  with  a  couple  of  young  students  in  the  gar- 
dens of  the  Luxembourg  to  a  carriage-drive  in  the  Bois  de 
Boulogne ;  a  dinner  for  three  francs  at  Magny's,  in  the  Rue 
Contrescarpe-Dauphine,  or  even  one  for  twenty-two  sous  at 
Viot's  or  Blery's,  to  the  most  sumptuous  repast  at  the  Cafe  Riche 
or  the  Cafe  de  Paris.  I  preferred  the  buttered  rolls  and  the 
bowl  of  milk  at  the  Boulangerie  Cretaine,  in  the  Rue  Dauphine, 
to  the  best  suppers  at  the  Cafe  Anglais,  whither  I  had  been 
taken  once  or  twice  during  the  Carnival — in  short,  I  was  very 
young  and  very  foolish  ;  since  then  I  have  often  wished  that, 
at  the  risk  of  remaining  very  foolish  for  evermore,  I  could 
have  prolonged  my  youth  for  another  score  of  years. 

For  once  in  a  way  I  have  no  need  to  be  ashamed  of  my  want 
of  memory.  I  could  not  give  an  account  of  a  single  piece  I 
saw  during  those  two  or  three  years  at  Bobino,  but  I  am  cer- 
tain that  not  one  of  the  companions  of  my  youth  could.  It  is 
not  because  the  lapse  of  time  has  dimmed  the  recollection  of 
the  plots,  but  because  there  were  no  plots,  or  at  any  rate  none 
that  we  could  understand,  and  I  doubt  very  much  whether  the 
actors  and  actresses  were  more  enlightened  in  that  respect  than 
the  audience.  The  pieces  were  vaudevilles,  most  of  them,  and 
it  was  sufficient  for  us  to  join  in  the  choruses  of  the  songs,  with 
which  they  were  plentifully  interlarded.  As  for  the  dialogue, 
it  might  have  been  sparkling  with  wit  and  epigram ;  it  was 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  ±t 

nearly  always  drowned  by  interpolations  from  one  side  of  the 
house  or  the  other.  When  the  tumult  became  too  great,  the 
curtain  was  simply  lowered,  to  be  almost  immediately  raised, 
"  discovering  "  the  manager — in  his  dressing-gown.  He  seemed 
prouder  of  that  piece  of  attire  than  the  more  modern  one  would 
be  of  the  most  faultless  evening  dress.  He  never  appealed  to 
us  by  invoking  the  laws  of  politeness  ;  he  never  threatened  to 
have  the  house  cleared.  He  simply  pointed  out  to  us  that  the 
police  would  inevitably  close  the  place  at  the  request  of  the 
inhabitants  of  the  Rue  de  Madame  if  the  noise  rose  above  a 
certain  pitch,  and  disturbed  their  peaceful  evening  hours,  spent 
in  the  bosom  of  their  families ;  which  remark  was  always  fol- 
lowed by  the  audience  intoning  as  one  man  Gretry's  "  Ou  peut- 
on  etre  mieux  qu'au  sein  de  sa  famille?  "  the  orchestra — such 
an  orchestra  ! — playing  the  accompaniment,  and  the  manager 
himself  beating  time.  Then  he  went  on.  "  Yes,  messieurs  et 
mesdames,  we  are  here  en  famille  also,  as  much  en  famille  as 
at  the  Grande-Chaumiere ;  and  has  not  M.  Lahire  obtained 
from  the  Government  the  permission  de  faire  sa  police  tout 
seul !  After  all,  he  is  providing  exercise  for  your  muscles  ;  I 
am  providing  food  for  your  brain." 

The  speech  was  a  stereotyped  one — we  all  knew  it  by  heart ; 
it  invariably  produced  its  effect  in  keeping  us  comparatively 
quiet  for  the  rest  of  the  evening,  unless  a  bourgeois  happened 
to  come  in.  Then  the  uproar  became  uncontrollable  ;  no  man- 
agerial speech  could  quell  it  until  the  intruder  had  left  the 
theatre. 

By  a  bourgeois  was  meant  a  man  who  wore  broad-cloth  and 
a  top  hat,  but  especially  the  latter.  In  fact  that  head-gear  was 
rarely  seen  within  the  inner  precincts  of  the  Quartier-Latin,  even 
during  the  daytime,  except  on  the  head  of  a  professor,  or  on 
Thursdays  when  the  collegians — the  term  "  lyceen  "  was  not 
invented — were  taken  for  their  weekly  outing.  The  semi- 
military  dress  of  the  present  time  had  not  been  thought  of 
then.  The  collegian  wore  a  top  hat,  like  our  Eton  boys,  a 
white  necktie,  a  kind  of  black  quaker  coat  with  a  stand-up 
collar,  a  very  dark  blue  waistcoat  and  trousers,  low  shoes,  and 
blue  woollen  stockings.  In  the  summer,  some  of  them,  espe- 
cially those  of  the  College  Rollin,  had  a  waistcoat  and  trousers 
of  a  lighter  texture,  and  drab  instead  of  blue.  They  were 
virtually  prisoners  within  the  walls  of  the  college  all  the  week, 
for  in  their  Thursday  promenades  they  were  little  more  than 
prisoners  taking  exercise  under  the  supervision  of  their  jailers. 
They  were  allowed  to  leave  on  alternate   Sundays,  provided 


1 2  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PA RIS. 

they  had  parents,  relations,  or  friends  in  Paris,  who  could  come 
themselves  or  send  their  servants  to  fetch  them  in  the  morning 
and  take  them  back  at  night.  The  rule  applied  to  all,  whether 
they  were  nine  or  double  that  number  of  years  ;  it  prevails  even 
now.  I  only  set  foot  in  a  French  college  of  those  days  twice 
to  see  a  young  friend  of  mine,  and  I  thanked  my  stars  that 
four  or  five  years  of  that  existence  had  been  spared  to  me. 
The  food  and  the  table  appointments,  the  bedrooms — they 
were  more  like  cells  with  their  barred  windows — would  have 
been  declined  by  the  meanest  English  servant,  certainly  by 
the  meanest  French  one.  I  have  never  met  with  a  Frenchman 
who  looks  back  with  fond  remembrance  on  his  school-days. 

The  evening  was  generally  wound  up  with  a  supper  at 
Dagneaux's,  Pinson's,  or  at  the  rotisseuse — that  is,  if  the  evening 
happened  to  fall  within  the  first  ten  days  of  the  month  ;  after- 
wards the  entertainment  nearly  always  consisted  of  a  meat- 
pie,  bought  at  one  of  the  charcutiers',  and  washed  down  with 
the  bottles  of  wine  purchased  at  the  Hotel  de  I'Empereur 
Joseph  II.,  at  the  south-eastern  angle  of  the  Rue  de  Tournon, 
where  it  stands  still.  The  legend  ran  that  the  brother  of 
Marie  Antoinette  had  stayed  there  while  on  a  visit  to  Paris ; 
but  it  is  scarcely  likely  that  he  would  have  done  so  while  his 
sister  was  within  a  step  of  the  throne  of  France  ;  nevertheless 
the  Count  von  Falkenstein — which  was  the  name  he  adopted 
when  travelling  incognito — was  somewhat  of  a  philosopher. 
Did  not  he  once  pay  a  visit  to  Jean-Jacques  Rousseau  without 
having  apprised  him  of  his  call  t  Jean-Jacques  was  copying 
music  as  the  door  opened  to  let  in  the  visitor,  and  felt 
flattered  enough,  we  may  be  sure  ;  not  so  Buffon,  whom  Joseph 
surprised  under  similar  circumstances,  and  who  could  never 
forgive  himself  for  having  been  caught  in  his  dressing-gown — 
he  who  never  sat  down  to  work  except  in  lace  ruffles  and  frill. 

If  I  have  been  unwittingly  betrayed  into  a  semi-historical 
disquisition,  it  is  because  almost  every  step  in  that  quarter 
gave  rise  to  one,  even  amongst  those  light-hearted  companions 
of  mine,  to  the  great  astonishment  of  the  fairer  portion  of  the 
company.  They  only  took  an  interest  in  the  biography  of  one 
of  the  inhabitants  of  the  street,  whether  past  or  present,  and 
that  was  in  the  biography  of  Mdlle.  Lenormand,  a  well-known 
fortune-teller,  who  lived  at  No.  5.  They  had  heard  that  the 
old  woman,  who  had  been  the  mistress  of  Hebert,  of  "  Pere 
Duchesne  "  fame,  had,  during  the  First  Revolution  predicted 
to  Josephine  de  Beauharnais  that  she  should  be  empress,  as 
some  gypsy  at  Grenada  predicted  a  similar  elevation  to  Eugenie 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  23 

de  Montijo  many  years  afterwards.  Mdlle.  Lenormand  had 
been  imprisoned  after  Hebert's  death,  but  the  moment  Napo- 
leon became  first  consul  she  was  liberated,  and  frequently  sent 
for  to  the  Luxembourg,  which  is  but  a  stone's  throw  from  the 
Rue  de  Tournon.  As  a  matter  of  course  her  fame  spread,  and 
she  made  a  great  deal  of  money  during  the  first  empire. 
Ignorant  as  they  were  of  history,  the  sprightly  grisettes  of  our 
days  had  heard  of  that ;  their  great  ambition  was  to  get  the 
five  francs  that  would  open  the  door  of  Mdlle.  Lenormand's  to 
them.  Mdlle.  Lenormand  died  about  the  year  '43.  Jules 
Janin,  who  lived  in  the  same  street,  in  the  house  formerly 
inhabited  by  Theroigne  de  Mericourt,  went  to  the  fortune- 
teller's funeral.  The  five  francs  so  often  claimed  by  the  etu- 
diante^  so  rarely  forthcoming  from  the  pockets  of  her  admirer, 
was  an  important  sum  in  those  days  among  the  youth  of  the 
Quartier-Latin.  There  were  few  whose  allowance  exceeded 
two  hundred  francs  per  month.  A  great  many  had  to  do  with 
less.  Those  w^ho  were  in  receipt  of  five  hundred  francs — 
perhaps  not  two  score  among  the  whole  number — were  scarcely 
considered  as  belonging  to  the  fraternity.  They  were  called 
"  ultra-pontins,"  to  distinguish  them  from  those  who  from  one 
year's  end  to  another  never  crossed  the  river,  except  perhaps 
to  go  to  one  of  the  theatres,  because  there  was  not  much  to  be 
seen  at  the  Odeon  during  the  thirties.  With  Harel's  migration 
to  the  Porte  St.  Martin,  the  glory  of  the  second  Theatre-Frangais 
had  departed,  and  it  was  not  until  '41  that  Lireux  managed  to 
revive  some  of  its  ancient  fame.  By  that  time  I  had  ceased  to 
go  to  the  Quartier-Latin,  but  Lireux  was  a  familiar  figure  at 
the  Cafe  Riche  and  at  the  divan  of  the  Rue  Le  Pelletier ;  he 
dined  now  and  then  at  the  Cafe  de  Paris.  So  we  made  it  a 
point  to  attend  every  one  of  his  first  nights,  notwithstanding 
the  warnings  in  verse  and  in  prose  of  every  wit  of  Paris,  Theo- 
phile  Gautier  included,  who  had  written  : — 

"  On  a  fait  la  dessus  mille  plaisanteries, 

Je  le  sais  ;  il  poussait  de  I'herbe  aux  galeries  ; 
Trente-six  varietes  de  champignons  malsains 
Dans  les  loges  tigraient  la  mousse  des  coussins." 

It  was  impossible  to  say  anything  very  spiteful  of  a  theatre 
which  had  remained  almost  empty  during  a  gratuitous  per- 
formance on  the  king's  birthday ;  consequently  while  I  fre- 
quented the  Quartier-Latin  the  students  gave  it  a  wide  berth. 
When  they  were  not  disporting  themselves  at  Bobino,  they 
were  at  the  Chaumiere,  and  not  in  the  evening  only.  Notwith- 
standing the  enthusiastic  and  glowing  descriptions  of  it  that 


24  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

have  appeared  in  later  days,  the  place  was  simple  enough. 
There  was  a  primitive  shooting-gallery,  a  skittle-alley,  and  so 
forth,  and  it  was  open  all  day.  The  students,  after  having 
attended  the  lectures  and  taken  a  stroll  in  the  gardens  of  the 
Luxembourg,  repaired  to  the  Chaumiere,  where,  in  fine  weather, 
they  were  sure  to  find  their  "  lady  loves "  sitting  at  work 
demurely  under  the  trees.  The  refreshments  were  cheap,  and 
one  spent  one's  time  until  the  dinner  hour,  chatting,  singing, 
or  strolling  about.  The  students  were  very  clannish,  and 
invariably  remained  in  their  own  sets  at  the  Chaumiere.  There 
were  tables  exclusively  occupied  by  Bourguignons,  Angevins, 
etc.  In  fact,  life  was  altogether  much  simpler  and  more  indi- 
vidual than  it  became  later  on. 

One  of  our  great  treats  was  an  excursion  to  the  establish- 
ment of  Le  Pere  Bonvin,  where  the  student  of  to-day  would 
not  condescend  to  sit  down,  albeit  that  the  food  he  gets  in  more 
showy  places  is  not  half  as  good  and  three  times  as  dear.  Le 
Pere  Bonvin  was  popularly  supposed  to  be  in  the  country, 
though  it  was  not  more  than  a  mile  from  the  Barriere  Mont- 
parnasse.  The  "  country "  was  represented  by  one  or  two 
large  but  straggling  plots  of  erstwhile  grazing-land,  but  at  that 
time  dotted  with  chalk-pits,  tumble-down  wooden  shanties, 
etc.  Such  trees  as  the  tract  of  "  country  "  could  boast  were 
on  the  demesne  of  Pere  Bonvin,  but  they  evidently  felt  out  of 
their  element,  and  looked  the  reverse  of  flourishing.  The 
house  of  Pere  Bonvin  was  scarcely  distinguished  in  color  and 
rickettiness  from  the  neighboring  constructions,  but  it  was 
built  of  stone,  and  had  two  stories.  The  fare  was  homely  and 
genuine,  the  latter  quality  being  no  small  recommendation  in 
an  establishment  where  the  prolific  "bunny"  was  the  usual 
plat  de  resistance.  For  sophistication,  where  the  rabbit  was 
concerned,  was  part  of  the  suburban  traiteur's  creed  from  time 
immemorial,  and  the  fact  of  the  former's  head  being  visible  in 
the  dish  was  no  guarantee  as  to  that  and  the  body  by  its  side 
having  formed  one  whole  in  the  flesh.  The  ubiquitous  collector 
of  rags  and  bottles  and  rabbits'  skins  was  always  anxiously 
inquiring  for  their  heads  also,  and  the  natural  conclusion  was 
that,  thanks  to  the  latter,  stewed  grimalkin  passed  muster  as 
gibelotte.  At  Pere  Bonvin's  no  such  suspicion  could  be  enter- 
tained for  one  moment ;  the  visitor  was  admitted  to  inspect 
his  dinner  while  alive.  Pere  Bonvin  was  essentially  an  honest 
man,  and  a  character  in  his  way.  During  the  daytime  he 
exercised  the  functions  of  garde-champetre  ;  at  night  he  became 
the  restaurateur. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  25 

In  those  days  both  his  sons,  Frangois  and  Leon,  were  still 
at  home,  but  the  former  had  apparently  already  made  up  his 
mind  not  to  follow  in  his  sire's  footsteps.  He  was  a  composi- 
tor by  trade,  but  the  walls  of  the  various  rooms  showed  plainly 
enough  that  he  did  not  aim  at  the  fame  of  an  Aldine  or  an 
Elzevir,  but  at  that  of  a  Jan  Steen  or  a  Gerard  Dow.  He  has 
fully  maintained  the  promise  given  then.  His  pictures  rank 
high  in  the  modern  French  school ;  there  are  few  of  his  con- 
temporaries who  have  so  thoroughly  caught  the  spirit  of  the 
Dutch  masters.  Leon  was  a  mere  lad,  but  a  good  many  among 
the  habitues  of  Pere  Bonvin  predicted  a  more  glorious  career 
for  him  than  for  his  brother.  The  word  "  heaven -born  musician  " 
has  been  often  misapplied  ;  in  Leon's  instance  it  was  fully  jus- 
tified. The  predictions,  however,  were  not  realized.  Whether 
from  lack  of  confidence  in  his  own  powers,  or  deterred  by  the 
never-ceasing  remonstrances  of  his  father,  Leon,  unlike  Fran- 
cois, did  not  strike  out  for  himself,  but  continued  to  assist  in 
the  business,  only  turning  to  his  harmonium  in  his  spare  time, 
or  towards  the  end  of  the  evening,  when  all  distinction  between 
guests  and  hosts  ceased  to  exist,  and  the  whole  made  a  very 
happy  family.  He  married  early.  I  lost  sight  of  him 
altogether,  until  about  '64  I  heard  of  his  tragic  end.  He  had 
committed  suicide. 


CHAPTER  11. 

If  these  notes  are  ever  published,  the  reader  will  gather  from 
the  foregoing  that,  unlike  many  Englishmen  brought  up  in  Paris, 
I  was  allowed  from  a  very  early  age  to  mix  with  all  sorts  and 
conditions  of  men.  As  I  intend  to  say  as  little  as  possible 
about  myself,  there  is  no  necessity  to  reveal  the  reason  of  this 
early  emancipation  from  all  restraint,  which  resulted  in  my  be- 
ing on  familiar  terms  with  a  great  many  celebrities  before  I  had 
reached  my  twenty-first  year.  I  had  no  claim  on  their  good- 
will beyond  my  admiration  of  their  talents  and  the  fact  of  be- 
ing decently  connected.  The  constant  companion  of  my  youth 
was  hand  and  glove  with  some  of  the  highest  in  the  land,  and, 
if  the  truth  must  be  told,  w4th  a  good  many  of  the  lowest ;  but 
the  man  who  was  seated  at  the  table  of  Lord  Palmerston  at  the 
Cafe  de  Paris  at  8  p.  m.,  could  afford  de  s' encanailler  at  2  a.  m. 
next  morning  without  jeopardizing  his  social  Status. 

The  Cafe  de  Paris  in  those  days  was  probably  not  only  the 
best  restaurant  in  Paris,  but  the  best  in  Europe.     Compared  to 


26  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

the  "  Freres  Provengaux  "  Vefour  and  Very,  the  Cafe  de  Paris 
was  young;  it  was  only  opened  on  July  15,  1822,  in  the  vast 
suite  of  apartments  at  the  corner  of  the  Rue  Taitbout  and  Boule- 
vard des  Italiens,  formerly  occupied  by  Prince  Demidoff,  whose 
grandson  was  a  prominent  figure  in  the  society  of  the  Second 
Empire,  and  whom  I  knew  personally.  The  grandfather  died 
before  I  was  born,  or,  at  any  rate,  when  I  was  very  young ;  but 
his  descendant  often  told  me  about  him  and  his  two  sons,  Paul 
and  Anatole,  both  of  whom,  in  addition  to  his  vast  wealth,  in- 
herited a  good  many  of  his  eccentricities.  The  old  man,  like 
many  Russian  grand  seigneurs,  was  never  so  happy  as  when 
he  could  turn  his  back  upon  his  own  country.  He  inhabited 
Paris  and  Florence  in  turns.  In  the  latter  place  he  kept  in  his 
pay  a  company  of  French  actors,  who  were  lodged  in  a  mag- 
nificent mansion  near  to  his  own,  and  who  enacted  comedies, 
vaudevilles,  and  comic  operas.  The  London  playgoer  may  re- 
member a  piece  in  which  the  celebrated  Ravel  made  a  great 
sensation  ;  it  was  entitled  "  Les  Folies  Dramatiques,"  and  was 
founded  upon  the  mania  of  the  old  man.  For  he  was  old  before 
his  time  and  racked  with  gout,  scarcely  able  to  set  his  feet  to 
the  ground.  He  had  to  be  wheeled  in  a  chair  to  his  entertain- 
ments and  theatre,  and  often  fell  into  a  dead  faint  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  performance  or  during  the  dinner.  "  It  made  no 
difference  to  his  guests,"  said  his  grandson ;  "  they  wheeled 
him  out  as  they  had  wheeled  him  in,  and  the  play  or  repast 
went  on  as  if  nothing  had  happened."  In  fact,  it  would  seem 
that  the  prince  would  have  been  very  angry  if  they  had  acted 
otherwise,  for  his  motto  was  that,  next  to  enjoying  himself, 
there  was  nothing  so  comfortable  as  to  see  others  do  so.  Faith- 
ful to  this  principle,  he  always  kept  some  one  near,  whose  mis- 
sion it  was  to  enjoy  himself  at  his  expense.  He  was  under  no 
obligation  whatsoever,  except  to  give  an  account  of  his  amuse- 
ments, most  frequently  in  the  dead  of  the  night,  when  he  got 
home,  because  the  old  prince  suffered  from  insomnia ;  he  would 
have  given  the  whole  of  his  vast  possessions  for  six  hours'  un- 
broken slumber. 

I  have  an  idea  that  the  three  generations  of  these  Demidoffs 
were  as  mad  as  March  hares,  though  I  am  bound  to  say,  at  the 
same  time,  that  the  form  this  madness  took  hurt  no  one.  Per- 
sonally, I  only  knew  Prince  Anatole,  the  second  son  of  the  old 
man,  and  Paul,  the  latter's  nephew.  Paul's  father,  of  the  same 
name,  died  almost  immediately  after  his  son's  birth.  He  had 
a  mania  for  travelling,  and  rarely  stayed  in  the  same  spot  for 
forty-eight  hours.     He  was  always  accompanied  by  a  numer- 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  27 

ous  suite  and  preceded  by  a  couple  of  couriers,  who,  nine 
times  out  of  ten,  had  orders  to  engage  every  room  in  the  hotel 
for  him.  Being  very  rich  and  as  lavish  as  he  was  wealthy, 
few  hotel  proprietors  scrupled  to  turn  out  the  whole  of  their 
guests  at  his  steward's  bidding  and  at  a  moment's  notice.  Of 
course,  people  refused  to  put  up  with  such  cavalier  treatment ; 
but  as  remonstrance  was  of  no  avail,  they  often  brought  actions 
for  damages,  which  they  invariably  gained,  and  were  promptly 
settled  by  Boniface,  who  merely  added  them  to  Prince  Paul's 
bill.  The  most  comical  part  of  the  business,  however,  was 
that  the  prince  as  often  as  not  changed  his  mind  on  arriving 
at  the  hotel,  and  without  as  much  as  alighting,  continued  his 
journey.  The  bill  was  never  disputed.  Another  of  his  manias 
was  that  his  wife  should  wash  her  hands  each  time  she  touched 
a  metal  object.  For  a  while  Princess  Demidoff  humored  her 
husband,  but  she  found  this  so  terribly  irksome  that  she  at  last 
decided  to  wear  gloves,  and  continued  to  do  so  long  after  her 
widowhood. 

It  must  be  obvious  to  the  reader  that  this  digression  has 
little  or  no  raison  d^etre,  even  in  notes  that  do  not  profess  to 
tell  a  succinct  story ;  but  my  purpose  was  to  a  certain  extent  to 
vindicate  the  character  of  one  of  the  most  charming  women  of 
her  time,  who  had  the  misfortune  to  marry  what  was  undoubt- 
edly the  most  eccentric  member  of  the  family.  I  am  referring 
to  Princess  Anatole  Demidoff  nee  Bonaparte,  the  daughter  of 
Jerome,  and  the  sister  of  Plon-Plon. 

To  return  to  the  Cafe  de  Paris  and  its  habitues.  First  of  all, 
the  place  itself  was  unlike  any  other  restaurant  of  that  day, 
even  unlike  its  neighbor  and  rival,  the  Cafe  Hardi,  at  the  cor- 
ner of  the  Rue  Laffitte,  on  the  site  of  the  present  Maison  d'Or. 
There  was  no  undue  display  of  white  and  gold;  and  "the 
epicure  was  not  constantly  reminded  that,  when  in  the  act  of 
eating,  he  was  not  much  superior  to  the  rest  of  humanity,"  as 
Lord  Palmerston  put  it  when  commenting  upon  the  welcome 
absence  of  mirrors.  The  rooms  might  have  been  transformed 
at  a  moment's  notice  into  private  apartments  for  a  very  fastid- 
ious, refined  family  ;  for,  in  addition  to  the  tasteful  and  costly 
furniture,  it  was  the  only  establishment  of  its  kind  in  Paris  that 
was  carpeted  throughout,  instead  of  having  merely  sanded  or 
even  polished  floors,  as  was  the  case  even  in  some  of  the  best 
Paris  restaurants  as  late  as  five  and  six  years  ago  (I  mean 
in  the  severities) — Bignon,  the  Cafe  Foy,  and  the  Lion 
d'Or,  in  the  Rue  du  Helder,  excepted.  The  attendance  was  in 
every  respect  in  thorough  keeping  with  the  grand  air  of  the 


28  AJV  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

place,  and,  albeit  that  neither  of  the  three  or  four  succeeding 
proprietors  made  a  fortune,  or  anything  approaching  it,  was 
never  relaxed. 

On  looking  over  these  notes,  I  am  afraid  that  the  last  paragraph 
will  be  intelligible  only  to  a  small  section  of  my  readers,  con- 
sequently I  venture  to  explain.  Improved  communication  has 
brought  to  Paris  during  the  third  quarter  of  the  century  a  great 
many  Englishmen  who,  not  being  very  familiar  either  with  P>ench 
or  with  French  customs  in  their  better  aspect,  have  come  to  look 
upon  the  stir  and  bustle  of  the  ordinary  Paris  restaurant,  upon 
the  somewhat  free-and-easy  behavior  of  the  w^aiters,  upon  their 
eccentricities  of  diction,  upon  their  often  successful  attempts 
at  "  swelling  "  the  total  of  the  dinner-bill  as  so  much  matter  of 
course.  The  abbreviated  nomenclature  the  waiter  employs  in 
recapitulating  the  bill  of  fare  to  the  patron  is  regarded  by  him 
as  merely  a  skilful  handling  of  the  tongue  by  the  native  ;  the 
chances  are  ten  to  one  in  favor  of  the  patron  trying  to  imitate 
the  same  in  his  orders  to  the  attendant,  and  deriving  a  certain 
pride  from  being  successful.  The  stir  and  bustle  is  attributed 
to  the  more  lively  temperament  of  our  neighbors,  the  free-and- 
easy  behavior  as  a  wish  on  the  waiter's  part  to  smooth  the 
linguistically  thorny  path  of  the  benighted  foreigner,  the  at- 
tempt to  multiply  items  as  an  irrepressible  manifestation  of 
French  greed." 

Wherever  these  things  occur,  nowadays,  the  patron  may  be 
certain  that  he  is  "  in  the  wrong  shop  ;  "  but  in  the  days  of 
which  I  treat,  the  wrong  shop  was  legion,  especially  as  far  as 
the  foreigner  was  concerned ;  the  Cafe  de  Paris  and  the  Cafe 
Hardi  were  the  notable  exceptions.  Truly,  as  Alfred  de  Mus- 
set  said  of  the  former,  "  You  could  not  open  its  door  for  less 
than  fifteen  francs  ;  "  in  other  words,  the  prices  charged  were 
very  high  ;  but  they  were  the  same  for  the  representatives  of 
the  nations  that  conquered  as  for  those  who  were  vanquished 
at  Waterloo.  It  would  be  more  correct  to  say  that  the  personnel 
of  the  Cafe,  from  the  proprietor  and  manager  downward,  were 
utterly  oblivious  of  such  distinctions  of  nationality.  Every 
one  who  honored  the  establishment  was  considered  iDy  them  a 
grand  seigneur,  for  whom  nothing  could  be  too  good.  I  re- 
member one  day  in  '45  or  '46 — for  M.  Martin  Guepet  was  at  the 
head  of  affairs  then — Balzac  announcing  the  advent  of  a  Rus- 
sian friend,  and  asking  Guepet  to  put  his  best  foot  forward. 
"  Assuredly,  monsieur,  we  will  do  so,"  was  the*  answer,  "  be- 
cause it  is  simply  what  we  are  in  the  habit  of  doing  every  day." 
The  retort  was  sharp,  but  absolutely  justified  by  facts.     One 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  29 

was  never  told  at  the  Cafe  de  Paris  that  this  or  that  dish 
"  could  not  be  recommended,"  that  "  the  fish  could  not  be 
guaranteed."  When  the  quality  of  the  latter  was  doubtful,  it 
did  not  make  its  appearance  on  the  bill  of  fare.  A  propos  of 
fish,  there  was  a  story  current  in  the  Cafe  de  Paris  which  may 
or  may  not  have  been  the  invention  of  one  of  the  many  clever 
literary  men  who  foregathered  there.  It  was  to  the  effect  that 
one  of  Guepet's  predecessors — Angilbert  the  younger,  I  be- 
lieve— had  cast  a  doubt  upon  the  historical  accuracy  of  the 
facts  connected  with  the  tragic  death  of  Vatel,  the  renowned 
chef  of  the  Prince  de  Conde.  According  to  Angilbert,  Vatel 
did  not  throw  himself  upon  his  sword  because  the  fish  for  Louis 
XIV.'s  dinner  had  not  arrived,  but  because  it  had  arrived,  had 
been  cooked,  and  was  found  "  not  to  be  so  fresh  as  it  might 
be."  The  ehmination  of  those  dishes  would  have  disturbed 
the  whole  of  the  economy  of  the  ^nemi^  and  rather  than  suffer 
such  disgrace  Vatel  made  an  end  of  himself.  "  For  you  see, 
monsieur,"  Angilbert  is  supposed  to  have  said,  "  one  can  very 
well  arrange  a  perfect  dinner  without  fish,  as  long  as  one 
knows  beforehand ;  but  one  cannot  modify  a  service  that  has 
been  thought  out  with  it,  when  it  fails  at  a  moment's  notice.  As 
every  one  of  my  chefs  is  a  treasure,  who  would  not  scruple  to 
imitate  the  sacrifice  of  his  famous  prototype  ;  and  as  I  do  not 
wish  to  expose  him  to  such  a  heroic,  but  inconvenient  death, 
we  take  the  certain  for  the  uncertain,  consequently  doubtful 
fish  means  no  fish. 

Truth  or  fiction,  the  story  accurately  conveys  the  pride  of 
the  proprietors  in  the  unsullied  gastronoinic  traditions  of  the 
establishment,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  they  were  ably 
seconded  in  that  respect  by  every  one  around  them,  even  to 
the  clientele  itself.  Not  a  single  one  of  the  latter  would  have 
called  the  waiters  by  their  names,  nor  would  these  have 
ventured  to  rehearse  the  names  of  the  dishes  in  a  kind  of 
slang  or  mutilated '  French,  which  is  becoming  more  frequent 
day  by  day,  and  which  is  at  best  but  fit  as  a  means  of  com- 
munication between  waiters  and  scullions.  Least  of  all,  would 
they  have  numbered  the  clients,  as  is  done  at  present.  A 
gentleman  sitting  at  table  No.  5  was  -'the  gentleman  at  table 
No.  5,"  not  merely  "  number  five."  There  was  little  need  for 
the  bellowing  and  shouting  from  one  end  of  the  room  to  the 
other,  because  the  head  waiter  himself  had  an  eye  everywhere. 
The  word  "  addition,"  which  people  think  it  good  taste  in  the 
seventies  and  eighties  to  employ  when  asking  for  their  bills, 
was  never  heard.     People  did  not  profess  to  know  the  nature 


30  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

of  the  arithmetical  operation  by  which  the  total  of  theii 
liabilities  was  arrived  at ;  they  left  that  to  the  cashier  and  the 
rest  of  the  underlings. 

No  coal  or  gas  was  used  in  the  Cafe  de  Paris :  lamps  and 
wood  fires  upstairs ;  charcoal,  and  only  that  of  a  peculiar  kind, 
in  the  kitchens,  which  might  have  been  a  hundred  miles  dis- 
tant, for  all  we  know,  for  neither  the  rattling  of  dishes  nor  the 
smell  of  preparation  betrayed  their  vicinity.  A  charming,  sub- 
dued hum  of  voices  attested  the  presence  of  two  or  three 
score  of  human  beings  attending  to  the  inner  man  ;  the  idiotic 
giggle,  the  affected  little  shrieks  of  the  shop-girl  or  housemaid 
promoted  to  be  the  companion  of  the  quasi-man  of  the  world 
was  never  heard  there.  The  cabinet  par  tic  ulier  was  not  made 
a  feature  of  the  Cafe  de  Paris,  artd  suppers  were  out  of  the 
question.  Now  and  then  the  frank  laughter  of  the  younger 
members  of  a  family  party,  and  that  was  all.  As  a  rule,  how- 
ever, there  were  few  strangers  at  the  Cafe  de  Paris,  or  what 
are  called  chance  customers,  as  distinct  from  periodical  ones. 
But  there  were  half  a  score  of  tables  absolutely  sacred  from 
the  invasion  of  no  matter  whom,  such  as  those  of  the  Marquis 
du  Hallays,  Lord  Seymour,  the  Marquis  de  St.  Cricq,  M. 
Romieu,  Prince  Rostopchine,  Prince  Soltikoff,  Dr.  Veron,  etc., 
etc.  Lord  Palmerston,  when  in  Paris,  scarcely  ever  dined  any- 
where else  than  at  the  Cafe  de  Paris — of  course  I  mean  when 
dining  at  a  public  establishment. 

Almost  every  evening  there  was  an  interchange  of  dishes  or 
of  wines  between  those  tables ;  for  instance.  Dr.  Veron,  of 
whom  I  will  have  a  good  deal  to  say  in  these  notes,  and  who 
was  very  fond  of  Musigny  vintage,  rarely  missed  offering  some 
to  the  Marquis  du  Hallays,  who,  in  his  turn,  sent  him  of  the 
finest  dishes  from  his  table.  For  all  these  men  not  only  pro- 
fessed to  eat  well,  but  never  to  suffer  from  indigestion.  Their, 
gastronomy  was  really  an  art,  but  an  art  aided  by  science  which 
was  applied  to  the  simplest  dish.  One  of  these  was  veau  a  la 
casserole,  which  figured  at  least  three  times  a  week  on  the  bill 
of  fare,  and  the  like  of  which  I  have  never  tasted  elsewhere. 
Its  recuperative  qualities  were  vouched  for  by  such  men  as 
Alfred  de  Musset,  Balzac,  and  Alexandre  Dumas.  The  former 
partook  of  it  whenever  it  was  on  the  bill ;  the  others  often 
came,  after  a  spell  of  hard  work,  to  recruit  their  mental  and 
bodily  strength  with  it,  and  maintained  that  nothing  set  them 
up  so  effectually. 

These  three  men  were  particularly  interesting  to  me,  and 
their  names  will  frequently  recur  in  these  notes.     I  was  very 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  3 1 

young,  and,  though  perhaps  not  so  enthusiastic  about  literature 
as  I  was  about  painting  and  sculpture,  it  would  indeed  have 
been  surprising  if  I  had  remained  indifferent  to  the  fascination 
experienced  by  almost  every  one  in  their  society  :  for  let  me 
state  at  once  that  the  great  poet,  the  great  playwright,  and  the 
great  novelist  were  even  something  more  than  men  of  genius ; 
they  were  men  of  the  world,  and  gentlemen  who  thought  it 
worth  their  while  to  be  agreeable  companions.  Unlike  Victor 
Hugo,  Lamartine,  Chateaubriand,  and  Eugene  Sue,  all  of 
whom  I  knew  about  the  same  time,  they  did  not  deem  it 
necessary  to  stand  mentally  aloof  from  ordinary  mortals. 
Alfred  de  Musset  and  Alexandre  Dumas  were  both  very  hand- 
some, but  each  in  a  different  way.  With  his  tall,  slim  figure, 
auburn  wavy  hair  and  beard,  blue  eyes,  and  finely-shaped  mouth 
and  nose,  De  Musset  gave  one  the  impression  of  a  dandy 
cavalry  officer  in  mufti,  rather  than  a  poet :  the  "  Miss  Byron  " 
which  Preault  the  sculptor  applied  to  him  was,  perhaps,  not 
altogether  undeserved,  if  judged  intellectually  and  physically 
at  first  sight.  There  was  a  feminine  grace  about  all  his  move- 
ments. The  "  Confessions  d'un  Enfant  du  Siecle,"  his  play, 
"  Frederic  and  Bernerette,"  were  apt  to  stir  the  heart  of  women 
rather  than  that  of  men ;  but  was  it  not  perhaps  because  the 
majority  of  the  strong  sex  cannot  be  stirred  except  with  a  pole  ? 
And  the  poet  who  was  so  sensitive  to  anything  rough  as  to 
leave  invariably  the  coppers  given  to  him  in  exchange,  was 
unlikely  to  take  voluntarily  to  such  an  unwieldy  and  clumsy 
instrument  to  produce  his  effects.* 

Throughout  these  notes,  I  intend  to  abstain  carefully  from 
literary  judgments.  I  am  not  competent  to  enter  into  them  ; 
but,  if  I  were,  I  should  still  be  reluctant  to  do  so  in  the  case  of 
Alfred  de  Musset,  who,  to  my  knowledge,  never  questioned  the 
talent  of  any  one.  De  Musset  improved  upon  better  acquaint- 
ance. He  was  apt  to  strike  one  at  first  as  distant  and  super- 
cilious. He  was  neither  the  one  nor  the  other,  simply  very 
reserved,  and  at  the  best  of  times  very  sad,  not  to  say  melan- 
choly.    It  was  not  affectation,  as  has  been  said  so  often  ;  it  was 

*  This  reluctance  to  handle  coppers  proved  a  sore  grief  to  his  more  economical  and  less 
fastidious  brother  Paul,  who  watched  like  a  guardian  angel  over  his  junior,  whom  he  wor- 
shipped. It  is  on  record  that  he  only  said  a  harsh  word  to  him  once  in  his  life,  namely, 
when  they  wanted  to  make  him,  Paul,  a  member  of  the  Acad^mie  Frangaise.  "  C'est  bien 
assez  d'un  immortel  dans  la  famille,"  he  replied  to  those  who  counselled  him  to  stand. 
Then,  turning  to  his  brother,  "  Je  ne  comprends  pas  pourquoi  tu  t'es  fourre  dans  cette 
galore,  si  elle  est  assez  grande  pour  moi,  tu  dois  y  etre  joliment  k  Petroit."  It  is  difficult  to 
imagine  a  greater  instance  of  brotherly  pride  and  admiration,  because  Paul  de  Musset  was 
by  no  means  a  nonentity,  only  from  a  very  early  age  he  had  always  merged  his  individuality 
In  that  of  Alfred.  To  some  one  who  once  remarked  upon  this  in  my  hearing,  he  answered, 
"  Que  voulez-vous  ?  c'est  commecela:  Alfred  a  eu  toujours  la  moiti6  du  lit,  seulementla 
moiti^  ^tait  toujours  prise  du  milieu." 


32  AA^  EN-GLISHMAN  I.V  PARIS. 

his  nature.  The  charge  of  superciliousness  arose  from  his 
distressing  short-sightedness,  which  compelled  him  to  stare  very 
hard  at  people  without  the  least  intention  of  being  offensive. 

I  have  said  that  Balzac  often  came,  after  a  spell  of  hard 
work,  to  recruit  his  forces  with  the  veau  a  la  casserole  of  the 
Cafe  de  Paris ;  I  should  have  added  that  this  was  generally  in 
the  autumn  and  winter,  for,  at  the  end  of  the  spring  and  dur- 
ing the  summer,  the  dinner  hour,  seven,  found  Balzac  still  a 
prisoner  at  home.  Few  of  his  acquaintances  and  friends  ever 
caught  sight  of  him,  they  were  often  in  total  ignorance  of  his 
whereabouts,  and  such  news  as  reached  them  generally  came 
through  Joseph  Mery,the  poet  and  novelist,  the  only  one  who 
came  across  him  during  those  periods  of  eclipse.  Mery  was  an 
inveterate  gambler,  and  spent  night  after  night  at  the  card- 
table.  He  rarely  left  it  before  daybreak.  His  way  lay  past 
the  Cafe  de  Paris,  and  for  four  consecutive  mornings  he  had 
met  Balzac  strolling  leisurely  up  and  down,  dressed  in  a  panta- 
Ion  a  pieds  (trousers  not  terminating  below  the  ankle,  but  with 
feet  in  them  like  stockings),  and  frock  coat  with  velvet  facings. 
The  second  morning,  Mery  felt  surprised  at  the  coincidence ; 
the  third,  he  was  puzzled ;  the  fourth,  he  could  hold  out  no  longer, 
and  asked  Balzac  the  reason  of  these  nocturnal  perambulations 
round  about  the  same  spot.  Balzac  put  his  hand  in  his  pocket 
and  produced  an  almanack,  showing  that  the  sun  did  not  rise 
before  3.40.  "  I  am  being  tracked  by  the  officers  of  the 
Tribunal  de  Commerce,  and  obliged  to  hide  myself  during  the 
day ;  but  at  this  hour  I  am  free,  and  can  take  a  walk,  for  as 
long  as  the  sun  is  not  up  they  cannot  arrest  me." 

I  remember  having  read  that  Ouvrard,  the  great  army  con- 
tractor, had  done  the  same  for  many  years ;  nevertheless,  he 
was  arrested  one  day, — the  authorities  proved  that  the  alman- 
ack was  wrong,  that  the  sun  rose  ten  minutes  earlier  than  was 
stated  therein.  He  brought  an  action  against  the  compiler  and 
publishers.     They  had  to  pay  him  damages. 

Though  literary  remuneration  was  not  in  those  days  what  it 
became  later  on,  it  was  sufficiently  large  to  make  it  difficult  to 
explain  the  chronic  impecuniosity  of  Balzac,  though  not  that  of 
Dumas.  They  were  not  gamblers,  and  had  not  the  terrible  fits 
of  idleness  or  drinking  which  left  De  Musset  stranded  every 
now  and  again.  Lamartine  suffered  from  the  same  complaint, 
I  mean  impecuniosity.  There  is  proof  of  Balzac's  industry  and 
frugality  in  two  extracts  from  his  letters  to  his  mother,  dated 
Angouleme,  July,  1832,  when  he  himself  was  thirty-two  years 
old,  and  had  already  written  half  a  dozen  masterpieces.     "  Sev- 


AN  ENGLISFTMAN  IN  PARIS.  33 

eral  bills  are  due,  and,  if  I  cannot  find  the  money  for  them,  I 
will  have  them  protested  and  let  the  law  take  its  course.  It 
will  give  me  breathing  time,  and  I  can  settle  costs  and  all  after- 
wards." 

Meanwhile  he  works  eight  hours  a  day  at  "  Louis  Lambert," 
one  of  the  best  things  among  his  numberless  best  things.  His 
mother  sends  him  a  hundred  francs,  and,  perhaps  with  the  same 
pen  with  which  he  wrote  those  two  marvellous  chapters  that 
stand  out  like  a  couple  of  priceless  rubies  from  among  the  mass 
of  other  jewels,  he  thanks  her  and  accounts  for  them.  "  For 
the  copying  of  the  maps,  20  frs. ;  for  my  passport,  10  frs.  I  owed 
15  frs.  for  discount  on  one  of  my  bills,  and  15  frs.  on  my  fare. 
15  frs.  for  flowers  as  a  birthday  present.  Lost  at  cards,  10  frs. 
Postage  and  servant's  tips,  15  frs.     Total,  100  frs." 

But  these  ten  francs  have  not  been  lost  at  one  fell  swoop ; 
they  represent  his  bad  luck  at  the  gaining  table  during  the  whole 
month  of  his  stay  at  Angouleme,  at  the  house  of  his  friend  and 
sister's  schoolfellow,  Madame  Zulma  Carraud, — hence,  some- 
thing like  seven  sous  (3^^.)  per  day  ;  for  which  extravagance 
he  makes  up,  on  his  return  to  Paris,  by  plunging  into  work 
harder  than  ever.  He  goes  to  roost  at  7  p.  m.,  "  like  the  fowls  ;  " 
and  he  is  called  at  i  a.  m.,  when  he  writes  until  8  a.  m.  He 
takes  another  hour  and  a  half  of  sleep,  and,  after  partaking  of 
a  light  meal,  "  gets  into  his  collar  "  until  four  in  the  afternoon. 
After  that,  he  receives  a  few  friends,  takes  a  bath,  or  goes  out, 
and  immediately  he  has  swallowed  his  dinner  he  '*  turns  in," 
as  stated  above.  "  I  shall  be  compelled  to  lead  this  nigger's 
life  for  a  few  months  without  stopping,  in  order  not  to  be 
swamped  by  those  terrible  bills  that  are  due." 

These  extracts  are  not  personal  recollections.  I  have  inserted 
them  to  make  good  my  statement  that  Balzac  was  neither  a 
gambler,  a  drunkard,  nor  an  idler. 

"  How  does  he  spend  his  money  ? "  I  asked  Mery,  when  he 
had  told  us  of  his  fourth  meeting  with  Balzac  on  that  very  morn- 
ing. 

"  In  sops  to  his  imagination,  in  balloons  to  the  land  of 
dreams,  which  balloons  he  constructs  with  his  hard-won  earn- 
ings and  inflates  with  the  essence  of  his  visions,  but  which 
nevertheless  will  not  rise  three  feet  from  the  earth,"  he  an- 
swered. Then  he  went  on  explaining :  "  Balzac  is  firmly  con- 
vinced that  every  one  of  his  characters  has  had,  or  has  still, 
its  counterpart  in  real  life,  notably  the  characters  that  have 
risen  from  humble  beginnings  to  great  wealth ;  and  he  thinks 
that,  having  worked  out  the  secret  of  their  success  on  paper, 

3 


34  ^^  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

he  can  put  it  in  practice.  He  embarks  on  the  most  harum* 
scarum  speculations  without  the  slightest  practical  knowl- 
edge ;  as,  for  instance,  when  he  drew  the  plans  for  his  country- 
house  at  the  Jardies  (Ville  d'Avray),  and  insisted  upon  the 
builder  carrying  them  out  in  every  respect  while  he  was  away. 
When  the  place  was  finished  there  was  not  a  single  staircase. 
Of  course,  they  had  to  put  them  outside,  and  he  maintained 
that  it  was  part  of  his  original  plan ;  but  he  had  never  given  a 
thought  to  the  means  of  ascent.  But  here  is  Monsieur  Louis 
Lurine.  If  you  would  like  an  idea  of  Balzac's  impracticability, 
let  him  tell  you  what  occurred  between  Balzac  and  Kugelmann 
a  few  months  ago." 

Kugelmann  was  at  that  time  publishing  a  very  beautifully 
illustrated  work,  entitled,  "  Les  Rues  de  Paris,"  which  Louis 
Lurine  was  editing.  We  were  standing  outside  the  Cafe  Riche, 
and  I  knew  Lurine  by  sight.  Mery  introduced  me  to  him. 
After  a  few  preliminary  remarks,  Lurine  told  us  the  following 
story.  Of  course,  many  years  have  elapsed  since,  but  I  think 
I  can  trust  to  my  memory  in  this  instance. 

"  I  had  suggested,"  said  Lurine,  "that  Balzac  should  do  the 
Rue  de  Richelieu,  and  we  sent  for  him.  I  did  not  want  more 
than  half  a  sheet,  so  imagine  my  surprise  when  Balzac  named 
his  conditions,  viz.,  five  thousand  francs,  something  over  six 
hundred  francs  a  page  of  about  six  hundred  words.  Kugel- 
mann began  to  yell,  I  simply  smiled  ;  seeing  which,  Balzac  said, 
as  soberly  as  possible,  '  You'll  admit  that,  in  order  to  depict  a 
landscape  faithfully,  one  should  study  its  every  detail.  Well, 
how  would  you  have  me  describe  the  Rue  de  Richelieu,  convey 
an  idea  of  its  commercial  aspect,  unless  I  visit,  one  after  the 
other,  the  various  establishments  it  contains  ?  Suppose  I  begin 
by  the  Boulevard  des  Italiens :  I'd  be  bound  to  take  my  de- 
jeuner at  the  Cafe  Cardinal,  I  would  have  to  buy  a  couple  of 
scores  at  Brandus',  a  gun  at  the  gunsmith's  next  door,  a  breast- 
pin at  the  next  shop.  Could  I  do  less  than  order  a  coat  at  the 
tailor's,  a  pair  of  boots  at  the  bootmaker's  ? " 

"  I  cut  him  short.  '  Don't  go  any  further,'  I  said,  '  or  else 
we'll  have  you  in  at  "  Compagnie  des  Indes,"  and,  as  both  lace 
and  Indian  shawls  have  gone  up  in  price,  we'll  be  bankrupt 
before  we  know  where  we  are.' 

"Consequently,"  concluded  l/urine,  "the  thing  fell  through, 
and  we  gave  the  commission  to  Guenot-Lacointe,  who  has  done 
the  thing  very  well  and  has  written  twice  the  pages  Balzac  was 
asked  for,  without  buying  as  much  as  a  pair  of  gloves." 

When  Balzac  was  not  being  harassed  by  the  officials  of  the 


AM  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  35 

Tribunal  de  Commerce,  he  had  to  dodge  the  authorities  of  the 
National  Guards,  who  generally  had  a  warrant  against  him  for 
neglect  of  duty.  Unlike  his  great  contemporary  Dumas,  Bal- 
zac had  an  invincible  repugnance  to  play  the  amateur  warrior 
— a  repugnance,  by-the-by,  to  which  we  owe  one  of  the  most 
masterly  portraits  in  his  wonderful  gallery,  that  of  the  self- 
satisfied,  bumptious,  detestable  bourgeois,  who  struts  about  in 
his  uniform;  I  am  alluding  to  Crevel  of  "La  Cousine  Bette." 
But  civic  discipline  could  take  no  cognizance  of  the  novelist's 
likes  and  dislikes,  and,  after  repeated  "  notices  "  and  "  warn- 
ings," left  at  his  registered  domicile,  his  incarceration  was 
generally  decided  upon.  As  a  rule,  this  happened  about  half 
a  dozen  times  in  a  twelvemonth. 

The  next  thing  was  to  catch  the  refractory  national  guard, 
which  was  not  easy,  seeing  that,  in  order  to  avoid  an  enforced 
sojourn  at  the  Hotel  des  Haricots,  ^  Balzac  not  only  disap- 
peared from  his  usual  haunts,  but  left  his  regular  domicile,  and 
took  an  apartment  elsewhere  under  an  assumed  name.  On 
one  occasion,  at  a  small  lodging  which  he  had  taken  near  his 
publisher,  Hippoiyte  Souverain,  under  the  name  of  Madame 
Dupont,  Leon  Gozlan,  having  found  him  out,  sent  him  a  letter 
addressed  to  "  Madame  Dupont,  7iee  Balzac." 

The  sergeant-major  of  Balzac's  company  had  undoubtedly  a 
grudge  against  him.  He  happened  to  be  a  perfumer,  and  ever 
since  the  publication  and  success  of  "  Cesar  Birotteau  "  the 
Paris  perfumers  bore  Balzac  no  good  will.  That  particular  one 
had  sworn  by  all  his  essences  and  bottles  that  he  would  lay 
hands  on  the  recalcitrant  private  of  his  company  in  the  streets, 
for  only  under  such  conditions  could  he  arrest  him.  To  watch 
at  Balzac's  ordinary  domicile  was  of  no  use,  and,  when  he  had 
discovered  his  temporary  residence,  he  had  to  lure  him  out  of 
it,  because  the  other  was  on  his  guard. 

One  morning,  while  the  novelist  was  hard  at  work,  his  old 
housekeeper,  whom  he  always  took  with  him,  came  to  tell  him 
that  there  was  a  large  van  downstairs  with  a  case  addressed  to 
him.  "  How  did  they  find  me  out  here }  "  exclaimed  Balzac, 
and  despatched  the  dame  to  gather  further  particulars.  In  a 
few  moments  she  returned.  The  case  contained  an  Etruscan 
vase  sent  from  Italy,  but,  seeing  that  it  had  been  knocking 
about  for  the  last  three  days  in  every  quarter  of  Paris  in  the 
carman's  efforts  to  find  out  the  consignee,  the  former  was  anx- 

*  The  name  of  the  military  prison  which  was  originally  built  on  the  site  of  the  former 
College  Montaigu,  where  the  scholars  were  almost  exclusively  fed  on  haricot  beaus. 
Throughout  its  removals  the  prison  preserved  its  nickname. — Editor, 


36  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

ious  that  M.  Balzac  should  verify  the  intact  condition  of  the 
package  before  it  was  unloaded.  Balzac  fell  straight  into  the 
trap.  Giving  himself  no  time  even  to  exchange  his  dressing- 
gown,  or  rather  his  monk's  frock  he  was  in  the  habit  of  wear- 
ing, for  a  coat,  or  his  slippers  for  a  pair  of  boots,  he  rushed 
downstairs,  watching  with  a  benign  smile  the  carrier  handling 
most  delicately  the  treasure  that  had  come  to  him. 

"  Caught  at  last,"  said  a  stentorian  voice  behind  him,  and 
dispelling  the  dream  as  its  owner  laid  his  hand  on  the  novelist's 
shoulder,  while  a  gigantic  companion  planted  himself  in  front 
of  the  street  door  and  cut  off  all  retreat  that  way. 

"  With  a  refinement  of  cruelty,  which  in  the  eyes  of  posterity 
will  considerably  diminish  the  glory  of  his  victory  " — I  am 
quoting  Balzac's  own  words  as  he  related  the  scene  to  us  at 
the  Hotel  des  Haricots — the  sergeant-major  perfumer  would 
not  allow  his  prisoner  to  change  his  clothes,  and  while  the  van 
with  the  precious  Etruscan  vase  disappeared  in  the  distance, 
Balzac  was  hustled  into  a  cab  to  spend  a  week  in  durance  vile, 
where  on  that  occasion  he  had  the  company  of  Adolphe  Adam, 
the  composer  of  "  Le  Postilion  de  Lonjumeau." 

However,  "  les  jours  de  fete  etaient  passes,"  and  had  been 
for  the  last  five  years,  ever  since  the  Hotel  des  Haricots 
had  been  transferred  from  the  town  mansion  of  the  De  Bazan 
courts  in  the  Rue  des  Fosses-Saint-Germain  to  its  then  locale 
near  the  Orleans  railway  station.  There  were  no  more  banquets 
in  the  refectory  as  there  had  been  of  yore.  Each  prisoner  had 
his  meals  in  his  cell.  Joseph  Mery,  Nestor  Roqueplan,  and  I 
were  admitted  as  the  clock  struck  two,  and  had  to  leave  ex- 
actly an  hour  afterwards.  It  was  during  this  visit  that  Balzac 
enacted  the  scene  for  us  which  I  have  endeavored  to  describe 
above,  and  reminded  Mery  of  the  last  dinner  he  had  given  to 
Dumas,  Jules  Sandeau,  and  several  others  in  the  former  prison, 
which  dinner  cost  five  hundred  francs.  Eugene  Sue,  who  was 
as  unwilling  as  Balzac  to  perform  his  civic  duties,  had  had 
three  of  his  own  servants  to  wait  upon  him  there,  and  some  of 
his  plate  and  silver  brought  to  his  cell. 

Seeing  that  the  name  of  the  celebrated  author  of  "Les 
Mystferes  de  Paris  "  has  presented  itself  in  the  course  of  these 
notes,  I  may  just  as  well  have  done  with  him,  for  he  forms  part 
oi  the  least  agreeable  of  my  recollections.  He  was  also  an 
habitue  of  the  Cafe  de  Paris.  A  great  deal  has  been  written 
about  him  ;  what  has  never  been  sufiiciently  insisted  upon  was 
the  inveterate  snobbishness  of  the  man.  When  I  first  knew  him, 
about  '42 — '43,  he  was  already  in  the  zenith  of  his  glory,  but 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  37 

1  had  often  heard  others  mention  his  name  before  then,  and 
never  very  favorably.  His  dandyism  was  offensive,  mainly 
because  it  did  not  sit  naturally  upon  him.  It  did  not  spring 
from  an  innate  refinement,  but  from  a  love  of  show,  although 
his  father,  who  had  been  known  to  some  of  the  son's  familiars, 
was  a  worthy  man,  a  doctor,  and,  it  appears,  a  very  good 
doctor,  but  somewhat  brusque,  like  our  own  Abernethy ;  still 
much  more  of  a  gentleman  at  heart  than  the  son.  He  did  not 
like  Eugene's  extravagance,  and  when  the  latter,  about  '24, 
launched  out  into  a  cabriolet,  he  shipped  him  off  on  one  of  the 
king's  vessels,  as  a  surgeon  ;  to  which  fact  French  literature 
owed  the  first  novels  of  the  future  author  of  "  Les  Mysteres  de 
Paris  "  and  "  Le  Juif-Errant." 

But  the  father  was  gathered  to  his  fathers,  and  Eugene,  who 
had  never  taken  kindly  to  a  seafaring  life,  returned  to  Paris, 
to  spend  his  inheritance  and  to  resume  his  old  habits,  which 
made  one  of  his  acquaintances  say  that  "  le  pbre  and  le  fils  had 
both  entered  upon  a  better  life."  It  appears  that,  though 
somewhat  of  a  poseur  from  the  very  beginning,  he  was  witty 
and  amusing,  and  readily  found  a<:cess  to  the  circle  that  fre- 
quented the  gardens  of  the  Tivoli  and  the  Cafe  de  Paris.* 
They,  in  their  turn,  made  him  a  member  of  the  Jockey  Club 
when  it  was  founded,  which  kindness  they  unanimously  re- 
gretted, as  will  be  seen  directly. 

The  Tivoli  gardens,  though  utterly  forgotten  at  present,  was 
in  reality  the  birthplace  of  the  French  Jockey  Club.  About  the 
year  1833  a  man  named  Bryon,  one  of  whose  descendants  keeps, 
at  the  hour  I  write,  a  large  livery  stable  near  the  Grand  Caf^, 
opened  a  pigeon-shooting  gallery  in  the  Tivoli ;  the  pigeons, 
from  what  I  have  heard,  mainly  consisting  of  quails,  larks,  and 
other  birds.  The  pigeons  shot  at  were  wooden  ones,  poised  up 
high  in  the  air,  but  motionless,  as  we  still  see  them  at  the 
suburban  fairs  around  Paris.  Seven  years  before,  Bryon  had 
started  a  "  society  of  amateurs  of  races,"  to  whom,  for  a  certain 
consideration,  he  let  a  movable  stand  at  private  meetings, 
for  there  were  no  others  until  the  Society  for  the  Encourage- 
ment of  breeding  French  Horses  started  operations  in  1834. 
But  the  deliberations  at  first  took  place  at  Bryon's  place  in  the 
Tivoli  gardens,  and  continued  there  until,  one  day,  Bryon 
asked  the  fourteen  or  fifteen  members  why  they  should  not 
have  a   locale  of   their  own ;    the  result  was  that  they   took 

*  There  were  two  Tivoli  gardens,  both  in  the  same  neighborhood,  the  site  of  the  present 
Quartierde  1' Europe.  The  author  is  alluding  to  the  second,  so  often  mentioned  in  the 
novels  of  Paul  de  Kock. — Editor. 


3S  AJV  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

modest  quarters  in  the  Rue  du  Helder,  or  rather  amalgamated 
with  a  small  club  located  there  under  the  name  of  Le  Bouge 
(The  Den)  ;  for  Lord  Seymour,  the  Duke  de  Nemours,  Prince 
Demidoff,  and  the  rest  were  sufficiently  clear-sighted  to  per- 
ceive that  a  Jockey  Club  governed  on  the  English  principle 
was  entirely  out  of  the  question.  That  was  the  origin  of  the 
French  Jockey  Club,  which,  after  various  migrations,  is,  at  the 
time  of  writing,  magnificently  housed  in  one  of  the  palatial 
mansions  of  the  Rue  Scribe.  As  a  matter  of  course,  some  of  the 
fashionable  habitues  of  the  Cafe  de  Paris,  though  not  knowing 
a  fetlock  from  a  pastern,  were  but  too  pleased  to  join  an  in- 
stitution which,  with  the  mania  for  everything  English  in  full 
swing,  then  conferred  as  it  were  upon  its  members  a  kind  of 
patent  of  "  good  form,"  and,  above  all,  of  exclusiveness,  for 
which  some,  even  amidst  the  flesh-pots  of  the  celebrated 
restaurant,  longed.  Because,  it  must  be  remembered,  though 
the  majority  of  the  company  at  the  Cafe  de  Paris  were  very 
well  from  the  point  of  view  of  birth  and  social  position,  there 
was  no  possibility  of  excluding  those  who  could  lay  no  claim 
to  such  distinctions,  provided  they  had  the  money  to  pay  their 
reckoning,  and  most  of  them  had  more  than  enough  for  that. 
It  appears  that  Eugene  Sue  was  not  so  objectionable  as  he 
became  afterwards,  when  the  wonderful  success  of  his 
"  Mysteres  de  Paris  "  and  the  "  Juif- Errant  "  had  turned  his 
head  ;  he  was  made  an  original  member  of  the  club.  Election 
on  the  nomination  by  three  sponsors  was  not  necessary  then. 
That  article  was  not  inserted  in  the  rules  until  two  years  after 
the  foundation  of  the  Paris  Jockey  Club. 

Of  the  success  attending  Sue's  two  best-known  works,  I  can 
speak  from  personal  experience  ;  for  I  was  old  enough  to  be 
impressed  by  it,  and  foolish  enough  to  rank  him,  on  account 
of  it,  with  Balzac  and  Dumas,  perhaps  a  little  higher  than 
the  former.  After  the  lapse  of  many  years,  I  can  only 
console  myself  for  my  infatuation  with  the  thought  that 
thousands,  of  far  greater  intellectual  attainments  than  mine, 
were  in  the  same  boat,  for  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  the 
fnroi-e  created  by  "  Les  Mysteres  de  Paris  "  was  confined  to 
one  class,  and  that  class  the  worst  educated  one.  While  it 
appeared  in  serial  form  in  the  Debats^  one  had  to  bespeak  the 
paper  several  hours  beforehand,  because,  unless  one  subscribed 
to  it,  it  was  impossible  to  get  it  from  the  news-vendors.  As 
for  the  reading-rooms  where  it  was  supposed  to  be  kept,  the 
proprietors  frankly  laughed  in  your  face  if  you  happened  to 
ask  for   it,    after  you   had   paid   your   two   sous  admission. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  39 

"  Monsieur  is  joking.  We  have  got  five  copies,  and  we  let 
them  out  at  ten  sous  each  for  half  an  hou--  .-  that's  the  time  it 
takes  to  read  M.  Sue's  story.  We  have  one  copy  here,  and  if 
monsieur  likes  to  take  his  turn  he  may  do  so,  though  he  will 
probably  have  to  wait  for  three  or  four  hou^s." 

At  last  the  guileless  demoiselle  behind  ihe  counter  found 
even  a  more  effective  way  of  fleecing  her  clients.  The  cabinets 
de  lecture  altered  their  fees,  and  the  t\yo  sous,  which  until  then 
had  conferred  the  right  of  staying  as  long  as  one  liked,  were 
transformed  into  the  price  of  admission  for  one  hour.  Each 
reader  received  a  ticket  on  entering,  stating  the  time,  and  the 
shrewd  caissiere  made  the  round  every  ten  minutes.  I  may 
say  without  exaggeration  that  the  days  on  which  the  instal- 
ment of  fiction  was  "  crowded  out,"  there  was  a  general  air  of 
listlessness  about  Paris.  And,  after  the  first  few  weeks,  this 
happened  frequently  ;  for  by  that  time  the  Bertins  had  be- 
come quite  as  clever  as  their  formidable  rival,  the  proprietor 
and  editor  of  the  Constitutionnel^  the  famous  Dr.  Veron,  whom 
I  have  already  mentioned,  but  of  whom  I  shall  have  occasion 
to  speak  again  and  again,  for  he  was  one  of  the  most  notable 
characters  in  the  Paris  of  my  early  manhood.  But  to  return 
for  a  moment  to  "  Les  Mysteres  de  Paris  "  and  its  author. 

The  serial,  then,  was  frequently  interrupted  for  one  or  two 
days,  without  notice,  however,  to  the  readers  ;  and  on  its  re- 
sumption there  was  a  nice  little  paragraph  to  reassure  the 
"  grandes  dames  de  par  le  monde,"  as  well  as  their  maids, 
with  regard  to  the  health  of  M.  Sue,  who  was  supposed  to  have 
been  too  ill  to  work.  The  public  took  all  this  au  grand  sir ieux. 
They  either  chose  to  forget,  or  were  ignorant  of  the  fact,  that 
a  novel  of  that  kind,  especially  in  the  early  days  of  serial 
feuilleton,  was  not  delivered  to  the  editor  bit  by  bit.  Sue, 
great  man  as  he  was,*  would  not  have  dared  to  inaugurate  the 
system  only  adopted  somewhat  later  by  Alexandre  Dumas  the 
Elder,  namely,  that  of  writing  "  from  hand  to  mouth."  These 
paragraphs  served  a  dual  purpose — they  whetted  the  lady  and 
other  readers'  interest  in  the  author,  and  informed  the  indiffer- 
ent ones  how  great  that  interest  was.  For  these  paragraphs 
were,  or  professed  to  be, — I  really  believe  they  were, — the 
courteous  replies  to  hundreds  of  kind  inquiries  which  the 
author  "  could  not  acknowledge  separately  for  lack  of  time." 

But  this  was  not  all.  There  was  really  a  good  excuse  for 
Eugene  Sue  "  se  prenant  au  sdrieux,"  seeing  that  some  of  the 
most  eminent  magistrates  looked  upon  him  in  that  light  and 
opened  a  correspondence  with  him,  submitting   their   ideas 


40  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

about  reforming  such  criminals  as  "  le  maitre  d'e'cole,"  and 
praising  Prince  Rodolph,  or  rather  Eugene  Sue  under  that 
name,  for  ''his  laudable  efforts  in  the  cause  of  humanity." 
In  reality,  Sue  was  in  the  position  of  Moliere's  "  bourgeois 
gentilhomme  "  who  spoke  prose  without  being  aware  of  it  ; 
for  there  was  not  the  smallest  evidence,  from  his  former  work, 
that  he  intended  to  inaugurate  any  crusade,  either  socialistic 
or  philanthropic,  when  he  began  his  "  Mysteres  de  Paris.' 
He  simply  wanted  to  write  a  stirring  novel.  But,  unlike  M. 
Jourdaih,  he  did  not  plead  ignorance  of  his  own  good  motives 
when  congratulated  upon  them.  On  the  contrary,  he  gravely 
and  officially  replied  in  the  Dtbats  without  winking.  Some  of 
the  papers,  not  to  be  outdone,  gravely  recounted  how  whole 
families  had  been  converted  from  their  evil  ways  by  the  perusal 
of  the  novel  ;  how  others,  after  supper,  had  dropped  on  their 
knees  to  pray  for  their  author  ;  how  one  working  man  had  ex- 
claimed, "You  may  say  what  you  like,  it  would  be  a  good  thing 
if  Providence  sent  many  men  like  M.  Sue  in  this  world  to  take 
up  the  cudgels  of  the  honest  and  struggling  artisan."  There- 
upon Beranger,  who  did  not  like  to  be  forgotten  in  this  chorus 
of  praise,  paid  a  ceremonious  visit  to  Sue,  and  between  the 
two  they  assumed  the  protectorship  of  the  horny-handed  son 
of  toil. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  I  am  joking  or  exagger- 
ating, and  that  the  engoiiinent  was  confined  to  the  lower 
classes,  and  to  provincial  and  metropolitan  faddists. 
Such  men  as  M.  de  Lourdoueix,  the  editor  of  the  Gazette  de 
France^  fell  into  the  trap.  I  have  pointed  out  elsewhere  that 
the  republicans  and  socialists  of  those  days  were  not  necessarily 
godless  folk,  and  M.  de  Lourdoueix  fitly  concluded  that  a 
socialistic  writer  like  Sue  might  become  a  powerful  weapon  in 
his  hands  against  the  Jesuits.  So  he  went  to  the  novelist,  and 
gave  him  a  commission  to  that  effect.  The  latter  accepted, 
and  conceived  the  plot  of  "The  Wandering  Jew."  When  it 
was  sketched  out,  he  communicated  it  to  the  editor ;  but 
whether  that  gentleman  had  reconsidered  the  matter  in  the 
interval,  or  whether  he  felt  frightened  at  the  horribly  tragic 
conception  with  scarcely  any  relief,  he  refused  the  novel, 
unless  it  was  modified  to  a  great  extent  and  its  blood-curdling 
episodes  softened.  The  author,  taking  himself  an  serieux  this 
time  as  a  religious  reformer,  declined  to  alter  a  line.  Dr. 
Veron  got  wind  of  the  affair,  bought  the  novel  as  it  stood,  and, 
by  dint  of  a  system  of  puffing  and  advertising  which  would 
even  make  a  modern  American  stare,  obtained  a  success  with 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  41 

it  in  the  Constitutionnel  which  equalled  if  it  did  not  surpass 
that  of  the  Debats  with  the  "  Mysteres." 

"  It  is  very  amusing  indeed,"  said  George  Sand  one  night, 
"  but  there  are  too  many  animals.  I  hope  we  shall  soon  get 
out  of  this  menagerie."  Nevertheless,  she  frankly  admitted 
that  she  would  not  like  to  miss  an  instalment  for  ever  so 
much. 

Meanwhile  Sue  posed  and  posed,  not  as  a  writer — for,  like 
Horace  Walpole,  he  was  almost  ashamed  of  the  title — but  as 
"  a  man  of  the  world  "  who  knew  nothing  about  literature,  but 
whose  wish  to  benefit  humanity  had  been  greater  than  his 
reluctance  to  enter  the  lists  with  such  men  as  Balzac  and 
Dumas.  After  his  dinner  at  the  Cafe  de  Paris,  he  would 
gravely  stand  on  the  steps  smoking  his  cigar  and  listen  to  the 
conversation  with  an  air  of  superiority  without  attempting  to 
take  part  in  it.  His  mind  was  supposed  to  be  far  away,  devising 
schemes  for  the  social  and  moral  improvement  of  his  fellow- 
creatures.  These  philanthropic  musings  did  not  prevent  him 
from  paying  a  great  deal  of  attention — too  much  perhaps — to 
his  personal  appearance,  for  even  in  those  days  of  beaux, 
bucks,  and  dandies,  of  Counts  d'Orsay  and  others,  men  could 
not  help  thinking  Eugene  Sue  overdressed.  He  rarely  ap- 
peared without  spurs  to  his  boots,  and  he  would  no  more  have 
done  without  a  new  pair  of  white  kid  gloves  every  evening  than 
without  his  dinner.  Other  men,  like  Nestor  de  Roqueplan, 
Alfred  de  Musset,  Major  Fraser,  all  of  whose  names  will  fre- 
quently recur  in  these  notes,  did  not  mind  having  their  gloves 
cleaned,  though  the  process  was  not  so  perfect  as  it  is  now  ; 
Eugene  Sue  averred  that  the  smell  of  cleaned  gloves  made  him 
ill.  Alfred  de  Musset,  who  could  be  very  impertinent  when 
he  liked,  but  who  was  withal  a  very  good  fellow,  said  one  day  : 
"  Mais  enfin,  mon  ami,  ga  ne  sent  pas  pire  que  les  bouges  que 
vous  nous  depeignez.     N'y  seriez  vous  jamais  alle  ?  " 

In  short,  several  years  before  the  period  of  which  I  now  treat, 
Eugene  Sue  had  begun  to  be  looked  upon  coldly  at  the  Jockey 
Club  on  account  of  the  "  airs  he  gave  himself ;  "  and  three 
years  before  the  startling  success  of  his  work,  he  had  altogether 
ceased  to  go  there,  though  he  was  still  a  member,  and  remained 
so  nominally  until  '47,  when  his  name  was  removed  from  the 
list  in  accordance  with  Rule  5.  Owing  to  momentary 
pecuniary  embarrassments,  he  had  failed  to  pay  his  subscrip- 
tion. It  may  safely  be  asserted  that  this  was  merely  a  pretext 
to  get  rid  of  him,  because  such  stringent  measures  are  rarely 
resorted  to  at  any  decent  club,  whether  in  London  or  Paris, 


42  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

and  least  of  all  at  the  Jockey  Clubs  there.  The  fact  was,  tha' 
the  members  did  not  care  for  a  fellow-member  whose  taste 
differed  so  materially  from  their  own,  whose  daily  avocations 
and  pursuits  had  nothing  in  common  with  theirs  ;  for  though 
Eugene  Sue  as  early  as  1835  ^^<^  possessed  a  race-horse,  named 
Mameluke,  which  managed  to  come  in  a  capital  last  at  Maison- 
sur-Seine  (afterwards  Maisons-Lafitte)  ;  though  he  had  ridden 
his  haque  every  day  in  the  Bois,  and  driven  his  cabriolet  every 
afternoon  in  the  Champs-Elysees,  the  merest  observer  could 
easily  perceive  that  all  this  was  done  for  mere  show,  to  use  the 
French  expression,  "  pose."  As  one  of  the  members  observed, 
"  M.  Sue  est  toujours  trop  habille,  trop  carosse,  et  surtout  trop 
^peronne." 

M.  Sue  was  all  that,  and  though  the  Jockey  Club  at  that 
time  was  by  no  means  the  unobtrusive  body  of  men  it  is  to-day, 
its  excesses  and  eccentricities  were  rarely  indulged  in  public, 
except  perhaps  in  carnival  time.  A.  M.  de  Chateauvillard 
might  take  it  into  his  head  to  play  a  game  of  billiards  on  horse- 
back, or  M.  de  Machado  might  live  surrounded  by  a  couple  of 
hundred  parrots  if  he  liked ;  none  of  these  fancies  attracted  the 
public's  notice  :  M.  Sue,  by  his  very  profession,  attracted  too 
much  of  it,  and  brought  a  great  deal  of  it  into  the  club  itself  ; 
hence,  when  he  raised  a  violent  protest  against  his  expulsion 
and  endeavored  to  neutralize  it  by  sending  in  his  resignation, 
the  committee  maintained  its  original  decision.  A  few  years 
after  this,  Eugene  Sue  disappeared  from  the  Paris  horizon. 


CHAPTER  III. 

Among  my  most  pleasant  recollections  of  those  days  are 
those  of  Alexandre  Dumas.  To  quote  his  own  words,  "  when- 
ever he  m.et  an  Englishman  he  considered  it  his  particular  duty 
to  make  himself  agreeable  to  him,  as  part  of  the  debt  he  owed 
to  Shakespeare  and  Walter  Scott."  I  doubt  whether  Dumas 
ever  made  himself  deliberately  disagreeable  to  any  one ;  even 
when  provoked,  he  managed  to  disarm  his  adversary  with  an 
epigram,  rather  than  wound  him.  One  evening,  a  professor  at 
one  of  the  provincial  universities  had  been  dining  at  the  Cafe 
de  Paris,  as  the  guest  of  Roger  de  Beauvoir.  He  had  a 
magnificent  cameo  breast-pin.  It  elicited  the  admiration  of 
every  one,  and  notably  that  of  Dumas.  He  said  at  once  that 
it  was  a  portrait  of  Julius  Caesar. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  43 

"  Are  you  an  archaeologist  ?  "    asked  the  professor. 

"  I,"  replied  Dumas,  "  I  am  absolutely  nothing." 

"  Still,"  insisted  the  visitor,  "  you  perceived  at  once  that  it 
was  a  portrait  of  Julius  Caesar." 

"  That  is  not  very  wonderful.  Caesar  is  essentially  a  Rorn.an 
type  ;  and,  beside,  I  know  Caesar  as  well  as  most  people,  and 
perhaps  better." 

To  tell  a  professor  of  history — especially  a  provincial  one — ■ 
that  one  knows  Caesar  as  well  as  most  people  and  perhaps 
better,  is  naturally  to  provoke  the  question,  "  In  what  capaci- 
ty.? "  As  a  matter  of  course  the  question  followed  immedi- 
ately. 

"  In  the  capacity  of  Caesar's  historian,"  said  Dumas,  im- 
perturbably. 

We  were  getting  interested,  because  we  foresaw  that  the 
professor  would,  in  a  few  minutes,  get  the  worst  of  it.  Dumas' 
eyes  were  twinkling  with  mischief. 

"  You  have  v/ritten  a  history  of  Caesar  ? "  asked  the  learned 
man. 

"  Yes  ;  why  not  ? " 

"Well,  you  won't  mind  my  being  frank  with  you :  it  is 
because  it  has  never  been  mentioned  in  the  world  of  savants." 

"  The  world  of  savants  never  mentions  me." 

"Still,  a  history  of  Caesar  ought  to  make  somewhat  of  a 
sensation." 

"  Mine  has  not  made  any.  People  read  it,  and  that  was 
all.  It  is  the  books  which  it  is  impossible  to  read  that  make  a 
sensation:  they  are  like  the  dinners  one  cannot  digest;  the 
dinners  one  digests  are  not  as  much  as  thought  of  next 
morning."  That  was  Dumas'  way  of  putting  a  would-be 
impertinent  opponent  hors  de  combat,  and  his  repartees  were 
frequently  drawn  from  the  pursuit  he  loved  as  well,  if  not 
better  than  literature,  namely,  cooking.  It  may  sound  exag- 
gerated, but  I  verily  believe  that  Dumas  took  a  greater  pride 
in  concocting  a  stew  than  in  constructing  a  novel  or  a  play. 
Very  often,  in  the  middle  of  the  dinner,  he  would  put  down 
his  knife  and  fork.  "  Ca,  c'est  rudement  bon  :  il  faut  que  je 
m'en  procure  la  recette."  And  Guepet  was  sent  for  to  au- 
thorize Dumas  to  descend  to  the  lower  regions  and  have  a 
Consultation  with  his  chefs.  He  was  the  only  one  of  the 
habitues  who  had  ever  been  in  the  kitchens  of  the  Caf^  de 
Paris.  As  a  rule  these  excursions  were  followed  by  an 
invitation  to  dme  at  Dumas'  two  or  three  days  hence,  when 
the  knowledge  freshly  acquired  would  be  put  into  practice. 


44  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

There  were  few  of  us  who  questioned  Dumas'  literary 
genius  ;  there  were  many  who  suspected  his  cuHnary  abilitieSj 
and  notably  among  them,  Dr.  Veron.  The  germs  of  this  un- 
belief had  been  sown  in  the  doctor's  mind  by  his  own  cordon- 
bleu,  Sophie.  The  erstwhile  director  of  the  opera  lived,  at  that 
time,  in  a  beautiful  apartment  on  the  first  floor  of  a  nice  house 
in  the  Rue  Taitbout,  at  the  corner  of  which  the  Cafe  de  Paris 
was  situated.  Sophie  had  virtually  a  sinecure  of  it,  because, 
with  the  exception  of  a  dinner-party  now  and  then,  her  master, 
who  was  a  bachelor,  took  his  dinners  at  the  restaurant.  And 
with  regard  to  the  dejeuner,  there  was  not  much  chance  of  her 
displaying  her  talents,  because  the  man,  who  was  reputed  to 
be  a  very  Apicius,  was  frugality  itself.  His  reasons  for 
dining  out  instead  of  at  home  were  perfectly  logical,  though 
they  sounded  paradoxical.  One  day,  when  I  was  remarking 
upon  the  seemingly  strange  habit  of  dining  out,  when  he  was 
paying  "  a  perfect  treasure  "  at  home,  he  gave  me  these  reasons. 
"  My  dear  friend,  depend  upon  it  that  it  is  man's  stomach 
which  found  the  aphorism,  '  Qui  va  piano  va  sano,  qui  va 
sano  va  lontano.^  In  your  own  home  the  soup  is  on  the  table 
at  a  certain  hour,  the  roast  is  taken  off  the  jack,  the  dessert  is 
spread  out  on  the  sideboard.  Your  servants,  in  order  to 
get  more  time  over  their  meals,  hurry  you  up ;  they  do  not 
serve  you,  they  gorge  you.  At  the  restaurant,  on  the  contrary, 
they  are  never  in  a  hurry,  they  let  you  wait.  And,  besides,  I 
always  tell  the  waiters  not  to  mind  me  ;  that  I  like  being  kept 
a  long  while — that  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  I  come  here. 

"  Another  thing,  at  the  restaurant  the  door  is  opened  at 
every  moment  and  something  happens.  A  friend,  a  chum,  or 
a  mere  acquaintance  comes  in  ;  one  chats  and  laughs  :  all  this 
aids  digestion.  A  man  ought  not  to  be  like  a  boa-constrictor, 
he  ought  not  to  make  digestion  a  business  apart.  He  ought 
to  dine  and  to  digest  at  the  same  time,  and  nothing  aids  this 
dual  function  like  good  conversation.  Perhaps  the  servant  of 
Madame  de  Maintenon,  when  the  latter  was  still  Madame 
Scarron,  was  a  greater  philosopher  than  we  suspect  when  he 
whispered  to  his  mistress,  '  Madame,  the  roast  has  run  short ; 
give  them 'another  story.' 

"  I  knew  a  philanthropist,"  wound  up  Dr.  Veron,  ''who  ob- 
jected as  much  to  be  hurried  over  his  emotions  as  I  object  to 
be  hurried  over  my  meals.  For  that  reason  he  never  went  to 
the  theatre.  When  he  wanted  an  emotional  fillip,  he  wandered 
about  the  streets  until  he  met  some  poor  wretch  evidently  hun- 
gry and  out  of  elbows,     He  took  him  to  the  nearest  wine-shop, 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  45 

gave  him  something  to  eat  and  to  drink,  sat  himself  opposite 
to  his  guest,  and  told  him  to  recount  his  misfortunes.  '  But 
take  your  time  over  it.  I  am  not  in  a  hurry,'  he  recommended. 
The  poor  outcast  began  his  tale  ;  my  friend  listened  attentively 
until  he  was  thoroughly  moved.  If  the  man's  story  was  very 
sad,  he  gave  him  a  franc  or  two ;  if  it  was  positively  heart- 
rending and  made  him  cry,  he  gave  him  a  five-franc  piece; 
after  which,  he  came  to  see  me,  saying,  '  I  have  thoroughly  en- 
joyed myself,  and  made  the  intervals  between  each  sensational 
episode  last  as  long  as  I  liked,  and,  what  is  more,  it  has  just 
cost  me  seven  francs,  the  price  of  a  stall  at  the  theatre.'  " 

To  return  to  Dr.  Veron's  scepticism  with  regard  to  Dumas' 
culinary  accomplishments,  and  how  he  was  converted.  Dumas, 
it  appears,  had  got  the  recipe  for  stewing  carp  from  a  German 
lady,  and,  being  at  that  moment  on  very  friendly  terms  with 
Dr.  Veron,  which  was  not  always  the  case,  had  invited  him 
and  several  others  to  come  and  taste  the  results  of  his  experi- 
ments. The  dish  was  simply  splendid,  and  for  days  and  days 
Veron,  who  was  really  a  frugal  eater,  could  talk  of  nothing  else 
to  his  cook. 

"  Where  did  you  taste  it  ?  "  said  Sophie,  getting  somewhat 
jealous  of  this  praise  of  others  ;  "  at  the  Cafe  de  Paris  ?  " 

"  No,  at  Monsieur  Dumas',"  was  the  answer. 

"Well,  then,  I'll  go  to  Monsieur  Dumas'  cook,  and  get  the 
recipe." 

"  That's  of  no  use,"  objected  her  master.  "  Monsieur  Dumas 
prepared  the  dish  himself." 

"  Well,  then,  I'll  go  to  Monsieur  Dumas  himself  and  ask 
him  to  give  me  the  recipe." 

Sophie  was  as  good  as  her  word,  and  walked  herself  off  to 
the  Chaussee  d'Antin.  The  great  novelist  felt  flattered,  and 
gave  her  every  possible  information,  but  somehow  the  dish  was 
not  like  that  her  master  had  so  much  enjoyed  at  his  friend's. 
Then  Sophie  grew  morose,  and  began  to  throw  out  hints  about 
the  great  man's  borrowing  other  people's  feathers  in  his  culi- 
nary pursuits,  just  as  he  did  in  his  literary  ones.  For  Sophie 
was  not  altogether  illiterate,  and  the  papers  at  that  time  were 
frequently  charging  Dumas  with  keeping  his  collaborateurs  too 
much  in  the  background  and  himself  too  much  in  front.  Du- 
mas had  never  much  difficulty  in  meeting  such  accusations,  but 
Sophie  had  unconsciously  hit  upon  the  tactics  of  the  clever 
solicitor  who  recommended  the  barrister  to  abuse  the  plaintiff, 
the  defendant's  case  being  bad,  and  she  put  it  into  practice. 
"  C'est  avec  sa  carpe  comme  avec  ses  romans,  les  autres  les 


46  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

font  et  il  y  met  son  nom,"  she  said  one  day.  "  Je  I'ai  bien  vu, 
c'est  un  grand  diable  de  vaniteux." 

Now,  there  was  no  doubt  about  it,  to  those  who  did  not 
know  him  very  well,  Dumas  was  "  un  grand  diable  de  vani- 
teux , '  and  the  worthy  doctor  sat  pondering  his  cook's  remarks 
until  he  himself  felt  inclined  to  think  that  Dumas  had  a  clever 
chef  in  the  background,  upon  whose  victories  he  plumed  him- 
self. Meanwhile  Dumas  had  been  out  of  town  for  more  than 
a  month,  but  a  day  or  so  after  his  return  he  made  his  appear- 
ance at  the  Cafe  de  Paris,  and,  as  a  matter  of  course,  inquired 
after  the  result  of  Sophie's  efforts.  The  doctor  was  reticent 
at  first,  not  caring  to  acknowledge  Sophie's  failure.  He  had, 
however,  made  the  matter  public,  alleging,  at  the  same  time, 
Sophie's  suspicions  as  to  Dumas'  hidden  collaborateur,  and 
one  of  the  company  was  ill-advised  enough  to  let  the  cat  out 
of  the  bag.  During  the  many  years  of  my  acquaintance  with 
Dumas,  I  have  never  seen  him  in  such  a  rage  as  then.  But  he 
toned  down  in  a  very  few  minutes.  "  II  n'y  a  qu'une  reponse 
k  une  accusation  pareille,"  he  said  in  a  grandiloquent  tone, 
which,  however,  had  the  most  comical  effect,  seeing  how  tri- 
fling the  matter  was  in  reality — "  il  n'y  a  qu'une  reponse  ;  vous 
viendrez  diner  avec  moi  demain,  vous  choisirez  un  delegue  qui 
viendra  a  partir  de  trois  heures  me  voir  preparer  mon  diner." 
I  was  the  youngest,  the  choice  fell  upon  me.  That  is  how  my 
lifelong  friendship  with  Dumas  began.  At  three  o'clock  next 
day  I  was  at  the  Chausses  d'Antin,  and  was  taken  by  the 
servant  into  the  kitchen,  where  the  great  novelist  stood  sur- 
rounded by  his  utensils,  some  of  silver,  and  all  of  them  glisten- 
ing like  silver.  With  the  exception  of  a  soupe  aux  choux,  at 
which,  by  his  own  confession,  he  had  been  at  work  since  the 
morning,  all  the  ingredients  for  the  dinner  were  in  their  natural 
state — of  course,  washed  and  peeled,  but  nothing  more.  He 
was  assisted  by  his  own  cook  and  a  kitchen-maid,  but  he  him- 
self, with  his  sleeves  rolled  up  to  the  elbows,  a  large  apron 
round  his  waist,  and  bare  chest,  conducted  the  operations.  I 
do  not  think  I  have  ever  seen  anything  more  entertaining, 
though  in  the  course  of  these  notes  I  shall  have  to  mention 
frequent  vagaries  on  the  part  of  great  men.  I  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  when  writers  insisted  upon  the  culinary  chal- 
lenges of  Careme  Duglere  and  Casimir  they  were  not  indulging 
in  mere  metaphor. 

At  half-past  six  the  guests  began  to  arrive  ;  at  a  quarter  to 
seven  Dumas  retired  to  his  dressing-room  ;  at  seven  punctually 
the  servant  announced  that  "monsieur  etait  servi."     The  din- 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  47 

ner  consisted  of  the  aforenamed  soupe  aux  choux,  the  carp  that 
had  led  to  the  invitation,  a  ragout  de  mouton  a  la  Hongroise, 
roti  de  faisans,  and  a  salade  Japonaise.  The  sweets  and  ices 
had  been  sent  by  the  patissier.  I  never  dined  like  that  before 
or  after,  not  even  a  week  later,  when  Dr.  Veron  and  Sophie 
made  the  amende  hotiorable  in  the  Rue  Taitbout. 

I  have  spent  many  delightful  evenings  with  all  these  men ; 
I  do  not  remember  having  spent  a  more  delightful  one  than  on 
the  latter  occasion.  Every  one  was  in  the  best  of  humors  ; 
the  dinner  was  very  fine,  albeit  that,  course  for  course,  it  did 
not  come  up  to  Dumas' ;  and,  moreover,  during  the  week  that 
had  elapsed  between  the  two  entertainments,  one  of  Dr.  Veron's 
successors  at  the  opera,  Leon  Pillet,  had  been  served  with  the 
most  ludicrous  citation  that  was  ever  entered  on  the  rolls  of 
any  tribunal.  For  nearly  nineteen  years  before  that  period 
there  had  been  several  attempts  to  mount  Weber's  "  Frei- 
schiltz,"  all  of  which  had  come  to  nought.  There  had  been 
an  adaptation  by  Castil-Blaze,  under  the  title  of  "  Robin  des 
Bois,"  and  several  others ;  but  until  '41,  Weber's  work,  even 
in  a  mutilated  state,  was  not  known  to  the  French  opera-goer. 
At  that  time,  however,  M.  Emilien  Paccini  made  a  very  good 
translation  ;  Hector  Berlioz  was  commissioned  to  write  the 
recitatives,  for  it  must  be  remembered  that  Weber's  opera  con- 
tains dialogue,  and  that  dialogue  is  not  admissible  in  grand 
opera.  Berlioz  acquitted  himself  with  a  taste  and  reverence 
for  the  composer's  original  scheme  that  did  great  credit  to 
both ;  he  sought  his  themes  in  Weber's  work  itself,  notably  in 
the  "  Invitation  a  la  Valse  :  "  but  notwithstanding  all  this,  the 
"  Freischiitz  "  was  miserably  amputated  in  the  performance, 
lest  it  should ''play  "  longer  than  midnight,  though  a  ballet 
was  added  rather  than  deprive  the  public  of  its  so-called  due. 
Neither  Paccini  nor  Berlioz  had  set  foot  in  the  opera-house 
since  their  objections  to  such  a  course  had  been  overruled, 
and  they  made  it  known  to  the  world  at  large  that  no  blame 
attached  to  them  ;  nevertheless,  this  quasi  "  Freischiitz  "  met 
with  a  certain  amount  of  success.  M.  Pillet  was  rubbing  his 
hands  with  glee  at  his  own  cleverness,  until  a  Nemesis  came 
in  the  shape  of  a  visitor  from  the  fatherland,  who  took  the 
conceit  out  of  the  director  with  one  fell  blow,  and,  what  was 
worse  still,  with  a  perfectly  legal  one. 

The  visitor  was  no  less  a  personage  than  Count  Tyszkiewicz, 
one  of  the  best  musical  critics  of  the  time  and  the  editor  of  the 
foremost  musical  publication  in  the  world,  namely.  Die  Musik- 
alische  Zeitung,  of  Leipzig.     The  count,  having  been  attracted 


48  AiSf  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

by  the  announcement  of  the  opera  on  the  bills,  was  naturally 
anxious  to  hear  how  French  artists  would  acquit  themselves  of 
a  work  particularly  German,  and,  having  secured  a  stall,  antici- 
pated an  enjoyable  evening.  But  alack  and  alas !  in  a  very 
little  while  his  indignation  at  the  liberties  taken  with  the  text 
and  the  score  by  the  singers,  musicians,  and  conductor  got  the 
upper  hand,  and  he  rushed  off  to  the  commissary  of  police  on 
duty  at  the  theatre  to  claim  the  execution  of  Weber's  opera  in 
its  integrity,  as  promised  on  the  bills,  or  the .  restitution  of  his 
money.  Failing  to  get  satisfaction  either  way,  he  required  the 
commissary  to  draw  up  a  verbatim  report  of  his  objections  and 
his  claim,  determined  to  bring  an  action.  Next  morning,  he 
sent  a  lithographed  account  of  the  transaction  to  all  the  papers, 
requesting  its  insertion,  with  which  request  not  a  single  one 
complied.  Finding  himself  baffled  at  every  turn,  he  engaged 
lawyer  and  counsel  and  began  proceedings. 

It  was  at  that  stage  of  the  affair  that  the  dinner  at  Dr.  Ve- 
ron's  took  place.  As  a  matter  of  course,  the  coming  lawsuit 
gave  rise  to  a  great  deal  of  chaff  on  the  part  of  the  guests,  al- 
though the  victim  of  this  badinage  and  defendant  in  the  suit 
was  not  there.  It  was  his  successor  who  took  up  the  cudgels 
and  predicted  the  plaintiff's  discomfiture.  "  The  counsel," 
said  Roqueplan,  "  ought  to  be  instructed  to  invite  the  president 
and  assessors  to  come  and  hear  the  work  before  they  deliver 
judgment :  if  they  like  it  personally,  they  will  not  decide 
against  Fillet ;  if  they  don't,  they'll  fall  asleep  and  be  ashamed 
to  own  it  afterwards.  But  should  they  give  a  verdict  for  the 
plaintiff.  Fillet  ought  to  appeal  on  a  question  of  incompetence  ; 
a  person  with  the  name  of  Tyszkiewicz  has  no  right  to  plead  in 
the  interest  of  harmony."  * 

Among  such  a  company  as  that  gathered  round  Dr.  Veron's 
table,  a  single  sentence  frequently  led  to  a  host  of  recollection. 
Scarcely  had  Roqueplan's  suggestion  to  invite  the  president 
and  assessors  of  the  court  to  the  performance  of  the  "  Frei- 
schiitz"  been  broached  than  our  host  chimed  in  :  "I  can  tell 
you  a  story  where  the  expedient  you  recommend  was  really  re- 
sorted to,  though  it  did  not  emanate  from  half  as  clever  a  man 
as  you,  Roqueplan.  In  fact,  it  was  only  a  pompier  that  hit 
upon  it  to  get  out  of  a  terrible  scrape.  He  was  going  to  be 
brought  before  a  court-martial  for  neglect  of  duty.    It  happened 

*  The  latter  plea  was,  in  fact,  advanced  by  Fillet's  counsel  in  the  first  instance,  on  Roque- 
plan's advice,  and  perhaps  influenced  the  court ;  for  though  it  gave  a  verdict  for  the  plaintiff, 
It  was  only  for  sevett  francs  (the  price  of  the  stall),  and  costs.  The  verdict  was  based  upon 
the  "  consideration  ''  that  the  defendant  had  not  carried  out  altogether  the  promise  set  forth 
on  the  programme. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  49 

under  the  management  of  my  immediate  successor,  Duponchel, 
at  the  fourth  or  fifth  performance  of  Halevy's  *  Guido  et  Gene- 
vra.'  Some  of  the  scenery  caught  fire,  and,  but  for  Duponchel's 
presence  of  mind,  there  would  have  been  a  panic  and  a  horrible 
catastrophe.  Nevertheless,  the  cause  of  the  accident  had  to 
be  ascertained,  and  it  was  found  that  the  brigadier  fireman 
posted  at  the  spot  where  the  mischief  began  had  been  asleep. 
He  frankly  admitted  his  fault,  at  the  same  time  pleading  ex- 
tenuating circumstances.  '  What  do  you  mean  ? '  asked  the 
captain,  charged  with  the  report.  '  Such  a  thing  has  never 
happened  to  me  before,  mon  capitaine,  but  it  is  impossible  for 
any  one  to  keep  his  eyes  open  during  that  act.  You  need  not 
take  my  word,  but  perhaps  you  will  try  the  effect  yourself.' 
The  captain  did  try ;  the  captain  sat  for  two  or  three  minutes 
after  the  rise  of  the  curtain,  then  he  was  seen  to  leave  his  place 
hurriedly.  The  brigadier  and  his  men  were  severely  repri- 
manded, but  they  were  not  tried.  Out  of  respect  for  Halevy 
the  matter  was  kept  a  secret. 

"  I  may  add,"  said  our  host,  "  that  the  pompier  is  by  no 
means  a  bad  judge  of  things  theatrical,  seeing  that  he  is  rarely 
away  from  the  stage  for  more  than  three  or  four  nights  at  a 
time.  I  remember  perfectly  well  that,  during  the  rehearsals  of 
*  Robert  le  Diable,'  Meyerbeer  often  had  a  chat  with  them. 
Curiously  enough  he  now  and  then  made  little  alterations  after 
these  conversations.  I  am  not  insinuating  that  the  great  com- 
poser acted  upon  their  suggestions,  but  I  should  not  at  all 
wonder  if  he  had  done  so." 

Alexandre  Dumas,  in  whose  honor,  it  will  be  remembered, 
the  dinner  was  given,  had  an  excellent  memory,  and  some 
years  afterwards  profited  by  the  experiment.  I  tell  the  story 
as  it  was  given  to  us  subsequently  by  his  son.  Only  a  few 
friends  and  Alexandre  the  younger  were  present  at  the  first  of 
the  final  rehearsals  of  "  The  Three  Musketeers,"  at  the  Ambigu 
Comique.  They  were  not  dress  rehearsals  proper,  because 
there  were  no  costumes,  and  the  scenery  merely  consisted  of  a 
cloth  and  some  wings.  Behind  one  of  the  latter  they  had  no- 
ticed, during  the  first  six  tableaux,  the  shining  helmet  of  a  fire- 
man who  was  listening  very  attentively.  The  author  had  no- 
ticed him  too.  About  the  middle  of  the  seventh  tableaux  the 
helmet  suddenly  vanished,  and  the  father  remarked  upon  it  to 
his  son.  When  the  act  was  finished,  Dumas  went  in  search  of 
the  pompier,  who  did  not  know  him.  "  What  made  you  go 
away  ? "  he  asked  him.  "  Because  it  did  not  amuse  me  half  as 
much  as  the  others,"  was  the  answer.     "  That  was  enough  for 

4 


50  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

my  father,"  said  the  younger  Dumas.  "There  and  then  he 
went  to  Beraud's  room,  took  off  his  coat,  waistcoat,  and  braces, 
unfastened  the  collar  of  his  shirt — it  was  the  only  way  he  could 
work — and  he  sent  for  the  prompt  copy  of  the  seventh  tableau, 
which  he  tore  up  and  flung  into  the  fire,  to  the  consternation 
of  Beraud.  '  What  are  you  doing  ? '  he  exclaimed.  '  You  see 
what  I  am  doing  ;  I  am  destroying  the  seventh  tableau.  It 
does  not  amuse  the  pompier.  I  know  what  it  wants.'  And 
an  hour  and  a  half  later,  at  the  termination  of  the  rehearsal, 
the  actors  were  given  a  fresh  seventh  tableau  to  study." 

I  have  come  back  by  a  roundabout  way  to  the  author  of 
"  Monte-Christo,"  because,  tout  chemin  avec  moi  mene  a 
Dumas  ;  1  repeat,  he  constitutes  one  of  the  happiest  of  my 
recollections.  After  the  lapse  of  many  years,  I  wiUingly  admit- 
that  I  would  have  cheerfully  foregone  the  acquaintance  of  all 
the  other  celebrities,  perhaps  David  d' Angers  excepted,  for 
that  of  Dumas  pere. 

After  the  lapse  of  many  years,  the  elder  Dumas  still  rep- 
resents to  me  all  the  good  qualities  of  the  French  nation  and 
few  of  their  bad  ones.  It  was  absolutely  impossible  to  be  dull 
in  his  society,  but  it  must  not  be  thought  that  these  contagious 
animal  spirits  only  showed  themselves  periodically  or  when  in 
company.  It  was  what  the  French  have  so  aptly  termed  "  la 
joie  de  vivre,"  albeit  that  they  rarely  associate  the  phrase  with 
any  one  not  in  the  spring  of  life.  With  Dumas  it  was  chronic 
until  a  very  few  months  before  his  death.  I  remember  calling 
upon  him  shortly  after  the  dinner  of  which  I  spoke  just  now. 
He  had  taken  up  his  quarters  at  Saint-Germain,  and  come  to 
Paris  only  for  a  few  days.  "  Is  monsieur  at  home  ?  "  I  said  to 
the  servant. 

"  He  is  in  his  study,  monsieur,"  was  the  answer.  "  Monsieur 
can  go  in." 

At  that  moment  I  heard  a  loud  burst  of  laughter  from  the 
inner  apartment,  so  I  said,  "  I  would  sooner  wait  until  mon- 
sieur's visitors  are  gone." 

"  Monsieur  has  no  visitors ;  he  is  working,"  remarked  the 
servant  with  a  smile.  "  Monsieur  Dumas  often  laughs  like 
this  at  his  work." 

It  was  true  enough,  the  novelist  was  alone  or  rather  in  com- 
pany with  one  of  his  characters,  at  whose  sallies  he  was  simply 
roaring. 

Work,  in  fact,  was  a  pleasure  to  him,  like  everything  else  he 
undertook.  One  day  he  had  been  out  shooting,  between 
Villers-Cotterets  and  Compiegne,  since  six  in  the  morning,  and 


A.V  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PA  RIS.  ■  5 1 

had  killed  twenty-nine  birds.  "  I  am  going  to  make  up  the 
score  and  a  half,  and  then  I'll  have  a  sleep,  for  I  feel  tired," 
he  said.  When  he  had  killed  his  thirtieth  partridge  he  slowly 
walked  back  to  the  farm,  where  his  son  and  friends  found  him 
about  four  hours  later,  toasting  himself  before  the  are,  his  feet 
on  the  andirons,  and  twirling  his  thumbs. 

"  What  are  you  sitting  there  for  like  that }  "  asked  his  son. 

"  Can't  you  see }     I  am  resting." 

"  Did  you  get  your  sleep  ?  " 

"  No,  I  didn't ;  it's  impossible  to  sleep  here.  There  is  an 
infernal  noise ;  what  with  the  sheep,  the  cows,  the  pigs,  and 
the  rest,  there  is  no  chance  of  getting  a  wink." 

"  So  you  have  been  sitting  here  for  the  last  four  hours,  twirl- 
ing your  thumbs  ? " 

"  No,  I  have  been  writing  a  piece  in  one  act."  The  piece  in 
question  was  "  Romulus,"  which  he  gave  to  Regnier  to  have 
it  read  at  the  Comedie-Frangaise,  under  a  pseudonym,  and  as 
the  work  of  a  young  unknown  author.  It  was  accepted  with- 
out a  dissentient  vote. 

It  is  a  well-known  fact,  vouched  for  by  the  accounts  of  the 
Compagnie  du  Chemin  de  Fer  de  I'Ouest,  that  during  the 
three  years  Dumas  lived  at  Saint-Germain,  the  receipts  in- 
creased by  twenty  thousand  francs  per  annum.  Of  course,  it 
has  been  objected  that  railways  being  then  in  their  infancy  the 
increment  would  have  been  just  the  same  without  Dumas'  pre- 
sence in  the  royal  residence,  but,  curiously  enough,  from  the 
day  he  left,  the  passenger  traffic  fell  to  its  previous  state. 
Dumas  had  simply  galvanized  the  sleepy  old  town  into  life,  he 
had  bought  the  theatre  where  the  artists  of  the  Comedie- 
Fran^aise,  previous  to  supping  with  him,  came  to  play  "  Made- 
moiselle de  Belle-Isle  "  or  the  "  Demoiselles  de  Saint-Cyr,"  for 
the  benefit  of  the  poor.  On  such  occasions,  there  was  not  a 
room  to  be  had  at  the  hotels.  After  supper,  there  were  twice 
a  week  fireworks  on  the  Terrace,  which  could  be  seen  from 
Paris  and  from  Versailles,  to  the  great  astonishment  of  Louis- 
Philippe,  who  really  attributed  the  change  to  the  beneficence 
of  his  reign,  although  he  failed  to  account  for  the  continued 
dulness  of  the  latter  royal  borough,  where  he  himself  resided, 
and  whose  picture-galleries  he  had  restored  and  thrown  open 
to  the  public,  besides  having  the  great  fountains  to  play  every 
first  Sunday  of  the  month. 

One  day  the  king  sent  for  M.  de  Montalivet,  and  told  him 
that,  though  gratffied  at  the  revived  prosperity  of  Saint-Ger- 
main, he  would  like  to  see  a  little  more  gayety  at  Versailles. 


52  AA^  ENGLISH  MA  N  IN  PA  RIS. 

"  You  really  mean  it,  sire  !  "  asked  the  minister. 

"  Not  only  do  I  mean  it,  but  I  confess  to  you  that  it  would 
give  me  ^^reat  pleasure." 

"  Well,  sire,  Alexandre  Dumas  has  lately  been  sentenced  to 
a  fortnight's  imprisonment  for  neglecting  his  duty  in  the 
National  Guards  :  make  an  order  for  him  to  spend  that  fort- 
night in  Versailles,  and  I  guarantee  your  Majesty  that  Versailles 
will  be.  lively  enough." 

Louis-Philippe  did  not  act  upon  the  suggestion.  The  only 
member  of  the  d'Orleans'  family  who  was  truly  sympathetic  to 
Dumas  was  the  king's  eldest  son,  whose  untimely  death  shortly 
afterwards  affected  the  great  novelist  very  much,  albeit  that  he 
frankly  acknowledged  to  regretting  the  man  and  not  the  future 
ruler;  for  while  loudly  professing  his  republican  creed,  he 
never  pretended  to  overlook  his  indebtedness  to  Louis-Philippe, 
when  Due  d'Orleans,  for  having  befriended  him ;  nay,  I  am 
inclined  to  think  that  Dumas'  gratitude  was  far  greater  than 
the  case  warranted.  When,  in  1847,  ^^  fancy  took  him  to  go 
into  parliament,  he  naturally  turned  to  the  borough  he  had 
benefited  so  much  by  his  stay  there — Saint-Germain,  and  Saint- 
Germain  denied  him.  They  thought  him  too  immoral.  Dumas 
waitedpatiently  for  another  opportunity,  which  did  not  come 
until  the  following  year,  when  Louis-Philippe  had  abdicated. 
Addressing  a  meeting  of  electors  at  Joigny,  he  was  challenged 
by  a  M.  de  Bonneliere  to  reconcile  his  title  of  republican  with  his 
title  of  Marquis  de  la  Pailleterie,  and  the  fact  of  his  having  been  a 
secretary  to  the  Due  d'Orleans,  although  he  had  never  occupied 
so  important  a  position  in  the  Due  d'Orleans'  household.  His 
reply  was  simply  scathing,  and  I  give  it  in  full  as  the  papers  of 
the  day  reproduced  it.  "  No  doubt,"  he  said,  in  an  off-hand, 
bantering  way,  "  I  was  formerly  called  the  Marquis  de  la 
Pailleterie,  which  was  my  father's  name,  and  of  which  I  was 
very  proud,  being  unable  then  to  claim  a  glorious  one  of  my 
own  make.  But  at  present,  when  I  am  somebody,  I  call  my- 
self Alexandre  Dumas  and  nothing  more ;  and  everybody 
knows  me,  you  among  the  rest — you,  you  absolute  nobody, 
who  have  merely  come  to  be  able  to  boast  to-morrow,  after 
insulting  me  to-night,  that  you  have  known  the  great  Dumas. 
If  such  was  your  ambition,  you  might  have  satisfied  it  without 
failing  in  the  common  courtesies  of  a  gentleman," 

When  the  applause  which  the  reply  provoked  had  subsided, 
Dumas  went  on :  "  There  is  also  no  doubt  about  my  having 
been  a  secretary  to  the  Due  d'Orleans,  and  that  I  have  re- 
ceived all  kinds    of  favors  from  his  family.     If  you,  citizen, 


AjV  englishman  in  PARIS.  53 

are  ignorant  of  the  meaning  of  the  term,  *  the  memory  of  the 
heart,'  allow  me  at  least  to  proclaim  here  in  my  loudest  voice, 
that  I  am  not,  and  that  I  entertain  towards  this  royal  family  all 
the  devotion  an  honorable  man  can  feel.'' 

It  is,  however,  not  my  intention  to  sketch  Alexandre  Dumas 
as  a  politician,  for  which  career  I  considered  him  singularly 
unfit ;  but  the  speech  from  which  I  extracted  the  foregoing 
contains  a  few  lines  which,  more  than  thirty-five  years  after 
they  were  spoken,  cannot  fail  to  strike  the  reader  with  his  mar- 
vellous foresight.  "  Geographically,"  he  said,  commenting 
upon  the  political  state  of  Europe,  "  Prussia  has  the  form  of  a 
serpent,  and,  like  it,  she  seems  to  be  asleep,  and  to  gather  her 
strength  in  order  to  swallow  everything  around  her — Denmark, 
Holland,  Belgium,  and,  when  she  shall  have  swallowed  all  that, 
you  will  find  that  Austria  will  be  swallowed  in  its  turn,  and  per- 
haps, alas,  France  also." 

The  last  words,  as  may  be  imagined,  provoked  a  storm  of 
hisses  ;  nevertheless,  he  kept  his  audience  spellbound  until  mid- 
night. 

A  parliamentary  candidate,  however  eloquent,  who  flings  his 
constituents  into  the  river  when  they  happen  to  annoy  him, 
must  have  been  a  novelty  even  in  those  days,  and  that  is  what 
Dumas  did  to  two  brawlers  after  said  meeting,  just  to  show 
them  that  his  "  aristocratic  grip  "  was  worth  their  "  plebeian 
one." 

A  few  years  later,  at  a  dinner  at  Dumas',  in  the  Rue  d' Am- 
sterdam, I  met  a  Monsieur  du  Chaffault  who  had  been  an  eye- 
witness of  this,  as  well  as  of  other  scenes  during  that  memo- 
rable day.  Until  the  morning  of  that  day,  M.  du  Chaffault  had 
never  set  eyes  on  the  great  novelist ;  in  the  evening,  he  was 
his  friend  for  life.  It  only  proves  once  more  the  irresistible 
fascination  Dumast  exercised  over  every  one  with  whom  he 
came  in  contact,  because  the  beginning  of  that  friendship  cost 
M.  du  Chaffault  six  hundred  francs,  the  expenses  of  that  part 
of  the  electoral  campaign.  The  story,  as  told  by  M.  du 
Chaffault  the  following  afternoon  in  the  Cafe  Riche  to  Dr. 
Veron,  myself,  and  Joseph  Mery,  is  too  good  to  be  missed.  I 
give  it  as  near  as  I  can  remember. 

"  I  was  about  twenty-four  then,  with  nothing  particular  to 
do,  and  a  moderate  private  income.  They  were  painting  and 
whitewashing  my  place,  a  few  miles  away  from  Sens,  and 
I  had  taken  up  my  quarters  in  the  principal  hotel  in  the 
town.  The  first  elections  under  the  second  republic  were  being 
held.     There  was  a  good  deal  of  excitement  everywhere,  and  I 


54  ^^y  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

liked  it,  though  not  taking  the  slightest  interest  in  politics. 
This  was  in  May,  1848  ;  and  about  six,  one  morning  while  I 
was  still  in  bed,  the  door  of  my  room  was  suddenly  opened 
without  knocking,  and  what  seemed  to  me  a  big  black  monster 
stood  before  me.  There  was  a  pistol  lying  by  the  side  of  me, 
and  I  was  reaching  towards  it,  when  he  spoke.  '  Don't  alarm 
yourself,'  he  said  ;  '  I  am  Alexandre  Dumas.  They  told  me 
you  were  a  good  fellow,  and  I  have  come  to  ask  you  a  service.' 

"  Iliad  never  seen  Dumas  in  the  flesh,  only  a  portrait  of 
him,  but  I  recognized  him  immediately.  '  You  have  often 
afforded  me  a  great  deal  of  amusement,  but  I  confess  you 
frightened  me,'  I  said.  '  What,  in  Heaven's  name,  do  you 
want  at  this  unholy  hour  ? ' 

"  *  I  have  slept  here,'  was  the  answer.  '  I  landed  here  at 
midnight,  and  am  starting  for  Joigny  by-and-by,  to  attend  a 
political  meeting.  I  am  putting  up  as  a  member  for  your  de- 
partment.' 

"  I  jumped  out  of  bed  at  once,  Dumas  handed  me  my 
trousers,  and,  when  I  got  as  far  as  my  boots,  he  says,  '  Oh, 
while  I  think  of  it,  I  have  come  to  ask  you  for  a  pair  of  boots ; 
in  stepping  into  the  carriage,  one  of  mine  has  come  to  utter 
grief,  and  there  is  no  shop  open." 

"  As  you  may  see  for  yourselves,  I  am  by  no  means  a  giant, 
and  Dumas  is  one.  I  pointed  this  out  to  him,  but  he  did  not 
even  answer  me.  He  had  caught  sight  of  three  or  four  pairs 
of  boots  under  the  dressing-table,  and,  in  the  twinkling  of  an 
eye,  chose  the  best  pair  and  pulled  them  on,  leaving  me  his 
old  ones,  absolutely  worn  out,  but  which  I  have  preserved  in 
my  library  at  home.  I  always  show  them  to  my  visitors  as  the 
thousand  and  first  volume  of  Alexandre  Dumas.* 

"  By  the  time  he  got  the  boots  on  we  were  friends,  as  if  we  had 
known  one  another  for  years  ;  as  for  Dumas,  he  was  '  theeing  ' 
and  '  thouing '  me  as  if  we  had  been  at  school  together. 

"  '  You  are  going  to  Joigny  ?  '  I  said ;  *  I  know  a  good  many 
people  there.' 

" '  All  the  better,  for  I  am  going  to  take  you  along  with  me.' 

"Having  to  go  no  further  than  Joigny,  and  being  taken 
thither  in  the  conveyance  of  my  newly-made  friend,  I  did  not 
think  it  necessary  to  provide  myself  with  an  extra  supply  of 
funds,  the  more  that  I  had  between  five  and  six  hundred  francs 
in  my  pocket.  In  a  short  time  we  were  on  our  road,  and  the 
first  stage  of  three  hours  seemed  to  me  as  many  minutes. 
Whenever  we  passed  a  country  seat,  out  came  a  lot  of  anecdotes 

♦Alexandre  Dumas  had  a  marvellously  small  foot. — Editor. 


A  A'  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.    .  55 

and  legends  connected  with  its  owners,  interlarded  with  quaint 
fancies,  and  epigrams.  At  that  first  change  of  horses,  Dumas' 
secretary  paid.  At  the  second,  Villevailles,  Dumas  says, 
^  Have  you  got  twenty  francs  change  ? '  Without  a  moment's 
hesitation,  I  took  out  my  purse,  paid  the  money,  and  put 
down  in  my  pocket-book,  '  Alexandre  Dumas,  twenty  francs.' 
I  might  have  saved  myself  the  trouble,  as  I  found  out  in  a 
very  short  time,  for  the  moment  he  got  out  at  Joigny,  he  rushed 
off  in  a  hurry  without  troubling  about  anything.  The  postilion 
turned  to  me  for  his  money,  and  I  paid,  and  put  down  once 
more,  '  Alexandre  Dumas,  thirty  francs.' 

"  The  first  meeting  was  fixed  for  four,  at  the  theatre.  They 
applied  to  me  for  the  hire  of  the  building,  for  the  gas.  I  went 
on  paying,  but  I  no  longer  put  down  the  items,  saying  to  my- 
self, '  When  my  six  hundred  francs  are  gone,  my  little  excur- 
sion will  be  at  an  end,  and  I'll  go  back  to  Sens.'  The  little 
excursion  did  not  extend  to  more  than  one  day,  seeing  that  I 
had  to  settle  the  dinner  bill  at  the  Due  de  Bourgogne,  Dumas 
having  invited  every  one  he  met  on  his  way.  I  am  only  sorry 
for  one  thing,  that  I  did  not  have  ten  thousand  francs  in  my 
pocket  that  morning  in  order  to  prolong  my  excursion  for  a 
week  or  so.  But  next  morning  my  purse  was  empty,  and  '  our 
defeat  was  certain.'  I  had  already  identified  myself  with 
Dumas'  aspirations,  so  I  returned  to  Sens  by  myself  but  over- 
joyed at  having  seen  and  spoken  to  this  man  of  genius,  who 
is  richer  than  all  the  millionaires  in  the  world  put  together, 
seeing  that  he  never  troubles  himself  about  paying,  and  has 
therefore  no  need  to  worry  about  money.  Three  months 
afterwards,  the  printer  at  Joigny  drew  upon  me  for  a  hundred 
francs  for  electioneering  bills,  which,  of  course,  I  could  not 
have  ordered,  but  which  draft  I  settled  as  joyfully  as  I  had 
settled  the  rest.  I  have  preserved  the  draft  with  the  boots  ; 
they  are  mementoes  of  my  first  two  days'  friendship  with  my 
dear  friend." 

At  the  first  blush,  all  this  sounds  very  much  as  if  we  were 
dealing  with  a  mere  Harold  Skimpole,  but  no  man  was  more 
unlike  Dickens'  creation  than  Alexandre  Dumas.  M.  du 
Chaff ault  described  him  rightly  when  he  said  that  he  did  not 
worry  about  money,  not  even  his  own.  "  My  biographer," 
Dumas  often  said,  "  will  not  fail  to  point  out  that  I  was  '  a 
panier  perce','  *  neglecting,  as  a  matter  of  course,  to  mention 
that,  as  a  rule,  it  was  not  I  who  made  the  holes." 

*  Literally,  a  basket  with  holes  in  it ;  figuratively,  the  term  applied  to  irreclaimable 
spendthrifts.— Editor. 


56  .    AM  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS, 

The  biographers  have  not  been  quite  so  unjust  as  that. 
Unfortunately,  few  of  them  knew  Dumas  intimately,  and  they 
were  so  intent  upon  sketching  the  playwright  and  the  novelist 
that  they  neglected  the  man.  They  could  have  had  the  stories 
of  Alexandre  Dumas'  improvidence  with  regard  to  himself  and 
his  generosity  to  others  for  the  asking  from  his  familiars.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  latter  have  only  told  these  stories  in  a  frag- 
mentary way ;  a  complete  collection  of  them  would  be  impos- 
sible, for  no  one,  not  even  Dumas  himself,  knew  half  the 
people  whom  he  befriended.  In  that  very  apartment  of  the 
Rue  d'Amsterdam  which  I  mentioned  just  now,  the  board  was 
free  to  any  and  every  one  who  chose  to  come  in.  Not  once, 
but  a  score  of  times  have  I  heard  Dumas  ask,  after  this  or  that 
man  had  left  the  table,  *'  Who  is  he  .'*  what's  his  name  ? " 
Whosoever  came  with,  or  at  the  tail,  not  of  a  friend,  but  of  a 
simple  acquaintance,  especially  if  the  acquaintance  happened 
to  wear  skirts,  was  immediately  invited  to  breakfast  or  dinner 
as  the  case  might  be.  Count  de  Cherville  once  told  me  that 
Dumas,  having  taken  a  house  at  Varenne-Saint-Hilaire,  his 
second  month's  bill  for  meat  alone  amounted  to  eleven  hun- 
dred francs.  Let  it  be  remembered  that  his  household  con- 
sisted of  himself,  two  secretaries,  and  three  servants,  and  that 
money  went  a  great  deal  further  than  it  does  at  present,  espe- 
cially in  provincial  France,  in  some  parts  of  which  living  is  still 
very  cheap.  In  consequence  of  one  of  those  financial  crises, 
which  were  absolutely  periodical  with  Alexandre  Dumas,  M. 
de  Cherville  had  prevailed  upon  him  to  leave  Paris  for  a 
while,  and  to  take  up  his  quarters  with  him.  All  went  com- 
paratively well  as  long  as  he  was  M.  de  Cherville's  guest ;  but, 
having  taken  a  liking  to  the  neighborhood,  he  rented  a  house  of 
his  own,  and  furnished  it  from  garret  to  cellar  in  the  most  ex- 
pensive way,  as  if  he  were  going  to  spend  the  remainder  of  his 
life  in  it.  Exclusive  of  the  furniture,  he  spent  between  fifteen 
thousand  and  eighteen  thousand  francs  on  hangings,  painting, 
and  repairs.  The  parasites  and  harpies  which  M.  de  Cher- 
ville had  kept  at  bay  came  down  upon  him  hke  a  swarm  of 
locusts.  "  And  how  long,  think  you,  did  Dumas  stay  in  his 
new  domicile  t  Three  months,  not  a  day  more  nor  less.  As 
a  matter  of  course,  the  furniture  did  not  fetch  a  quarter  of  its 
cost ;  the  repairs,  the  decorating,  etc.,  were  so  much  sheer 
waste  ;  for  the  incoming  tenant  refused  to  refund  a  cent  for  it, 
and  Dumas,  having  made  up  his  mind  to  go  to  Italy,  would 
not  wait  for  a  more  liberal  or  conscientious  one,  lest  he  should 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  57 

have  the  rent  of  the  empty  house  on  his  shoulders  also. 
Luckily,  I  took  care  that  he  should  pocket  the  proceeds  of  the 
sale  of  the  furniture." 

This  last  sentence  wants  explaining.  As  a  rule,  when  a  man 
sells  his  sticks,  he  pockets  the  money.  But  the  instance  just 
mentioned  was  the  only  one  in  which  Dumas  had  the  disposal 
of  his  household  goods.  The  presiding  divinity  invariably 
carried  them  away  with  her  when  she  had  to  make  room  for  a 
successor,  and  these  successions  generally  occurred  once,  some- 
times twice,  a  year.  "  La  reihe  est  morte,  vive  la  reine."  The 
new  sovereign,  for  the  first  few  days  of  her  reign,  had  to  be  con- 
tent with  bare  walls  and  very  few  material  comforts  ;  then  the 
nest  was  upholstered  afresh,  and  "  il  n'y  avait  rien  de  change 
en  la  demeure,  sauf  le  nom  de  la  maitresse," 

Consequently,  though  for  forty  years  Alexandre  Dumas  could 
not  have  earned  less  than  eight  thousand  pounds  per  annum , 
though  he  neither  smoked,  drank,  nor  gambled  ;  though  in 
spite  of  his  mania  for  cooking,  he  himself  was  the  most  frugal 
eater — the  beef  from  the  soup  of  the  previous  day,  grilled,  was 
his  favorite  dish, — it  rained  writs  and  summonses  around  him, 
while  he  himself  was  frequently  without  a  penny. 

M.  du  Chaffault  one  day  told  me  of  a  scene  a  propos  of  this 
which  is  worth  reproducing.  He  was  chatting  to  Dumas  in  his 
study,  when  a  visitor  was  shown  in.  He  turned  out  to  be  an 
Italian  man  of  letters  and  refugee,  on  the  verge  of  starvation. 
M,  du  Chaffault  could  not  well  make  out  what  was  said,  be- 
cause they  were  talking  Italian,  but  all  at  once  Dumas  got  up 
and  took  from  the  wall  behind  him  a  magnificent  pistol,  one  of 
a  pair.  The  visitor  walked  off  with  it,  to  M.  du  Chaff ault's 
surprise.  When  he  was  gone,  Dumas  turned  to  his  friend  and 
explained :  "  He  was  utterly  penniless,  and  so  am  I  ;  so  I  gave 
him  the  pistol." 

"  Great  Heavens,  you  surely  did  not  recommend  him  to  go 
and  make  an  end  of  himself !  "  interrupted  du  Chaffault. 

Dumas  burst  out  laughing.  "Of  course  not.  I  merely  told 
him  to  go  and  sell  or  pawn  it,  and  leave  me  the  fellow  one,  in 
case  some  other  poor  wretch  should  want  assistance  while  I  am 
terribly  hard  up." 

And  yet,  in  this  very  Rue  d' Amsterdam,  whether  Dumas  was 
terribly  impecunious  or  not,  the  dejeuner,  which  generally 
began  at  about  half-past  eleven,  was  rarely  finished  before  half- 
past  four,  because  during  the  whole  of  that  time  fresh  contin- 
gents arrived  to  be  fed,  and  communication  was  kept  up  be- 


5^  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

tween  the  apartment  and  the  butcher  for  corresponding  fresh 
suppHes  of  beefsteaks  and  cutlets. 

Is  it  a  wonder,  then,  that  it  rained  summonses,  and  writs, 
and  other  law  documents  ?  But  no  one  took  much  notice  of 
these,  not  even  one  of  the  four  secretaries,  who  was  specially 
appointed  to  look  after  these  things.  If  I  remember  aright, 
his  name  was  Hirschler.  The  names  of  the  other  three  sec- 
retaries were  Rusconi,  Viellot,  and  Fontaine.  Unfortunately, 
Hirschler  was  as  dilatory  as  his  master,  and,  until  the  process- 
server  claimed  a  personal  interview,  as  indifferent.  These 
"  limbs  of  the  law  "  were  marvellously  polite.  I  was  present  one 
day  at  an  interview  between  one  of  these  and  Hirschler,  for 
Dumas'  dwelling  was  absolutely  and  literally  the  glass  house  of 
the  ancient  philosopher — with  this  difference,  that  no  one  threw 
any  stones  y>'^;;z  it.  There  was  no  secret,  no  skeleton  in  the 
cupboard  ;  the  impecuniosity  and  the  recurrent  periods  of  plenty 
were  both  as  open  as  the  day. 

The  "man  of  law"  and  Hirschler  began  by  shaking  hands, 
for  they  were  old  acquaintances  ;  it  would  have  been  difficult 
to  find  a  process-server  in  Paris  who  was  not  an  old  acquaint- 
ance of  Dumas.  After  which  the  visitor  informed  Hirschler 
that  he  had  come  to  distrain. 

"  To  distrain  t  I  did  not  know  we  had  got  as  far  as  that," 
said  Hirschler.  "  Wait  a  moment.  I  must  go  and  see."  It 
meant  that  Hirschler  repaired  to  the  kitchen,  where  stood  a 
large  oaken  sideboard,  in  a  capacious  drawer  of  which  all  the 
law  documents,  no  matter  by  whom  received,  were  indiscrim- 
inately thrown,  to  be  fished  out  when  the  "  mauvais  quart 
d'heure  "  came  and  not  until  then. 

"  You  are  right,"  said  Hirschler,  but  not  in  the  least  worried 
or  excited.  "  I  really  did  not  know  we  had  got  as  far  as  that. 
I  must  ask  you  to  wait  another  minute.  I  suppose  a  third  or 
a  fourth  of  the  total  amount  will  do  for  the  present .'' " 

"Well,  I  do  not  know,"  said  the  process-server  with  most 
exquisite  politeness.  "  Try  what  you  can  do.  I  fancy  that 
with  a  third  I  may  manage  to  stop  proceedings  for  a  while." 

The  third  or  fourth  part  of  the  debt  was  rarely  in  the  house ; 
messengers  had  to  be  despatched  for  it  to  Cadot,  the  publisher, 
or  to  the  cashier  of  the  Monitair^  Constitutionnel,  or  Steele. 
Meanwhile  the  process-server  was  feasted  in  a  sumptuous  way, 
and  when  the  messenger  returned  with  the  sum  in  question, 
Hirschler  and  the  process-server  shook  hands  once  more,  with 
the  most  cordial  au  revoir  possible. 

As  a  matter  pf  course,  the  same  process-server  reappeared 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  59 

upon  the  scene  in  a  few  months.  The  comedy  had  often  as 
many  as  a  dozen  representations,  so  that  it  may  safely  be  said 
that  a  great  number  of  Dumas'  debts  were  paid  six  or  seven 
times  over.  Even  sixpence  a  line  of  sixty  letters  did  not  suf- 
fice to  keep  pace  with  such  terrible  improvidence,  though  the 
remuneration  was  much  more  frequently  fourpence  or  fivepence. 
It  rarely  rose  to  sevenpence  halfpenny,  but  in  all  cases  a  third 
went  to  Dumas'  collaborateurs,  another  third  to  his  creditors, 
and  the  rest  to  himself. 

I  have  allowed  my  pen  to  run  away  with  me.  One  more 
story,  and  then  I  leave  Alexandre  Dumas  for  the  present.  It 
is  simply  to  show  that  he  would  have  squandered  the  fortune 
of  all  the  Rothschilds  combined  :  I  repeat,  not  on  himself  ;  he 
would  have  given  it  away,  or  allowed  it  to  be  taken.  He  had 
no  notion  of  the  value  of  money.  About  a  year  after  I  had 
made  his  acquaintance,  he  was  ill  at  Saint-Germain,  and  I  went 
to  see  him.  His  dog  had  bitten  him  severely  in  the  right  hand  ; 
he  was  in  bed,  and  obliged  to  dictate.  His  son  had  just  left 
him,  and  he  told  me,  adding,  "  C'est  un  coeur  d'or,  cet'  Alex- 
andre." Seeing  that  I  did  not  ask  what  had  elicited  the  praise, 
he  began  telling  me. 

"  This  morning  I  received  six  hundred  and  fifty  francs. 
Just  now  Alexandre  was  going  up  to  Paris,  and  he  says,  '  I'll 
take  fifty  francs.' 

"  I  did  not  pay  attention,  or  must  have  misunderstood ;  at 
any  rate  I  replied,  '  Don't  take  as  much  as  that ;  leave  me  a 
hundred  francs.' 

"  '  What  do  you  mean,  father  ? '  he  asked.  *  I  am  teUing 
you  that  I  am  going  to  take  fifty  francs.' 

" '  I  beg  your  pardon,'  I  said.  '  I  understood  you  were 
going  to  take  six  hundred.'  " 

He  would  have  considered  it  the  most  natural  thing  in  the 
world  for  his  son  to  take  six  hundred  and  leave  him  fifty  ;  just 
as  he  considered  it  the  most  natural  thing  to  bare  his  arm  and 
to  have  a  dozen  leeches  put  on  it,  because  his  son,  when  a  boy 
of  eight,  having  met  with  an  accident,  would  not  consent  to 
blood-letting  of  that  kind.  In  vain  did  the  father  tell  him  that 
the  leeches  did  not  hurt.  "  Well,  put  some  on  yourself,  and 
then  I  will."  And  the  giant  turned  up  his  sleeves,  and  did  as 
he  was  told. 


6o  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS, 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Next  to  Dumas,  the  man  who  is  uppermost  in  my  recollec- 
tions of  that  period  is  Dr.  Louis  Veron,  the  founder  of  the 
Revue  de  Paris,  which  was  the  precursor  of  the  Revue  des  Deux 
Mondes ;  Dr.  Veron,  under  whose  management  the  Paris 
Opera  rose  to  a  degree  of  perfection  it  has  never  attained 
since ;  Dr.  Veron,  who,  as  some  one  said,  was  as  much  part 
and  parcel  of  the  history  of  Paris  during  the  first  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century  as  was  Napoleon  I.  of  the  history  of  France ; 
Dr.  Veron,  than  whom  there  has  been  no  more  original  figure 
in  any  civiUzed  community  before  or  since,  with  the  exception, 
perhaps,  of  Phineas  Barnum,  to  whom,  however,  he  was  in- 
finitely superior  in  education,  tact,  and  manners. 

Dr.  V^ron  has  written  his  own  ''  Memoirs  "  in  six  bulky 
volumes,  to  which  he  added  a  seventh  a  few  years  later.  They 
are  full  of  interesting  facts  from  beginning  to  end,  especially 
to  those  who  did  not  know  intimately  the  author  or  the  times 
of  which  he  treats.  Those  who  did  are  tempted  to  repeat  the 
mot  of  Diderot  when  they  gave  him  the  portrait  of  his  father. 
"  This  is  my  Sunday  father  ;  I  want  my  everyday  father."  The 
painter,  in  fact,  had  represented  the  worthy  cutler  of  Langres 
in  his  best  coat  and  wig,  etc.  ;  not  as  his  son  had  been  in  the 
habit  of  seeing  him.  The  Dr.  Veron  of  the  "  Memoirs  "  is  not 
the  Dr.  Veron  of  the  Cafe  de  Paris,  nor  the  Dr.  Veron  of  the 
avant-schie  in  his  own  theatre,  snoring  a  duet  with  Auber,  and 
"  keeping  better  time  than  the  great  composer  himself ;  "  he 
is  not  the  Dr.  Veron  full  of  fads  and  superstitions  and  uni- 
formly kind,  "  because  kindness  is  as  a  rule  a  capital  invest- 
ment ;  "  he  is  not  the  cheerful  pessimist  we  knew ;  he  is  a 
grumbling  optimist,  as  the  journalists  of  his  time  have  painted 
him  ;  in  short,  in  his  book  he  is  a  quasi-philanthropic  illusion ; 
while  in  reality  he  was  a  hard-hearted,  shrewd  business  man 
who  did  good  by  stealth  now  and  then,  but  never  blushed  to 
find  it  fame. 

The  event  which  proved  the  starting-point  of  Dr,  Veron's 
celebrity  was  neither  of  his  own  making  nor  of  his  own  seek- 
ing. Though  it  happened  when  I  was  a  mere  lad,  I  have 
heard  it  discussed  in  after-years  sufficiently  often  and  by  very 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  C l 

good  authorities  to  be  confident  of  my  facts.  In  June  183 1,  Dr. 
Veron  took  the  management  of  the  Paris  Opera,  which  up  till 
then  had  been  governed  on  the  style  of  the  old  regime,  namely, 
by  three  gentlemen  of  the  king's  household  with  a  working 
director  under  them.  The  royal  privy  purse  was  virtually  re- 
sponsible for  its  liabilities.  Louis-Philippe  shifted  the  burden 
of  that  responsibility  on  the  State,  and  limited  its  extent.  The 
three  gentlemen  of  the  king's  household  were  replaced  by  a 
royal  commissioner,  and  the  yearly  subsidy  fixed  at  ;^32,5oo  : 
still  a  pretty  round  sum,  which  has  been  reduced  since  by 
;^5oo  only. 

At  Dr.  Vdron's  advent,  Meyerbeer's  "  Robert  le  Diable  " 
was,  what  they  call  in  theatrical  parlance,  "  underlined,"  or, 
if  not  underlined,  at  least  definitely  accepted.  Only  one  work 
of  his  had  at  that  time  been  heard  in  Paris,  "  II  Crociato  in 
Egitto." 

It  is  difficult  to  determine,  after  so  many  years,  whether  Dr. 
Vdron,  notwithstanding  his  artistic  instincts,  was  greatly  smit- 
ten with  the  German  composer's  masterpiece.  It  has  often 
been  argued  that  he  was  not,  because  he  insisted  upon  an  in- 
demnity of  forty  thousand  francs  from  the  Government  towards 
the  cost  of  its  production.  In  the  case  of  a  man  like  Ve'ron, 
this  proves  nothing  at  all.  He  may  have  been  thoroughly  con- 
vinced of  the  merits  of  "  Robert  le  Diable,"  and  as  thoroughly 
confident  of  its  success  with  the  public,  though  no  manager,  not 
even  the  most  experienced,  can  be  ;  it  would  not  have  prevented 
him  from  squeezing  the  forty  thousand  francs  from  the  minis- 
ter on  the  plea  that  the  performance  of  the  work  was  imposed 
upon  him  by  a  treaty  of  his  predecessor.  To  Dr.  Veron's.  credit 
be  it  said  that  he  might  have  saved  himself  the  hard  tussle  he 
had  with  the  minister  by  simply  applying  for  the  money  to 
Meyerbeer  himself,  who  would  have  given  it  without  a  moment's 
hesitation,  rather  than  see  the  success  of  "  Robert  le  Diable  " 
jeopardized  by  inefficient  mounting,  although  up  to  the  last 
Meyerbeer  could  never  make  up  his  mind  whether  magnificent 
scenery  and  gorgeous  dresses  were  an  implied-  compliment  or 
the  reverse  to  the  musical  value  of  his  compositions.  A  pro- 
pos  of  this  there  is  a  very  characteristic  story.  At  one  of  the 
final  dress-rehearsals  of  "  Robert  le  Diable,"  Meyerbeer  felt 
much  upset  At  the  sight  of  that  beautiful  set  of  the  cloister 
of  Sainte-Rosalie,  where  the  nuns  rise  from  their  tombs,  at  the 
effect  produced  by  the  weird  procession,  Meyerbeer  came  up 
to  Vdron. 

"  My  dear  director,"  he  said,  "  I  perceive  well  enough  that 


C2  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

you  do  not  depend  upon  the  opera  itself ;  you  are,  in  fact,  run 
ning  after  a  spectacular  success." 

"  Wait  till  the  fourth  act,"  replied  Vdron,  who  was  above  all 
logical. 

The  curtain  rose  upon  the  fourth  act,  and  what  did  Meyer- 
beer behold  ?  Instead  of  the  vast,  grandiose  apartment  he  had 
conceived  for  Isabella,  Princess  of  Sicily,  he  found  a  mean, 
shabby  set,  which  \yould  have  been  deemed  scarcely  good 
enough  for  a  minor  theatre. 

"  Decidedly,  my  dear  director,"  says  Meyerbeer,  with  a  bitter 
twinge  in  his  features  and  voice,  "  I  perceive  well  enough  that 
you  have  no  faith  in  my  score  !  you  did  not  even  dare  go  to 
the  expense  of  a  new  set.  I  would  willingly  have  paid  for  it 
myself." 

And  he  would  willingly  have  paid  for  it,  because  Meyerbeer 
was  not  only  very  rich,  but  very  generous. 

"  It  is  a  very  funny  thing,"  said  Lord ,  as  he  came  into 

the  Cafe  de  Paris  one  morning,  many  years  afterwards  ;  "  there 
are  certain  days  in  the  week  when  the  Rue  Le  Peletier  seems 
to  be  swarming  with  beggars,  and,  what  is  funnier  still,  they 
don't  take  any  notice  of  me.     I  pass  absolutely  scot-free." 

"I'll  bet,"  remarked  Roger  de  Beauvoir,  "that  they  are  play- 
ing 'Robert  le  Diable'  or  'Les  Huguenots'  to-night,  and  I  can 
assure  you  that  I  have  not  seen  the  bills." 

"  Now  that  you  speak  of  it,  they  are  playing  *  Les  Huguenots' 

to-night,"  replied  Lqrd ;  "  but  what  has  that  to  do  with  it.? 

I  am  not  aware  that  the  Paris  beggars  manifest  a  particular 
predilection  for  Meyerbeer's  operas,  and  that  they  are  booking 
their  places  on  the  days  they  are  performed." 

"It's  simply  this,"  explained  De  Beauvoir:  "both  Rossini 
and  Meyerbeer  never  fail  to  come  of  a  morning  to  look  at  the 
bills,  and  when  the  latter  finds  his  name  on  them,  he  is  so  over- 
joyed that  he  absolutely  empties  his  pockets  of  all  the  cash 
they  contain.  Notwithstanding  his  many  years  of  success,  he 
is  still  afraid  that  the  public's  liking  for  his  music  is  merely  a 
passing  fancy,  and  as  every  additional  performance  decreases 
this  apprehension,  he  thinks  he  cannot  be  sufficiently  thankful 
to  Providence.     His  gratitude  shows  itself  in  almsgiving." 

I  made  it  my  business  subsequently  to  verify  what  I  con- 
sidered De  Beauvoir's  fantastical  statement,  and  I  found  it  sub- 
stantially correct. 

To  return  to  Dr.  Veron,  who,  there  is  no  doubt,  did  the  best 
he  could  for  "  Robert  le  Diable,"  to  which  and  to  the  talent  of 
Taglioni  he  owed  his  fortune.     At  the  same  time,  it  would  be 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  d^ 

robbing  him  of  part  of  his  glory  did  we  not  state  that  the  suc- 
cess of  that  great  work  might  have  been  less  signal  but  for 
him ;  both  his  predecessors  and  successors  had  and  have  still 
equally  good  chances  without  having  availed  themselves  of 
them,  either  in  the  interest  of  lyrical  art  or  in  that  of  the  public. 

I  compared  Dr.  Veron  just  now  to  Phineas  Barnum,  and  the 
comparison  was  not  made  at  random.  Dr.  Veron  was  really 
the  inventor  of  the  newspaper  puff  direct  and  indirect — of  that 
personal  journalism  which  records  the  slightest  deed  or  ges- 
ture of  the  popular  theatrical  manager,  and  which  at  the  present 
day  is  carried  to  excess.  And  all  his  subordinates  and  co- 
workers were  made  to  share  the  advantages  of  the  system,  be- 
cause their  slightest  doings  also  reflected  glory  upon  him.  An 
artist  filling  at  a  moment's  notice  the  part  of  a  fellow-artist  who 
had  become  suddenly  ill,  a  carpenter  saving  by  his  presence  of 
mind  the  situation  at  a  critical  juncture,  had  not  only  his  para- 
graph in  next  morning's  papers,  but  a  whole  column,  contain- 
ing the  salient  facts  of  his  life  and  career.  It  was  the  system 
of  Frederick  the  Great  and  of  the  first  Napoleon,  acknowledg- 
ing the  daring  deeds  of  their  smallest  as  well  as  of  their  fore- 
most aids — with  this  difference,  that  the  French  captain  found 
it  convenient  to  suppress  them  now  and  then,  and  that  Dr. 
Veron  never  attempted  to  do  so.  When  the  idea  of  putting 
down  these  notes  first  entered  my  mind,  I  looked  over  some 
files  of  newspapers  of  that  particular  period,  and  there  was 
scarcely  one  between  183 1  and  1835  ^^^^  ^^^  ^^^  contain  a 
lengthy  reference  to  the  Grand  Opera  and  its  director.  I  was 
irresistibly  reminded  of  the  bulletins  the  great  Napoleon  dic- 
tated on  the  battle-field.  I  have  also  seen  a  collection  of  pos- 
ters relating  to  the  same  brilliant  reign  at  the  Operas.  Of 
course,  compared  to  the  eloquent  effusions  and  ingenious  at- 
tempts of  the  contemporary  theatrical  manager  to  bait  the  pub- 
lic, Veron's  are  mere  child's  play  ;  still  we  must  remember  that 
the  art  of  puffing  was  in  its  infancy,  and,  as  such,  some  of  them 
are  worth  copying.  The  public  was  not  so  blase,  and  it  swal- 
lowed the  bait  eagerly.     Here  they  are. 

"  To-morrow  tenth  performance  of  ...  ,  which  henceforth 
will  only  be  played  at  rare  intervals. 

"  To-morrow  twentieth  performance  of  ...  ;  positively  the 
last  before  the  departure  of  M.  .  . 

"  To-morrow  seventeenth  performance  of  ...  ;  reappear- 
ance of  Madame  .  .  . 

"  To-morrow  fifteenth  performance  of  ...  by  all  the  princi- 
pal artists  who  created  the  parts. 


64  ^^y  ENGLISIIMAX  in  PARIS. 

"  To-tiiorrow  thirtieth  performance  of  .  .  .  The  third  scene 
of  the  second  act  will  be  played  as  on  the  first  night. 

"  To-morrow  twentieth  performance  of  ...  ,  which  can  only 
be  played  for  a  limited  number  of  nights. 

"To-morrow  sixteenth  performance  of  ...  In  the  Bali- 
Room  Scene  a  new  pas  de  Chales  will  be  introduced. 

"  To-morrow  thirtieth  performance  of  .  .  .  This  successful 
work  must  be  momentarily  suspended  owing  to  previous 
arrangernents." 

Childish  as  these  lines  may  look  to  the  present  generation, 
they  produced  a  fortune  of  ;^2,ooo  a  year  to  Dr.  Veron  in  four 
years,  and,  but  for  the  outbreak  of  the  cholera  in  '32,  when 
"  Robert  le  Diable  "  was  in  the  flush  of  its  success,  would 
have  produced  another  ^1,000  per  annum.  At  that  time  Dr. 
Veron  had  already  been  able  to  put  aside  ;^24,ooo,  and  he 
might  have  easily  closed  his  theatre  during  those  terrible 
months  ;  but,  like  Moliere,  he  asked  himself  what  would  be- 
come of  all  those  who  were  dependent  upon  him,  and  had  not 
put  aside  anything  ;  so  he  made  his  savings  into  ten  parcels, 
intending  to  hold  out  as  many  months  without  asking  help  of 
any  one.  Five  of  the  parcels  went.  At  the  beginning  of  the 
sixth  month  the  cholera  abated ;  by  the  end  it  had  almost  dis- 
appeared. 

Those  who  would  infer  from  this  that  Dr.  Veron  was  indif- 
ferent to  money,  would  make  a  great  mistake.  But  he  would 
not  allow  his  love  of  it  to  get  the  upper  hand,  to  come  between 
him  and  his  conscience,  to  make  him  commit  either  a  dishon- 
est or  a  foolish  act.  By  a  foolish  act  he  meant  headlong 
speculation.  When  the  shares  of  the  Northern  Railway  were 
allotted,  Dr.  Veron  owned  the  Constitutionnel ;  150  shares 
were  allotted  to  him,  which  at  that  moment  represented  a  clear 
profit  of  60,000  francs,  they  being  400  francs  above  par.  Dr. 
Veron  made  up  his  mind  to  realize  there  and  then.  But  it 
was  already  late  ;  the  Bourse  was  closed,  the  stockbrokers  had 
finished  business  for  the  day.  He,  however,  met  one  on  the 
Boulevards,  who  gave  him  a  check  for  55,000  francs  on  the 
Bank  of  France,  which  could  only  be  cashed  next  day.  The 
shares  were  left  meanwhile  in  Dr.  Veron's  possession.  Three 
minutes  after  the  bargain  was  concluded  Dr.  Veron  went  back 
to  his  office.  "  I  must  have  ready  money  for  this,  or  decline 
the  transaction,"  he  said.  The  stockbroker,  by  applying  to 
two  of  his  colleagues,  managed  to  scrape  together  50,000  francs. 
Dr.  Veron  gave  him  a  receipt  in  full,  returned  home,  singing 
as  he  went  the -French  version  of  "  A  bird  in  the  hand,"  etc. 


^yV  EXGLISHMAX  iN  PARIS,  65 

Veron  was  exceedingly  superstitious,  and  had  fads.  He 
could  never  be  induced  to  take  a  railway  journey.  It  was 
generally  known  in  France  at  that  time,  in  the  early  days  of  loco- 
motion by  steam,  Queen  Victoria  had  held  a  similar  objection. 
Veron,  when  twitted  with  his  objection,  invariably  replied, 
"  I  have  yet  to  learn  that  the  Queen  of  England  is  less  en- 
lightened than  any  of  you,  and  she  will  not  enter  a  railway 
carriage."  But  one  day  the  report  spread  that  the  queen  had 
made  a  journey  from  Windsor  to  London  by  the  "  iron  horse," 
and  then  Veron  was  sorely  pressed.  He  had  his  answer 
ready.  "  The  Queen  of  England  has  got  a  successor  :  the 
Veron  dynasty  begins  and  ends  with  me.  I  must  take  care  to 
make  it  last  as  long  as  possible."  He  stuck  to  his  text  to  the 
end  of  his  life. 

On  no  consideration  would  Veron  have  sat  down  "  thirteen 
at  table."  Once  or  twice,  when  the  guests  and  host  made  up 
that  number,  his  coachman's  son  was  sent  for,  dressed,  and 
made  presentable,  and  joined  the  party  ;  at  others  he  politely 
requested  two  or  three  of  us  to  go  and  dine  at  the  Cafe  de 
Paris,  and  to  have  the  bill  sent  to  him.  We  drew  lots  as  to 
who  was  to  go. 

It  was  through  Dr.  Veron  that  I  became  acquainted  with 
most  of  the  operatic  celebrities — Meyerbeer,  Halevy,  Auber, 
Duprez,  etc.  ;  for  though  he  had  abdicated  his  directorship 
seven  or  eight  years  before  we  met,  he  was  perhaps  a  greater 
power  then  in  the  lyrical  world  than  at  the  date  of  his  reign. 

It  was  at  Dr.  Veron's  that  I  saw  Mdlle.  Taglioni  for  the  first 
time — off  the  stage.  It  must  have  been  in  1844,  for  she  had 
not  been  in  Paris  since  1840,  when  I  had  seen  her  dance  at 
the  Opera.  I  had  only  seen  her  dance  once  before  that  in  '36 
or  '37,  but  I  was  altogether  too  young  to  judge  then.  I  own 
that  in  1840  I  was  somewhat  disappointed,  and  my  disappoint- 
ment was  shared  by  many,  because  some  of  my  friends  to 
whom  I  communicated  my  impressions,  told  me  that  her  three 
years'  absence  had  made  a  vast  difference  in  her  art.  In  '44 
it  was  still  worse ;  her  performances  gave  rise  to  many  a 
spiteful  epigram,  for  she  herself  invited  comparison  between 
her  former  glory  and  her  decline,  by  dancing  in  one  of  her 
most  successful  creations,  "  L'Ombre."  Those  most  leniently 
disposed  towards  her  thought  what  Alfred  de  Musset  gracefully 
expressed  when  requested  to  write  some  verses  in  her  album. 

"  Si  vous  ne  voulez  plus  danser, 
Si  vous  ne  faites  que  passer 
Sur  ce  grand  theatre  si  sombre, 
•  Ne  courez  pas  apr^s  votre  ombre 

Et  tSchez  de  nous  la  laisser." 


66  A.V  ENGLISHMAiY  /JV  PARIS. 

My  disappointment  with  the  ballerina  was  as  nothing,  how- 
ever, to  my  disappointment  with  the  woman.  I  had  been  able 
to  determine  for  myself  before  then  that  Marie  Taglioni  was 
by  no  means  a  good-looking  woman.  But  I  did  not  expect  her 
to  be  so  plain  as  she  was.  That,  after  all,  was  not  her  fault ; 
but  she  might  have  tried  to  make  amends  for  her  lack  of  per- 
sonal charms  by  her  amiability.  She  rarely  attempted  to  do 
so,  and  never  with  Frenchmen.  Her  reception  of  them  was 
freezing  to  a  degree,  and  on  the  occasions — few  and  far  be- 
tween— when  she  thawed,  it  was  with  Russians,  Englishmen, 
or  Viennese.  Any  male  of  the  Latin  races  she  held  metaphori- 
cally as  well  as  literally  at  arm's  length.  Of  the  gracefulness, 
so  apparent  on  the  stage,  even  in  her  decline,  there  was  not  a 
trace  to  be  found  in  private  life.  One  of  her  shoulders  was 
higher  than  the  other ;  she  limped  slightly,  and  moreover, 
waddled  like  a  duck.  The  pinched  mouth  was  firmly  set; 
there  was  no  smile  on  the  colorless  lips,  and  she  replied  to  one's 
remarks  in  monosyllables. 

Truly  she  had  suffered  a  cruel  wrong  at  the  hands  of  men — 
of  one  man,  bien  entendu  ;  nevertheless,  the  wonder  to  most 
people  who  knew  her  was  not  that  •  Comte  Gilbert  de  Voisins 
should  have  left  her  so  soon  after  their  marriage,  but  that  he 
should  have  married  her  at  all.  "  The  fact  was,"  said  some 
one  with  whom  I  discussed  the  marriage  one  day,  "  that  De 
Voisins  considered  himself  in  honor  bound  to  make  that  repa- 
ration, but  I  cannot  conceive  what  possessed  him  to  commit 
the  error  that  made  the  reparation  necessary."  And  I  am 
bound  to  say  that  it  was  not  the  utter  lack  of  personal  attrac- 
tions that  made  every  one,  men  and  women  alike,  indifferent 
to  Taglioni.  She  was  what  the  French  call  "  une  pimbeche."  * 
"  Am  I  not  a  good-natured  woman  ? "  said  Mdlle.  Mars  one 
day  to  Hoffmann,  the  blood-curdling  novelist.  "  Mademoi- 
selle, you  are  the  most  amiable  creature  I  know  between  the 
footlights  and  the  cloth,"  he  replied.  No  one  could  have  paid 
Taglioni  even  such  a  left-handed  compliment,  for,  if  all  I  heard 
was  true,  she  was  not  good-tempered  either  on  or  off  the  stage. 
Dr.  Veron,  who  was  really  a  very  loyal  friend,  was  very  reti- 
cent about  her  character,  and  would  never  be  drawn  into  rev- 
elations. "  You  know  the  French  proverb,"  he  said  once,  when 
I  pressed  him  very  closely.  "  '  On  ne  herite  pas  de  ceux  que 
Ton  tue  ;'  and  after  all,  she  helped  me  to  make  my  fortune." 

That  evening  I  was  seated  next  to  Mdlle.  Taglioni  at  din- 
ner, and  when  she  discovered  my  nationality  she  unbent  a 

*  The  word  "  shrew  "  is  the  nearest  equivalent. — Editor.  ' 


AAT  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  67 

little,  so  that  towards  the  dessert  we  were  on  comparatively 
friendly  terms.  She  had  evidently  very  grateful  recollections 
of  her  engagements  in  London,  for  it  was  the  only  topic  on 
which  I  could  get  her  to  talk  on  that  occasion.  Here  is  a 
little  story  I  had  from  her  own  lips,  and  which  shows  the 
Scotch  of  the  early  thirties  in  quite  a  new  light.  It  may  have 
been  known  once,  but  has  been  probably  forgotten  by  now, 
except  by  the  "  oldest  inhabitant  "  of  Perth.  In  1832  or  1833 
— I  will  not  vouch  for  the  exact  year,  seeing  that  it  is  two 
score  of  years  since  the  story  was  told  to  me — the  season  in 
London  had  been  a  fatiguing  one  for  Taglioni.  A  ballet  her 
father  had  composed  for  her,  "  Nathalie,  ou  la  Laitiere 
Suisse,"  a  very  inane  thing  by  all  accounts,  had  met  with 
great  success  in  London.  The  scene,  however,  had,  as  far  as 
I  could  make  out,  been  changed  from  Switzerland  to  Scotland, 
but  of  this  I  will  not  be  certain.  At  the  termination  of  her 
engagement  Taglioni  wanted  rest,  and  she  bethought  herself 
to  recruit  in  the  Highlands.  After  travelling  hither  and  thither 
for  a  little  while,  she  arrived  at  Perth,  and  as  a  matter  of  course 
put  down  her  name  in  the  visitors'  book  of  the  hotel,  then 
went  out  to  explore  the  sights  of  the  town.  Meanwhile  the 
report  of  her  arrival  had  spread  like  wildfire,  and  on  her  re- 
turn to  the  hotel  she  found  awaiting  her  a  deputation  from  the 
principal  inhabitants,  with  the  request  to  honor  them  with  a 
performance.  "  The  request  was  so  graciously  conveyed," 
said  Taglioni,  ''  that  I  could  not  but  accept,  though  I  took 
care  to  point  out  the  difficulties  of  performing  a  ballet  all  by 
myself,  seeing  that  there  was  neither  a  corps  de  ballet,  a 
male  dancer,  nor  any  one  else  to  support  me.  All  these  ob- 
jections were  overruled  by  their  promise  to  provide  all  these 
in  the  best  way  they  could,  and  before  I  had  time  to  consider 
the  matter  fully,  I  was  taken  off  in  a  cab  to  inspect  the  theatre, 
etc.  Great  heavens,  what  a  stage  and  scenery !  Still  I  had 
given  my  promise,  and,  seeing  their  anxiety,  would  not  go 
back  from  it.  I  cannot  tell  where  they  got  their  personnel 
from.  There  was  a  director  and  a  stage-manager,  but  as  he 
did  not  understand  French,  and  as  my  English  at  that  time 
was  even  worse  than  it  is  now,  we  were  obliged  to  communi- 
cate through  an  interpreter.  His  English  must  have  been  be- 
wildering, to  judge  from  the  manager's  blank  looks  when  he 
spoke  to  him,  and  his  French  was  even  more  wonderful  than 
my  English.     He  was  a  German  waiter  from  the  hotel. 

"  Nevertheless,  thanks  to  him,  I  managed  to  convey  the 
main  incidents  of  the  plot  of  *  Nathalie  '  to  the  manager,  and 


68  AN  ENGLISHMAN-  IN  PARIS. 

during  the  first  act,  the  most  complicated  one,  all  went  well. 
But  at  the  beginning  of  the  second  everything  threatened  to 
come  to  a  stand-still.  I  must  tell  you  that  my  father  hit  upon  the 
novel  idea  of  introducing  a  kind  of  dummy,  or  lay  figure,  on 
which  the  idiotic  Nathalie  lavishes  all  her  caresses.  The 
young  fellow,  who  is  in  love  with  Nathalie,  contrives  to  take 
the  dummy's  place  ;  consequently,  in  order  to  preserve  some 
semblance  of  truth,  and  not  to  make  Nathalie  appear  more 
idiotic  than  she  is  already,  there  ought  to  be  a  kind  of  likeness 
between  the  dummy  and  the  lover.  I  know  not  whether  the 
interpreter  had  been  at  fault,  or  whether  in  the  hurry-scurry  I 
had  forgotten  all  about  the  dummy,  but  a  few  minutes  before 
the  rise  of  the  curtain  I  discovered  that  there  was  no  dummy. 
'  You  must  do  the  dummy,'  I  said  to  Pierre,  my  servant,  '  and 
I'll  pretend  to  carry  you  on.'  Pierre  nodded  a  silent  assent, 
and  immediately  began  to  don  the  costume,  seeing  which  I 
had  the  curtain  rang  up,  and  went  on  to  the  stage.  I  was  not 
very  comfortable,  though,  for  I  heard  a  violent  altercation  go- 
ing on  behind  the  scenes,  the  cause  of  which  I  failed  to  guess. 
I  kept  dancing  and  dancing,  getting  near  to  the  wings  every 
now  and  then,  to  ask  whether  Pierre  was  ready.  He  seemed 
to  me  inordinately  long  in  changing  his  dress,  but  the  delay 
was  owing  to  something  far  more  serious  than  his  careful  prep- 
aration for  the  part.  Pierre  had  a  pair  of  magnificent 
whiskers,  and  the  young  fellow  who  enacted  the  lover  had  not 
a  hair  on  his  face.  Pierre  was  ready  to  go  on,  when  the  man- 
ager noticed  the"  difference.  '  Stop  ! '  he  shouted  ;  '  that  won't 
do.  You  must  have  your  whiskers  taken  off.'  Pierre  indig- 
nantly refused.  The  manager  endeavored  to  persuade  him 
to  make  the  sacrifice,  but  in  vain,  until  at  last  he  had  him  held 
down  on  a  chair  by  two  stalwart  Scotchmen  while  the  barber 
did  his  work. 

*'  All  this  had  taken  time,  but  the  public  did  not  grow  im- 
patient. They  would  have  been  very  difficult  to  please  indeed 
had  they  behaved  otherwise,  for  I  never  danced  to  any  audi- 
ence as  I  did  to  them.  One  of  the  few  pleasant  recollections 
in  my  life  is  that  evening  at  Perth  ;  and,  curiously  enough, 
Pierre,  who  is  still  with  me,  refers  to  it  with  great  enthusiasm, 
notwithstanding  the  cavalier  treatment  inflicted  upon  him.  It 
was  his  first  and  last  appearance  on  any  stage." 

Here  is  another  story  Taglioni  told  me  on  a  subsequent 
occasion.  I  have  often  wondered  since  whether  Macaulay 
would  not  have  been  pleased  with  it  even  more  than  I  was. 

**  The  St.  Petersburg  theatrical  season  of  '24 — '25  had  been 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  69 

particularly  brilliant,  and  nowhere  more  so  than  at  the  Italian 
Opera.  I  came  away  laden  with  presents,  among  others  one 
from  the  Czar — a  magnificent  necklet  of  very  fine  pearls. 
When  the  theatre  closed  at  Lent,  I  was  very  anxious  to  get 
away,  in  spite  of  the  inclement  season,  and  notwithstanding 
the  frequent  warnings  that  the  roads  were  not  safe.  When- 
ever the  conversation  turned  on  that  topic,  the  name  of  Trisch- 
ka  was  sure  to  crop  up ;  he,  in  fact,  was  the  leader  of  a  for- 
midable band  of  highwaymen,  compared  with  whose  exploits 
those  of  all  the  others  seemed  to  sink  into  insignificance. 
Trischka  had  been  steward  to  Prince  Paskiwiecz,  and  was 
spoken  of  as  a  very  intelHgent  fellow.  Nearly  every  one  with 
whom  I  came  in  contact  had  seen  him  while  he  was  still  at 
St.  Petersburg,  and  had  a  good  word  to  say  for  him.  His 
manners  were  reported  to  be  perfect ;  he  spoke  French  and 
German  very  fairly ;  and,  most  curious  of  all,  he  was  an  ex- 
cellent dancer.  Some  went  even  as  far  as  to  say  that  if  he 
had  adopted  that  profession,  instead  of  scouring  the  highways, 
he  would  have  made  a  fortune.  By  all  accounts  he  never 
molested  poor  people,  and  the  rich,  whom  he  laid  under  con- 
tribution, had  never  to  complain  of  violent  treatment  either  in 
words  or  deed — nay,  more,  he  never  took  all  they  possessed 
from  his  victims  ;  he  was  content  to  share  and  share  alike. 
But  papa  n'ecoutait  pas  de  cet'  oreille  la ;  papa  etait  tres  peu 
partageur :  and,  truth  to  tell,  I  was  taking  away  a  great  deal 
of  money  from  St.  Petersburg — which  was  perhaps  another 
reason  why  papa  did  not  see  the  necessity  of  paying  tithes  to 
Trischka.  If  we  had  followed  papa's  advice,  we  should  have 
either  applied  to  the  Czar  for  an  armed  escort,  or  else  delayed 
our  departure  till  the  middle  of  the  summer,  though  he  failed 
to  see  that  the  loss  of  my  engagements  elsewhere  would  have 
amounted  to  a  serious  item  also.  But  papa  had  got  it  into 
his  head  not  to  part  with  any  of  the  splendid  presents  I  had 
received ;  they  were  mostly  jewels,  and  people  who  do  not 
know  papa  can  form  no  idea  what  they  meant  to  him.  How- 
ever, as  we  were  plainly  told  that  Trischka  conducted  his  op- 
erations all  the  year  round,  that  we  were  as  likely  to  be  at- 
tacked by  him  in  summer  as  in  winter,  papa  reluctantly 
made  up  his  mind  to  go  in  the  beginning  of  April.  Papa 
provided  himself  with  a  pair  of  large  pistols  that  would  not 
have  hurt  a  cat,  and  were  the  laughing-stock  of  all  those  who 
accompanied  us  for  the  first  dozen  miles  on  our  journey ;  for 
I  had  made  many  friends,  and  they  insisted  on  doing  this. 
We  had  two  very  roomy  carriages.     My  father,  my  maid,  two 


yo  y4JV  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

German  violinists,  and  myself  were  in  the  first ;  the  second 
contained  our  luggage. 

''  At  the  first  change  of  horses  after  Pskoff,  the  postmaster 
told  us  that  Trischka  and  his  band  had  been  seen  a  few  days 
previously  on  the  road  to  Dunabourg ;  at  the  same  time,  he 
seemed  to  think  very  lightly  of  the  matter,  and,  addressing  him- 
self particularly  to  me,  opined  that,  with  a  little  diplomacy  on 
my  part  and  a  good  deal  of  sang-froid^  I  might  be  let  off  very 
cheaply.  All  went  well  until  the  middle  of  next  night,  when  all 
of  a  sudden,  in  the  thick  of  a  dense  forest,  our  road  was  barred 
by  a  couple  of  horsemen,  while  a  third  opened  the  door  of  our 
carriage.  It  was  Trischka  himself.  '  Mademoiselle  Taglioni  ? ' 
he  said  in  very  good  German  lifting  his  hat.  '  I  am  Made- 
moiselle Taglioni,'  I  replied  in  French.  '  I  know,'  he  answered, 
with  a  deeper  bow  than  before.  *  I  was  told  you  were  coming 
this  way.  I  am  sorry,  mademoiselle,  that  I  could  not  come  to 
St.  Petersburg  to  see  you  dance,  but  as  chance  has  befriended 
me,  I  hope  you  will  do  me  the  honor  to  dance  before  me  here.' 
'  How  can  I  dance  here,  in  this  road,  monsieur  t '  I  said  be- 
seechingly. '  Alas,  mademoiselle,  I  have  no  drawing-room  to 
offer  you,'  he  replied,  still  as  polite  as  ever.  *  Nevertheless,' 
he  continued,  '  if  you  think  it  cannot  be  done,  I  shall  be  under 
the  painful  necessity  of  confiscating  your  carriages  and  luggage, 
and  of  sending  you  back  on  foot  to  the  nearest  post-town.' 
'  But  Monsieur,'  I  protested,  '  the  road  is  ankle-deep  in  mud.' 
'  Truly,'  he  laughed,  showing  a  beautiful  set  of  teeth,  '  but  your 
weight  won't  make  any  difference  ;  besides,  I  dare  say  you  have 
some  rugs  and  cloths  with  you  in  the  other  carriage,  and  my 
men  will  only  be  too  pleased  to  spread  them  on  the  ground.' 

"  Seeing  that  all  my  remonstrances  would  be  in  vain,  I  jumped 
out  of  the  carriage.  While  the  rugs  were  being  laid  down,  my 
two  companions,  the  violinists,  tuned  their  instruments,  and 
even  papa  was  prevailed  upon  to  come  out,  though  he  was  sulky 
and  never  spoke  a  word. 

"  I  danced  for  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  and  I  honestly 
believe  that  I  never  had  such  an  appreciative  audience  either 
before  or  afterwards.  Then  Trischka  led  me  back  to  the  car- 
riage, and  simply  lifting  his  hat,  bade  me  adieu.  '  I  keep  the 
rugs,  mademoiselle.  I  will  never  part  with  them,'  he  said. 
The  last  I  saw  of  him,  when  our  carriages  were  turning  abend 
in  the  road,  was  a  truly  picturesque  figure  on  horseback,  waving 
his  hand." 

More  than  eight  years  elapsed  before  I  met  Taglioni  again, 
and  then  she  looked  absolutely  hke  an  old  woman,  though  she 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  7 1 

was  under  fifty.  It  was  at  the  Comte  (afterwards  Due)  de 
Morny's,  in  '52,  and  if  I  remember  rightly,  ahnost  immediately 
after  his  resignation  as  Minister  of  the  Interior.  Taglioni  and 
Mdlle.  Rachel  were  the  only  women  present.  Just  as  we  were 
sitting  down  to  dinner,  Comte  Gilbert  de  Voisins  came  in,  and 
took  the  next  seat  but  one  on  my  left  which  had  been  reserved 
for  him.  We  were  on  friendly,  though  not  on  very  intimate 
terms.  He  was  evidently  not  aware  of  the  presence  of  his  wife, 
for  after  a  few  minutes  he  asked  his  neighbor,  pointing  to  her, 
"  Who  is  this  governess-looking  old  maid  ? "  He  told  him. 
He  showed  neither  surprise  nor  emotion  ;  but  if  an  artist  could 
have  been  found  to  sketch  his  face  there,  its  perfect  blank  would 
have  been  more  amusing  than  either.  He  seemed,  as  it  were, 
to  consult  his  recollections  ;  then  he  said,  "  Is  it  ?  It  may  be, 
after  all ;  "  and  went  on  eating  his  dinner.  His  wife  acted 
less  diplomatically.  She  recognized  him  at  once,  and  made  a 
remark  to  her  host  in  a  sufficiently  loud  voice  to  be  overheard, 
which  was  not  in  good  taste,  the  more  that  De  Morny,  notwith- 
standing his  many  faults,  was  not  the  man  to  have  invited  both 
for  the  mere  pleasure  of  playing  a  practical  joke.  In  fact,  I 
have  always  credited  De  Morny  with  the  good  intention  of 
bringing  about  a  reconciliation  between  the  two  ;  but  the  affair 
was  hopeless  from  the  very  beginning,  after  Taglioni's  exhibition 
of  temper.  I  am  far  from  saying  that  Count  Gilbert  would 
have  been  more  tractable  if  it  had  not  occurred,  but  his  spouse 
shut  the  door  at  once  upon  every  further  attempt  in  that  di- 
rection. Nevertheless,  whether  out  of  sheer  devilry  or  from  a 
wish  to  be  polite,  he  went  up  to  her  after  dinner,  accompanied 
by  a  friend,  who  introduced  himself  as  formally  as  if  he  and  she 
had  never  seen  one  another.  It  was  at  a  moment  when  the 
Comte  de  Morny  was  out  of  the  room,  because  I  feel  certain 
that  he  was  already  sorry  then  for  what  he  had  endeavored  to  do, 
and  had  washed  his  hands  of  the  whole  affair.  Taglioni  made 
a  stately  bow.  "  I  am  under  the  impression,"  she  said,  "  that 
I  have  had  the  honor  of  meeting  you  before,  about  the  year 
1832."  With  this  she  turned  away.  Let  any  playwright  pro- 
duce that  scene  in  a  farcical  or  comedy  form,  and  I  am  sure 
that  three-fourths  of  his  audience  would  scout  it  as  too  exag- 
gerated, and  yet  every  incident  of  it  is  absolutely  true. 

Among  my  most  pleasant  recollections  of  those  days  is  that 
connected  with  Von  Flotow,  the  future  composer  of  "  Martha." 
In  appearance  he  was  altogether  unlike  the  traditional  musician ; 
he  looked  more  like  a  stalwart  officer  of  dragoons.  Though  of 
noble  origin,  and  with  a  very  wealthy  father,  there  was  a  tim^ 


72  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

when  he  had  a  hard  struggle  for  existence.  Count  von  Flotow, 
his  father,  and  an  old  officer  of  Blucher,  was  nearly  as  much 
opposed  to  his  son  becoming  a  musician  as  Frederick  the  Great's. 
Nevertheless,  at  the  instance  of  Flotow's  mother,  he  was  sent 
to  Paris  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  and  entered  the  Conservatoire, 
then  under  the  direction  of  Reicha.  His  term  of  apprenticeship 
was  not  to  extend  beyond  two  years,  ''  for,"  said  the  count, 
•'  it  does  not  take  longer  for  the  rawest  recruit  to  become  a 
good  soldier."  "  That  will  give  you  S  fair  idea,"  remarked  Von 
Flotow  to  me  afterwards,  "  how  much  he  understood  about  it. 
He  had  an  ill-disguised  contempt  for  any  music  which  did  not 
come  up  to  his  ideal.  His  ideal'  was  that  performed  by  the 
drum,  the  fife,  and  the  bugle.  And  the  very  fact  of  Germany 
ringing  a  few  years  later  with  the  names  of  Meyerbeer  and 
Halevy  made  matters  worse  instead  of  mending  them.  His 
feudal  pride  would  not  allow  of  his  son's  entering  a  profession 
the  foremost  ranks  of  which  were  occupied  by  Jews.  '  Music,' 
he  said,  '  was  good  enough  for  bankers'  sons  and  the  like,'  and 
he  considered  that  Weber  had  cast  a  slur  upon  his  family  by 
adopting  it." 

The  two  years  grudgingly  allowed  by  Count  von  Flotow  for 
his  son's  musical  education  were  interrupted  by  the  revolution 
of  1830,  and  the  young  fellow  had  to  return  home  before  he 
was  eighteen,  because,  in  his  father's  opinion,  "he  had  not 
given  a  sign  of  becoming  a  great  musician  ;  "  in  other  words, 
he  had  not  written  an  opera  or  anything  else  which  had  at- 
tracted public  notice.  However,  towards  the  beginning  of  183 1, 
the  count  took  his  son  to  Paris  once  more ;  "  and  though 
Meyerbeer  nor  Halevy  were  not  so  famous  then  as  they  were 
destined  to  become  within  the  next  three  years,  their  names 
were  already  sufficiently  well  known  to  have  made  an  introduc- 
tion valuable.  It  would  not  have  been  difficult  to  obtain  such. 
My  father  would  not  hear  of  it.  *  I  will  not  have  my  son  in- 
debted for  anything  to  a  Jew,'  he  said ;  and  I  am  only  quoting 
this  instance  of  prejudice  to  you  because  it  was  not  an  individ- 
ual but  a  typical  one  among  my  father's  social  equals.  The 
remark  about  '  his  son's  entering  a  profession  in  which  two 
Jews  had  carried  off  the  highest  prizes'  is  of  a  much  later  date. 
Consequently  we  landed  in  Paris,  provided  with  letters  of  in- 
troduction to  M.  de  Saint-Georges."^  Clever,  accomplished, 
refined  as  was  M.  de  Saint-Georges,  he  was  scarcely  the  author- 

*  Jules-Henri  de  S?unt-Georges,  one  of  the  most  fertile  librettists  of  the  time,  the  prin- 
ciple collaborateur  of  Scribe,  and  best  known  in  England  as  the  author  of  the  book  of. 
Balfe's  "  Bohemiam  Girl."— Editor. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 


73 


ity  a  father  wijh  serious  intentions  about  his  son's  musical 
career  would  have  consulted ;  he  was  a  charming,  skilful  libret- 
tist and  dramatist,  a  thorough  man  of  the  world  in  the  best  sense 
of  the  word,  but  absolutely  incapable  of  judging  the  higher 
qualities  of  the  composer.  Nevertheless,  I  owe  him  much  ; 
but  for  him  I  should  have  been  dragged  back  to  Germany  there 
and  then  ;  but  for  him  I  should  have  been  compelled  to  go  back 
to  Germany  five  years  later,  or  starved  in  the  streets  of  Paris. 

"  My  father's  interview  with  M.  de  Saint-Georges,  and  my 
first  introduction  to  him,"  said  Flotow  on  another  occasion, 
"  were  perhaps  the  most  comical  scenes  ever  enacted  off  the 
stage.  You  know  my  old  friend,  and  have  been  to  his  rooms, 
so  I  need  not  describe  him  nor  his  surroundings  to  you.  You 
have  never  seen  my  father  ;  but  to  give  you  an  idea  of  what  he 
was  like,  I  may  tell  you  that  he  was  an  enlarged  edition  of 
myself.  A  bold  rider,  a  soldier  and  a  sportsman,  fairly  well 
educated,  but  upon  the  whole  a  very  rough  diamond,  and,  I  am 
afraid,  with  a  corresponding  contempt  for  the  elegant  and 
artistic  side  of  Paris  life.  You  may,  therefore,  picture  to  your- 
self the  difference  between  the  two  men — M.  de  Saint-Georges 
in  a  beautiful  silk  dressing-gown  and  red  morocco  slippers, 
sipping  chocolate  from  a  dainty  porcelain  cup ;  my  father,  who, 
contrary  to  German  custom,  had  always  refused  to  don  that 
comfortable  garment,  and  who,  to  my  knowledge,  had  never 
in  his  life  tasted  chocolate.  For  the  moment  I  thought  that 
everything  was  lost.     I  was  mistaken. 

" '  Monsieur,'  said  my  father  in  French,  which  absolutely 
creaked  with  the  rust  of  age,  '  I  have  come  to  ask  your  advice 
and  a  favor  besides.  My  son  desires  to  become  a  musician. 
Is  it  possible  ? ' 

"  '  There  is  no  reason  why  he  should  not  be,'  replied  M.  de 
Saint-Georges,  '  provided  he  has  a  vocation.' 

" '  Vocation  may  mean  obstinacy,'  remarked  my  father. 
*  But  let  us  suppose  the  reverse — that  obstinacy  means  voca- 
tion ;  how  long  would  it  take  him  to  prove  that  he  has  talent  ? ' 

"  '  It  is  difficult  to  say — five  years  at  least.' 

" '  And  two  he  has  already  spent  at  the  Conservatoire  will 
make  seven.  I  hope  he  will  not  be  like  Jacob,  who,  after  that 
period  of  waiting,  found  that  they  had  given  him  the  wrong 
goddess  ! '  growled  my  father,  who  could  be  grimly  humorous 
when  he  liked.  '  Five  years  more  be  it,  then,  but  not  a  single 
day  longer.  If  by  that  time  he  has  not  made  his  mark,  I  with- 
draw his  allowance.  I  thank  you  for  your  advice;  and  now  I 
,  will  ask  a  favor.     Will  you  kindly  supply  my  place — that  is, 


74  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

keep  an  eye  upon  him,  and  do  the  best  you  can  for  him  ? 
Remember,  he  is  but  twenty.  It  is  hard  enough  that  I  cannot 
make  a  soldier  of  him  ;  from  what  I  have  heard  and  from  what 
I  can  see,  you  will  prevent  him  from  becoming  less  than  a 
gentleman.' 

"  M.  de  Saint-Georges  was  visibly  moved.  '  Let  me  hear 
what  he  can  do,'  he  said,  '  and  then  I  will  tell  you.' 

"  I  sat  down  to  the  piano  for  more  than  an  hour. 

"  *  I  will  see  that  your  son  becomes  a  good  musician,  M.  le 
Comte,'  said  M.  de  Saint-»Georges. 

"Next  morning  my  father  went  back  to  Germany.  Nothing 
would  induce  him  to  stay  a  single  day.  He  said  the  atmos- 
phere of  Paris  was  vitiated. 

"  I  need  not  tell  you  that  M.  de  Saint-Georges  kept  his  word 
as  far  as  he  was  able  ;  he  kept  it  even  more  rigorously  than  my 
father  had  bargained  for,  because  when,  exactly  on  the  last 
day  of  the  stipulated  five  years,  I  received  a  letter  demanding 
my  immediate  return,  and  informing  me  that  my  father's  banker 
had  instructions  to  stop  all  further  supplies,  M.  de  Saint- 
Georges  bade  me  stay. 

" '  I  promised  to  make  a  musician  of  you,  and  I  have  kept 
my  word.  But  between  a  musician  and  an  acknowledged 
musician  there  is  a  difference.     I  say  stay ! '  he  exclaimed. 

"  '  How  am  I  to  stay  without  money  ? ' 

*' '  You'll  earn  some.' 

"  *  How  t ' 

"  *  By  giving  piano-lessons,  like  many  a  poor  artist  has  done 
before  you.' 

"  I  followed  his  advice,  and  am  none  the  worse  for  the  few 
years  of  hardships.  The  contrast  between  my  own  poverty 
and  my  wealthy  surroundings  was  sufficiently  curious  during 
that  time,  and  never  more  so  than  on  the  night  when  my  name 
really  became  known  to  the  general  public.  I  am  alluding  to 
the  first  performance  of  '  Le  Due  de  Guise,'  which,  as  you  may 
remember,  was  given  in  aid  of  the  distressed  Poles,  and  sung 
throughout  by  amateurs.  The  receipts  amounted  to  thirty 
thousand  francs,  and  the  ladies  of  the  chorus  had  something 
between  ten  and  twelve  millions  of  francs  of  diamonds  in  their 
hair  and  round  their  throats.  All  my  earthly  possessions  in 
money  consisted  of  six  francs  thirty-five  centimes." 

I  was  not  at  the  Theatre  de  la  Renaissance  that  night,  but 
two  or  three  years  previously  I  had  heard  the  first  opera 
Flotow  ever  wrote,  at  the  Hotel  Castellane.  I  never  heard 
"  Rob   Roy  "  since  ;  and,  curiously  enough,  many  years  after- . 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  75 

wards  I  inquired  of  Lord  Granville,  who  sat  next  to  me  on 
that  evening  in  1838,  whether  he  had.  He  shook  his  head 
negatively.  "  It  is  a  great  pity,"  he  said,  "  for  the  music  is 
very  beautiful."  And  I  believe  that  Lord  Granville  is  a  very 
good  judge. 

The  Hotel  Castellane,  or  "  La  Maison  du  Mouleur,"  as  it 
was  called  by  the  general  public  on  account  of  the  great  number 
of  scantily  attired  mythological  deities  with  which  its  fa9ade 
was  decorated,  was  one  of  the  few  houses  where,  during  the 
reign  of  Louis-Philippe,  the  discussion  of  political  and  dynastic 
differences  was  absolutely  left  in  abeyance.  The  scent  of  party 
strife — I  had  almost  said  miasma — hung  over  all  the  other 
salons,  notably  those  of  the  Princess  de  Lieven,  Madame 
Thiers,  and  Madame  de  Girardin,  and  even  those  of  Madame 
Le  Hon  and  Victor  Hugo  were  not  free  from  it.  Men  like  my- 
self, and  especially  young  men,  who  instinctively  guessed  the 
hollowness  of  all  this — who,  moreover,  had  not  the  genius  to 
become  political  leaders  and  not  sufficient  enthusiasm  to 
become  followers — avoided  them  ;  consequently  their  descrip- 
tdon  will  find  little  or  no  place  in  these  notes.  The  little  I  saw 
jf  Princesse  de  Lieven  at  the  Tuileries  and  elsewhere  produced 
no  wish  to  see  more.  Thiers  was  more  interesting  from  a 
social  and  artistic  point  of  view,  but  it  was  only  on  very  rare 
occasions  that  he  consented  to  doff  his  political  armor,  albeit 
that  he  did  not  wear  the  latter  with  unchanging  dignity.  Ma- 
dame Thiers  was  an  uninteresting  woman,  and  only  the 
"  feeder  "  to  her  husband,  to  use  a  theatrical  phrase.  Madame 
Le  Hon  was  exceedingly  beautiful,  exceedingly  selfish,  and,  if 
anything,  too  amiable.  The  absence  of  all  serious  mental 
qualities  was  cleverly  disguised  by  the  mask  of  a  grande  dame  ; 
but  I  doubt  whether  it  was  anything  else  but  a  mask.  Ma- 
dame Delphine  de  Girardin,  on  the  other  hand,  was  endowed 
with  uncommon  literary,  poetical,  and  intellectual  gifts  ;  but  I 
have  always  considered  it  doubtful  whether  even  the  Nine 
Muses,  rolled  into  one,  would  be  bearable  for  any  length  of 
time.  As  for  Victor  Hugo,  no  man  not  blessed  with  an  ex- 
traordinary bump  of  veneration  would  have  gone  more  than 
once  to  his  soirees.  The  permanent  entertainment  there  con- 
sisted of  a  modern  version  of  the  "perpetual  adoration,"  and 
of  nothing  else,  because,  to  judge  by  my  few  experiences,  his 
guests  were  never  offered  anything  to  eat  or  to  drink.  As  a 
set-off,  the  furniture  and  appointments  of  his  apartments  were 
more  artistic  than  those  of  most  of  his  contemporaries  ;  but 
Becky  Sharp  has  left  it  on  record  that  "  mouton  aux  navets," 


76    )  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

dished  up  in  priceless  china  and  crested  silver,  is  after  all  but 
"  mouton  aux  navets,"  and  at  Hugo's  even  that  homely  fare 
was  wanting. 

Among  the  few  really  good  salons  were  those  of  the  ambas- 
sadors of  the  Two  Sicilies,  of  England,  and  of  Austria.  The 
former  two  were  in  the  Faubourg  Saint-Honore,  the  latter  in 
the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain.  The  soirees  of  the  Due  de 
Serra-Cabriola  were  very  animated ;  there  was  a  great  deal  of 
dancing.  I  cannot  say  the  same  of  those  of  Lord  and  Lady 
Granville,  albeit  that  both  the  host  and  hostess  did  the  honors 
with  charming  and  truly  patrician  grace  and  hospitality.  But 
the  English  guests  would  not  throw  off  their  habitual  reserve, 
and  the  French  in  the  end  imitated  the  manner  of  the  latter,  in 
deference,  probably,  to  Lord  and  Lady  Granville,  who  were  not 
at  all  pleased  at  this  sincerest  form  of  French  flattery  of  their 
countrymen. 

There  was  no  such  restraint  at  Count  Apponyi's,  in  the 
Faubourg  Saint-Germain,  the  only  house  where  the  old  French 
noblesse  mustered  in  force.  The  latter  virtually  felt  themselves 
on  their  own  ground,  for  the  host  was  known  to  have  not  muct" 
sympathy  with  parvenus,  even  titled  ones,  though  the  titlfeo 
had  been  gained  on  the  battle-field.  Had  he  not  during  the 
preceding  reign  ruthlessly  stripped  Soult  and  Marmont,  and 
half  a  dozen  other  dukes  of  the  first  empire,  by  giving  instruc- 
tions to  his  servants  to  announce  them  by  their  family  names  t 
Consequently,  flirtation  a  la  Marivaux,  courtly  galanterie  a  la 
Louis  XV.,  sprightly  and  witty  conversation,  "  minueting "  a 
la  Watteau,  was  the  order  of  the  day  as  well  as  of  the  night 
there,  for  the  dejeuner  dansant  was  a  frequent  feature  of  the 
entertainment.  No  one  was  afraid  of  being  mistaken  for  a 
financier  anobli ;  the  only  one  admitted  on  a  footing  of  intimacy 
bore  the  simple  name  of  Hope. 

Nevertheless,  it  must  not  be  thought  that  the  entertainments, 
even  at  the  three  embassies,  partook  of  anything  like  the  splen- 
dor so  noticeable  during  the  second  empire.  The  refreshments 
elsewhere  partook  of  a  simple  character ;  ices  and  cake,  and 
lukewarm  but  by  no  means  strong  tea,  formed  the  staple  of 
them.  Of  course  there  were  exceptions,  such  as,  for  instance, 
at  the  above-named  houses,  and  at  Mrs.  Tudor's,  Mrs.  Locke's, 
and  at  Countess  Lamoyloff's  ;  but  the  era  of  flowing  rivers  of 
champagne,  snacks  that  were  like  banquets,  and  banquets  that 
were  not  unlike  orgies,  had  not  as  yet  dawned.  And,  worse 
than  all,  in  a  great  many  salons  the  era  of  mahogany  and 
Utrecht  velvet  was  in  full  swing,  while  the  era  of  white-and-gold 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 


77 


walls,  which  were  frequently  neither  white  nor  gold,  was 
dying  a  very  lingering  death.  The  Hotel  Castellane  was  a 
welcome  exception  to  this,  and  politics  were  rigorously  tabooed, 
the  reading  of  long-winded  poems  was  interdicted.  Politicians 
were  simply  reminded  that  the  adjacent  Elysee-Bourbon,  or 
even  the  Hotel  Pontalba,  might  still  contain  sufficiently  lively 
ghosts  to  discuss  such  all-important  matters  with  them;* 
poets  who  fancied  they  had  something  to  say  worth  hearing, 
were  invited  to  have  it  said  for  them  from  behind  the  footlights 
by  rival  companies  of  amateurs,  each  of  which  in  many  re- 
spects need  not  have  feared  comparison  with  the  professional 
one  of  the  Comedie-Fran^^aise.  Amateur  theatricals  were, 
therefore,  the  principal  feature  of  the  entertainments  at  the 
Hotel  Castellane  ;  but  there  were  "  off  nights  "  to  the  full  as 
brilliant  as  the  others.  There  was  neither  acting  nor  dancing 
on  such  occasions,  the  latter  amusement  being  rarely  indulged 
in,  except  at  the  grand  balls  which  often  followed  one  another 
in  rapid  succession. 

I  have  said  rival  companies,  but  only  the  two  permanent 
ones  came  under  that  denomination ;  the  others  were  what  we 
should  term  *'  scratch  companies,"  got  together  for  one  or  two 
performances  of  a  special  work,  generally  a  musical  one,  as  in 
the  case  of  Flotow's  "  Rob  Roy  "  and  "Alice."  They  vied  in 
talent  with  the  regular  troupes  presided  over  respectively  by 
Madame  Sophie  Gay,,  the  mother  of  Madame  Emile  de  Girar- 
din,  and  the  Duchesse  d' Abrantes.  Each  confined  itself  to  the 
interpretation  of  the  works  of  its  manageress,  who  on  such  even- 
ings did  the  honors,  or  of  those  whom  the  manageress  favored 
with  her  protection.  The  heavens  might  fall  rather  than  that 
an  actor  or  actress  of  Madame  Gay's  company  should  act  with 
Madame  d' Abrantes,  and  vice  versa.  Seeing  that  neither  man- 
ageress had  introduced  the  system  of  "  under-studies,"  disap- 
pointments were  frequent,  for  unless  a  member  of  the  Comedie- 
Fran9aise  could  be  found  to  take  up  the  part  at  a  moment's 
notice,  the  performance  had  necessarily  to  be  postponed,  the 
amateurs  refusing  to  act  with  any  but  the  best.  Such  preten- 
sions may  at  the  first  blush  seem  exaggerated ;  they  were  justi- 
fied in  this  instance,  the  amateurs  being  acknowledged  to  be 
the  equals  of  the  professionals  by  every  unbiassed  critic.      In 

*  The  Elys^e-Bourbon,  which  was  the  official  residence  of  Louis-Napoleon  dunng  his 
presidency  of  the  second  republic,  was  almost  untenanted  during  the  reigu  of  Louis-Philippe. 

The  Hotel  Pontalba  was  partly  built  oh  the  site  of  the  former  mansion  of  M.  de  Morfon- 
taine,  a  staunch  royalist,  who,  curiously  enough,  had  married  the  daughter  of  Le  Peletier  de 
Saint- Fargeau.  the  member  of  the  Convention  who  had  voted  the  death  of  Louis  XV  L,  and 
who  himself  fell  by  the  hand  of  an  assassin.  Mdlle.  le  Peletier  Saint-Fargeau  was  called 
"  La  Fille  de  la  Nation." — Editor. 


78  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

fact,  several  ladies  among  the  amateurs  "  took  eventually  to 
the  stage,"  notably  Mdlles.  Davenay  and  Mademoiselle  de 
Lagrange.  The  latter  became  a  very  bright  star  in  the  oper- 
atic firmament,  though  she  was  hidden  to  the  musical  world  at 
large  by  her  permanent  stay  in  Russia.  St.  Petersburg  has 
ever  been  a  formidable  competitor  of  Paris  for  securing  the 
best  histrionic  and  lyrical  talent.  Madame  Arnould-Plessy, 
Bressant,  Dupuis,  and  later  on  M.  Worms,  deserted  their  native 
scenes  for  the  more  remunerative,  though  perhaps  really  less 
artistic,  triumphs  of  the  theatre  Saint-Michel ;  and  when  they 
returned,  the  delicate  bloom  that  had  made  their  art  so  delight- 
ful was  virtually  gone.  "  C'etait  de  I'art  Frangais  a  la  sauce 
Tartare,"  said  some  one  who  was  no  mean  judge. 

The  Comte  Jules  de  Castellane,  though  fully  equal,  and  in 
many  respects  superior,  in  birth  to  those  who  professed  to 
sneer  at  the  younger  branch  of  the  Bourbons,  declined  to  be 
guided  by  these  opponents  of  the  new  dynasty  in  their  social 
crusade  against  the  adherents  to  the  latter ;  consequently  the 
company  was  perhaps  not  always  so  select  as  it  might  have 
been,  and  many  amusing  incidents  and  piqiiantes  adventures 
were  the  result.  He  put  a  stop  to  these,  however,  when  he 
discovered  that  his  hospitality  was  being  abused,  and  that  in- 
vitations given  to  strangers,  at  the  request  of  some  of  his 
familiars,  had  been  paid  for  in  kind,  if  not  in  coin. 

As  a  rule,  though,  the  company  was  far  less  addicted  to 
scandal-mongering  and  causing  scandal  than  similarly  com- 
posed "  sets  "  during  the  subsequent  reign.  They  were  not 
averse  to  playing  practical  jokes,  especially  upon  those  who 
made  themselves  somewhat  too  conspicuous  by  their  eccen- 
tricities. Lord  Brougham,  who  was  an  assiduous  guest  at 
the  Hotel  Castellane  during  his  frequent  visits  to  Paris,  was 
often  selected  as  their  victim.  He,  as  it  were,  provoked  the 
tricks  played  upon  him  by  his  would-be  Don-Juanesque  be- 
havior, and  by  the  many  opportunities  he  lost  of  holding  his 
tongue — in  French.  He  absolutely  murdered  the  language  of 
Moliere.  His  worthy  successor  in  that  respect  was  Lady  Nor- 
manby,  who,  as  some  one  said,  "  Not  only  murdered  the 
tongue,  but  tortured  it  besides."  The  latter,  however,  never 
lost  her  dignity  amidst  the  most  mirth-compelling  blunders  on 
her  part,  while  the  Englishstatesman  was  often  very  near  enact- 
ing the  buffoon,  and  was  once  almost  induced  to  accept  a  role 
in  a  vaudeville,  in  which  his  execrable  French  would  no  doubt 
have  been  highly  diverting  to  the  audience,  but  would  scarcely 
have  been  in  keeping   with  the   position  he  occupied  on  the 


AI\t  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARI^.  79 

Other  side  of  the  Channel.  "  Quant  a  Lord  Brougham,"  said 
a  very  witty  Frenchman,  quoting  Shakespeare  in  French,"  il  n'y 
a  pour  lui  qu'un  pas  entre  le  sublime  et  le  ridicule.  C'est  le 
pas  de  Calais,  et  il  le  traverse  trop  souvent." 

In  1842,  when  the  Comte  Jules  de  Castellane  married  Mdlle. 
de  Villontroys,  whose  mother  had  married  General  Rappand 
been  divorced  from  him,  a  certain  change  came  over  the  spirit 
of  the  house ;  the  entertainments  were  as  brilliant  as  ever,  but 
the  two  rival  manageresses  had  to  abdicate  their  sway,  and  the 
social  status  of  the  guests  was  subjected  to  a  severer  test. 
The  new  dispensation  did  not  ostracize  the  purely  artistic 
element,  but,  as  the  comtesse  tersely  put  it,  "  dorenavant,  je  ne 
recevrai  que  ceux  qui  ont  de  Tart  6u  des  armoiries."  She 
strictly  kept  her  word,  even  during  the  first  years  of  the  Second 
Empire,  when  pedigrees  were  a  ticklish  thing  to  inquire 
into. 

I  have  unwdttingly  drifted  away  from  M.  de  Saint- 
Georges,  who,  to  say  the  least,  was  a  curious  figure  in 
artistic  and  literary  Paris  during  the  reigns  of  Louis-Philippe 
and  his  successor.  He  was  quite  as  fertile  as  Scribe,  and 
many  of  his  plots  are  as  ingeniously  conceived  and  worked  out 
as  the  latter's,  but  he  suffered  both  in  reputation  and  purse 
from  the  restless  activity  and  pushing  character  of  the  libret- 
tist of  "  Robert  le  Diable."  Like  those  of  Rivarol,*  M.  Saint- 
Georges'  claims  to  be  of  noble  descent  were  somewhat  con- 
tested, albeit  that,  unlike  the  eighteenth-century  pamphleteer, 
he  never  obtruded  -them ;  but  there  could  be  no  doubt  about 
his  being  a  gentlem.an.  He  was  utterly  different  in  every 
respect  from  his  rival.  Scribe  was  not  only  eaten  up  with 
vanity,  but  grasping  to  a  degree  ;  he  had  dramatic  instinct, 
but  not  the  least  vestige  of  literary  refinement.  M.  de  Saint- 
Georges,  on  the  contrary,  was  exceedingly  modest,  very  indif- 
ferent to  money  matters,  charitable  and  obliging  in  a  quiet 
way,  and  though  perhaps  not  inferior  in  stage-craft,  very  ele- 
gant in  his  diction.  When  he  liked,  he  could  write  verses  and 
dialogue  which  often  reminded  one  of  Moliere.  It  was  not  the 
only  trait  he  had  in  common  with  the  great  playwright.  Mo- 
liere is  said  to  have  consulted  his  housekeeper,  Laforet,  with 
regard  to  his  productions  ;  M.  de  Saint-Georges  was  known  to 
do  the  same — with  this  difference,  however,  that  he  did  not 
always  attend  to  Marguerite's  suggestions,  in  which  case 
Marguerite  grew  wroth,  especially  if  the  piece  turned  out  to 
be  a  success,  in  spite  of  her  predictions  of  failure.     On  such 

*  One  of  the  great  wits  of|the  Revolution  " — Editor. 


8o  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

occasions  the  popular  approval  scarcely  compensated  M.  de 
Saint-Georges  for  his  discomforts  at  home ;  for  though  Mar- 
guerite was  an  admirable  manager  at  all  times — when  she 
liked,  though  there  was  no  bachelor  more  carefully  looked  after 
than  the  author  of  "  La  Fille  du  Regiment,"  he  had  now  and 
then  to  bear  the  brunt  of  Marguerite's  temper  when  the  pub- 
lic's verdict  did  not  agree  with  hers. 

If  under  such  circumstances  M.  de  Saint-Georges  ventured 
to  give  a  dinner,  the  viands  were  sure  to  be  cold,  the  Bordeaux 
iced,  and  the  Champagne  lukewarm.  M.  de  Saint-Georges, 
who,  notwithstanding  his  courtly  manners,  was  candor  itself, 
never  failed  to  state  the  reasons  of  his  discomfiture  as  a  host 
to  his  guests.  "Que  voulez  vous,  mes  amis,  la  piece  n'a  pas 
plu  a  Marguerite  et  le  diner  s'en  ressent.  Si  je  lui  faisais  une 
observation,  elle  me  repondrait  comme  elle  m'a  repondu  deja 
maintes  fois.  Le  diner  e'tait  mauvais,  vous  dites .?  C'est  pos- 
sible, il  etait  assez  bien  pour  ceux  qui  ont  eu  le  bon  gout 
d'applaudir  votre  piece  hier-au-soir."  Because  Mdlle.  Mar- 
guerite had  a  seat  in  the  upper  boxes  reserved  for  her  at  all 
the  first  representations  of  her  master's  pieces.  She  did  not 
always  avail  herself  of  the  privilege  at  the  Opera,  but  she  never 
missed  a  first  night  at  the  Opera-Comique.  I  have  quoted 
textually  the  words  of  M.  de  Saint-Georges  on  the  morrow  of  the 
fremiere  of  "  Giselle,"  a  ballet  in  two  acts,  written  in  collabo- 
ration with  Theophile  Gautier.  "  *  Giselle  '  had  been  a  great 
success  ;  Marguerite  had  predicted  a  failure  ;  hence  we  had  a 
remarkably  bad  dinner." 

I  had  had  many  opportunities  of  seeing  Marguerite,  and 
often  wondered  at  the  secret  of  the  tyranny  she  exercised. 
She  was  not  handsome — scarcely  comely  ;  she  was  not  even 
as  smart  in  her  appearance  as  dozens  of  servants  I  have  seen, 
and  her  mental  attainments,  as  far  as  I  could  judge,  were  not 
above  those  of  her  own  class.  One  can  understand  a  Turner, 
a  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau,  submitting  to  the  influence  of  such 
a  low-born  companion,  because,  after  all,  they,  though  men  of 
genius,  sprang  from  the  people,  and  may  have  felt  awkward, 
ill  at  ease,  in  the  society  of  well-bred  men  and  women,  espe- 
cially of  women.  Beranger  sometimes  gave  me  that  idea. 
But,  as  I  have  already  said,  no  one  could  mistake  M.  de  Saint- 
Georges  for  anything  but  a  well-bred  man.  Notwithstanding 
his  little  affectations,  his  inordinate  love  of  scents,  his  some- 
what effeminate  surroundings,  good  breeding  was  patent  at 
every  sentence,  at  every  movement.  He  was  not  a  genius, 
certainly  not,  but  the  above  remarks  hold  good  of  a  man  who 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS,  S  t 

was  a  genius,  and  who  sprang,  moreover,  from  the  higher 
bourgeoisie  of  the  eighteenth  century — I  am  alluding  to  Eugene 
Delacroix. 


CHAPTER  V. 

Even  in  those  days  "  the  Boulevards  "  meant  to  most  of  us 
nothing  more  than  the  space  between  the  present  opera  and 
the  Rue  Drouot.  But  the  Credit  Lyonnais  and  other  palatial 
buildings  which  have  been  erected  since  were  not  as  much  as 
dreamt  of ;  if  I  remember  rightly,  the  site  of  that  bank  was 
occupied  by  two  or  three  "  Chinese  Baths."  I  suppose  the 
process  of  steaming  and  cleansing  the  human  body  was  some- 
thing analogous  to  that  practised  in  our  Turkish  baths,  but  I 
am  unable  to  say  from  experience,  having  never  been  inside, 
and,  curious  to  relate,  most  of  my  familiars  were  in  a  similar 
state  of  ignorance.  We  rarely  crossed  to  that  side  of  the 
boulevard  except  to  go  and  dine  at  the  Cafe  Anglais.  At  the 
corner  of  the  Rue  Lalitte,  opposite  the  Maison  d'Or,  was  our 
favorite  tobacconist's,  and  the  cigars  we  used  to  get  there  were 
vastly  superior  to  those  we  get  at  present  in  Paris  at  five  times 
the  cost.  The  assistant  who  served  us  was  a  splendid  creat- 
ure. Alfred  de  Musset  became  so  enamored  of  her  that  at 
one  time  his  familiars  apprehended  an  "  imprudence  on  his 
part."     Of  course,  they  were  afraid  he  would  marry  her. 

In  those  days  most  of  our  journeys  in  the  interior  of  France 
had  still  to  be  made  by  the  mails  of  Lafitte-Caillard,  and  the 
people  these  conveyances  brought  up  from  the  provinces  were 
almost  as  great  objects  of  curiosity  to  us  as  we  must  have  been 
to  them.  It  was  the  third  lustre  of  Louis-Philippe's  reign. 
"  God,"  according  to  the  coinage,  "protected  France,"  and 
when  the  Almighty  seemed  somewhat  tired  of  the  task  Thiers 
and  Guizot  alternately  stepped  in  to  do  the  safeguarding. 
Parliament  resounded  with  the  eloquence  of  orators  who  are 
almost  forgotten  by  now,  except  by  students  of  history  :  M.  de 
Genoude  was  clamoring  for  universal  suffrage ;  M.  de  Cor- 
menin,  under  the  noni  de  plimie  of  "Timon,"  was  the  fashion- 
able pamphleteer  ;  the  papers  indulged  in  vituperation  against 
one  another,  compared  to  which  the  amenities  of  the  rival 
Eatanswill  editors  were  compliments.  Grocers  and  drapers 
objected  to  the  participation  of  M.  de  Lamartine  in  the  affairs 
of  State.  The  Figaro  of  those  days  went  by  the  title  of  Cor- 
saire-Satan^   and,  though  extensively  read,  had  the  greatest 

6 


•    ^2  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

difficulty  in  making  both  ends  meet.  In  order  to  improve  the 
lot  of  the  working  man,  there  was  a  gratuitous  distribution  of 
sausages  once  a  year  on  the  king's  fete-day.  The  ordinary 
rendezvous  of  provincial  and  metropolitan  actors  out  of  an 
engagement  was  not  at  the  Cafe  de  Suedev  on  the  Boulevard 
Montmartre,  but  under  the  trees  at  the  Palais-Royal.  Frede- 
rick Lemaitre  went  to  confession  and  to  mass  every  time  he 
"  created  "  a  new  role.  The  Legitimists  consented  to  leave 
their  aristocratic  seclusion,  and  to  breathe  the  same  air  with 
the  bourgeoisie  and  proletarians  of  the  Boulevard  du  Crime,  to 
see  him  play.  The  Government  altered  the  title  of  Sue  and 
Goubeaux's  drama  "  Les  Pontons  Anglais  "  into  "  Les  Pon- 
tons," short,  and  made  the  authors  change  the  scene  from 
England  to  Spain.  Alexandre  Dumas  chaffed  Scribe,  and 
flung  his  money  right  and  left ;  while  the  other  saved  it,  bought 
country  estates,  and  produced  as  many  as  twenty  plays  a  year 
(eight  more  than  he  had  contracted  for).  The  National  Guards 
went  in  uniform  and  in  companies  to  shoot  hares  and  rabbits 
on  the  Plaine  Saint-Denis,  and  swaggered  about  on  the  Boule- 
vards, ogling  the  women.  Vidocq  kept  a  private  inquiry  in 
the  Passage  Vivienne,  and  made  more  money  by  blackmailing 
or  catching  unfaithful  husbands  than  by  catching  thieves. 
Bougival,  Asnieres  and  Joinville-le-Pont  had  not  become 
riparian  resorts.  The  plaster  elephant  on  the  Place  de  la  Bas- 
tille was  crumbling  to  pieces.  The  sentimental  romances  of 
Madame  Loisa  Puget  proved  the  delight  of  every  bourgeoise 
family,  while  the  chorus  to  every  popular  song  was  "  Larifla, 
larifla,  fla,  fla,  fla." 

Best  of  all,  from  the  working  man's  point  of  view,  was  the 
low  price  of  bread  and  wine  ;  the  latter  could  be  had  at  four 
sous  the  litre  in  the  wine-shops.  He,  the  working  man,  still 
made  excursions  with  his  wife  and  children  to  the  Artesian 
well  at  Crenelle  ;  and  if  stranded  perchance  in  the  Champs- 
Elysees,  stood  lost  in  admiration  at  the  tiny  carriage  with 
ponies  to  match,  driven  by  Theophile  Gautier,  who  had  left 
off  wearing  the  crimson  waistcoats  wherewith  in  former  days 
he  hoped  to  annoy  the  bourgeois,  though  he  ceased  not  to  rail 
at  him  by  word  of  mouth  and  with  his  pen.  He  was  not 
singular  in  that  respect.  Among  his  set,  the  hatred  of  the 
bourgeois  was  ingrained;  it  found  constant  vent  in  small 
things.  Nestor  Roqueplan  wore  jackboots  at  home  instead  of 
slippers,  because  the  latter  chaussure  -was  preferred  by  the 
shopkeeper.  Gavarni  published  the  most  biting  pictorial  satires 
against   him.     Here   is  one.     A   dissii^ated-looking   loafer  is 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  ^'^ 

leaning  against  a  lamp-post,  contemptuously  staring  at  the 
spruce,  trim  bourgeois  out  for  his  Sunday  walk  with  his  wife. 
The  loafer  is  smoking  a  short  clay  pipe,  and  some  of  the  fumes 
of  the  tobacco  come  between  the  wind  and  the  bourgeois'  re- 
spectability. "  Voyou  !  "  says  the  latter  contemptuously. 
"  Voyou  tant  que  vous  voulez,  pas  epicier,"  is  the  answer. 

In  those  days,  when  M.  Thiers  happened  to  be  in  power, 
many  members  of  the  Opposition  and  their  journalistic  cham- 
pions made  it  a  point  of  organizing  little  gatherings  to  the 
tabie-d'hote  kept  by  Mdlle.  Thiers,  the  sister  of  the  Prime 
Minister  of  France.  Her  establishment  was  at  the  entrance  of 
the  present  Rue  Drouot,  and  a  sign-board  informed  the  passer- 
by to  that  effect.  There  was  invariably  an  account  of  these 
Httle  gatherings  in  next  day's  papers — of  course,  with  com- 
ments. Thiers  was  known  to  be  the  most  wretched  shot  that 
ever  worried  a  gamekeeper,  and  yet  he  was  very  fond  of 
blazing  away.  "We  asked  Mdlle.  Thiers,"  wrote  the  com- 
mentators, "whether  those  delicious  pheasants  she  gave  us 
were  of  her  illustrious  brother's  bagging.  The  lady  shook  her 
head.  *  Non,  monsieur ;  le  President  du  Conseil  n'a  pas 
I'honneur  de  fournir  mon  etablissement ;  a  quoi  bon,  je  peux 
les  acheter  k  meilleur  marche  que  lui  et  au  meme  endroit.  S'il 
m'en  envoyait,  il  me  ferait  payer  un  benefice,  parcequ'il  ne  fait 
jamais  rien  pour  rien.  C'est  un  peu  le  defaut  de  notre  famille.'  " 
I  have  got  a  notion  that,  mercurial  as  was  M.  Thiers  up  to  the 
last  hour  of  his  life,  and  even  more  so  at  that  period,  and 
sedate  as  was  M.  Guizot,  the  French  liked  the  latter  better  than 
the  former. 

M.  Guizot  had  said,  "  Enrichissez-vous,"  and  was  known  to 
be  poor;  M.  Thiers  had  scoffed  at  the  advice,  and  was  known 
to  be  hoarding  while  compelling  his  sister  to  earn  her  own 
living.  It  must  be  remembered  that  at  the  time  the  gangrene 
of  greed  had  not  entered  the  souls  of  all  classes  of  Frenchmen 
so  deeply  as  it  has  now,  that  the  race  for  wealth  had  as  yet 
comparatively  few  votaries,  and  that  not  every  stockjobber  and 
speculator  aspired  to  emulate  the  vast  financial  transactions  of 
the  Rothschilds.  The  latter  lived,  in  those  days,  in  the  Rue 
Lafitte,  where  they  had  three  separate  mansions,  all  of  which 
since  then  have  been  thrown  into  one,  and  are  at  present  ex- 
clusively devoted  to  business  purposes.  The  Rue  Lafitte 
was,  however,  a  comparatively  quiet  street.  The  favorite 
lounges,  in  addition  to  the  strip  of  Boulevards  I  have  already 
mentioned,  were  the  Rue  Le  Peletier  and  the  galleries  of  the 
Passage  de  I'Opera.     Both  owed  the  preference  over  the  other 


84  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

thoroughfares  to  the  immediate  vicinity  of  the  Opera,  which 
had  its  frontage  in  the  last-named  street,  but  was  by  no  means 
striking  or  monumental.  Its  architect,  Debret,  had  to  run  the 
gauntlet  of  every  kind  of  satire  for  many  a  year  after  its  erec- 
tion; the  bitterest  and  most  scathing  of  all  was  that,  perhaps, 
of  a  journalist,  who  wrote  one  day  that,  a  provincial  having 
asked  him  the  way  to  the  grand  opera,  he  had  been  obliged  to 
answer,  "  Turn  down  the  street,  and  it  is  the  first  large  gateway 
on  your  right." 

But  if  the  building  itself  was  unimposing,  the  company 
gathered  around  its  entrance  consisted  generally  of  half  a 
dozen  men  whose  names  were  then  already  household  words 
in  the  musical  world — Auber,  Halevy,  Rossini  and  Meyerbeer, 
St.  Georges,  Adam.  Now  and  then,  though  rarely  together, 
all  of  these  names  will  frequently  reappear  in  these  notes. 
The  chief  attractions,  though,  of  the  Rue  Le  Peletier  were  the 
famous  Italian  restaurant  of  Paolo  Broggi,  patronized  by  a 
great  many  singers,  the  favorite  haunt  of  Mario,  in  the  be- 
ginning of  his  career,  and  I'Estaminet  du  Divan,  which  from 
being  a  very  simple  cafe  indeed,  developed  into  a  kind  of 
politico-literary  club  under  the  auspices  of  a  number  of  budding 
men  of  letters,  journalists,  and  the  like,  whose  modest  purses 
were  not  equal  to  the  charges  of  the  Cafe  Riche  and  Tortoni, 
and  who  had  gradually  driven  all  more  prosaic  customers  away. 
I  believe  I  was  one  of  the  few  habitues  who  had  no  literary  as- 
pirations, who  did  not  cast  longing  .looks  to  the  inner  portals 
of  the  offices  of  the  National^  the  bigwigs  of  which — Armand 
Marrast,  Baron  Domes,  Gerard  de  Nerval,  and  others — some- 
times made  their  appearance  there,  though  their  restaurant  in 
ordinary  was  the  Cafe  Hardi.  The  Estaminet  du  Divan, 
however,  pretended  to  a  much  more  literary  atmosphere  than 
the  magnificent  establishment  on  the  boulevard  itself.  It  is  a 
positive  fact  that  the  waiters  in  the  former  would  ask,  in  the 
most  respectful  way  imaginable,  "  Does  monsieur  want  Sue's  or 
Dumas'  feuilleton  with  his  cafe  .'' "  Not  once  but  a  dozen 
times  I  have  heard  the  proprietor  draw  attention  to  a  remark- 
able article.  Major  Fraser,  though  he  never  dined  there,  spent 
an  hour  or  two  daily  in  the  Estaminet  du  Divan  to  read  the 
papers.  He  was  a  great  favorite  with  every  one,  though  none 
of  us  knew  anything  about  his  antecedents.  In  spite  of  his 
English  name,  he  was  decidedly  not  English,  though  he  spoke 
the  language.  He  was  one  of  the  best-dressed  men  of  the 
period,  and  by  a  well-dressed  man  I  do  not  mean  one  like 
Sue.     He  generally  wore   a    tight-fitting,    short-skirted   blue 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  S5 

frock-coat,  gray  trousers,  of  a  shape  which  since  then  we  have 
defined  as  "pegtops,"  but  the  fashion  of  which  was  borrowed 
from  the  Cossacks.  They  are  still  worn  by  some  French 
officers  in  cavalry  regiments,  notably  crack  cavalry  regiments. 

Major  Eraser  might  have  fitly  borrowed  Piron's  epitaph  for 
himself  :  "  Je  ne  suis  rien,  pas  meme  Academicien."  He  was 
a  bachelor.  He  never  alluded  to  his  parentage.  He  lived  by 
himself,  in  an  entresol  at  the  corner  of  the  Rue  Lafitte  and  the 
Boulevard  des  Italiens.  He  was  always  flush  of  money,  though 
the  sources  of  his  income  were  a  mystery  to  every  one.  He 
certainly  did  not  live  by  gambling,  as  has  been  suggested  since  ; 
for  those  who  knew  him  best  did  not  remember  having  seen 
him  touch  a  card. 

I  have  always  had  an  idea,  though  I  can  give  no  reason  for 
it,  that  Major  Fraser  was  the  illegitimate  son  of  some  exalted 
personage,  and  that  the  solution  of  the  mystery  surrounding 
him  might  be  found  in  the  records  of  the  scandals  and  intrigues 
at  the  courts  of  Charles  IV.  and  Ferdinand  VII.  of  Spain.  The 
foreign  "  soldiers  of  fortune"  who  rose  to  high  posts,  though 
not  to  the  highest  like  Richards  and  O'Reilly,  were  not  all  of 
Irish  origin.  But  the  man  himself  was  so  pleasant  in  his  in- 
tercourse, so  uniformly  gentle  and  ready  to  oblige,  that  no  one 
cared  to  lift  a  veil  which  he  was  so  evidently  anxious  not  to 
have  disturbed.  I  only  remember  his  getting  out  of  temper 
once,  namely,  when  Leon  Gozlan,  in  a  comedy  of  his,  intro- 
duced a  major  who  had  three  crosses.  The  first  had  been 
given  to  him  because  he  had  not  one,  the  second  because  he 
had  already  one,  and  the  third  because  all  good  things' consist 
of  three.  Then  Major  Fraser  sent  his  seconds  to  the  play- 
wright ;  the  former  effected  a  reconciliation,  the  more  that 
Gozlan  pledged  his  word  that  an  allusion  to  the  major  was 
farthest  from  his  thoughts.  It  afterwards  leaked  out  that  our 
irrepressible  Alexandre  Dumas  had  been  the  involuntary  cause 
of  all  the  mischief.  One  day,  while  he  was  talking  to  Gozlan, 
one  of  his  secretaries  came  in  and  told  him  that  a  particular 
bugbear  of  his,  and  a  great  nonentity  to  boot,  had  got  the  Cross 
of  the  Legion  of  Honor. 

"  Grand  Dieu,"  exclaimed  Gozlan,  "  pourquoi  lui  a-t-on 
donnd  cette  croix  ?  " 

"  Vous  ne  savez  pas  ?  "  said  Alexandre,  looking  very  wise, 
as  if  he  had  some  important  state-secret  to  reveal. 

"  Assurement,  je  ne  le  sais  pas,"  quoth  Gozlan,  "  ni  vous 
non  plus." 

"  Ah,  par  exemple,  moi,  je  le  sais." 


S6  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

"  H6  bien,  dites  alors." 

"Onluiadonn^la  croix  parceque  il  n'en  avait  pas." 

It  was  the  most  childish  of  all  tricks,  but  Gozlan  laughed 
at  it,  and,  when  he  wrote  his  piece,  remembered  it.  He  am- 
plified the  very  small  joke,  and,  on  the  first  night  of  his  play, 
the  house  went  into  convulsions  over  it. 

Major  Eraser's  kindness  and  gentleness  extended  to  all  men — 
except  to  professional  politicians,  and  those,  from  the  highest 
to  the  lowest,  he  detested  and  despised.  He  rarely  spoke  on 
the  subject  of  politics,  but  when  he  did  every  one  sat  listening 
with  the  raptest  attention  ;  for  he  was  a  perfect  mine  of  facts, 
which  he  marshalled  with  consummate  ability  in  order  to  show 
that  government  by  party  was  of  all  idiotic  institutions  the  most 
idiotic.  But  his  knowledge  of  political  history  was  as  nothing 
to  his  familiarity  with  the  social  institutions  of  every  civilized 
country  and  of  every  period.  Curiously  enough,  the  whole  of 
his  library  in  his  own  apartment  did  not  exceed  two  or  three 
scores  of  volumes.  His  memory  was  something  prodigious, 
and  even  men  like  Dumas  and  Balzac  confessed  themselves  his 
inferiors  in  that  respect.  The  mere  mention  of  the  most  trifling 
subject  sufficed  to  set  it  in  motion  and  Usteners  were  treated 
to  a  "  magazine  article  worth  fifty  centimes  la  ligne  au  moins," 
as  Dumas  put  it.  But  the  major  could  never  be  induced  to 
write  one.  Strange  to  say,  he  often  used  to  hint  that  his  was 
no  mere  book-knowledge.  "  Of  course,  it  is  perfectly  ridicu- 
lous," he  remarked  with  a  strange  smile,  "  but  every  now  and 
again  I  feel  as  if  all  this  did  not  come  to  me  through  reading, 
but  from  personal  experience.  At  times  I  become  almost  con- 
vinced that  T  lived  with  Nero,  that  I  knew  Dante  personally, 
and  so  forth.' 

When  Major  Fraser  died,  not  a  single  letter  was  found  in  his 
apartment  giving  a  clue  to  his  antecedents.  Merely  a  file  of 
receipts,  and  a  scrap  of  paper  attached  to  one — the  receipt  of 
the  funeral  company  for  his  grave,  and  expenses  of  his  burial. 
The  memorandum  gave  instructions  to  advertise  his  demise  for 
a  week  in  the  journal  des  Debdts^  the  money  for  which  would  be 
found  in  the  drawer  of  his  dressing-table.  His  clothes  and 
furniture  were  to  be  sold,  and  the  proceeds  to  be  given  to  the 
Paris  poor.  **  I  do  not  charge  any  one  with  this  particular 
duty,"  the  document  went  on  ;  "I  have  so  many  friends,  every 
one  of  whom  will  be  ready  to  carry  out  my  last  wishes." 

Another  "  mystery,"  though  far  less  interesting  than  Major 
Fraser,  was  the  Persian  gentleman  whom  one  met  everywhere, 
at  the  Opera,  at  the  Bois  de  Boulogne,  at  the  concerts  of  the 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  87 

Conservatoire,  etc.  Though  invariably  polite  and  smiling,  he 
never  spoke  to  any  one.  For  ten  years,  the  occupant  of  the 
stall  next  to  his  at  the  Opera  had  never  heard  him  utter  a  syl- 
lable. He  always  wore  a  long  white  silk  petticoat,  a  splendidly 
embroidered  coat  over  that,  and  a  conical  Astrakan  cap.  He 
was  always  alone  ;  and  though  every  one  knew  where  he  lived, 
in  the  Passage  de  I'Opera,  no  one  had  ever  set  foot  in  his  apart- 
ment. As  a  matter  of  course,  all  sorts  of  legends  were  current 
about  him.  According  to  some,  he  had  occupied  a  high  posi- 
tion in  his  own  country,  from  which  he  had  voluntarily  exiled 
himself,  owing  to  his  detestation  of  Eastern  habits ;  according 
to  others,  he  was  simply  a  dealer  in  Indian  shawls,  who  had 
made  a  fortune.  A  third  group,  the  spiteful  ones,  maintained 
that  he  sold  dates  and  pastilles,  and  that  the  reason  why  he 
did  not  speak  was  because  he  was  dumb,  though  not  deaf.  He 
died  during  the  Second  Empire,  very  much  respected  in  the 
neighborhood,  for  he  had  been  very  charitable. 

Towards  the  middle  of  the  forties  the  Passage  de  I'Opera 
began  to  lose  some  of  its  prestige  as  a  lounge.  The  outside 
stockjobbers,  whom  the  police  had  driven  from  the  Boulevards 
and  the  steps  of  Tortoni,  migrated  thither,  and  the  galleries 
that  had  resounded  with  the  sweet  warblings — in  a  very  low 
key — of  the  clients  of  Bernard  Latte,  the  publisher  of  Doni- 
zetti's operas,  were  made  hideous  and  unbearable  with  the 
jostling  and  bellowing  of  the  money-spinners.  Bernard  Latte 
himself  was  at  last  compelled  to  migrate. 

In  the  house  the  ground-floor  of  w^hich  was  occupied  by 
Tortoni,  and  which  was  far  different  in  aspect  from  what  it  is 
now,  lived  Louis  Blanc.  Toward  nine  in  the  morning  he  came 
down  for  his  cup  of  cafe  au  lait.  It  was  the  first  cup  of  coffee 
of  the  day  served  in  the  establishment.  I  was  never  on  terms 
of  intimacy  with  Blanc,  and  least  of  all  then,  for  I  shared  with 
Major  Eraser  a  dislike  to  politic-mongers,  and,  rightly  or 
wrongly,  I  have  always  considered  the  author  of  "  L'Histoire 
de  Dix  Ans  "  as  such.  Though  Louis  Blanc  was  three  or  four 
and  thirty  then,  he  looked  like  a  boy  of  seventeen — a  fact  not 
altogether  owing  to  his  diminutive  stature,  though  he  was  one 
of  the  smallest  men,  if  not  the  smallest  man,  I  ever  saw.  Of 
course  I  mean  a  man  not  absolutely  a  dwarf.  I  have  been 
assured,  however,  that  he  was  a  giant  compared  to  Don  Mar- 
tinoz  Garay,  Duke  of  Altamira  and  Marquis  of  Astorga,  a 
Spanish  statesman,  who  died  about  the  early  part  of  the 
twenties.  These  notes  do  not  extend  beyond  the  fall  of  the 
Commune,  and  it  was  only  after  that  event  that  I  met  M.  Blanc 


88  AAT  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

once  or  twice  in  his  old  haunts.  Hence  my  few  recollections 
of  him  had  better  be  jotted  down  here.  They  are  not  impor- 
tant. The  man,  though  but  sixty,  and  apparently  not  in  bad 
health,  looked  desillusionne.  They  were,  no  doubt,  the  most 
trying  years  to  the  Third  Republic,  but  M.  Blanc  must  have 
perceived  well  enough  that,  granting  all  the  existing  difficulties, 
the  men  at  the  head  of  affairs  were  not  the  Republicans  of  his 
dreams;  He  had,  moreover,  suffered  severe  losses  ;  all  his 
important  documents,  such  as  the  correspondence  between  him 
and  George  Sand  and  Louis-Napoleon,  while  the  latter  was  at 
Ham,  and  other  equally  valuable  matter,  had  been  destroyed 
at  the  fire  of  the  Northern  Goods  Station  at  La  Villette,  a  fire 
kindled  by  the  Communists.  He  was  dressed  almost  in  the 
fashion  of  the  forties,  a  wide-skirted,  long,  brown  frock-coat,  a 
shirt  innocent  of  starch,  and  a  broad-brimmed  hat.  A  few 
years  later,  he  founded  a  paper,  L^ Honwie- Libre.,  the  offices  of 
which  were  in  the  Rue  Grange-Bateliere.  The  concern  was 
financed  by  a  Polish  gentleman.  Blanc  gave  his  readers  to 
understand  that  he  would  speak  out  plainly  about  persons  and 
things,  whether  past  or  present;  that  he  would  advance  nothing 
except  on  documentary  proofs  ;  but  that,  whether  he  did  or  not, 
he  would  not  be  badgered  into  giving  or  accepting  challenges 
in  defence  of  his  writings.  "  I  am,  first  of  all,  too  old,"  he 
said ;  "  but  if  I  were  young  again,  I  should  not  repeat  my  folly 
of  '47,  when  I  wanted  to  fight  with  Eugene  Pelletan  on  account 
of  a  woman  whose  virtue,  provided  she  had  any,  could  make 
no  difference  to  either  of  us.  It  does  not  matter  to  me  that 
we  were  not  the  only  preux  chevaliers  of  that  period,  ready  to 
do  battle  for  or  against  the  charms  of  a  woman  whose  remains 
had  crumbled  to  dust  by  then."* 

M.  Blanc's  boast  that  he  would  advance  nothing  except  on 
proof  positive  was  not  an  idle  one,  as  his  contributors  found 
out  to  their  cost.  Every  afternoon,  at  three,  he  arrived  at  the 
office  to  read  the  paper  in  proof  from  the  first  line  to  the  last. 

*  M.  Eugene  Pelletan,  the  father  of  M.  Camille  Pelletan,  the  editor  of  La  Justice, 
and  first  lieutenant  to  M.  Clemenceau,  having  severely  criticised  some  passages  in  M. 
Blanc's  "  Histoire  de  la  Revolution,"  relating  to  Marie-Antoinette,  the  autiior  quoted  a 
passage  of  Madame  Campau's  "  Memoires  "  in  support  of  his  writings.  The  critic  refused 
to  admit  the  conclusiveness  of  the  proof ,  whereupon  M.  Blanc  appealed  to  the  Societe  des 
Gens  de  Lettres,  which,  on  the  summing  up  of  M.  Taxile  Delord,  gave  a  verdict  in  his 
favor.  M.  Pelletan  declined  to  submit  to  the  verdict,  as  he  had  refused  to  admit  the  juris- 
diction, of  the  tribunal.  M.  Blanc,  who  had  at  first  scouted  all  idea  of  a  duel,  considered 
himself  obliged  to  resort  to  this  means  of  obtaining  satisfaction,  seeing  that  M.  Pelletan 
stoutly  maintained  his  opinion.  A  meeting  had  been  arranged  when  the  Revolution  of  '48 
broke  out.  The  opponents  liaving  both  gone  to  the  Hotel-de-Ville,  met  by  accident  at  the 
entrance,  and  fell  into  one  another's  arms.  "Thank  Heaven  !  "  exclaimed  Thiers,  when  he 
heard  of  it.     "  If  Pelletan  had  killed  Blanc,  I  should  have  been  the  smallest  man  in  France." 

M.  Blanc's  allusioiv  to  other  "  preux  chevaliers  "  aimed  particularly  at  M.  Cousin,  who, 
having  become  a  minister  against  his  will,  resumed  with  a  sigh  of  relief  his  studies  under  the 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  89 

Not  the  slightest  inaccuracy  was  allowed  to  pass.  Kind  as  he 
was,  his  reporters'  lives  became  a  burden.  One  of  the  latter 
told  me  a  story  which,  though  it  illustrates  the  ridiculousness  of 
M.  Blanc's  scruples  when  carried  too  far,  is  none  the  less 
valuable.  A  dog  had  been  run  over  on  the  Boulevards,  and 
the  reporter,  with  a  hankering  after  the  realistic  method,  had 
endeavored  to  reproduce  onomatopoeically  the  sounds  uttered 
by  the  animal  in  pain. 

"Are  you  quite  sure,  monsieur,  about  your  sounds.-"'  asked 
Blanc. 

"  Of  course,  I  am  as  sure  as  a  non-scientific  man  can  be," 
was  the  answer. 

"  Then  strike  them  out ;  one  ought  to  be  scientifically  sure. 
By-the-by,  I  see  you  have  made  use  of  the  word  *  howl '  {hurler). 
Unless  I  am  mistaken,  a  dog  when  in  pain  yelps  {glapit). 
Please  alter  it." 

On  another  occasion,  on  going  through  the  advertisements, 
he  found  a  new  one  relating  to  a  cough  mixture,  setting  forth 
its  virtues  in  the  most  glowing  terms.  Immediately  the  adver- 
tisement canvasser  was  sent  for,  M.  Blanc  having  refused  to 
farm  out  that  department  to  an  agency,  as  is  frequently  done 
in  Paris,  in  order  to  retain  the  absolute  control  over  it. 
.  "  Monsieur,  I  see  that  you  have  a  new  advertisement,  and  it 
seems  to  me  a  profitable  one  ;  still,  before  inserting  it,  I  should 
like  to  be  certain  that  the  medicine  does  all  it  professes  to  do. 
Can  you  personally  vouch  for  its  efficiency." 

"  Mon  Dieu,  monsieur,  I  believe  it  does  all  it  professes  to 
do,  but  you  can  scarcely  expect  me  to  run  the  risk  of  bronchitis 
in  order  to  test  it  upon  myself !  " 

"  Heaven  forbid  that  I  should  be  so  exacting  and  indifferent 
to  other  people's  health,  but  until  you  can  bring  me  some  one 
who  has  been  cured,  we  will  not  insert  it." 

Let  me  come  back  for  a  moment  to  that  sentence  of  Louis 
Blanc,  about  the  practice  of  duelling,  in  connection  with  one 
of  the  most  tragic  affairs  of  that  kind  within  my  recollection. 
I  am  alluding  to  the  Dujarrier-Beauvallon  duel.  I  have  been 
in  the  habit  for  years,  whenever  an  important  meeting  took 
place  in  France,  to  read  every  shade  of  English  opinion  on  the 

Second  Empire.  He  was  especially  fond  of  the  seventeenth  centun',  and  all  at  once  he, 
who  had  scarcely  ever  noticed  a  pretty  woman,  became  violently  smitten  with  the  Duchesse 
de  Longueville,  who  had  been  in  her  grave  for  nearly  two  centuries.  He  positively  invested 
her  with  every  perfection,  moral  and  mental ;  unfortunately,  he  could  not  invest  her  with  a 
shapely  bust,  the  evidence  being  too  overwhelmingly  against  her  having  been  adorned  tliat 
way.  One  day  some  one  showed  him  a  portrait  of  the  sister  of  the  "  grand  Cond^,"  in  which 
she  was  amply  provided  with  the  charms  the  absence  of  which  M.  Cousin  regretted.  He 
wrote  a  special  chapter  on  the  subject,  and  was  well-nigh  challenging  all  his  contradictors. — 
Editor. 


90 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 


subject;  and  while  recognizing  the  elevated  sentiments  of  the 
writers,  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  not  a  single  one 
knew  what  he  was  writing  about.  They  could  not  grasp  the 
fact  that  for  a  man  of  social  standing  to  refuse  a  challenge  or 
to  refrain  from  sending  one,  save  under  very  exceptional  cir- 
cumstances, was  tantamount  to  courting  social  death.  They 
knew  not  that  every  door  would  henceforth  be  closed  against 
him  ;  that  his  wife's  best  friends  would  cease  to  call  upon  her, 
by  direction  of  their  husbands  ;  that  his  children  at  school 
would  be  shunned  by  their  comrades ;  that  no  young  man  of 
equal  position  to  his,  were  he  ever  so  much  in  love  with  his 
daughter,  would  ask  her  to  become  his  wife,  that  no  parents 
would  allow  their  daughters  to  marry  his  son.  That  is  what 
backing  out  of  a  duel  meant  years  ago  ;  that  is  what  it  still 
means  to-day — of  course,  I  repeat,  with  certain  classes.  Is  it 
surprising,  then,  that  with  such  a  prospect  facing  him,  a  man 
should  risk  death  rather  than  become  a  pariah  .?  Would  the 
English  leader-writer,  if  he  be  a  man  of  worth,  like  to  enter 
his  club-room  without  a  hand  held  out  to  welcome  him  from 
those  with  whom  he  was  but  a  few  weeks  ago  on  the  most 
friendly  footing,*  without  a  voice  to  give  him  the  time  of  day  .-* 
I  think  not ;  and  that  is  what  would  happen  if  he  were  a 
Frenchman  who  neglected  to  ask  satisfaction  for  even  an  im- 
aginary insult. 

I  knew  M.  Dujarrier,  the  general  manager  of  La  Presse,  and 
feel  convinced  that  he  was  not  a  bit  more  quarrelsome  or  eager 
"  to  go  out  "  than  Louis  Blanc.  It  is,  moreover,  certain  that 
he  felt  his  inferiority,  both  as  a  swordsman  and  as  a  marksman, 
to  such  a  practised  shot  and  fencer  as  M.  de  Beauvallon  ;  and 
well  he  might,  seeing  that  subsequent  evidence  proved  that  he, 
Dujarrier,  had  never  handled  either  weapon.  Yet  he  not  only 
strenuously  opposed  all  attempts  on  the  part  of  his  friends  to 
effect  a  reconciliation,  but  would  not  afford  a  hint  to  his  adver- 
sary of  his  want  of  skill,  lest  the  latter  should  make  him  a  pres- 
ent of  his  lite.  The  present  would  not  have  been  worth  ac- 
cepting. It  would  have  been  a  Nessus-shirt,  and  caused  the 
moral  death  of  the  recipient.  Consequently,  Dujarrier  liter- 
ally went  like  a  lamb  to  the  slaughter  rather  than  be  branded 
as  a  coward,  and  he  made  no  secret  of  his  contemplated  sacri- 
fice. "  I  have  no  alternative  but  to  fight,"  he  said,  two  days 
before  the  meeting,  to  Alexandre  Dumas,  who  taxed  all  his 
own  ingenuity,  and  that  of  his  son,  to  prevent,  at  any  rate,  a 
fatal  issue.  The  only  way  to  effect  this,  according  to  the  very 
logical  reasoning  of  the  two  Dumases,  was  to  induce  Dujarrier, 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  9 1 

who,  as  the  offended  party,  had  the  choice  of  weapons,  to 
choose  the  sword.  They  counted  upon  the  generosity  of  Beau- 
vallon,  who,  as  a  gentleman,  on  discovering  his  adversary's 
utter  lack  of  skill,  would  disarm,  or  inflict  a  slight  wound  on 
him.  Unfortunately,  young  Dumas,  with  the  best  intentions, 
unburthened  himself  to  that  effect  among  those  most  interested 
in  the  affair,  namely,  the  staffs  of  La  Fresse  and  Le  Globe. 
These  two  journals  were  literally  at  daggers  drawn,  and  some 
writers  connected  with  the  latter  went  hinting,  if  not  saying 
openly,  that  Dujarrier  was  already  showing  the  white  feather. 
Whether  Dujarrier  heard  of  the  comments  in  that  shape,  or 
whether  he  instinctively  guessed  what  they  would  be,  has 
never  been  clearly  made  out,  but  it  is  certain  that  from  that 
moment  he  insisted  upon  the  use  of  pistols.  "  I  do  not  intend 
my  adversary  to  show  me  the  slightest  favor,  either  by  disarm-" 
ing  me  or  by  wounding  me  in  the  arm  or  leg.  I  mean  to  have 
a  serious  encounter,"  he  said.  Young  Dumas,  frightened  per- 
haps at  his  want  of  reticence  in  the  matter,  begged  his  father 
to  go  and  see  Grisier,  *  and  claim  his  intervention.  Alexandre 
Dumas,  than  whom  no  stauncher  friend  ever  existed,  who 
would  have  willingly  risked  his  own  life  to,  save  that  of  Dujar- 
rier, had  to  decline  the  mission  suggested  by  his  son.  "  I 
cannot  do  it,"  he  said  ;  "  the  first  and  foremost  thing  is  to 
safeguard  Dujarrier's  reputation,  which  is  the  more  precious 
because  it  is  his  first  duel." 

"  His  first  duel," — here  is  the  keynote  to  the  whole  of  the 
proceedings  as  far  as  Dujarrier  and  his  personal  friends  are 
concerned.  Had  Dujarrier  been  in  the  position  of  the  editor 
of  his  paper,  Emile  de  Girardin, — had  he  been  out  before  and 
killed  or  severely  wounded  his  man,  as  the  latter  killed  Armand 
Carrel  nine  years  before, — he  might  have  openly  announced 
his  determination  "  never  to  go  out  again  "  under  no  matter 
what  provocation.  Unfortunately,  Dujarrier  was  not  in  that 
position ;  in  fact,  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  Dujarrier 
paid  the  penalty  of  M.  de  Girardin's  decision.  A  great  deal 
of  mawkish  sentiment  has  been  Vv^asted  upon  the  tragic  fate  of 
Armand  Carrel ;  in  reality,  he  had  what  he  deserved,  albeit 
that  no  one  more  than  M.  de  Girardin  himself  regretted  his 
untimely  end.  Most  writers  will  tell  one  that  Carrel  fell  a 
victim  to  his  political  opinions  ;  nothing  is  farther  from  the 
truth.  Armand  Carrel  fell  a  victim  to  a  "  question  of  shop  " 
of  which  he  allowed  himself,  though  perhaps  not  deliberately, 

*  The    great  fencing-master,   whom  Dumas  immortalized  in  his  "  Maitre  d'Armes  **— 
Editor. 


92 


AA^  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 


to  become  the  champion.  After  many  attempts,  more  or  less 
successful,  in  the  way  of  popular  journalism,  M.  de  Girardin, 
in  1836,  started  La  Fresse^  a  serious  journal  of  the  same  size 
as  the  then  existing  ones,  but  at  half  the  subscription  of  the 
latter,  all  of  which  absolutely  banded  at  once  against  him. 
Armand  Carrel,  who  was  a  soldier,  and  a  valiant  soldier,  a 
writer  of  talent  and  a  gentleman  to  boot,  ought  to  have  stood 
aloof  from  that  kind  of  polemics.  Emile  de  Girardin  was  not 
the  likely  man  to  submit  to  open  or  implied  insult.  His  best, 
albeit  his  least-known,  book,  "  Emile,"  which  is  as  it  were  an 
autobiography,  had  given  the  measure  of  his  thoughts  on  the 
subject  of  duelling.  "  Emile  "  goes  into  society  as  a  soldier 
would  go  into  an  enemy's  country.  Not  that  he  is  by  nature 
cruel  or  blood-thirsty,  but  he  knows  that,  to  hold  his  own,  he 
must  be  always  ready,  not  only  for  defence,  but  for  attack. 

"  The  secret  one  is  bound  to  preserve  with  regard  to  the 
preparations  for  a  meeting,  and  those  preparations  themselves 
are  simply  horrible.  The  care,  the  precautions  to  be  taken, 
the  secret  which  is  not  to  leak  out,  all  these  are  very  like  the 
preparations  for  a  crime,"  he  says.  "  Nevertheless,"  he  goes 
on,  "  the  horror  of  all  this  disappears,  when  the  man,  impelled 
by  hatred  or  resentment,  is  thirsting  for  revenge  ;  but  when 
the  heart  is  absolutely  without  gall,  and  when  the  imagination 
is  still  subject  to  all  the  softer  emotions,  then,  in  order  not  to 
recoil  with  fear  at  the  ever  horrible  idea  of  a  duel,  a  man  must 
be  imbued  with  all  the  force  of  a  prejudice  which  resists  the 
very  laws  that  condemn  it." 

It  was  under  the  latter  circumstances  that  M.  de  Girardin 
confronted  his  adversary.  The  two  men  had  probably  never 
exchanged  a  word  with  one  another,  they  felt  no  personal  ani- 
mosity ;  nay,  more,  the  duel  v/as  not  an  inevitable  one  ;  and 
yet  it  cost  one  man  his  life,  and  burdened  the  other  with  life- 
long regrets. 

Had  the  issue  been  different.  La  Presse  would  probably  have 
disappeared,  and  all  recrimination  ceased.  As  it  was,  unable 
to  goad  M.  de  Girardin  into  a  reversal  of  his  decision  "  never 
to  go  out  again,"  and  that  in  spite  of  nine  years  of  direct  insult 
from  a  so-called  political  party,  of  every  kind  of  quasi-legal 
vexation,  M.  de  Beauvallon  constituted  himself  a  second  Armand 
Carrel,  selecting  Dujarrier  as  his  victim,  the  chief  not  being 
available.  But  here  all  resemblance  to  Armand  Carrel  ceased, 
and  the  law  itself  was  anxious  to  mark  the  difference.  In  the 
one  case  it  had  been  set  at  naught  by  two  men  of  undoubted 
courage  and  undoubted  honor,  meeting  upon  equal  terms ;  in 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  93 

the  other,  it  was  proved  that,  not  content  with  Dujarrier's  well- 
known  inferiority,  De  Beauvallon's  pistols  had  been  tried 
before  the  encounter.  The  court  could  take  no  cognizance  of 
this,  but  it  marked  its  disapproval  by  sentencing  Beauvallon 
to  eight  years',  and  one  of  his  seconds,  M.  d'Ecquevilley,  to 
ten  years'  imprisonment  for  perjury.  Both  had  declared  on 
oath  that  the  pistols  had  not  been  tried.  The  Dujarrier  duel 
caused  a  deep  and  painful  sensation.  I  have  dwelt  upon  it  at 
greater  length  than  was  absolutely  necessary,  because  it  inspired 
me  with  a  resolution  from  which  I  have  never  departed  since. 
I  was  twenty-seven  at  the  time,  and,  owing  to  circumstances 
which  I  need  not  relate  here,  foresaw  that  the  greater  part  of 
my  life  wquld  be  spent  in  France.  I  am  neither  more  cour- 
ageous nor  more  cowardly  than  most  persons,  but  I  objected 
to  be  shot  down  like  a  mad  dog  on  the  most  futile  pretext 
because  some  one  happened  to  have  a  grudge  against  me.  To 
have  declined  "  to  go  out  "  on  the  score  of  my  nationality  would 
not  have  met  the  case  in  the  conditions  in  which  I  was  living, 
so  from  that  moment  I  became  an  assiduous  client  at  Gosset's 
shooting-gallery,  and  took  fencing  lessons  of  Grisier.  I  do  not 
know  that  I  became  very  formidable  with  either  weapon,  only 
sufficiently  skilled  not  to  be  altogether  defenceless.  I  took 
care  at  the  same  time  to  let  it  go  forth  that  a  duel  to  me  not 
only  meant  one  or  both  parties  so  severely  wounded  as  not  to  be 
able  to  continue  the  struggle,  but  the  resumption  of  the  com- 
bat, when  he  or  they  had  recovered,  until  one  was  killed,  Of 
course,  it  implied  that  I  would  only  go  out  for  a  sufficiently 
weighty  reason,  but  that,  if  compelled  to  do  so  for  a  trifling  one, 
I  would  still  adhere  to  my  original  resolution.  Only  once,  more 
than  twelve  years  afterwards,  I  had  a  quarrel  fastened  upon 
me,  arising  out  of  the  excitement  consequent  upon  the  attempt 
of  Orsini.  I  was  the  offended  party,  and,  as  such,  could  dic- 
tate the  conditions  of  the  meeting.  I  declined  to  modify  in 
the  least  the  rules  I  had  laid  down  for  my  own  guidance,  and 
stated  as  much  to  those  who  were  to  act  for  me — General  Fleury 
and  Alexandre  Dumas.  My  adversary's  friends  refused  to 
accept  the  terms.  I  was  never  molested  afterwards,  though  an 
Englishman  had  not  always  a  pleasant  life  of  it,  even  under 
the  Second  Empire. 

In  connection  with  Dujarrier's  duel,  I  may  say  a  few  words 
here  of  that  quasi-wonderful  woman,  Lola  Montes.  I  say 
"  quasi,"  because  really  there  was  nothing  wonderful  about 
her,  except  perhaps  her  beauty  and  her  consummate  impu- 
dence.    She  had  not  a  scrap  of  talent  of  any  kind  ;  education 


94  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

she  had  none,  for,  whether  she  spoke  in  English,  French,  or 
Spanish,  grammatical  errors  abounded,  and  her  expressions 
were  always  those  of  a  pretentious  housemaid,  unless  they  were 
those  of  an  excited  fishwife.  She  told  me  that  she  had  been 
at  a  boarding  school  in  Bath,  and  that  she  was  a  native  of 
Limerick,  but  that  when  quite  a  child  she  was  taken  to  Seville 
by  her  parents.  Her  father,  according  to  her  account,  was  a 
Spaniard,  her  mother  a  Creole.  "  But  I  scandalized  every  one 
at  school,  and  would  not  learn."  I  could  quite  believe  that ; 
what  I  could  not  believe  was  that  a  girl  of  her  quick  powers — 
for  she  undoubtedly  possessed  those — could  have  spent,  how- 
ever short  a  time  in  the  society  of  decent  girls  of  her  own  age, 
let  alone  of  presumedly  refined  school-mistresses,  without 
having  acquired  some  elementary  notions  of  manner  and 
address.  Her  gait  and  carriage  were  those  of  a  duchess,  for 
she  was  naturally  graceful,  but  the  moment  she  opened  her 
lips  the  illusion  vanished — at  least  to  me  ;  for  I  am  bound  to 
admit  that  men  of  far  higher  intellectual  attainments  than 
mine,  and  familiar  with  very  good  society,  raved  and  kept 
raving  about  her,  though  all  those  defects  could  not  have  failed 
to  strike  them  as  they  had  struck  me.  I  take  it  that  it  must 
have  been  her  beauty,  for,  though  not  devoid  of  wit,  her  wit 
was  that  of  the  pot-house,  which  would  not  have  been  tolerated 
in  the  smoking-room  of  a  club  in  the  small  hours. 

When  Dujarrier  was  carried  home  dying  to  the  Rue  Lafitte, 
a  woman  flung  herself  on  the  body  and  covered  his  face  with 
kisses.  The  woman  was  Lola  Montes.  In  his  will  he  left  her 
eighteen  shares  in  the  Palais-Royal  Theatre,  amounting  in 
value  to  about  20,000  francs.  She  insisted  afterwards  in  ap- 
pearing as  a  witness  at  the  trial  at  Rouen,  although  her  evi- 
dence threw  not  the  slightest  light  upon  the  matter.  She 
wanted  to  create  a  sensation  ;  and  she  accomplished  her  aim. 
I  was  there,  and  though  the  court  was  crowded  with  men 
occupying  the  foremost  ranks  in  literature,  art,  and  Paris 
society,  no  one  attracted  the  attention  she  did.  Even  the  sober 
president  and  assessors  sat  staring  at  her  open-mouthed  when 
she  took  her  stand  behind  the  little  rail  which  does  duty  for  a 
witness-box  in  France.  She  was  dressed  in  mourning — not 
the  deepest,  but  soft  masses  of  silk  and  lace — and  when  she 
lifted  her  veil  and  took  off  her  glove  to  take  the  prescribed 
oath,  a  murmur  of  admiration  ran  through  the  court.  That  is 
why  she  had  undertaken  the  journey  to  Rouen,  and  verily  she 
had  her  reward. 

It  was  on  that  occasion  that  I  became  acquainted,  though 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  95 

quite  by  accident,  with  the  young  man  who,  ten  or  eleven 
years  later,  was  to  leap  into  fame  all  of  a  sudden  with  one 
novel.  I  have  already  said  that  the  court  was  very  crowded, 
and  next  to  me  was  standing  a  tall,  strapping  fellow,  some- 
what younger  than  myself,  whom,  at  the  first  glance,  one  would 
have  taken  to  be  an  English  country  gentleman  or  well-to-do 
farmer's  son.  Such  mistakes  are  easily  made  in  Normandy. 
When  Lola  Montes  came  forward  to  give  her  evidence,  some 
one  on  the  other  side  of  him  remarked  that  she  looked  like  the 
heroine  of  a  novel. 

"  Yes,"  he  replied  ;  "  but  the  heroines  of  the  real  novels  en- 
acted in  everyday  life  do  not  always  look  like  that." 

Then  he  turned  to  me,  having  seen  me  speak  to  several 
people  from  Paris  and  in  company  of  Alexandre  Dumas  and 
Berryer,  whom  everybody  knew.  He  asked  me  some  partic- 
ulars about  Lola  Montes,  which  I  gave  him.  I  found  him 
exceedingly  well-informed.  We  chatted  for  a  while.  When 
he  left  he  handed  me  his  card,  and  hoped  that  we  should  see 
one  another  again.  The  card  bore  the  simple  superscription 
of  "  Gustave  Flaubert."  I  was  told  during  the  evening  that 
he  was  the  son  of  a  local  physician  of  note.  Twelve  years 
later  the  whole  of  France  rang  with  his  name.  He  had  writ- 
ten "  Madame  Bovary,"  and  laid  the  foundation  of  what  sub- 
sequently became  the  ultra-realistic  school  of  French  fiction. 

To  return  for  a  moment  to  Lola  Montes.  The  trial  was 
really  the  starting-point  for  her  notoriety,  for,  in  spite  of  her 
beauty,  she  had  been  at  one  time  reduced  to  sing  in  the  streets 
in  Brussels.  That  was  after  she  had  fled  from  Calcutta, 
whither  her  first  husband,  a  captain  or  lieutenant  James,  in 
the  service  of  the  East  India  Company,  had  taken  her.  She 
landed  at  Southampton,  and,  during  her  journey  to  London, 
managed  to  ingratiate  herself  with  an  English  nobleman,  by 
pretending  that  she  was  the  wife  of  a  Spanish  soldier  who  had 
been  shot  by  the  Carlists.  She  told  me  all  this  herself,  be- 
cause she  was  not  in  the  least  reticent  about  her  scheming, 
especially  after  her  scheming  had  failed.  She  would,  however, 
not  divulge  the  name  of  her  travelling  companion,  who  tried 
to  befriend  her  by  introducing  her  to  some  of  his  acquaint- 
ances, with  the  view  of  obtaining  singing  lessons  for  her. 
"  But  I  did  not  make  my  expenses,  because  you  English  are 
so  very  moral  and  my  patron  was  suspected  of  not  giving  him- 
self all  that  trouble  for  nothing.  Besides,  they  managed  to 
ferret  out  that  I  was  not  the  widow  of  a  Spanish  officer,  but 
the  wife  of  an  English  one  ;  and  then,  as  you  may  imagine,  it 


96  AN-  Englishman  in  paris. 

was  all  up.  I  got,  however,  an  engagement  at  the  Opera 
House  in  the  ballet,  but  not  for  long;  of  course,  I  could  not 
dance  much,  but  I  could  dance  as  well  as  half  your  wooden 
ugly  women  that  were  there.  But  they  told  tales  about  me, 
and  the  manager  dismissed  me.* 

She  fostered  no  illusions  with  regard  to  her  choregraphic 
talents;  in  fact  she  fostered  no  illusions  about  anything,  and 
her  candor  was  the  best  trait  in  her  character.  She  had  failed 
as  a  dancer  in  Warsaw,  whither  she  had  gone  from  London, 
by  way  of  Brussels.  In  the  Belgian  capital,  according  to  her 
own  story,  she  had  been  obliged  to  sing  in  the  streets  to  keep 
from  starvation.  I  asked  her  why  she  had  not  come  from  Lon- 
don to  Paris,  "where,  for  a  woman  of  her  attractions,  and  not 
hampered  by  many  scruples,"  as  I  pointed  out  to  her,  "  there 
were  many  more  resources  than  elsewhere."  The  answer  was 
so  characteristic  of  the  daring  adventuress,  who  notwithstand- 
ing her  impecuniosity,  flew  at  the  highest  game  to  be  had,  that 
I  transcribe  it  in  full.  I  am  often  reluctant  to  trust  to  my 
memory :  in  this  instance  I  may ;  I  remember  every  word  of 
it.  This  almost  illiterate  schemer,  who  probably  had  not  the 
remotest  notion  of  geography,  of  history,  had  pretty  well  "  the 

*  The  English  nobleman  must  [have  been  Lord  Malmesbury,  who  alludes  to  her  as  fol- 
lows: "  This  was  a  most  remarkable  woman,  and  may  be  said  by  her  conduct  at  Munich 
to  have  set  fire  to  the  magazine  of  revolution,  which  was  ready  to  burst  forth  all  over 
Europe,  and  which  made  the  year  1848  memorable.  I  made  her  acquaintance  by  accident,  as 
I  was  going  up  to  London  from  Heron  Court,  in  the  railway.  The  Consul  at  Southampton 
asked  me  to  take  charge  of  a  Spanish  lady  who  had  been  recommended  to  his  care,  and 
who  had  just  landed.  I  consented  to  do  this,  and  was  introduced  by  him  to  a  remarkably 
handsome  person,  who  was  in  deep  mourning,  and  who  appeared  to  be  in  great  distress. 
As  we  were  alone  in  the  carriage,  she,  of  her  own  accord,  informed  me,  in  bad  English, 
that  she  was  the  widow  of  Don  Diego  Leon,  who  had  lately  been  shot  by  the  Carlists  after 
he  was  taken  prisoner,  and  that  she  was  going  to  London  to  seli  some  Spanish  property  that 
she  possessed,  and  give  lessons  in  singing,  as  she  was  very  poor.  On  arriving  in  London 
she  took  some  lodgings,  and  came  to  my  house  to  a  little  concert  which  I  gave,  and  sang 
some  Spanish  ballads.  Her  accent  was  foreign,  and  she  had  all  the  appearance  of  being 
what  she  pretended  to  be.  She  sold  different  things,  such  as  veils,  etc.,  to  the  party  present, 
and  received  a  good  deal  of  patronage.  Eventually  she  took  an  engagement  for  the  ballet 
at  the  Opera  House,  but  her  dancing  was  very  inferior.  At  last  she  was  reco.gnized  as  an 
impostor,  her  real  name  being  Mrs.  James,  and  Irish  by  extraction,  and  had  married  an 
officer  in  India.  Her  engagement  at  the  Opera  was  cancelled,  she  left  the  country, 
and  retired  to  Munich.  She  was  a  very  violent  woman,  and  actually  struck  one  of  the 
Bavarian  generals  as  he  was  reviewing  the  troops.  The  king  became  perfectly  infatuated 
with  her  beauty  and  cleverness,  and  gave  her  large  sums  of  money,  wilh  a  title,  which  she 
afterwards  bore  when  she  returned  to  England."  ("  Memoirs  of  an  Ex-Minister,"  by  the 
Earl  of  Malmesbury.) 

Lord  Malmesbury  is  wrong  in  nearly  every  particular  which  he  has  got  from  hearsay. 
Lola  Months  did  not  retire  to  Munich  after  her  engagement  at  the  Opera  House  had  been 
cancelled,  but  to  Brussels,  and  from  there  to  Warsaw.  Nor  did  she  play  the  all-important  part 
in  the  Bavarian  riots  or  revolution  he  ascribes  to  her.  The  author  of  these  notes  has  most 
of  the  particulars  of  Lola  Months'  career  previous  to  her  appearance  in  Munich  from  her 
own  Hps,  and,  as  he  has  already  said,  she  was  not  in  the  least  reticent  about  her  scheming, 
especially  when  her  scheming  had  failed.  For  the  story  of  the  events  at  Munich,  I  gather 
inferentially  from-his  notes  that  he  is  indebted  to  Karl  von  Abel,  King  Ludwig's  ultramon- 
tane minister,  who  came  afterwards  to  Paris,  and  who,  if  I  mistake  not,  was  the  .father  or 
the  uncle  of  Herr  von  Abel,  the  Berlin  correspondent  of  the  Times,  some  fourteen  or  fifteen 
years  ago. — Editor. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  97 

Almanach  de  Gotha  "  by  heart,  and  seemed  to  guess  instinct- 
ively at  things  which  said  Almanach  carefully  abstained  from 
mentioning,  namely,  the  good  understanding  or  the  reverse 
between  the  married  royal  couples  of  Europe,  etc. 

"  Why  did  not  I  come  to  Paris  !  "  she  replied.  "  What  was 
the  good  of  coming  to  Paris  where  there  was  a  king,  bourgeois 
to  his  finger-nails,  tight-fisted  besides,  and  notoriously  the 
most  moral  and  best  father  all  the  world  over ;  with  princes 
who  were  nearly  as  much  married  as  their  dad,  and  with  those 
who  were  single  far  away  ?  W^hat  was  the  good  of  coming  to 
a  town  where  you  could  not  bear  the  title  of  '  la  maitresse  du 
prince '  without  the  risk  of  being  taken  to  the  frontier  between 
two  gendarmes,  where  you  could  not  have  squeezed  a  thou- 
sand louis  out  of  any  of  the  royal  sons  for  the  life  of  you  "i 
What  was  the  good  of  trying  to  get  a  count,  where  the  wife  of 
a  grocer  or  a  shoemaker  might  have  objected  to  your  presence 
at  a  ball,  on  the  ground  of  your  being  an  immoral  person  ? 
No,  I  really  meant  to  make  my  way  to  the  Hague.  I  had 
heard  that  William  II.  whacked  his  wife  like  any  drunken 
laborer,  so  that  his  sons  had  to  interfere  every  now  and  then. 
I  had  heard  this  in  Calcutta,  and  from  folk  who  were  likely  to 
know.  But  as  I  thought  that  I  might  have  the  succession  of 
the  whacks,  as  well  as  of  the  lord,  I  wanted  to  try  my  chance  at 
Brussels  first ;  besides,  I  hadn't  much  money." 

"  But  King  Leopold  is  married,  and  lives  very  happily  with 
his  wife,"  I  interrupted. 

"  Of  course  he  does — they  all  do,"  was  the  answer  ;  "  mais 
9a  n'empeche  pas  les  sentiments,  does  it  ?  I  am  very  ignorant, 
and  haven't  a  bit  of  memory,  but  I  once  heard  a  story  about  a 
Danish  or  Swedish  king — I  do  not  know  the  difference — who 
married  an  adventuress  like  myself,  though  the  queen  and  the 
mother  of  his  heir  was  alive.  He  committed  bigamy,  but  kings 
and  queens  may  do  things  we  mayn't.  One  day,  he  and  his 
lawful  wife  were  at  one  of  their  country  seats,  and,  leaning  out 
of  the  window,  when  a  carriage  passed  with  a  good-looking 
woman  in  it,  '  Who  is  this  lady  ? '  asked  the  queen.  '  That's 
my  wife,'  replied  the  king.  '  Your  wife  !  what  am  I,  then  ? ' 
said  the  queen.     '  You  ?  well,  you  are  my  queen.*"* 

"  Never  mind,  whatever  my  intentions  on  Leopold's  money 
or  affections  may  have  been,  they  came  to  nothing ;  for  before 
I  could  get  as  much  as  a  peep  at  him,  my  money  had  all  been 

*  Lola  Montfes  was  perfectly  correct.  Tt  was  Frederick  IV.  of  Denmark,  only  the  woman 
was  not  an  adventuress  like  herself,  but  the  Countess  Reventlow,  whom  he  had  abducted.— 
Editor. 


98  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS, 

spent,  and  I  was  obliged  to  part  with  my  clothes  first,  and  then 
to  sing  in  the  streets  to  get  food.  I  was  taken  from  Brussels 
to  Warsaw  by  a  man  whom  I  believe  to  be  a  German.  He 
spoke  many  languages,  but  he  was  not  very  well  off  himself. 
However,  he  was  very  kind,  and,  when  we  got  to  Warsaw, 
managed  to  get  me  an  engagement  at  the  Opera.  After  two 
or  three  days,  the  director  told  me  that  I  couldn't  dance  a  bit. 
I  stared  him  full  in  the  face,  and  asked  him  whether  he  thought 
that,  if  I  could  dance,  I  would  have  come  to  such  a  hole  as 
this  theatre.  Thereupon  he  laughed,  and  said  I  was  a  clever 
girl  for  all  that,  and  that  he  would  keep  me  on  for  ornament. 
I  didn't  give  him  the  chance  for  long.  I  left  after  about  two 
months,  with  a  Polish  gentleman,  who  brought  me  to  Paris. 
The  moment  I  get  a  nice  round  lump  sum  of  money,  I  am  going 
to  carry  out  my  original  plan  ;  that  is,  trying  to  hook  a  prince. 
I  am  sick  of  being  told  that  I  can't  dance.  They  told  me  so  in 
London,  they  told  me  in  Warsaw,  they  told  me  at  the  Porte 
Saint-Martin  where  they  hissed  me.  I  don't  think  the  men,  if 
left  to  themselves,  would  hiss  me  ;  their  wives  and  their  daugh- 
ters put  them  up  to  it :  a  woman  like  myself  spoils  their  trade 
of  honest  women.  I  am  only  waiting  my  chance  here  ;  for 
though  you  are  all  very  nice  and  generous  and  all  that  kind  of 
thing,  it  is  not  what  I  want." 

Shortly  after  this  conversation,  the  death  of  Dujarrier  and 
his  legacy  to  her  gave  her  the  chance  she  had  been  looking  for. 
She  left  for  London,  I  heard,  with  an  Englishman  ;  but  I  never 
saw  him,  so  I  cannot  say  for  certain.  But,  it  appears,  she  did 
not  stay  long,  because,  a  little  while  after,  several  Parisians, 
on  their  return  from  Germany,  reported  that  they  had  met  her 
at  Wiesbaden,  at  Homburg,  and  elsewhere,  punting  in  a  small 
way,  not  settling  down  anywhere,  and  almost  deliberately  avoid- 
ing both  Frenchmen  and  Englishmen.  The  rumor  went  that 
her  husband  was  on  her  track,  and  that  her  anxiety  to  avoid 
him  had  caused  her  to  leave  London  hurriedly.  In  spite  of 
her  checkered  career,  in  spite  of  the  shortcomings  at  Brussels, 
Lola  Montes  was  by  no  means  anxious  for  the  "  sweet  yoke  of 
domesticity."  In  another  six  months,  her  name  was  almost 
forgotten  by  dll  of  us,  except  by  Alexandre  Dumas,  who  now 
and  then  alluded  to  her.  Though  far  from  superstitious, 
Dumas,  who  had  been  as  much  smitten  with  her  as  most  of 
her  admirers,  avowed  that  he  was  glad  she  had  disappeared. 
"  She  has  *  the  evil  eye,' "  he  said  ;  "  and  sure  to  bring  bad 
luck  to  any  one  who  closely  links  his  destiny  with  hers,  for 
however  short  a  time.    You  see  what  has  occurred  to  Dujarrier. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  -        99 

If  ever  she  is  heard  of  again,  it  will  be  in  connection  with 
some  terrible  calamity  that  has  befallen  a  lover  of  hers.'' 
We  all  laughed  at  him,  except  Dr.  Veron,  who  could  have  given 
odds  to  Solomon  Eagle  himself  at  prophesying.  Fortunately 
he  was  generally  afraid  to  open  his  lips,  for  he  was  thoroughly 
sincere  in  his  belief  that  he  could  prevent  the  event  by  not 
predicting  it — at  any  rate  aloud.  For  once  in  a  way,  how- 
ever, Alexandre  Dumas  proved  correct.  When  we  did  hear 
again  of  Lola  Mpntes,  it  was  in  connection  with  the  dis- 
turbances that  had  broken  out  at  Munich,  and  the  abdication 
of  her  royal  lover,  Louis  L  of  Bavaria,  in  favor  of  his  eldest 
son,  Maximilian. 

The  substance  of  the  following  notes  relating  to  said  disturb- 
ances was  communicated  to  me  by  a  political  personage  who 
played  a  not  inconsiderable  part  in  the  events  themselves.  As 
a  rule  it  is  not  very  safe  to  take  interested  evidence  of  that 
kind,  "but  in  this  instance,"  as  my  informant  put  it,  "there 
was  really  no  political  reputation  to  preserve,  as  far  as  he  was 
concerned."  Lola  Montes  had  simply  tried  to  overthrow  him 
as  Madame  Dubarry  overthrew  the  Due  de  Choiseul,  because 
he  would  not  become  her  creature ,  and  she  had  kept  on  re- 
peating the  tactics  with  every  succeeding  ministry,  even  that 
of  her  own  making.  But  it  should  be  remembered  that  revolu- 
tion was  in  the  air  in  the  '48,  and  that  if  Lola  Montes  had  been 
the  most  retiring  of  favorites,  or  Louis  I.  the  most  moral  of 
kings,  the  uprising  would  have  happened  just  the  same,  though 
the  upshot  might  have  been  different  with  regard  to  Louis  him- 
self. 

Here  is  a  portrait  of  him,  which,  in  my  literary  ignorance, 
I  think  sufficiently  interesting  to  reproduce. 

"  Louis  was  a  chip  of  the  old  Wittelsbach  block ;  that  is,  a 
Lovelace,  with  a  touch  of  the  minnesinger  about  him.  Age  had 
not  damped  his  ardor ;  for,  though  he  was  sixty-one  when 
Lola  Montes  took  up  her  quarters  at  Munich,  any  and  every 
'  beauty '  that  came  to  him  was  sure  of  an  enthusiastic  welcome. 
And  Heaven  alone  knows  how  many  had  come  to  him  during 
his  reign  ;  they  seemed  really  directed  to  him  from  every  quarter 
of  the  globe.  The  new  arrival  had  her  portrait  painted  almost 
immediately;  it  was  added  to  the  collection  for  which  a  special 
gallery  had  been  set  apart,  and  whither  Louis  went  to  meditate 
by  himself  at  least  once  a  day.  He  averred  that  he  went  thither 
for  poetic  inspiration,  for  he  took  himself  au  serieux  as  a  poet, 
and,  above  all,  as  a  classical  poet,  modelling  his  verse  upon 
those  of  ancient  times.     He  had  published  a  volume  of  poems, 


I  oo  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PA RIS. 

entitled  '  Walhalla's  Genossen  ;  '  *  but  his  principal  study  of 
antiquity  was  mainly  confined  to  the  rites  connected  with  the 
worship  of  Venus.  He  was  very  good-natured  and  pleasant  in 
his  dealings  with  every  one ;  he  had  not  an  ounce  of  gall  in 
the  whole  of  his  body.  He  was,  moreover,  very  religious  in 
his  own  way,  and  consequently  the  tool  of  the  Jesuits,  who 
really  governed  the  kingdom,  but  who  endeavored  to  make  his 
own  life  sweet  and  pleasant  to  him.  They  liked  him  to  take 
part  in  the  religious  processions,as  any  burgher  of  devout  tenden- 
cies might,  but  being  aware  of  his  tendency  to  be  attracted  by 
the  first  pretty  face  he  caught  sight  of,  they  took  care  to  rele- 
gate all  the  handsome  maidens  and  matrons  to  the  first  and 
second  floors.  In  that  way  Louis's  eyes  were  always  lifted 
heavenwards,  and  religious  appearances  were  preserved. 

"  Under  such  conditions,  it  was  not  difficult  for  a  woman  of 
Lola  Montes'  attractions  and  daring  to  gain  her  ends.  She  was 
not  altogether  without  means  when  she  came  to  Munich,  though 
the  sum  in  her  possession  was  far  from  a  hundred  thousand 
francs,  as  she  afterwards  alleged  it  was.  At  any  rate,  she  was 
not  the  penniless  adventuress  she  had  formerly  been,  and  when, 
in  her  beautiful  dresses,  she  applied  to  the  director  of  the  Hof- 
Theatre  for  an  engagement,  the  latter  was  fairly  dazzled,  and 
granted  her  request  without  a  murmur.  She  did,  however,  not 
want  to  dance,  and,  before  her  first  appearance,  she  managed 
to  set  tongues  wagging  about  her  beauty,  and,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  the  rumors  reached  the  king's  ears.  I  am  afraid  I 
shall  have  to  prefer  a  grave  charge,  but  I  am  not  doing  so  with- 
out foundation.  It  is  almost  certain  by  now  that  the  Jesuits, 
seeing  in  her  a  tool  for  the  further  subjugation  of  the  super- 
annuated royal  troubadour,  countenanced,  if  they  did  not  as- 
sist her  in  her  schemes  ;  they,  the  Jesuits,  did  many  things  of 
which  a  Catholic,  like  myself,  however  firm  in  his  allegiance  to 
Rome,  could  not  but  disapprove.  At  any  rate,  three  or  four 
days  after  the  king's  first  meeting  with  her,  Lola  Montes  was 
presented  at  court,  and  introduced  to  the  royal  family  and  corps 
diplomatique  by  the  sovereign  himself,  as  '  his  best  friend.' 
Events  proceeded  apace.  In  August,  '47,  the  king  granted  her 
patents  of  *  special  naturalization,'  created  her  Baroness  von 
Rosenthal,  and,  almost  immediately  afterwards.  Countess  von 
Landsfeld.  She  received  an  annuity  of  twenty  thousand  florins, 
and  had  a  magnificent  mansion  built  for  her.  At  the  instance 
of  the  king,  the  queen  was  compelled  to  confer  the  order  of  St. 
Th6rbse  upon  her.     I,  and  many  others,  had  strenuously  op- 

*  "  Companions  in  Walhalla." — Editor. 


A  i\r  ENGLISHMAJSt  IN  PARIS.  1 6 1 

posed  all  this,  though  not  unaware  that,  up  till  then,  the  Jesuits 
were  on  her  side,  rather  than  on  ours.  We  paid  the  penalty  of 
our  opposition  with  our  dismissal  from  office,  and  then  Lola 
Months  confronted  the  Jesuits  by  herself.  She  was  absolutely 
mad  to  invade  Wurtemberg,  not  for  any  political  reason  ;  she 
could  no  more  have  accounted  for  any  such  tlian  the  merest 
hind,  but  simply  because,  a  few  months  before  her  appearance 
at  Munich,  she  had  been,  in  her  opinion,  slighted  by  the  old 
king.  The  fact  was,  old  William,  sincerely  attached  to  Amalia 
Stubenrauch,  the  actress,  had  not  fallen  a  victim  to  Lola  Montes' 
charms,  and  had  taken  little  or  no  notice  of  her.  The  contem- 
plated invasion  of  Wurtemberg  was  an  act  of  private  revenge. 
But  mad  as  she  was,  there  was  some  one  more  mad  still — King 
Louis  L  of  Bavaria. 

"  The  most  ill-advised  thing  she  did,  perhaps,  was  to  change 
her  supporters.  Like  the  ignorant,  overbearing  woman  she 
was,  she  would  not  consent  to  share  her  power  over  the  king 
with  the  Jesuits  ;  she  tried  to  form  an  opposition  against  them 
among  the  students  at  the  University,  and  she  succeeded  to  a 
certain  extent.  These  adherents  constituted  the  nucleus  of  a 
corps  which  soon  became  known  under  the  title  of  '  AUemanen.' 
But  the  more  noble-minded  and  patriotic  youths  at  the  Munich 
University  virtually  ostracized  the  latter,  and  several  minor 
disturbances  had  already  broken  out  in  consequence  of  this, 
when,  in  the  beginning  of  February,  '48,  a  more  than  usually 
serious  manifestation  against  '  Lola's  creatures,'  as  they  were 
called,  took  place.  The  woman  did  not  lack  pluck,  and  she 
insisted  upon  defying  the  rioters  by  herself.  But  they  proved 
too  much  for  her  ;  and,  after  all,  she  was  a  woman.  She 
endeavored  to  escape  from  their  violence,  but  every  house  was 
shut  against  her  ,'  the  Swiss  on  guard  at  the  Austrian  Embassy 
refused  her  shelter.  A  most  painful  scene  happened  ;  the  king 
himself,  the  moment  the  news  reached  him,  rushed  to  her 
rescue,  and,  having  elbowed  his  way  through  the  threatening, 
yelling  crowd,  offered  her  his  arm,  and  conducted  her  to  the 
church  of  the  Theatines,  hard  by.  As  a  matter  of  course, 
several  officers  had  joined  him,  and  all  might  have  been  well, 
if  she  had  taken  the  lesson  to  heart.  But  her  violent,  dom- 
ineering, vindictive  temper  got  the  better  of  her.  No  sooner 
did  she  find  herself  in  comparative  safety,  than  emboldened 
by  the  presence  of  the  officers,  she  snatched  a  pistol  from  one 
of  them,  and,  armed  with  it,  leapt  out  of  the  building,  confront- 
ing the  crowd,  and  threatening  to  fire.  Heaven  alone  knows 
what  would  have  been  the  result  of  this  mad  act,  but  for  the 


16^  Ai^t  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PAklS. 

timely  arrival  of  a  squadron  of  cuirassiers,  who  covered  het 
retreat. 

"  The  excitement  might  have  died  out  in  a  week  or  a  fort- 
night, though  the  year  '48  was  scarcely  a  propitious  one  for  a 
display  of  such  quasi-feudal  defiance,  if  she  had  merely  been 
content  to  forego  the  revenge  for  the  insults  she  herself  had 
provoked ;  but  on  the  loth  of  February  she  prevailed  upon  the 
king  to  issue  a  decree,  closing  the  University  for  a  twelvemonth. 
The  smouldering  fire  of  resentment  against  her  constant  inter- 
ference in  the  affairs  of  the  country  blazed  forth  once  more,  and 
this  time  with  greater  violence  than  ever.  The  working  men, 
nay,  the  commercial  middle  classes,  hitherto  indifferent  to  the 
king's  vagaries,  which,  after  all,  brought  grist  to  their  mill, 
espoused  the  students'  cause.  Barricades  were  erected  ;  the 
cry  was  not  '  Long  live  the  Constitution,'  or  '  Long  live  the 
Republic,'  but  'Down  with  the  concubine.'  It  was  impossible 
to  mistake  the  drift  of  that  insurrection,  but,  in  order  to 
leave  no  doubt  about  it  in  the  sovereign's  mind,  a  deputation  of 
the  municipal  council  and  one  of  the  Upper  House  waited 
upon  Louis,  and  insisted  upon  the  dismissal  of  Lola  Montes, 
who,  in  less  than  an  hour,  left  Munich,  escorted  by  a  troop  of 
gendarmes,  who,  however,  had  all  their  work  to  do  to  prevent 
her  from  being  torn  to  pieces  by  the  mob.  Her  departure  was 
the  signal  for  the  pillaging  of  her  mansion,  at  which  the  king 
looked  on — as  he  thought — incognito.  It  is  difficult  to  deter- 
mine what  prompted  him  to  commit  so  rash  an  act.  Was  it  a 
feeling  of  relief  at  having  got  rid  of  her — for  there  was  a  good 
deal  of  cynicism  about  that  semi-philosophical,  semi-mystical 
troubadour — or  a  desire  to  chew  the  cud  of  his  vanished  hap- 
piness ?  Whatever  may  have  been  the  reason,  he  paid  dearly 
for  it,  for  some  one  smashed  a  looking-glass  over  his  head, 
and  he  was  carried  back  to  the  palace,  unconscious,  and  bleed- 
ing profusely.  It  was  never  ascertained  who  inflicted  the 
wounds,  though  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  assailant  knew  his 
victim.  Meanwhile  Lola  Montes  had  succeeded  in  slipping 
away  from  her  escort,  and  three  hours  later  she  re-entered 
Munich  disguised,  and  endeavored  to  make  her  way  to  the 
palace.  But  the  latter  was  carefully  guarded,  and  for  the  next 
month  all  her  attempts  in  that  direction  proved  fruitless,  though, 
audacious  as  she  was,  she  did  not  dare  stop  for  a  single  night 
in  the  capital  itself.  Besides,  I  do  not  believe  that  a  single 
inhabitant  would  have  given  her  shelter.  Unlike  a  good  many 
royal  favorites  of  the  past,  she  had  no  personal  adherents,  no 
faithful  servants  who  would  have  stood  by  her  through  thick 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  103 

and  thin,  because  she  never  treated  any  one  kindly  in  the  days 
of  her  prosperity  :  she  could  only  bribe  ;  she  was  incapable  of 
inspiring  disinterested  affection  among  those  who  were  insen- 
sible to  the  spell  of  her  marvellous  beauty." 

So  far  the  narrative  of  my  informant.  The  rest  is  pretty 
well  known  by  everybody.  A  few  years  later,  she  committed 
bigamy  with  another  English  officer,  named  Heald,  who  was 
drowned  at  Lisbon  about  the  same  time  that  her  real  husband 
died.  Alexandre  Dumas  was  right — she  brought  ill-luck  to 
those  who  attached  themselves  to  her  for  any  length  of  time, 
whether  in  the  guise  of  lovers  or  husbands. 

These  notes  about  Lola  Montes  remind  me  of  another  woman 
whom  public  opinion  would  place  in  the  same  category,  though 
she  vastly  differed  in  character.  I  am  alluding  to  Alphonsine 
Plessis,  better  known  to  the  world  at  large  as  "  La  Dame  aux 
Camelias."  I  frequently  met  her  in  the  society  of  some  of  my 
friends  between  '43  and  '47,  the  year  of  her  death.  Her 
name  was  as  I  have  written  it,  and  not  Marie  or  Marguerite 
Duplessis,  as  has  been  written  since. 

The  world  at  large,  and  especially  the  English,  have  always 
made  very  serious  mistakes,  both  with  regard  to  the  heroine 
of  the  younger  Dumas'  novel  and  play,  and  the  author  himself. 
They  have  taxed  him  with  having  chosen  an  unworthy  subject 
and,  by  idealizing  it,  taught  a  lesson  of  vice  instead  of  virtue  ; 
they  have  taken  it  for  granted  that  Alphonsine  Plessis  was  no 
better  than  her  kind.  She  was  much  better  than  that,  though 
probably  not  sufficiently  good  to  take  a  housemaid's  place  and 
be  obedient  to  her  pastors  and  masters,  to  slave  from  morn  till 
night  for  a  mere  pittance,  in  addition  to  her  virtue,  which  was 
ultimately  to  prove  its  own  reward — the  latter  to  consist  of  a 
home  of  her  own,  with  a  lot  of  squalling  brats  about  her,  where 
she  would  have  had  to  slave  as  she  had  slaved  before,  without 
the  monthly  pittances  hitherto  doled  out  to  her.  She  was  not 
sufficiently  good  to  see  her  marvellously  beautiful  face,  her 
matchless  graceful  figure  set  off  by  a  cambric  cap  and  a  calico 
gown,  instead  of  having  the  first  enhanced  by  the  gleam  of 
priceless  jewels  in  her  hair  and  the  second  wrapped  in  soft  laces 
and  velvets  and  satins  ;  but,  for  all  that,  she  was  not  the  com- 
mon courtesan  the  goody-goody  people  have  thought  fit  to  pro- 
claim her — the  common  courtesan,  who,  according  to  these 
goody-goody  people,  would  have  descended  to  her  grave  for- 
gotten, but  for  the  misplaced  enthusiasm  of  a  poetical  young 
man,  who  was  himself  corrupted  by  the  atmosphere  in  which 
he  was  born  and  lived  afterwards, 


I04 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 


The  sober  fact  is  that  Dumas ^f/r  did  not  idealize  anything 
at  all,  and,  least  of  all,  Alphonsine  Plessis'  character.  Though 
very  young  at  the  time  of  her  death,  he  was  then  already  much 
more  of  a  philosopher  than  a  poet.  He  had  not  seen  half  as 
much  of  Alphonsine  Duplessis  during  her  life  as  is  commonly 
supposed,  and  the  first  idea  of  the  novel  was  probably  suggested 
to  him,  not  by  his  acquaintance  with  her,  but  by  the  sensation  her 
death  caused  among  the  Paris  public,  the  female  part  of  which 
— almost  without  distinction — went  to  look  at  her  apartment, 
to  appraise  her  jewels  and  dresses,  etc.  "They  would  prob- 
ably like  to  have  had  them  on  the  same  terms,"  said  a  terrible 
cynic.  The  remark  must  have  struck  young  Dumas,  in  whose 
hearing  it  was  said,  or  who,  at  any  rate,  had  it  reported  to  him ; 
for  if  we  carefully  look  at  ^// his  earlier  plays,  we  find  the  spirit 
of  that  remark  largely  pervading  them. 

Alphonsine  Plessis  had  probably  learned  even  less  in  her 
girlhood  than  Lola  Montes,  but  she  had  a  natural  tact,  and  an 
instinctive  refinement  which  no  education  could  have  enhanced. 
She  never  made  grammatical  mistakes,  no  coarse  expression 
ever  passed  her  lips.  Lola  Montes  could  not  make  friends ; 
Alphonsine  Plessis  could  not  make  enemies.  She  never  be- 
came riotous  like  the  other,  not  even  boisterous  ;  for  amidst 
the  most  animated  scenes  she  was  haunted  by  the  sure  knowl- 
edge that  she  would  die  young,  and  life,  but  for  that  knowledge, 
would  have  been  very  sweet  to  her.  Amidst  these  scenes,  she 
would  often  sit  and  chat  to  me  :  she  liked  me,  because  I  never 
paid  her  many  compliments,  although  I  was  but  six  years  older 
than  the  most  courted  woman  of  her  time.  The  story  of  her 
being  provided  for  by  a  foreign  nobleman  because  she  was  so 
like  his  deceased  daughter,  was  not  a  piece  of  fiction  on  Dumas' 
part;  it  was  a  positive  fact.  Alphonsine  Plessis,  after  this 
provision  was  made  for  her,  might  have  led  the  most  retired 
existence  ;  she  might,  like  so  many  demi-mondaines  have  done 
since,  bought  herself  a  country-house,  re-entered  "the  paths  of 
respectability,"  have  had  a  pew  in  the  parish  church,  been  in 
constant  cornmunication  with  the  vicar,  prolonged  her  life  by 
several  years,  and  died  in  the  odor  of  sanctity  :  but,  notwith- 
standing her  desperate  desire  to  live,  her  very  nature  revolted 
at  such  self-exile.  When  Alexandre  Dumas  read  the  "  Dame 
aux  Camdlias  "  to  his  father,  the  latter  wept  like  a  baby,  but 
his  tears  did  not  drown  the  critical  faculty.  "  At  the  beginning 
of  the  third  act,"  he  said  afterwards,  "  I  was  wondering  how 
Alexandre  would  get  his  Marguerite  back  to  town  without 
lowering  her  in  the  estimation  of  the  spectator.     Because,  if 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  10$ 

such  a  woman  as  he  depicted  was  to  remain  true  to  nature — to 
her  nature — and  consequently  able  to  stand  the  test  of  psy- 
chological analysis,  she  could  not  have  borne  more  than  two 
or  three  months  of  such  retirement.  This  does  not  mean  that 
she  would  have  severed  her  connection  with  Armand  Duval, 
but  he  would  have  become  '  un  plat  dans  le  menu  '  after  a  little 
while,  nothing  more.  The  way  Alexandre  got  out  of  the  diffi- 
culty proves  that  he  is  my  son  every  inch  of  him,  and  that,  at 
the  very  outset  of  his  career,  he  is  a  better  dramatist  than  I  am 
ever  likely  to  be.  But  depend  upon  it,  that  if,  in  real  life  and 
with  such  a  woman,  le  pere  Duval  had  not  interfered,  la  belle 
Marguerite  would  have  taken  the  *  key  of  the  street '  on  some 
pretext — and  that,  notwithstanding  the  sale  of  her  carriages, 
the  pledging  of  her  diamonds  and  her  furs — in  order  not  to 
worry  the  man  she  loved,  for  the  time  being,  with  money  mat- 
ters. Honestly  speaking,  it  wanted  my  son's  cleverness  to 
make  a  piece  out  of  Alphonsine  Plessis'  life.  True,  he  was 
fortunate  in  that  she  died,  which  left  him  free  to  ascribe  that 
death  to  any  cause  but  the  right  one,  namely,  consumption.  I 
know  that  he  made  use  of  it,  but  he  took  care  to  show  the 
malady  aggravated  by  Armand  Duval's  desertion  of  her,  and 
this  is  the  only  liberty  he  took  with  the  pyschological,  conse- 
quently scientific  and  logical,  development  of  the  play.  People 
have  compared  his  Marguerite  Gautier  to  Manon  Lescaut,  to 
Marion  Delorme,  and  so  forth  :  it  just  shows  what  they  know 
about  it.  They  might  just  as  well  compare  Thiers  to  Crom- 
well. Manon  Lescaut,  Marion  Delorme,  Cromwell,  knew  what 
they  wanted  :  Marguerite  Gautier  and  Thiers  do  not ;  both  are 
always  in  search  of  Vinconnu^  the  one  in  experimental  politics, 
the  other  in  experimental  love-making.  Still,  my  son  has  been 
true  to  Nature  ;  but  he  has  taken  an  episode  showing  her  at 
her  best.  He  was  not  bound  to  let  the  public  know  that  the 
frequent  recurrence  of  these  love  episodes,  but  always  with  a 
different  partner,  constitutes  a  disease  which  is  as  well  known 
to  specialists  as  the  disease  of  drunkenness,  and  for  which  it 
is  impossible  to  find  a  cure.  Messalina,  Catherine  II.,  and 
thousands  of  women  have  suffered  from  it.  When  they  happen 
to  be  born  in  such  exalted  stations  as  these  two,  they  buy  men  ; 
when  they  happen  to  be  born  in  a  lowly  station  and  are  attrac- 
tive, they  sell  themselves ;  when  they  are  ugly  and  repulsive 
they  sink  to  the  lowest  depths  of  degradation,  or  end  in  the 
padded  cells  of  a  mad-house,  where  no  man  dares  come  near 
them.  Nine  times  out  of  ten  the  malady  is  hereditary,  and  I 
am  certain  that  if  we  could  trace  the  genealogy  of  Alphonsine 


io6  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

Plessis,  we  should  find  the  taint  either  on  the  father's  side  or 
on  the  mother's,  probably  on  the  former's,  but  more  probably 
still  on  both."  * 

*  The  following  is  virtually  a  summary  of  an  article  by  Count  G.  de  Contades,  in  a  French 
bibliographical  periodical,  Le  Livre  (Dec.  lo,  1885),  and  shows  how  near  Alexandre  Dumas 
was  to  the  truth.  I  have  given  it  at  great  length.  My  excuse  for  so  doing  is  the  extraordi- 
nary popularity  of  Dumas'  play  with  all  classes  of  playgoers.  As  a  consequence,  there  is 
not  a  single  modem  play,  with  the  exception  of  those  of  Shakespeare,  the  genesis  of  which 
has  been  so.much  commented  upon.  It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  most  educated  play- 
goers, not  to  mention  professional  students  of  the  drama,  have  at  some  time  or  other  ex- 
pressed a  wish  to  know  something  more  of  the  real  Marguerite  Gautier's  parentage  and  ante- 
cedents than  is  shown  by  Dumas,  either  in  his  play  or  in  his  novel,  or  than  what  they  could 
gather  from  the  partly  apocryphal  details  given  by  her  contemporaries.  Dumas  himself,  in 
his  preface  to  the  play,  says  that  she  was  a  farm  servant.  He  probably  knew  no  more  than 
that,  nor  did  Alphonsine  Plessis  herself.  In  after-years,  the  eminent  dramatist  had  neither 
the  time  nor  the  inclination  to  search  musty  parish  registers ;  Count  de  Contades  has  done 
50  for  him.  Here  are  the  results,  as  briefly  as  possible,  of  his  researches.  Alphonsine 
Plessis' paternal  grandmother,  "  moitie  mendiante  et  moiti^  prostituee,"  inhabited,  a  little 
less  than  a  century  ago,  the  small  parish  of  Long^-sur-Maire,  which  has  since  become  simply 
Long6  in  the  canton  of  Briouze,  arrondissement  of  Argentan  (about  thirty  miles  from  Alen- 
5on).  She  had  been  nicknamed  "  LaGu^nuchetonne,"  a  rustic  version  of  the  archaic  French 
word  guhnippe  (slattern).  Louis  Descours,  a  kind  of  country  clod  who  had  entered  tlie  priest- 
hood without  the  least  vocation,  and  just  because  his  people  wished  him  to  do  so,  becomes 
enamoured  of  "  La  Gu^nuchetonne,''  and  early  in  January,  1790,  the  curd  Philippe  christens 
a  male  child,  which  is  registered  as  Marin  Plessis,  mother  Louis-Renee  Plessis,  father  un- 
known. That  the  father  was  known  well  enough  is  proved  by  the  Christian  name  bestowed 
upon  the  babe,  Marin,  which  was  that  of  Louis  Descours'  father.  This  gallant  adventure 
of  the  country  priest  was  an  open  secret  for  miles  around. 

Marin  Plessis  grew  into  a  handsome  fellow,  and  when  about  twenty  took  to  travelling  in 
the  adjacent  provinces  of  lower  and  upper  Normandy  with  a  pack  of  smailwares.  Hand- 
some and  amiable  besides,  he  was  a  welcome  guest  everywhere,  and  soon  became  a  great 
favorite  with  the  female  part  of  the  Normandy  peasantry.  For  a  little  while  he  flitted  from 
one  rustic  beauty  to  another,  until  he  was  fairly  caught  by  one  more  handsome  than  the  rest, 
Marie  Deshayes.  She  was  not,  perhaps,  immaculately  virtuous,  but,  apart  from  her  extra- 
ordinary personal  attractions,  she  was  something  more  than  an  ordinary  peasant  girl. 

Some  sixty  years  before  Marin  Plessis'  union  with  Marie  Deshayes,  there  lived  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Evreux  a  spinster  lady  of  good  descent,  though  not  very  well  provided 
with  worldly  goods.  She  was  comely  and  sweet-tempered  enough,  but  then,  as  now,  come- 
liness and  a  sweet  temper  do  not  count  for  much  in  the  French  matrimonial  market,  and 
least  of  all  in  the  provincial  one.  Owing  to  the  modesty  of  her  marriage  portion,  she  had  no 
suitors  for  her  hand,  and,  being  of  an  exceedingly  amorous  disposition,  she  bestowed  her 
affection  where  she  could,  "  without  regret,  and  without  false  shame,"  as  the  old  French 
chronicler  has  it. 

The  annals  of  the  village— for,  curiously  enough,  these  annals  do  exist,  though  only  in 
manuscripts — are  commendably  reticent  about  the  exact  number  and  names  of  her  lovers. 
It  would  seem  that  the  author,  a  contemporary  of  Mddle.  Anne  du  Mesnil  d'Argentelles 
and  the  great-grandfather  of  the  present  possessor  of  the  notes,  a  gentleman  near  Beruay, 
was  divided  between  the  wish  of  not  being  too  hard  [upon  his  neighbor,  who  was,  after  all, 
a  gentlewoman,  and  the  desire  to  leave  a  record  of  a  peculiar  phase  of  the  country  manners 
of  those  days  to  posterity.  ■  Be  this  as  it  may,  Mddle.  d'Argentelles'  swains,  previous  to  the 
very  last  one,  have  been  doomed  to  anonymous  obscurity.  But  with  the  advent  of  Etienne 
Deshayes,  the  annalist  becomes  less  reticent,  he  is  considered  worthy  of  being  mentioned  in 
full,  perhaps  as  a  reward  for  having  finally  "  made  an  honest  woman  "  of  his  inamorata.  For 
that  is  the  final  upshot  of  the  love-story  between  him  and  Mdlle.  d'Argentelles,  which,  in  its 
earlier  stages,  bears  a  certain  resemblance  to  that  between  Jean- Jacques  Rousseau  and 
Madame  de  Warens,  with  this  difference — that  the  Normand  Jean- Jacques  is  considerably 
older  than  his  mistress. 

The  children  bom  of  this  marriage  were  very  numerous.  One  of  them,  Louis-Deshayes, 
Burried  a  handsome  peasant  girl,  Marie-Madeleine  Marra,  who  appears  to  have  been  some- 
what too  intimate  with  a  neighboring  squire,  but  who  gave  birth  a  few  years  Eifter  to  a 
daughter,  of  whose  paternity  there  could  not  be  the  smallest  doubt,  seeing  that  she  grew  up 
into  a  speaking  likene-ss  of  her  maternal  grandmother,  the  erstwhile  Mdlle.  Anne  du  Mesnil 
d'Argentelles.  Fate  ought  to  have  had  a  better  lot  in  store  for  beautiful  Marie  Deshayes 
than  a  marriage  with  a  poor  pedlar  like  Marin  Plessis  ;  but  the  latter  was  very  handsome, 
and,  notwithstanding  the  opposition  of  the  family,  she  became  his  wife.  On  theisthof 
January,  1824,  the  child  which  was  to  be  immortalized  as  "  La  Dame  au:c  Camillas  saw 
the  U|;ht,  in  a  small  village  in  Lower  Normandy. — Editor. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  107 

There  were  few  of  us  who,  during  Alphonsine  Plessis'  life- 
time, were  so  interested  in  her  as  to  have  gone  to  the  length 
of  such  a  psychological  analysis  of  her  pedigree.  Nevertheless, 
most  men  were  agreed  that  she  was  no  ordinary  girl.  Her 
candor  about  her  early  want  of  education  increased  the 
interest.  "  Twenty  or  twenty-five  years  ago,"  said  Dr.  Veron, 
one  day,  after  Alphonsine  Plessis  had  left  the  dinner-table, 
*'  a  woman  of  her  refinement  would  not  have  been  phenomenal 
in  her  position,  because  at  that  period  the  grisette,  promoted 
to  the  rank  of  femme  entretenue,  had  not  made  her  appear- 
ance. The  expression  '  femme  entretenue '  was  not  even 
known.  Men  chose  their  companions,  outside  marriage,  from 
a  different  class  ;  they  were  generally  women  of  education 
and  often  of  good  family  who  had  made  a  faux  pas,  and,  as 
such,  forfeited  the  society  and  countenance  of  their  equals  who' 
had  not  stumbled  in  that  way,  at  any  rate  not  in  the  sight  of 
the  world.  I  confess,  Alphonsine  Plessis  interests  me  very 
much.  She  is,  first  of  all,  the  best-dressed  woman  in  Paris  ; 
secondly,  she  neither  flaunts  nor  hides  her  vices ;  thirdly,  she 
is  not  always  talking  or  hinting  about  money  ;  in  short,  she  is 
a  wonderful  courtesan." 

The  result  of  all  this  admiration  was  very  favorable  to 
Alexandre  Dumas  Jils  when  he  brought  out  his  book  about 
eighteen  months  after  her  death.  It  was  in  every  one's  hands, 
and  the  press  kept  whetting  the  curiosity  of  those  who  had 
not  read  it  as  yet  with  personal  anecdotes  about  the  heroine. 
In  addition  to  this,  the  title  was  a  very  taking  one,  and,  more- 
over, absolutely  new  ;  for,  though  it  was  obvious  enough  from 
Alphonsine  Plessis'  habit  of  wearing  white  camellias  the 
greater  part  of  the  year,  no  one  had  ever  thought  of  applying 
it  to  her  while  she  was  alive ;  hence,  the  credit  of  its  invention 
belongs  decidedly  to  Dumasyf/j-. 

I  may  return  to  the  subject  of  "La  Dame  aux  Camelias  "  in 
connection  with  the  play  ;  meanwhile,  I  will  say  a  few  words  of 
the  only  man  among  our  set  who  objected  to  the  title,  "  because 
it  injures  my  own,"  as  he  put  it ;  namely,  M.  Lautour-Mezerai, 
who  had  been  surnamed  "  L'Homme  au  Camelia ; "  in  the 
singular,  from  his  habit  of  never  appearing  in  public  without 
that  flower  in  his  buttonhole.  And  be  it  remembered  that  in 
those  days,  the  flower  was  much  more  rare  than  it  is  at  pres- 
ent, and  consequently  very  expensive.  The  plagiarist,  if  there 
was  one,  must  have  been  Alphonsine  Plessis,  for  Dr.  Veron, 
who  was  one  of  his  oldest  friends,  did  not  remember  having 
even  se^n  him  minus  the  camellia,  and  their  friendship  date4 


Io8  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

from  the  year  1831.  It  is  computed  that  during  the  nineteen 
years  Mezerai  was  in  Paris,  previous  to  his  departure  for  the 
South  of  France  and  afterwards  for  Algeria,  in  both  of  which 
provinces  he  fulfilled  the  functions  of  prefect,  he  must  have 
spent  no  less  than  fifty  thousand  francs  on  his  favorite  floral 
ornament,  for  he  frequently  changed  it  twice  a  day,  and  its 
price,  especially  in  the  thirties  and  earlier  part  of  the  forties, 
was  not  less  than  five  francs.  It  is,  therefore,  not  surprising 
that  he  resented  the  usurpation  of  his  title.  M.  Lautour- 
Mezerai  was  one  of  the  most  elegant  men  I  knew.  He  not 
only  belonged  to  a  very  good  provincial  stock,  but  his  family 
on  both  sides  counted  some  eminent  names  in  literature.*  He 
was  a  most  charming  companion,  exceedingly  generous  ;  but 
he  would  not  have  parted  with  the  flower  in  his  buttonhole 
for  any  consideration,  not  even  to  oblige  his  greatest  friend, 
male  or  female.  It  was  more  than  an  ornament  to  him,  he 
looked  upon  it  as  a  talisman.  He  always  occupied  the  same 
place  at  the  Opera,  in  the  balcony,  or  what  we  call  the  "dress- 
circle,"  and  many  a  covetous  glance  from  the  brightest  eyes 
was  cast  at  the  dazzling,  white  camellia,  standing  out  in  bold 
relief  against  the  dark  blue  coat,  but  neither  glances  nor  direct 
requests  had  any  effect  upon  him.  He  became  absolutely 
savage  in  his  refusal  when  too  hardly  pressed,  because,  by  his 
own  admission,  he  was  superstitious  enough  to  believe  that,  if 
he  went  home  without  it,  something  terrible  would  happen  to 
him  during  the  night. 

M.  Lautour-Mezerai  was,  however,  something  more  than  a 
mere  man  of  fashion.  To  him  belongs  the  credit  of  having 
founded — at  any  rate  in  France — the  children's  periodical. 
For  the  comparatively  small  subscription  of  six  francs  per  an- 
num, thousands  of  little  ones  received  every  month  a  number 
of  the  Journal  des  En/ants,  stitched  in  blue  paper,  and  with 
their  own  name  on  the  wrapper.  It  flattered  their  pride  to  be 
treated  like  their  elders  by  having  their  literature  despatched 
to  them  in  that  way,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  this  ingenious 
device  contributed,  to  a  certain  extent,  to  the  primary  and  enor- 
mous success  of  the  undertaking.  But  M.  Lautour-Mezerai 
was  too  refined  a  litterateur  to  depend  upon  such  a  mere  trick, 
and  a  look  at  even  the  earlier  numbers  of  W\^  Journal  des  En- 
fants,  would  prove  conclusively  that,  in  the  way  of  amusing 
children  while  instructing  them  a  little,  nothing  better  has  been 
done  since,  whether  in  France,   England,   or  Germany.     The 

*  Curiously  enough,  he  belonged  to  the  same  department,  and  died  almost  on  the  Iveiy 
spot  where  Marin  Plessis  was  bom.  — Editor. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  109 

editor  and  manager  succeeded  in  grouping  around  him  such 
men  as  Paul  Lacroix  {le  bibliophile  Jacob)  and  Charles  Nodier, 
both  of  whom  have  never  been  surpassed  in  making  history 
attractive  to  young  minds.  Emile  Souvestre,  Le'on  Gozlan, 
Eugene  Sue,  and  even  Alexandre  Dumas  told  them  the  most 
wonderful  stories.  The  men  who  positively  kept  the  adult 
population  of  France  spell-bound  by  their  stirring  romances 
seemed  to  take  a  delight  in  competing  with  women  like  Vir- 
ginie  Ancelot,  the  Duchesse  d'Abrantes,  and  others  on  the  lat- 
ter's  ground.  As  a  consequence,  it  became  the  fashion  to 
present  the  young  ones  on  New  Year's  Day  with  a  receipt  for 
a  twelvemonth's  subscription,  made  out  in  their  names,  instead 
of  the  everlasting  bag  of  sweets.  At  one  time  the  circulation 
of  Le /otirnal des  EnfantsvidiS  computed  at  60,000,  and  M.  Lau- 
tour-Mezerai  was  said  to  make  100,000  francs  per  annum  out 
of  it. 

In  a  former  note,  I  incidentally  mentioned  Auguste  Lireux. 
He  is  scarcely  remembered  by  the  present  generation  of  French- 
men ;  I  doubt  whether  there  are  a  hundred  students  of  French 
literature  in  England  who  know  his  name,  let  alone  his  writ- 
ings ;  yet  he  is  worthy  of  being  remembered  by  both.  He  had 
— what  a  great  many  French  writers  of  talent,  far  greater  than 
his  own,  essentially  lack — humor.  True,  the  latter  was  not 
subtle  ;  but  it  was  rarely,  if  ever,  coarse.  The  nearest  approach 
to  him  among  the  journalists  of  the  present  day  is  M.  Fran- 
cisque  Sarcey  ;  but  the  eminent  dramatic  critic  has  had  a  bet- 
ter education.  Nevertheless,  if  Lireux  had  finished  as  he  be- 
gan, he  would  not  be  so  entirely  forgotten.  Unfortunately  for 
his  fame,  if  not  for  his  material  welfare,  he  took  it  into  his 
head  to  become  a  millionaire,  and  he  almost  succeeded ;  at 
any  rate,  he  died  very  well  off,  in  a  beautiful  villa  at  Bougival. 

I  remember  meeting  with  Lireux  almost  immediately  after 
he  landed  in  Paris,  at  the  end  of  '40  or  the  beginning  of  '41. 
He  came,  I  believe,  from  Rouen  ;  though,  but  for  his  accent, 
he  might  have  come  from  Marseilles.  Tall,  well-built,  with 
brown  hair  and  beard  and  ruddy  complexion,  a  pair  of  bright 
eyes  behind  a  pair  of  golden  spectacles,  very  badly  dressed, 
though  his  clothes  were  almost  new,  very  loud  and  very  restless, 
his  broad-brimmed  hat  cocked  on  one  side,  he  gave  one  the  im- 
pression of  what  in  Paris  we  used  to  call  a  "  departemental 
oracle."  He  was  that  to  a  certain  extent,  still  he  was  not 
really  pompous,  and  the  feeling  of  discomfort  one  experienced 
at  first  soon  wore  off.  He  was  not  altogether  unknown  among 
the  better  class  of  journalists  in  the  capital,  for  it  appears  that 


no  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

he  frequently  contributed  to  the  Paris  papers  from  the  provinces. 
He  had  a  fair  knowledge  of  the  French  drama  theoretically, 
for  he  had  never  written  a  piece,  and  openly  stated  his  inten- 
tion never  to  do  so.  But  in  virtue  of  his  dramatic  criticisms 
in  several  periodicals — which,  in  spite  of  the  difference  in 
education  between  the  two  men,  read  uncommonly  like  the 
articles  of  M.  Sarcey  in  the  Temps — and  his  unwavering  faith 
in  his  lucky  star,  he  considered  himself  destined  not  only  to 
lift  the  Odeon  from  the  slough  in  which  it  had  sunk,  but  to 
make  it  a  formidable  rival  to  the  house  in  the  Rue  de  Richelieu. 
He  had  no  ambition  beyond  that.  The  Odeon  was  really  at 
its  lowest  depth.  Harel  had  enjoyed  a  subsidy  of  130,000 
francs,  M.  d'Epagny  eleven  years  later  had  to  content  himself 
with  less  than  half,  and  yet  the  authorities  were  fully  cognizant 
of  the  necessity  of  a  second  Theatre-Fran^ais.  Whether  from 
incapacity  or  ill-luck,  M.  d'Epagny  did  not  succeed  in  bringing 
back  the  public  to  the  old  house.  The  direction  was  offered 
then  to  M.  Hippolyte  Lucas,  the  dramatic  critic  of  Le  Steele, 
and  one  of  the  best  English  scholars  I  have  ever  met  with 
among  the  French,  and,  on  his  declining  the  responsibility, 
given  to  Lireux,  who  for  the  sake  of  making  a  point,  exclaimed, 
"  Directeur  !  .  .  .  au  refus  d'Hippolyte  Lucas!"* 

It  was  a  piece  of  bad  taste  on  Lireux's  part,  because  M. 
Lucas  was  his  superior  in  every  respect,  though  he  would  prob- 
ably have  failed  where  the  other  succeeded — at  least  for  a 
while.  Save  for  this  mania  of  saying  smart  things  in  and  out 
of  season,  Lireux  was  really  a  good-natured  fellow,  and  we 
were  all  glad  that  he  had  realized  his  ambition.  The  venture 
looked  promising  enough  at  the  start.  He  got  an  excellent 
company  together,  comprising  Bocage,  Monrose,  Gil-Peres, 
Maubant,  Mdlles.  Georges  and  Araldi,  Madame  Dorval,  etc.  ; 
and  if,  like  young  Bonaparte's  troops,  they  were  badly  paid  and 
wanted  for  everything,  they  worked  with  a  will,  because,  like 
Bonaparte,  Lireux  inspired  them  with  confidence.  He,  on  the 
other  hand,  knew  their  value,  and  on  no  pretext  would  allow 
them  to  be  ousted  from  the  positions  they  had  honorably  won 
by  their  talents  and  hard  work.  Presumptuous  mediocrity, 
backed  either  by  influence  or  intrigue,  found  him  a  stern  ad- 
versary ;  the  intriguer  got  his  answer  in  such  a  way  as  to  pre- 
vent him  from  returning  to  the  charge.  One  day  an  actor  of 
reputed  incapacity,  Machanette,  claimed  the  title-role  in 
Moliere's  "  Misanthrope." 

*  An  imitation  of  the  line  of  Don  Carlos  in  Hugo's  "  Hemani ;  "     "  Empereur !  .  .  .  au 
refus  de  Fr^d^ric-le-Sage !  " — Editor. 


AN-  ENGLISHMAN-  iN  PARIS.  1 1 1 

"  You  have  no  one  else  to  play  Alceste,"  he  said. 

"  Yes,  I  have.  I  have  got  one  of  the  checktakers,"  replied 
Lireux. 

Auguste  Lireux  was  one  of  those  managers  the  race  of 
which  began  with  Harel  at  the  Porte  Saint-Martin  and  Dr. 
Veron  at  the  Opera.  Duponchel,  at  the  latter  house,  Mon- 
tigny  at  the  Gymnase,  Buloz  and  Arsene  Houssaye  at  the 
Comedie-Frangaise,  endeavored  as  far  as  possible  to  follow 
their  traditions  of  liberality  towards  the  public  and  their 
artists,  and  encouragement  given  to  untried  dramatists.  It 
was  not  Lireux's  fault  that  he  did  not  succeed  for  any  length 
of  time.  Of  course,  there  is  a  ridiculous  side  to  everything. 
During  the  terrible  cholera-visitation  of  1832,  Harel  published 
a  kind  of  statistics,  showing  that  not  a  single  one  of  the  spec- 
tators had  been  attacked  by  the  plague ;  but  all  this  cannot 
blind  us  to  the  support  given  to  the  struggling  playwright, 
Dumas,  in  the  early  part  of  his  career.  During  the  winter  of 
1841-42,  which  was  a  severe  one,  Lireux  sent  foot-warmers  to 
the  rare  audience  that  patronized  him  on  a  bitterly  cold  night, 
"  when  tragedy  still  further  chills  the  house  ;  "  the  little  bit  of 
charlatanism  cannot  disturb  the  fact  of  his  having  given  one 
of  the  foremost  dramatists  of  the  day,  a  chance  with  "  La 
Cigue."     I  am  alluding  to  the  first  piece  of  Emile  Augier. 

This  kind  of  thing  tells  with  a  general  public,  more  so  still 
with  a  public  composed  of  generous-minded,  albeit  somewhat 
riotous  youths  like  those  of  the  Quartier-Latin  in  the  early 
forties.  Gradually  the  latter  found  their  way  to  the  Odeon, 
"  sinon  pour  voir  la  piece,  alors  pour  entendre  Lireux,  qui  est 
toujours  amusant ;  "  which,  in  plain  language,  meant  that  come 
what  may  they  would  endeavor  to  provoke  Lireux  into  giving 
them  a  speech. 

Flattering  as  was  this  resolve  on  their  part  to  Lireux's 
eloquence,  the  means  they  employed  to  encompass  their  end 
would  have  made  the  existence  of  an  ordinary  manager  a 
burden  to  him.  But  Lireux  was  not  an  ordinary  manager ;  he 
possessed  "  the  gift  of  the  gab  "  to  a  marvellous  degree :  con- 
sequently he  made  it  known  that  he  would  be  happy  at  any 
time  to  address  MM.  les  etudiants  without  putting  them  to 
the  expense  of  apples  and  eggs  on  the  evening  of  performance, 
and  voice-lozenges  the  next  day,  if  they,  MM.  les  etudiants, 
would  in  return  respect  his  furniture  and  the  dresses  of  his 
actors.  The  arrangement  worked  exceedingly  well,  and  for 
four  years  the  management  and  the  student  part  of  the  audi- 
ence lived  in  the  most  perfect  harmony. 


1 1 J  AjV  englishman  in  PARIS. 

Lireux  did  more  than  that,  he  forestalled  their  possible  ob- 
jections to  a  doubtful  episode  in  a  play.  I  remember  the  first 
night  of  "  Jeanne  de  Naples."  The  piece  had  dragged  fear- 
fully. Lireux  had  made  three  different  speeches  during  the 
evening,  but  he  foresaw  a  riot  at  the  end  of  the  piece  which 
no  eloquence  on  his  part  would  be  able  to  quell.  It  appears 
— for  we  only  found  this  out  the  next  day — that  the  con- 
demned woman,  previous  to  being  led  to  execution,  had  to 
deliver  a  monologue  of  at  least  a  hundred  and  fifty  or  two 
hundred  lines.  The  unhappy  queen  had  scarcely  begun,  when 
a  herculean  soldier  rushed  on  the  stage,  took  her  into  his  arms 
and  carried  her  off  by  main  force,  notwithstanding  her  strug- 
gles. It  was  a  truly  sensational  ending,  and  the  curtain  fell 
amidst  deafening  applause.     It  redeemed  the  piece ! 

Next  day  Lireux  made  his  appearance  at  Tortoni's  in  the 
afternoon,  and,  as  matter  of  course,  the  production  of  the  pre- 
vious evening  was  discussed. 

"  I  cannot  understand,"  said  Roger  de  Beauvoir,  "  uow  a 
man  with  such  evident  knowledge  of  stagecraft  as  the  author 
displayed  in  that  de'noument,  could  have  perpetrated  bach  an 
enormity  as  the  whole  of  the  previous  acts." 

Lireux  was  fairly  convulsed  with  laughter.  "  Do  yoxi  really 
think  that  was  his  own  invention  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Of  course  I  do,"  was  the  reply. 

"  Well,  it  is  not.  His  denoument  was  a  speech  which  would 
have  taken  about  twenty  minutes,  at  the  end  of  which  the 
queen  is  tamely  led  off  between  the  soldiers.  I  know  what 
would  have  been  the  result :  the  students  would  have  simply 
torn  up  the  benches  and  Heaven  knows  what  else.  You  know 
that  if  the  gas  is  left  burning,  if  only  a  moment,  after  twelve, 
there  is  an  extra  charge  irrespective  of  the  quantity  consumed. 
I  looked  at  my  watch  when  she  began  to  speak  her  lines.  It 
was  exactly  thirteen  minutes  to  twelve  ;  she  might  have  man- 
aged to  get  to  the  end  by  twelve,  but  it  was  doubtful.  What 
was  not  doubtful  was  the  row  that  would  have  ensued,  and 
the  time  it  would  have  taken  me  to  cope  with  it.  My  mind 
was  made  up  there  and  then.  I  selected  the  biggest  of  the 
supers,  told  him  to  go  and  fetch  her,  and  you  know  the  rest." 

There  were  few  theatrical  managers  in  those  days  who 
escaped  the  vigilance  of  Balzac.  Among  the  many  schemes  he 
was  forever  hatching  for  benefiting  mankind  and  making  his 
own  fortune,  there  was  one  which  cannot  be  more  fitly 
described  than-  in  the  American  term  of  "  making  a  corner ; " 
only  that  particular  "  corner"  was  to  be  one  in  plays. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  1 13 

About  two  years  before  the  advent  of  Lireux,  and  when  the 
house  at  Ville  d'Avray,  of  which  I  have  spoken  elsewhere,  was 
completed,  a  party  of  Hterary  men  received  an  invitation  to 
spend  the  Sunday  there.  It  was  not  an  ordinary  invitation,  but 
a  kind  of  circular-letter,  the  postscriptum  to  which  contained  the 
following  words.  "  M.  de  Balzac  will  make  an  important  com- 
munication." Leon  Gozlan,  Jules  Sandeau,  Louis  Desnoyers, 
Henri  Monnier,  and  those  familiar  with  Balzac's  schemes, 
knew  pretty  well  what  to  expect;  and  when  Lassailly,  one 
of  the  four  men  whose  nose  vied  with  the  legendary  one  of  Bou- 
ginier,  confirmed  their  apprehensions  that  it  was  a  question  of 
making  their  fortunes,  they  resigned  themselves  to  their  fate. 
Jules  Sandeau,  who  was  gentleness  itself,  merely  observed 
with  a  sigh  that  it  was  the  fifteenth  time  Balzac  had  proposed 
to  make  him  a  millionaire ;  Henri  Monnier  offered  to  sell  his 
share  of  the  prospective  profits  for  7  francs  50  centimes;  Leon 
Gozlan  suggested  that  their  host  might  have  discovered  a 
diamond-mine,  whereupon  Balzac,  who  had  just  entered  the 
room,  declared  that  a  diamond- mine  was  nothing  to  it.  He 
was  simply  going  to  monopolize  the  whole  of  the  Paris  theatres. 
He  exposed  the  plan  in  a  magnificent  speech  of  two  hours' 
duration,  and  would  have  continued  for  two  hours  more  had 
not  one  of  the  guests  reminded  him  that  it  was  time  for  dinner. 

"  Dinner,"   exclaimed  Balzac ;  "  why,  I  never  thought  of  it." 

Luckily  there  was  a  restaurant  near,  and  the  future  mil- 
lionaires and  their  would-be  benefactor  were  enabled  to  sit 
down  to  "  a  banquet  quite  in  keeping,  not  only  with  the 
magnificent  prospects  just  disclosed  to  them,  but  with  the 
splendor  actually  surrounding  them,"  as  Mery  expressed  it. 

For  it  should  be  added  that  the  sumptuous  dwelling  which 
was  to  be  was  at  that  moment  absolutely  bare  of  furniture,  save 
a  few  deal  chairs  and  tables.  The  garden  was  a  wilderness,  in- 
tersected by  devious  paths,  sloping  so  suddenly  as  to  make  it 
impossible  to  keep  one's  balance  without  the  aid  of  an 
Alpenstock  or  the  large  stones  imbedded  in  the  soil,  but  only 
temporarily,  by  the  considerate  owner.  One  day,  Dutacq,  the 
publisher,  having  missed  his  footing,  rolled  as  far  as  the  wall 
inclosing  the  domain,  without  his  friends  being  able  to  stop 
him. 

The  garden,  like  everything  else  connected  with  the  schemes 
of  Balzac,  was  eventually  to  become  a  gold-mine.  Part  of  it 
was  to  be  built  upon,  and  converted  into  a  dairy ;  another  part 
was  to  be  devoted  to  the  culture  of  the  pine-apple  and  the 
Malaga  grape,   all  of   which  would  yield  an  income  of  30,000 

8 


1 14  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

francs  annually  "  at  least" — to  borrow  Balzac's  own  words. 
The  apartments  had  been  furnished  in  the  same  grandiose 
way — theoretically.  The  walls  were,  as  I  have  already  re- 
marked, absolutely  bare,  but  on  their  plaster,  scarcely  dry, 
were  magnificent  inscriptions  of  what  was  to  be.  They  were 
mapped  out  regardless  of  expense.  On  that  facing  the  north 
there  was  a  splendid  piece  of  thirteenth-century  Flemish  tapes- 
try— in  writing,  of  course — flanked  by  two  equally  priceless 
pictures  by  Raphael  and  Titian.  Facing  these,  one  by  Rem- 
brandt, and,  underneath,  a  couch,  a  couple  of  arm-chairs,  and 
six  ordinary  ones,  Louis  XV. ,  and  upholstered  in  Aubusson 
tapestry — subjects,  Lafontaine's  Fables.  Opposite  again,  a 
monumental  mantelpiece  in  malachite  (a  present  of  Czar  Nich- 
olas, who  had  expressed  his  admiration  of  Balzac's  novels),  with 
bronzes  and  clock  by  De  Gouttieres.  The  place  on  the  ceiling 
was  marked  for  a  chandelier  of  Venetian  glass,  and  in  the 
dining-room  a  square  was  drawn  on  the  carpetless  floor  for 
the  capacious  sideboard,  whereon  would  be  displayed  "  the 
magnificent  family  plate." 

Pending  the  arrival  of  the  furniture,  the  building  of  the 
dairy,  hot-houses,  and  vineries,  the  guests  had  to  sit  on  hard 
wooden  chairs,  to  eat  a  vile  dinner,  supplemented,  however,  by 
an  excellent  dessert.  Balzac  was  very  fond  of  fruit,  and  es- 
pecially of  pears,  of  which  he  always  ate  an  enormous  quantity. 
The  wine  was,  as  a  rule,  very  inferior,  but  on  that  particular 
occasion  Balzac's  guests  discovered  that  their  host's  imagina- 
tion could  even  play  him  more  cruel  tricks  in  the  selection  of  his 
vintages  than  is  played  him  in  his  pursuit  of  financial  schemes 
and  the  furnishing  of  his  house. 

When  the  fruit  was  placed  upon  the  table,  Balzac  assumed 
a  most  solemn  air.  "  Gentlemen,"  he  said,  "  I  am  going  to 
give  you  some  Chateau-Lafitte,  such  as  you  have  never  tasted 
— such  as  it  has  been  given  to  few  mortals  to  taste.  I  wish 
you  to  sip  it  carefully — I  might  almost  say  reverently,  because 
the  opportunity  may  not  repeat  itself  in  our  lives." 

Wherewith  the  guests'  glasses  were  filled  ;  all  of  them  made 
horrible  faces,  for  it  was  abominable  stuff,  but  one  more  out- 
spoken than  the  rest  gave  his  opinion  there  and  then — 

"  This  may  be  '  Chateau  de  la  Rue  Lafitte,'  but  it  is  enough 
to  give  one  the  colic." 

Any  one  else  but  Balzac  would  have  been  horribly  discon- 
certed ;  he,  on  the  contrary,  did  not  budge.  "  Yes,"  he  said 
proudly,  "  you  are  right  in  one  respect ;  this  ambrosial  nectar 
comes  in  a  straight  line  from  the  Rue  Lafitte,  for  it  is  Baron 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  1 1 5 

James  de  Rothschild  who  made  me  a  present  of  two  barrels, 
for  which  I  am  profoundly  grateful.  Drmk,  gentlemen,  drink, 
and  be  thankful  also." 

Those  who  would  consider  this  a  piece  of  clever  acting  on 
Balzac's  part,  would  be  greatly  mistaken.  His  imagination  at 
times  affected  his  palate  as  well  as  his  other  organs,  and  at  that 
moment  he  was  under  the  distinct  impression  that  he  was  offer- 
ing his  guests  one  of  the  rarest  vintages  on  record. 

I  have  endeavored  hitherto  to  digress  as  little  as  possible 
in  my  recollections,  though  their  very  nature  made  it  difficult. 
In  this  instance,  digression  was  absolutely  necessary  to  convey 
an  idea  of  the  shock  which  would  naturally  result  from  the  con- 
tact of  two  such  brains  as  those  of  Balzac  and  Lireux  ;  for  it 
was  not  long  after  the  young  manager's  advent  to  the  Od^on 
that  Balzac  found  his  way  to  his  sanctum.  The  play  he  offered 
him  was  "  Les  Ressources  de  Quinola."  Strange  as  it  may 
seem  to  us,  even  as  late  as  '42,  Balzac's  name  as  a  novelist  did 
not  rank  first  in  the  list  with  the  general  public,  still  it  is  very 
doubtful  whether  any  young  manager  would  have  refused  a 
stage  play  by  him ;  consequently,  Lireux  accepted  "  Les  Res- 
sources  de  Quinola"  almost  without  fear.  It  is  not  to  the  pur- 
pose to  say  that  it  was  a  bad  play,  and  that  he  ought  to  have 
known  better ;  it  has  been  amply  proved  by  now  that  the  most 
experienced  manager  is  not  infallible ;  but  it  is  a  moot  point 
whether  the  greatest  masterpiece  would  have  succeeded  with 
the  tactics  adopted  by  Balzac  to  insure  its  success.  The  fol- 
lowing may  appear  like  a  scene  from  a  farcical  comedy;  I  can 
vouch  for  the  truth  of  every  word  of  it,  because  I  had  it  from 
the  lips  of  Lireux  himself,  who,  after  all,  was  the  heaviest 
sufferer  by  Balzac's  incurable  greed,  or,  to  put  it  as  leniently 
as  one  can,  by  his  constant  chase  after  a  capital  stroke  of  bus- 
iness. His  resolve  to  pack  the  house  on  the  first  night  was  not 
due  to  a  desire  to  secure  a  favorable  reception  from  a  friendly 
audience,  but  to  the  determination  to  secure  "  a  lump  sum,' 
let  come  what  might.  In  Balzac  are  found  the  two  contradic- 
tory traits  of  the  money-grubber  and  the  spendthrift. 

The  scene  alluded  to  just  now,  took  place  when  the  rehear- 
sals were  far  advanced  ;  the  author  and  the  manager  were  dis- 
cussing the  invitations  to  be  sent  out,  etc.  All  at  once  Balzac 
declared  that  he  would  have  none  but  Knights  of  the  Order  of 
Saint-Louis  in  the  pit.  "I  am  agreeable,"  replied  Lireux; 
"  provided  you  ferret  them  out."  * 

*  It  shows  that  Lireux  was  not  very  familiar  with  the  royal  edicts  affecting  that  order, 
and  that  Balzac  himself  exaggerated  the  social  and  monetary  importance   of  its    wearers. 


1 1 6  AA^  ENGLISH  MA  N  IN  PA  RIS. 

"  I'll  see  to  that,"  said  Balzac.  "  Pray  go  on.  What  is  the 
next  part  of  the  house  ?  " 

"  Orchestra  stalls." 

"  Nothing  but  peers  of  France  there." 

"  But  the  orchestra  stalls  will  not  hold  them  all,  Monsieur 
de  Balzac." 

"Those  who  cannot  find  room  in  the  house  will  have  to 
stand  in  the  lobbies,"  said  Balzac,  imperturbably. 

"  Stage  boxes  ?  "  continued  Lireux. 

"  They  will  be  reserved  for  the  Court." 

"  Stage  boxes  on  the  first  tier  ?  " 

"  For  the  ambassadors  and  plenipotentiaries." 

"  The  open  boxes  on  the  ground  floor  .?  " 

"  For  the  wives  and  families  of  the  ambassadors." 

"  Upper  circle  .''  "  enumerated  Lireux,  not  a  muscle  of  his  face 
moving. 

"  For  the  deputies  and  grand  officers  of  State." 

"  Third  circle  t  "  enumerated  Lireux. 

"  The  heads  of  the  great  banking  and  financial  establish- 
ments." 

"  The  galleries  and  amphitheatre  .'* " 

"  A  carefully  selected,  but  varied,  bourgeoisie,"  wound  up 
Balzac. 

Lireux,  who  was  a  capital  mimic,  re-enacted  the  scene  for  us 
four  and  twenty  hours  after  it  had  been  enacted  in  his  own 
room,  and  while  he  was  still  under  the  impression  that  it  was 
merely  a  huge  joke  on  Balzac's  part.  He  soon  discovered, 
however,  that  the  latter  was  terribly  in  earnest,  when,  a  few 
days  later,  Balzac  claimed  the  whole  of  the  seats  for  the  first 
three  nights,  on  the  penalty  of  withdrawing  his  piece  there  and 
then.  Lireux  foolishly  submitted,  the  box  ofiice  was  closed  ; 
every  one  applying  for  tickets  was  referred  to  Balzac  himself, 
or,  rather,  to  the  shady  individual  who  had  egged  him  on  to 
this  speculation.  The  latter,  at  the  first  application,  had  run 
up  the  prices  ;  the  public  felt  disgusted,  and,  when  the  curtain 
rose  upon  *'  Les  Ressources  de  Quinola,"  the  house  was  almost 
empty.     Thereupon  a  batch  of  nondescripts  was  sent  into  the 

For,  though  Louis-Philippe  at  his  accession  suppressed  the  order,  not  less  than  twelve 
thousand  new  knights  had  been  created  by  his  two  immediate  predecessors.  They,  the  re- 
cently created  knights,  were  allowed  to  retain  their  honors  and  pensions  ;  but,  even  before 
the  fall  of  the  Bourbons,  the  distinction  had  lost  much  of  its  prestige.  After  the  Battle  of 
Navarino,  Admiral  de  Rigny,  soliciting  rewards  for  his  officers  who  had  distinguished  them- 
selves, tacitly  ignored  the  order  of  Saint-Louis  in  favor  of  that  of  the  Legion  of  Honor. 
The  order,  as  founded  by  Louis  XIV.  in  169^,  was  only  available  to  officers  and  Catholics. 
Several  modifications  "were  introduced  afterwards  in  its  statutes.  The  Order  of  Saint-Louis 
and  that  of  "  Military  Merit  "  were  the  only  two  recognized  by  the  Constituent  Assembly  of 
1789;  but  the  Convention  suppressed  the  former,  only  leaving  the  latter. — Editor. 


A  A'  ENGLISHMA  N  IN  PA  RIS.  \  1 7 

streets  to  dispose  of  the  tickets  at  any  price  ;  the  bait  was  in- 
dignantly rejected,  and  the  curtain  fell  amidst  violent  hisses. 
I  repeat,  a  masterpiece  would  have  failed  under  such  circum- 
stances ;  but  the  short  run  of  the  revival,  almost  a  quarter  of 
a  century  later  at  the  Vaudeville,  proved  that  the  piece  was  not 
even  an  ordinary  money-drawing  one.  It  only  kept  the  bills 
for  about  nine  or  ten  days. 

Lireux  was  more  fortunate  with  several  other  pieces,  notably 
with  that  of  Leon  Gozlan,  known  to  students  of  the  French 
drama  as  "  La  Main  Droite  et  la  Main  Gauche,"  but  which 
originally  bore  the  title  of  "  II  etait  une  Fois  un  Roi  et  une 
Reine."  There  could  be  no  doubt  about  its  tendency  in  its 
original  form  ;  it  was  nothing  less  than  an  indictment  for  big- 
amy both  against  Queen  Victoria  and  her  Consort ;  and  the 
authorities  had  to  insist  not  only  upon  the  change  of  title  and 
the  names  of  the  dra^natis  personcB^  but  upon  the  action  being 
shifted  from  London  to  Stockholm.  The  author  and  manager 
had  to  comply  ;  but  the  public,  who  had  got  wind  of  the  affair, 
crowded  the  house  every  night  in  order  to  read  between  the 
lines. 

One  of  my  great  sources  of  amusement  for  many  years  has 
been  the  perusal  of  political  after-dinner  speeches,  and  poli- 
tical leaders  in  the  English  papers,  especially  when  the  speak- 
ers and  writers  have  endeavored  to  lay  stress  upon  the  cordial 
relations  between  the  French  and  the  English,  upon  the 
friendly  feelings  guiding  their  actions  on  both  sides.  I  am 
putting  together  these  notes  nearly  fourteen  years  after  the 
conclusion  of  the  Franco-German  War,  nearly  three  quarters 
of  a  century  after  Waterloo.  There  is  not  a  single  Frenchman, 
however  Chauvinistic,  who  ever  thinks,  let  alone  talks,  of 
avenging  Napoleon's  defeat  by  Wellington  ;  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  there  is  not  a  single  Frenchman,  however  unpatriotic, 
who  does  not  dream  now  and  then  of  wiping  out  the  humilia- 
tion suffered  at  Sedan.  Well,  in  spite  of  the  almost  entire 
oblivion  of  the  one  disaster,  and  the  poignant  recollection  of 
the  other,  the  French  of  to-day  hate  th€  English  more  than  the 
Germans  ;  or — let  me  put  it  more  correctly — they  hate  the 
Germans,  they  despise  us.  Nothing  that  we  can  do  will  ever 
remove  this  dislike  of  us. 

It  has  been  thus  as  long  as  I  can  remember ;  no  royal  visits, 
no  exchange  of  so-called  international  courtesies  will  alter  the 
feeling.  It  is  ready  to  burst  forth,  the  smallest  provocation  or 
fancied  one  will  set  it  ablaze.  During  the  forties  there  were 
a  good  many  real  or  imaginary  provocations  on  the  part  of 


1 1 8  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

England,  and,  as  a  consequence,  the  hostile  feeling  against  hei 
broke  forth  where  it  is  almost  always  sure  to  break  forth  first 
in  France — on  the  stage  and  in  song.  After  "  La  Main  Droite 
et  la  Main  Gauche,"  came  Halevy's  opera  of  "  Charles  VI." 
It  is  but  fair  to  say  that  the  Government  did  all  it  could  to 
stem  the  tide,  but,  notwithstanding  its  positive  orders  to  modify 
the  chorus  of  the  famous  war-song  in  the  first  act,  the  song 
was  henceforth  regarded  as  a  patriotic  hymn.  Nor  did  the 
visit  of  the  Queen  to  Louis-Philippe  at  Eu,  in  1843,  effect  much 
improvement  in  this  state  of  things ;  and,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
we  on  the  English  side  of  the  Channel  retaliated  the  skits,  etc., 
though  I  do  not  think  we  took  them  au  grand  serieux.  When, 
in  January,  '44,  I  went  to  London  for  a  few  days,  I  found  the 
Christmas  pantomime  of  "  King  Pippin"  in  full  swing  at  Drury 
Lane.  I  well  remember  a  scene  of  it,  laid  in  the  shop  of  a 
dealer  in  plaster  figures.  Two  of  these  represented  respec- 
tively the  King  of  France  and  the  Queen  of  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland.  At  a  given  moment,  the  two  statues  became  animated, 
drew  close  to  one  another,  and  exchanged  the  most  profuse 
salutations.  But  meanwhile,  at  the  back  of  the  stage,  the 
Gallic  cock  and  the  British  lion  (or  leopard)  assumed  a  threaten- 
ing attitude,  and  at  each  mark  of  aifection  between  the  two 
royal  personages,  shook  their  heads  violently  and  seemed  to 
want  desperately  to  come  to  close  quarters.  The  audience  ap- 
plauded vociferously,  and  it  was  very  evident  to  me  that  neither 
in  Paris  nor  in  London  the  two  nations  shared  the  entente  cor- 
diale  of  their  rulers. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

There  were  few  authors  of  my  time  who  came  in  contact  with 
Rachel  without  writing  about  her  ;  there  were  absolutely  none 
who  have  represented  her  in  her  true  character.  Either  her 
genius  blinded  them  to  her  faults,  or  else  they  were  content 
to  perpetuate  the  popular  belief  in  her  amiability,  good-nature, 
generosity,  etc.  The  fact  is,  that  Rachel  off  the  stage  was 
made  of  very  ordinary  clay.  She  had  few  of  the  good  qualities 
of  her  race,  and  a  good  many  of  the  bad  ones  ;  she  was  greedy 
to  a  degree,  and  could  be  very  spiteful.  All  these  drawbacks, 
in  the  eyes  of  most  of  her  biographers,  were  redeemed  by  her 
marvellous  tragic  abilities  on  the  stage,  by  a  wonderful  "  gift 
of  the  gab,"  by  a  "happy-go-lucky,"  "hail-fellow,  well-met," 
manner  off  the  stage  to  those  whom  she  liked  to  propitiate. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS  119 

Nevertheless,  there  were  times  when  she  had  not  a  single 
friend  at  the  Comedie-FranQaise,  and  though  her  champions  at- 
tributed this  hostility  to  jealousy  of  her  great  gift,  a  moment's 
consideration  would  show  us  that  such  a  feeling  could  scarcely 
have  influenced  the  men  who  to  a  great  extent  shared  her  his- 
trionic triumphs,  viz.,  Beauvallet,  Regnier,  Provost,  Samson, 
and  least  of  all  the  latter.  Still,  all  these  would  have  willingly 
kept  her  out  of  the  Comedie  Fran9aise  after  she  had  left  it  in 
a  huff.  She  was  difficult  to  get  on  with  ;  her  modesty,  assumed 
in  everyday  life,  was  a  sham,  for  woe  to  the  host  who,  de- 
ceived by  it,  did  not  at  once  make  her  the  queen  of  the  enter- 
tainment !  And,  in  reality,  nothing  in  her  warranted  such  a 
temporary  elevation.  She  was  witty  in  her  way  and  after  her 
kind — that  is,  she  had  the  quick-wittedness  of  the  French 
woman  who  is  not  an  absolute  fool,  and  who  has  for  many 
years  rubbed  elbows  with  everything  distinguished  in  art  and 
literature.  Notwithstanding  this  intimacy,  I  am  doubtful 
whether  she  had  ever  read,  let  alone  appreciated,  any  of  the 
masterpieces  by  the  writers  of  her  own  days  that  did  not  di- 
rectly bear  upon  her  profession.  I  exclude  fiction — I  mean 
narrative  fiction,  and  especially  that  of  a  sensational  kind,  of 
which  she  was  probably  as  fond  as  the  meanest  concierge  and 
most  romantic  milliner-girl. 

Nevertheless,  provided  one  did  not  attempt  to  analyze  it,  the 
power  of  fascinating  the  coldest  interlocutor  was  there.  To 
their  honor  be  it  said,  her  contemporaries,  especially  the  men, 
rarely  made  such  an  attempt  at  analysis.  They  applauded  all 
she  said  (off  and  on  the  stage),  they  tolerated  all  she  did,  al- 
beit that  they  paid  the  cost  of  many  of  her  so-called  "  amiable 
tricks, "  which  were  mainly  so  many  instances  of  greed  and 
nothing  else.  One  evening  she  was  dining  at  Comte  Duchatel's, 
the  minister  of  Louis-Philippe.  The  table  was  positively  laden 
with  flowers,  but  Rachel  did  not  care  much  about  them ;  what 
she  wanted  was  the  splendid  silver  centre-piece.  But  she  was 
too  clever  to  unmask  her  batteries  at  once,  so  she  began  by  ad- 
miring the  contents,  then  at  last  she  came  to  the  principal  point. 
The  host  was  either  in  one  of  his  generous  or  foolish  moods 
and  made  her  a  present  of  it  there  and  then.  Rachel  knew, 
though,  that  even  with  a  grand  seigneur  like  Comte  Duchatel, 
there  are  "les  lendemains  de  I'enthousiasme,"  especially  when 
he  is  a  married  man,  whose  wife  does  not  willingly  submit  to 
have  her  home  stripped  of  its  art-treasures.  The  tragedienne 
came  in  a  hackney  cab  ;  the  comte  offered  to  send  her  back  in 
his  carriage.     She  struck  the  iron  while  it  was   hot.     "Yes, 


120  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS, 

that  will  do  admirably;  there  will  be  no  fear  of  my  being 
robbed  of  your  present,  which  I  had  better  take  with  me. " 
"Perfectly,  mademoiselle,"  replied  the  comte ;  "but  you  will 
send  me  back  my  carriage,  won't  you  ? " 

Dr.  Veron  was  despoiled  with  even  less  ceremony.  Having 
taken  a  fancy  to  some  silver  saucers  or  cups  in  which  the  pro- 
prietor of  the  Coiistitutiomiel  offered  ices  to  his  visitors,  she 
began  by  pocketing  one,  and  never  rested  until  she  had  the 
whole  of  the  set.  In  short,  everything  was  fish  to  her  net. 
She  made  her  friends  give  her  bibelots  and  knick-knacks  of  no 
particular  value,  to  which  she  attached  some  particular  legend 
— absolute  inventions  for  the  greatest  part — in  order  to  sell 
them  for  a  thousand  times  their  original  cost.  One  day  she 
noticed  a  guitar  at  the  studio  of  one  of  her  familiars.  "  Give 
me  that  guitar ;  people  will  think  it  is  the  one  with  which  I 
earned  my  living  on  the  Place  Royale  and  on  the  Place  de  la 
Bastille.  "  And  as  such  it  was  sold  by  her  to  M.  Achille  Fould 
for  a  thousand  louis.  The  great  financier  nearly  fell  into  a  fit 
when  the  truth  was  told  to  him  at  Rachel's  death  ;  he,  in  his 
turn,  having  wanted  to  "  do  a  bit  of  business."  In  this  in- 
stance no  Christian  suffered,  because  buyer  and  vendor  be- 
longed to  the  same  race.  Of  course  the  panegyrists  of  Rachel, 
when  the  story  came  to  their  ears,  maintained  that  the  thousand 
louis  were  employed  for  some  charitable  purpose,  without,  how- 
ever, revealing  the  particular  quarter  whither  they  went ;  but 
those  who  judged  Rachel  dispassionately  could  not  even  aver 
that  her  charity  began  at  home,  because,  though  she  never 
ceased  complaining  of  her  brother's  and  her  sisters'  extrav- 
agance, both  brother  and  sisters  could  have  told  very  curious 
-tales  about  the  difficulty  of  making  her  loosen  her  purse-strings 
for  even  the  smallest  sums.  As  for  Rachel's  doing  good  by 
stealth  and  blushing  to  find  it  fame,  it  was  all  so  much  fudge. 
Contrary  to  the  majority  of  her  fellow-professionals,  in  the 
past  as  well  as  the  present,  she  even  grudged  her  services  for 
a  concert  or  a  performance  in  aid  of  a  deserving  object, 
although  she  was  not  above  swelling  her  own  hoard  by  such 
entertainments. 

The  following  instance,  for  the  absolute  truth  of  which  I 
can  vouch,  is  a  proof  of  what  I  say.  One  day  the  celebrated 
Baron  Taylor,  who  had  been  the  director  of  the  Comedie- 
Frangaise,  came  to  solicit  her  aid  for  a  charity  concert ;  I  am 
not  certain  of  the  object,  but  believe  it  was  in  aid  of  the 
Christians  in  Persia  or  China.  The  tickets  were  to  be  a 
hundred  francs  each.     Sontag,  Alboni,  Rosine  Stoltz,  Mario, 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  1 2 1 

Lablache,  Vieuxtemps,  and  I  do  not  know  how  many  more 
celebrated  artists  had  promised  their  services. 

It  was  in  1850  when  M.  Arsene  Houssaye  was  her  director, 
and  I  am  particular  about  giving  the  year,  because  Rachel 
refused  on  the  pretext  that  her  director  would  never  give  her 
leave  to  appear  on  any  other  stage.  Now,  it  so  happened  that 
no  woman  ever  had  a  more  devoted  friend  and  chivalrous 
champion  than  Rachel  had  in  Arsene  Houssaye.  His  friend- 
ship for  her  was  simply  idolatry,  and  I  verily  believe  that  if 
she  had  asked  him  to  stand  on  his  head  to  please  her,  he 
would  have  done  so,  at  the  risk  of  making  himself  supremely 
ridiculous — he  who  feared  ridicule  above  everything,  who  was 
one  of  the  most  sensible  men  of  his  time,  who  was  and  is  the 
incarnation  of  good-nature,  to  whom  no  one  in  distress  or 
difficulties  ever  appealed  in  vain. 

Baron  Taylor  argued  all  this,  but  Rachel  remained  inflexible. 
"  I  am  very  sorry,"  he  said  at  last,  rising  to  go,  "  because  I  am 
positive  that  your  name  on  the  bill  would  have  made  a  dif- 
ference of  several  thousand  francs  in  the  receipts." 

"  Oh,  if  you  only  want  my  name,"  was  the  answer,  "  you 
may  have  it ;  you  can  make  an  apology  at  the  eleventh  hour 
for  my  absence  on  the  score  of  sudden  indisposition — the 
public  at  charity  concerts  are  used  to  that  sort  of  thing  ;  besides 
you  will  have  so  many  celebrities  that  I  will  make  very  little 
difference.  By-the-by  " — as  he  was  at  the  door — "  I  think  my 
name  is  worth  tenor  twenty  tickets."  Taylor  knew  Rachel 
too  well  to  be  in  the  least  surprised  at  the  demand,  and  left 
ten  tickets  on  the  mantelpiece. 

That  same  afternoon  he  met  Count  Walewski,  and  as  a 
matter  of  course  asked  him  to  take  some  tickets. 

"  Very  sorry,  cher  baron,  but  I  have  got  ten  already.  You 
see,  poor  Rachel  did  not  know  very  well  how  to  get  rid  of  the 
two  hundred  you  burdened  her  with  as  a  lady  patroness  ;  so 
she  wanted  me  to  have  twenty,  but  I  settled  the  matter  with 
ten.     As  it  is,  it  cost  me  a  thousand  francs." 

Taylor  did  not  say  another  word — he  probably  could  not  ; 
he  was  struck  dumb  with  astonishment  at  the  quickness  with 
which  Rachel  had  converted  the  tickets  into  money.  But 
what  puzzled  him  still  more  was  the  fact  of  her  having  dffered 
Walewski  double  the  quantity  of  tickets  he  had  given  her. 
Where  had  she  got  the  others  from .?  He  was  coming  to  the 
conclusion  that  she  had  offered  twenty  in  order  to  place  ten, 
when  he  ran  against  Comte  Le  Hon,  the  husband  of  the 
celebrated  Mdlle.  Musselmans,  the  erstwhile  Belgian  ambas- 


12  2  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARTS. 

sador  to  the  court  of  Louis-Philippe,  who  averred  frankly  that 
he  was  the  father  of  a  family,  though  he  had  no  children  of  his 
own. 

Taylor  thought  he  would  try  another  chance,  and  was  met 
with  the  reply,  "Cher  baron,  I  am  very  sorry,  but  I  have  just 
taken  five  tickets  from  Mdlle.  Rachel.  It  appears  that  she  is 
a  lady  patroness,  and  that  they  burdened  her  with  two  hundred ; 
fortunately,  she  told  me,  people  were  exceedingly  anxious  to 
get  them,  and  these  were  the  last  five." 

"  Then  she  had  two  hundred  tickets  after  all,"  said  Baron 
Taylor  to  himself,  making  up  his  mind  to  find  out  who  had 
been  before  him  with  Rachel.  But  no  one  had  been  before 
him.  The  five  tickets  sold  to  Comte  Le  Hon  were  five  of  the 
ten  she  had  sold  to  Comte  Walewski.  When  the  latter  had 
paid  her,  she  made  him  give  her  five  tickets  for  herself  and 
family,  or  rather  for  her  four  sisters  and  herself.  Of  Comte 
Le  Hon  she  only  took  toll  of  one,  which,  wonderful  to  relate, 
she  did  not  sell.  That  was  Rachel's  way  of  bestirring  herself 
in  the  cause  of  charity. 

"  Look  at  the  presents  she  made  to  every  one,"  say  the 
panegyrists.  They  forget  to  mention  that  an  hour  afterwards 
she  regretted  her  generosity,  and  from  that  moment  she  never 
left  off  scheming  how  to  get  the  thing  back.  Every  one  knew 
this.  Beauvallet,  to  whom  she  gave  a  magnificent  sword  one 
day,  instead  of  thanking  her,  said,  "  I'll  have  a  chain  put  to  it, 
mademoiselle,  so  as  to  fasten  it  to  the  wall  of  my  dressing- 
room.  In  that  way  I  shall  be  sure  that  it  will  not  disappear 
during  my  absence."  Alexandre  Dumas  the  younger,  to  whom 
she  made  a  present  of  a  ring,  bowed  low  and  placed  it  back  on 
her  finger  at  once.  "  Allow  me  to  present  it  to  you  in  my  turn, 
mademoiselle,  so  as  to  prevent  you  asking  for  it."  She  did 
not  say  nay,  but  carried  the  matter  with  one  of  her  fascinating 
smiles.  "  It  is  most  natural  to  take  back  what  one  has  given, 
because  what  one  has  given  was  dear  to  us,"  she  replied. 

Between  '46  and  '53  I  saw  a  great  deal  of  Rachel,  generally 
in  the  green-room  of  the  Comedie-Frangaise,  which  was  by  no 
means  the  comfortable  or  beautiful  apartment  people  imagine, 
albeit  that  even  in  those  days  the  Comedie  had  a  collection  of 
interesting  pictures,  busts,  and  statues  worthy  of  being  housed 
in  a  small  museum.  The  chief  ornament  of  the  room  was  a 
large  glass  between  the  two  windows,  but  if  the  apartment  had 
been  as  bare  as  a  barn,  the  conversation  of  Rachel  would  have 
been  sufficient  to  make  one  forget  all  about  its  want  of  decor- 
ation J  for,  with  the  exception  of  the  elder  Dumas,   I  have 


AM  ENGLISHMAN-  IN  PARIS.  1 23 

never  met  any  one,  either  man  or  woman,  who  exercised  the 
personal  charm  she  did.  I  have  been  told  since  that  Bismarck 
has  the  same  gift.  I  was  never  sufficiently  intimate  with  the 
great  statesman  to  be  able  to  judge,  having  only  met  him  three 
or  four  times,  and  under  conditions  that  did  not  admit  of  fairly 
testing  his  powers  in  that  respect,  but  I  have  an  idea  that  the 
charm  of  both  lay  in  their  utter  indifference  to  the  effect  pro- 
duced, or  else  in  their  absolute  confidence  of  the  result  of  their 
simplicity  of  diction.  Rachel's  art  of  telling  a  story,  if  art  it 
was,  reminded  one  of  that  of  the  chroniclers  of  the  Niebelungen  ; 
for  notwithstanding  her  familiarity  with  Racine  and  Corneille, 
her  vocabulary  was  exceedingly  limited,  and  her  syntax,  if  not 
her  grammar,  off  the  stage,  not  always  free  from  reproach. 

I  do  not  pretend,  after  the  lapse  of  so  many  years,  to  give 
these  stories  in  her  own  language,  or  all  of  them  ;  there  are 
few,  however,  worth  the  telling,  apart  from  the  fascination  with 
which  she  invested  them. 

One  evening  she  said  to  me,  "  Do  you  know  Poirson  t  " 

I  had  known  Poirson  when  he  was  director  of  the  Gymnase. 
He  afterwards  always  invited  me  to  his  soirees,  one  of  which, 
curiously  enough,  was  given  on  the  Sunday  before  the  Revolu- 
tion of  '48.     So  I  said,  "  Yes,  I  know  Poirson." 

"  Has  he  ever  told  you  why  he  did  not  re-engage  me  1 " 

"  Never." 

"  I'll  tell  you.  People  said  it  was  because  I  did  not  succeed 
in  *  La  Vendeenne '  of  Paul  Duport ;  but  that  was  not  the 
cause.  It  was  something  much  more  ridiculous ;  and  now  that 
I  come  to  think  of  it,  I  am  not  sure  that  I  ought  to  tell  you, 
for  you  are  an  Englishman,  and  you  will  be  shocked." 

I  was  not  shocked,  I  was  simply  convulsed  with  laughter, 
for  Rachel,  not  content  with  telling  the  story,  got  up,  and, 
gradually  drawing  to  the  middle  of  the  room,  enacted  it.  It 
was  one  of  those  ludicrous  incidents  that  happen  sometimes  on 
the  stage  which  no  amount  of  foresight  on  the  part  of  the  most 
skilful  and  conscientious  manager  or  actor  can  prevent,  but 
which  almost  invariably  ruins  the  greatest  masterpiece.  There 
were  about  eight  or  nine  actors  and  actresses  in  the  room — 
Regnier,  Samson,  Beauvallet,  etc.  It  was  probably  the  most 
critical  audience  in  Europe,  but  every  one  shook,  and  Mdlle. 
Anais  Aubert  went  into  a  dead  faint.  Regnier  often  averred 
that  if  Rachel  had  been  a  man,  she  would  have  been  the 
greatest  comic  actor  that  ever  lived  ;  and  it  is  not  generally 
known  that  she  once  played  Dorine  in  "  Tartuffe,"  and  set  the 
whole  of  the  house  into  a  perfect  roar ;  but  on  that  evening  I 


124  A^  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

became  convinced  that  Rachel,  in  addition  to  her  tragic  gifts, 
was  the  spirit  of  Aristophanesque  comedy  personified.  I  am 
afraid,  however,  that  I  cannot  tell  the  story,  or  even  hint  at 
it,  beyond  mentioning  that  Poirson  is  reported  to  have  said 
that  Rachel  did  not  want  a  stage-manager,  but  a  nurse  to  take 
care  of  her.  The  criticism  was  a  cruel  one,  though  justified 
by  appearances.  It  was  Mama  Felix,  and  not  her  daughter, 
who  was  to  blame.  The  child — she  was  scarcely  more  than 
that — had  hurt  herself  severely,  and  instead  of  keeping  her  at 
home,  she  sent  her  to  the  theatre,  "  poulticed  all  over,"  as 
Rachel  expressed  it  afterwards. 

Mama  Felix  was  the  only  one  who  was  a  match  for  her 
famous  daughter  in  money  matters.  What  the  latter  did  with 
the  enormous  sums  of  money  she  earned  has  always  been  a 
mystery.  As  I  have  already  said,  they  were  not  spent  in 
charity.  Nowadays,  whatever  other  theatres  may  do,  the 
Comedie-Fran^aise  dresses  its  pensionnaires  as  well  as  its 
societaires  from  head  to  foot ;  it  pays  the  bootmaker's  as  well 
as  the  wigmaker's  bill,  and  the  laundress's  also.  Speaking  of 
the  beginning  of  her  career,  which  coincided  with  the  end  of 
Rachel's,  Madeleine  Brohan,  whose  language  was  often  more 
forcible  than  elegant,  remarked,  "  Dans  ma  jeunesse,  on  nous 
mettait  toutes  nues  sur  la  scene ;  nous  etions  assez  jolies  pour 
cela."  But  Rachel's  costumes  varied  so  little  throughout  her 
career  as  to  have  required  but  a  small  outlay  on  her  part.  Nor 
could  her  ordinary  dresses  and  furniture,  which  I  happened  to 
see  in  April,  1858,  when  they  were  sold  by  public  auction  at  her 
apartments  in  the  Place  Royale,  have  made  a  considerable 
inroad  on  her  earnings.  The  furniture  was  commonplace  tq^a 
degree  ;  such  pictures  and  knick-knacks  as  were  of  value  had 
been  given  to  her,  or  acquired  in  the  manner  I  have  already 
described ;  the  laces  and  trinkets  were,  undoubtedly,  not  pur- 
chased with  her  own  money.  It  is  said  that  her  brother  Ra- 
phael was. a  spendthrift.  He  may  have  been,  but  he  did  not 
spend  his  celebrated  sister's  money;  of  that  I  feel  certain. 
Then  what  became  of  it  ?  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  Mdlle. 
Rachel  dabbled  considerably  in  stocks,  and  that,  notwithstand- 
ing her  shrewdness  and  sources  of  information,  she  was  the 
victim  of  people  cleverer  than  she  was.  At  any  rate,  one 
thing  is  certain — she  was  nearly  always  hard  up  ;  and,  after 
having  exhausted  the  good-will  of  all  her  male  acquaintances 
and  friends,  compelled  to  appeal  to  her  mother,  who  had  made 
a  considerable  hoard  for  her  other  four  sisters,  and  perhaps 
also  for  her  scapegrace  son ;  for,  curiously  enough,  with  Mama 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  125 

Felix  every  one  of  her  children  was  a  goddess  or  god,  except 
the  goddess.  This  want  of  appreciation  on  the  mother's  part 
reminds  me  of  a  story  told  to  me  by  Meisonnier.  His  grand- 
daughter, on  her  fifteenth  or  sixteenth  birthday,  had  a  very 
nice  fan  given  to  her.  The  sticks  were  exquisitely  carved  in 
ivory,  and  must  have  cost  a  pretty  tidy  sum,  but  the  fan  itself, 
of  black  gauze,  was  absolutely  plain.  The  donor  probably 
intended  the  grandfather's  art  to  enhance  the  value  of  the 
present,  and  the  latter  was  about  to  do  so,  when  the  young 
lady  stopped  him  with  the  cry,  "  Voilk  qu'il  va  me  gater  mon 
eventail  avec  ses  mannequins  !  "  The  irony  of  non-apprecia- 
tion by  one's  nearest  and  dearest  could  no  further  go. 

Mama  Felix,  then,  was  very  close-fisted,  and  would  never 
lend  her  daughter  any  money,  except  on  very  good  security, 
namely,  on  her  jewels.  In  addition  to  this,  she  made  her  sign 
an  undertaking  that  if  not  redeemed  at  a  certain  date  they 
would  be  forfeited  ;  and  forfeited  they  were,  if  the  loan  and 
interest  were  not  forthcoming  at  the  stipulated  time,  notwith- 
standing the  ravings  of  Rachel.  This  would  probably  account 
for  the  comparatively  small  quantity  of  valuable  jewellery 
found  after  her  death. 

Some  of  the  ornaments  I  have  seen  her  wear  had  an  artistic 
value  utterly  apart  from  their  cost,  others  were  so  common- 
place  and  such  evident  imitations  as  to  have  been  declined  by 
the  merest  grisette.  One  day  I  noticed  round  her  wrist  a 
peculiar  bracelet.  It  was  composed  of  a  great  number  of 
rings,  some  almost  priceless,  others  less  valuable  but  still  very 
artistic,  others  again  possessing  no  value  whatsoever,  either 
artistically  or  otherwise.  I  asked  her  to  take  it  off,  and  found 
it  to  be  very  heavy,  so  heavy  that  I  remarked  upon  it.  "  Yes," 
she  replied,  "  I  cannot  wear  two  of  the  same  weight,  so  I  am 
obliged  to  wear  the  other  in  my  pocket."  And  out  came  the 
second,  composed  of  nearly  double  the  number  of  rings  of  the 
first.  I  was  wondering  where  all'  those  rings  came  from,  but  I 
refrained  from  asking  questions.  I  was  enabled  to  form  my 
own  conclusions  a  little  while  afterwards,  in  the  following  way. 

While  we  were  still  admiring  the  bracelet,  Rachel  took  from 
her  finger  a  plain  gold  hoop,  in  the  centre  of  which  was  an 
imperial  eagle  of  the  same  metal.  "  This  was  given  to  me  by 
Prince  Louis  Napoleon,"  she  said,  "  on  the  occasion  of  my 
last  journey  to  London.  He  told  me  that  it  was  a  souvenir 
from  his  mother,  and  that  he  would  not  have  parted  with  it  to 
any  one  else  but  me." 

I  cannot  remember  the  exact  date  of  this   conversation,  but 


126  AN  ENGL  TSHMAN  IN  PARIS, 

it  must  have  been  shortly  after  the  Revolution,  when  the 
future  emperor  had  just  landed  in  France.  About  three  or 
four  weeks  afterwards  we  were  talking  to  Augustine  Brohan, 
who  had  just  returned  from  London,  where  she  had  fulfilled 
an  engagement  of  one  or  two  months.  Rachel  was  not  there 
that  night,  but  some  one  asked  her  if  she  had  seen  Prince 
Louis  in  London.  "  Yes,"  she  replied  ;  "  he  was  going  away, 
and  he  gave  me  a  present  before  he  went."  Thereupon  she 
took  from  her  finger  a  ring  exactly  like  that  of  Rachel's.  "  He 
told  me  it  was  a  souvenir  from  his  mother,  and  that  he  would 
not  have  parted  with  it  to  any  one  but  me." 

We  looked  at  one  another  and  smiled.  The  prince  had 
evidently  a  jeweller  who  manufactured  "souvenirs  from  his 
mother  "  by  the  dozen,  and  which  he,  the  prince,  distributed 
at  that  time,  "  in  remembrance  of  certain  happy  hours."  The 
multiplicity  of  the  rings  on  Rachel's  wrist  was  no  longer  a 
puzzle  to  me.  I  was  thinking  of  the  story  in  the  "  Arabian 
Nights,"  where  the  lady  with  the  ninety-eight  rings  bewitches 
the  Sultans  Shariar  and  Shahzenan,  in  spite  of  the  jealousy 
and  watchfulness  of  the  monster  to  whom  she  belongs,  and  so 
makes  the  hundred  complete. 

Among  the  many  stories  Rachel  told  me  there  is  one  not 
generally  known — that  of  her  first  appearance  before  Nicholas 
I.  Though  she  was  very  enthusiastically  received  in  London, 
and  though  she  always  spoke  gratefully  of  the  many  acts  of 
kindness  shown  her  there,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  she  felt 
hurt  at  the  want  of  cordiality  on  the  part  of  the  English 
aristocracy  when  they  invited  her  to  recite  at  their  entertain- 
ments. This  may  be  a  mere  surmise  of  mine  ;  I  have  no  better 
grounds  for  it  than  an  expression  of  hers  one  day  when  we 
were  discussing  London  society.  "  Oui,  les  Anglais,  ils  sont 
tres  aimables,  mais  ilsparaissent  avoir  peur  des  artistes,  comme 
des  betes  sauvages,  car  ils  vous  parquent  comme  elles  au 
Jardin  des  Plantes."  I  found  out  afterwards  that  it  was  a  kind 
of  grudge  she  bore  the  English  for  having  invariably  improvised 
a  platform  or  enclosure  by  means  of  silken  ropes.  Certain  is 
it  that,  beyond  a  few  casual  remarks  at  long  intervals  upon 
London,  she  seemed  reluctant  to  discuss  the  subject  with  me. 
Not  so  with  regard  to  Potsdam  after  her  return  whence  in 
August,  '51.  In  the  beginning  of  July  of  that  year  she  told 
me  that  she  had  a  special  engagement  to  appear  before  the 
court  on  the  13th  of  that  month.  I  did  not  see  her  until  a 
few  weeks  after -she  came  back,  and  then  she  gave  me  a  full 
account  of  the  affair.     I  repeat,  after   the  lapse  of  so  many 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  127 

years,  I  cannot  reproduce  her  own  words,  and  I  could  not,  even 
half  an  hour  after  her  narrative,  have  reproduced  the  manner 
of  her  telling  it ;  but  I  can  vouch  for  the  correctness  of  the 
facts. 

"  About  six  o'clock,  Raphael  [her  brother],  who  was  to  give 
me  my  cues,  and  I  arrived  at  Potsdam,  where  we  were  met  by- 
Schneider,  who  had  made  the  engagement  with  me.  You 
know,  perhaps,  that  Schneider  had  been  an  actor  himself,  that 
afterwards  he  had  been  promoted  to  the  directorship  of  the 
Royal  Opera  House,  and  that  now  he  is  the  private  reader  to 
the  king,  with  the  title  of  privy  or  aulic  councillor. 

"  Schneider  is  a  very  nice  man,  and  I  have  never  heard  a 
German  speak  our  language  so  perfectly.  Perhaps  it  was  as 
well,  because  I  dread  to  contemplate  what  would  have  been 
the  effect  upon  my  nerves  and  ears  of  lamentations  in  Teu- 
tonized  French." 

"  Why  lamentations  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  Ah,  nous  voilk  !  "  she  replied.  . "  You  remember  I  was  in 
mourning.  The  moment  I  stepped  out  of  the  carriage,  he  ex- 
claimed, '  But  you  are  all  in  black,  mademoiselle.'  '  Of  course 
I  am,'  I  said,  *  seeing  that  I  am  in  mourning.'  '  Great  Heaven  ! 
what  am  I  to  do  ?  Black  is  not  admitted  at  court  on  such 
occasions.'  I  believe  it  was  the  birthday  of  the  Czarina,  but 
of  course  I  was  not  bound  to  know  that. 

"  There  was  no  time  to  return  to  Berlin,  and  least  of  all  to 
get  a  dress  from  there,  so  Raphael  and  he  put  their  heads  to- 
gether ;  the  result  of  which  conference  was  my  being  bundled 
rather  than  handed  into  a  carriage,  which  drove  off  at  full  speed 
to  the  Chateau  de  Glinicke.  I  could  scarcely  catch  a  glimpse 
of  the  country  around  Potsdam,  which  seemed  to  me  very 
lovely. 

"  When  we  got  to  Glinicke,  which  belongs  to  Prince  Charles, 
I  was  handed  over  to  some  of  the  ladies-in-waiting  of  the  prin- 
cess. Handed  over  is  the  only  word,  because  I  felt  more  like 
a  prisoner  than  anything  else,  and  they  tried  to  make  *  little 
Rachel '  presentable  according  to  their  lights.  One  of  them, 
after  eyeing  me  critically,  suggested  my  wearing  a  dress  of  hers. 
In  length  it  would  have  done  very  well,  only  I  happen  to  be 
one  of  the  lean  kind,  and  she  decidedly  was .  not,  so  that  idea 
had  to  be  abandoned.  They  may  be  very  worthy  women,  these 
German  ladies,  but  their  inventiveness  with  regard  to  dress  is 
absolutely  nil.  When  the  idea  suggested  by  the  first  lady 
turned  out  to  be  impracticable,,  they  were  a  bout  de  ressources. 
You  may  gather  from  this,  mon  ami,  that  the  beginning  and 


T28  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

the  end  of  their  strategic  de  la  toilette  are  not  far  apart.  There 
was  one  thing  that  consoled  me  for  this  sudden  exhaustion  of 
their  limited  ingenuity.  Between  the  half-dozen — for  they  were 
half  a  dozen — they  could  not  find  a  single  word  when  the  first 
and  only  device  proved  impossible  of  realization.  Had  there 
been  the  same  number  of  French  women  assembled,  it  would 
have  been  a  kind  of  little  madhouse  ;  in  this  instance  there  was 
a  deep  silence  for  at  least  ten  minutes,  eventually  broken  by 
the  knocking  at  the  door  of  one  of  the  maids,  with  Herr  Schnei- 
der's compliments,  and  wishing  to  know  what  had  been  decided 
upon.  The  doleful  answer  brought  him  to  the  room,  and  what 
six  women  could  not  accomplish,  he,  like  the  true  artist,  accom- 
plished at  once.  '  Get  Mdlle.  Rachel  a  black  lace  mantilla, 
put  a  rose  in  her  hair,  and  give  her  a  pair  of  white  gloves.'  In 
less  than  ten  minutes  I  was  ready,  and  in  another  ten,  Raphael, 
Schneider,  and  I  embarked  on  a  pretty  little  steam-yacht  lying 
ready  at  the  end  of  the  magnificent  garden  for  '  I'lle  des  Paons' 
(Pfauen-Insul,  Peacock  Island),  where  we  landed  exactly  at 
eight.  But  my  troubles  and  surprises  were  not  at  an  end.  I 
made  sure  that  there  would  be  at  least  a  tent,  an  awning,  or  a 
platform  for  me  to  stand  under  or  upon.  Ah,  oui !  not  the 
smallest  sign  of  either.  '  Voila  votre  estrade,'  said  Schneider, 
pointing  to  a  small  lawn,  separated  from  the  rest  of  the  gardens 
by  a  gravelled  walk  three  or  four  feet  wide.  I  declined  at  once 
to  act  under  such  conditions,  and  insisted  upon  being  taken 
back  immediately  to  the  station,  and  from  thence  to  Berlin. 
Poor  Schneider  was  simply  in  despair.  In  vain  did  he  point 
out  that  to  any  one  else  the  total  absence  of  scenery  and  ad- 
juncts might  prove  a  drawback,  but  that  to  me  it  would  only 
be  an  additional  advantage,  as  it  would  bring  into  greater  re- 
lief my  own  talent ;  I  would  not  be  persuaded.  Finding  that 
it  was  fruitless  to  play  upon  my  vanity  as  an  artist,  he  appealed 
to  me  as  a  femme  du  monde.  '  The  very  absence  of  all  prepa- 
rations,' he  said,  '  proves  that  their  majesties  have  not  engaged 
Mdlle.  Rachel  of  the  Comedie-Fran9aise  to  give  a  recitation, 
but  invited  Mdlle.  Rachel  Felix  to  one  of  their  soirees.  That 
Mdlle.  Rachel  Felix  should  be  kind  enough,  after  having  par- 
taken of  a  cup  of  tea,  to  recite  something,  would  only  be 
another  proof  of  her  well-known  readiness  to  oblige ; '  and  so 
forth.  Let  me  tell  you,  mon  cher,  that  I  have  rarely  met  with 
a  cleverer  diplomatist,  and  Heaven  knows  I  have  seen  a  lot 
who  imagined  themselves  clever.  They  could  not  hold  a  can- 
dle to  this  erstwhile  actor  ;  nevertheless  I  remained  as  firm  as 
a  rock,  though  I  was  sincerely  distressed  on  Schneider's  ac- 
count." 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  1 29 

"  What  made  you  give  in  at  last  ? "  I  inquired.  "  Was  it 
the  idea  of  losing  the  magnificent  fee  ?  " 

"  For  once  you  are  mistaken,"  she  laughed,  "  though  Schnei- 
der himself  brought  that  argument  to  bear  as  a  big  piece  of 
artillery.  '  Remember  this,  mademoiselle,'  he  said,  when  he 
could  think  of  nothing  else  ;  '  remember  this — that  this  soiree 
may  be  the  means  of  putting  three  hundred  thousand  or  four 
hundred  thousand  francs  into  your  pocket.  You  yourself  told 
me  just  now  on  board  the  yacht  that  you  were  very  anxious  for 
an  engagement  at  St.  Petersburg.  I  need  scarcely  tell  you 
that,  if  you  refuse  to  appear  before  their  majesties  to-night,  I 
shall  be  compelled  to  state  the  reason,  and  Russia  will  be  for- 
ever closed  to  you.  Apart  from  pecuniary  considerations,  it 
will  be  said  by  your  enemies — and  your  ver}'-  eminence  in  your 
profession  causes  you  to  have  many — that  you  failed  to  please 
the  Empress.  After  all,  the  fact  that  all  the  ordinary  surround- 
ings of  the  actress  have  been  neglected  proves  that  you  are  not 
looked  upon  as  an  actress  by  them,  but  as  une  femme  du 
monde.'  " 

"  That  persuaded  you  !  "  I  remarked. 

"  Not  at  all" 

"  Then  it  was  the  money." 

"  Of  course  you  will  think  so,  even  if  I  swore  the  contrary  a 
hundred  times  over  ;  but  if  you  were  to  guess  from  now  till  to- 
morrow, you  would  never  hit  upon  the  real  reason  that  made 
me  stay." 

"  Well,  then,  I  had  better  not  try,  and  you  had  better  tell 
me  at  once." 

"  Strange  as  it  may  seem  to  you,  it  was  neither  the  gratifica- 
tion of  being  treated  en  femme  du  monde  nor  the  money  that 
made  me  stay  ;  it  was  the  desire  to  see  what  I  had  been  told 
was  the  handsomest  man  in  Europe.  I  did  see  him,  and  for 
once  in  a  way  rumor  had  not  exaggerated  the  reality.  I  had 
scarcely  given  my  final  consent  to  Schneider,  when  the  yacht 
carrying  the  imperial  and  royal  families  came  alongside  the 
island,  and  the  illustrious  passengers  landed,  amidst  an  ava- 
lanche of  flowers  thrown  from  the  other  vessels.  Schneider 
presented  me  to  the  King,  who  was  also  good-looking,  and  the 
latter  presented  me  to  the  Czar. 

"  Immediately  afterwards  the  recital  began.  At  the  risk  of 
taxing  your  credulity  still  further,  I  may  tell  you  that  I,  Rachel, 
who  never  knew  what  '  stage-fright '  meant,  felt  nervous.  That 
man  to  me  looked  like  a  very  god.  Fortunately  for  my  repu- 
tation, the  shadows  of  night  were  gathering  fast ;  in  another 

9 


130  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

twenty  minutes  it  would  be  quite  dark,  and  I  felt  almost  re- 
joiced that  my  audience  could  scarcely  distinguish  my  features. 
On  the  other  hand,  Raphael,  who  only  knew  the  part  of  Hip- 
polyte  by  heart,  and  who  was  obliged  to  read  the  others,  de- 
clared that  he  could  not  see  a  line,  and  candles  had  to  be 
brought  in.  It  was  a  glorious  evening,  but  there  was  a  breeze 
nevertheless,  and  as  fast  as  the  candles  were  lighted,  they  were 
extinguished  by  the  wind.  To  put  ordinary  lamps  on  the  lawn 
at  our  feet  was  not  to  be  thought  of  for  a  moment ;  luckily  one 
of  the  functionaries  remembered  that  there  were  some  candel- 
abra with  globes  inside,  and  by  means  of  these  a  kind  of  '  float ' 
was  improvised.  Still  the  scene  was  a  curious  one.  Raphael 
close  to  me  on  the  edge  of  the  lawn,  with  one  of  these  candle- 
abra  in  his  left  hand.  Behind,  to  the  left  and  right  of  us,  a 
serried  crowd  of  generals,  court  dignitaries  in  magnificent  uni- 
forms. In  front,  and  separated  by  the  whole  width  of  a  gravel 
walk,  the  whole  group  of  sovereigns  and  their  relations,  and 
behind  them  the  walls  of  the  mansion,  against  which  the  tea- 
table  had  been  set,  and  around  which  stood  the  ladies-in-wait- 
ing of  the  Queen  of  Prussia  and  the  Empress  qf  Russia.  A 
deep  silence  around,  only  broken  by  the  soft  soughing  of  the 
wind  in  the  trees  and  the  splashing  of  a  couple  of  fountains 
near,  playing  a  dirge-like  accompaniment  to  Raphael's  and  my 
voice. 

**The  recital  lasted  for  nearly  an  hour  ;  if  I  had  Uked  I 
could  have  kept  them  there  the  whole  night,  for  never  in  my 
career  have  I  had  such  an  attentive,  such  a  religiously  atten- 
tive, audience.  The  King  was  the  first  to  notice  my  fatigue,  and 
he  gave  the  signal  for  my  leaving  off  by  coming  up  and  thank- 
ing me  for  my  efforts.  The  Emperor  followed  his  example,  and 
stood  chatting  to  me  for  a  long  while.  In  a  few  minutes  I  was 
the  centre  of  a  circle  which  I  am  not  likely  to  forget  as  long 
as  I  live.  Then  came  the  question  how  Raphael  and  I  were 
to  get  back  to  Berlin.  The  last  train  was  gone.  But  Schnei- 
der simply  suggested  a  special,  and  a  mounted  messenger  was 
despatched  then  and  there  to  order  it.  After  everything  had 
been  arranged  for  my  comfortable  return,  the  sovereigns  de- 
parted as  they  had  come,  only  this  time  the  yacht,  as  well  as 
the  others  on  the  lake,  were  splendidly  illuminated.  This  was 
my  first  appearance  before  Nicholas  I." 

There  was  no  man  to  whom  Rachel  owed  more  than  to 
Samson,  or  even  as  much  ;  but  for  him,  and  in  spite  of  her 
incontestable  genius,  the  Comedie-Frangaise  might  have  re- 
mained closed  to  her  for  many  years,  if  not  forever.    Frederick 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  131 

Lemaitre  and  Marie  Dorval  were  undoubtedly,  in  their  own 
way,  as  great  as  she,  yet  the  blue  ribbon  of  their  profession 
never  fell  to  their  lot.  And  yet,  when  she  had  reached  the 
topmost  rung  of  the  ladder  of  fame,  Rachel  was  very  often  not 
only  ungrateful  to  him,  but  her  ingratitude  showed  itself  in 
mean,  spiteful  tricks.  When  Legouve's  "  Adrienne  Lecou- 
vreur  "  was  being  cast,  Samson,  who  had  forgiven  Rachel  over 
and  over  again,  was  on  such  cool  terms  with  her  that  the  au- 
thors feared  he  would  not  accept  the  part  of  the  Prince  de 
Bouillon.  Nevertheless,  Samson,  than  whom  there  was  not  a 
more  honorable  and  conscientious  man  on  or  off  the  stage, 
accepted  ;  he  would  not  let  his  resentment  interfere  with  what 
he  considered  his  duty  to  the  institution  of  which  he  was  so 
eminent  a  member.  This  alone  ought  to  have  been  sufficient 
to  heal  the  breach  between  the  tutor  and  the  pupil ;  any  woman 
with  the  least  spark  of  generosity,  in  the  position  of  Rachel 
towards  Samson,  would  have  taken  the  first  step  towards  a  rec- 
onciliation. Rachel,  as  will  be  seen  directly,  was  perfectly 
conscious  of  what  she  ought  to  do  under  the  circumstances  ; 
she  was  too  great  an  actress  not  to  have  studied  the  finer  feel- 
ings of  the  human  heart,  and  yet  she  did  not  do  it.  On  the 
contrary,  she  aggravated  matters.  Every  one  knows  the  fable 
of  "  The  Two  Pigeons"  which  Adrienne  recites  at  the  soiree  of 
the  Princesse  de  Bouillon.  Now,  it  so  happened  that  the  great 
barrister  and  orator,  Berryer  was  considered  a  most  charming 
reciter  of  that  kind  of  verse.  Berryer,  a  most  simple-minded 
man,  took  special  delight  in  sharing  the  most  innocent  games 
of  young  children.  He  was  especially  fond  of  the  game  of 
"  forfeits  ;  "  and  so  great  was  his  fame  as  a  diseur,  that  the 
penalty  generally  imposed  upon  him  was  the  reciting  of  a  fable. 
But  great  diseur  as  he  was,  he  himself  acknowledged  that 
Samson  could  have  given  him  a  lesson. 

At  every  new  part  she  undertook,  Rachel  was  in  the  habit 
of  consulting  with  her  former  tutor  ;  this  time  she  went  to 
consult  Berryer  instead,  and,  what  was  worse,  took  pains  that 
every  one  should  hear  of  it.  "  Then  my  heart  smote  me,"  she 
said  afterwards,  when  by  one  of  those  irresistible  tricks  of  hers 
she  had  obtained  her  tutor's  pardon  once  more.  It  was  as  de- 
liberate a  falsehood  as  she  ever  uttered  in  her  life,  which  in 
Rachel's  case  means  a  good  deal.  The  fact  was,  the  affair,  as 
I  have  already  said,  had  been  bruited  about,  mainly  by  herself 
at  first  ;  the  public  showed  a  disposition  to  take  Samson's 
part,  and  she  felt  afraid  of  a  "  warm  reception  "  on  the  first 
night. 


132  AA'  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

Under  these  circumstances  she  had  recourse  to  one  of  hei 
wiles,  which,  for  being  theatrical,  was  not  less  effective.  At 
the  first  rehearsal,  when  Adrienne  has  to  turn  to  Michonnet, 
saying,  "  This  is  my  true  friend,  to  whom  I  owe  everything," 
she  turned,  not  to  Regnier,  who  played  Michonnet,  and  to 
whom  the  words  are  addressed,  but  to  Samson,  at  the  same 
time  holding  out  her  hand  to  him.  •  Samson,  who,  notwith- 
standing all  their  disagreements,  felt  very  proud  of  his  great 
pupil,  who  was,  moreover,  of  a  very  affectionate  disposition, 
notwithstanding  his  habitual  reserve,  fell  into  the  trap.  He 
took  her  proffered  hand  ;  then  she  flung  herself  into  his  arms, 
and  the  estrangement  was  at  an  end,  for  the  time  being.  Ra- 
chel took  great  care  to  make  the  reconciliation  as  public  as 
possible. 

I  was  never  very  intimate  with  Samson,  but  the  little  I  knew 
of  him  I  liked.  I  repeat,  he  was  essentially  an  honorable  and 
honest  man,  and  very  tolerant  with  regard  to  the  foibles  of  the 
fair  sex.  There  was  need  for  such  tolerance  in  those  days. 
Augustine  Brohan,  Sylvanie  Plessy,  Rachel,  and  half  a  dozen 
other  women,  all  very  talented,  but  all  very  wayward,  made 
Buloz'  life  (he  was  the  director  of  the  Comedie-Fran^aise,  as 
well  as  the  editor  of  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes)  a  burden  to 
him.  He  who  could,  and  often  did,  dictate  his  will  to  men 
who  already  then  were  famous  throughout  Europe,  frequently 
found  himself  powerless  against  women,  who,  however  celebra- 
ted, were,  with  the  exception  of  Rachel,  nothing  in  comparison 
with  the  former.  He  was,  it  is  true,  overbearing  to  a  degree, 
and  disagreeable  besides,  but  his  temper  proved  of  no  avail 
with  them  ;  it  only  made  matters  worse.  "  Apres  tout,"  he 
said  one  day  to  Madame  Allan,  who  was  the  most  amenable  of 
all,  "je  suis  le  maitre  ici."  "  Ca  se  pent,  monsieur,"  was  the 
answer,  "  mais  nous  sommes  les  contre-maitres."  * 

In  nearly  all  such  trouble  Regnier  and  Samson  had  to  act  as 
buffers  between  the  two  contending  parties  ;  but,  as  Augustine 
Brohan  explained  once,  the  two  were  utterly  different  in  their 
mode  of  casting  oil  upon  the  troubled  waters.  "  Regnier," 
she  said,  "  c'est  le  bon  Dieu  des  Chretiens,  qui  se  fait  trbs 
souvent  mener  par  le  nez  par  des  mots.  Du  reste  son  nez  s'y 
prete.t  Samson  c'est  le  Dieu  juste,  mais  vengeur  des  Juifs, 
qui  veut  bien  pardonner,  mais    seulement  apr^s  soumission 

*  The  play  upon  the  word  is  scarcely  translatable.  "  Contre-maitre  "  in  the  singular 
means  foreman  ;  as  it  is  used  here  it  means  against  the  master. — Editor. 

t  R^gnier's  nose  was  always  a  subject  of  jokes  among  his  fellow-actors.  "  It  is  not  be- 
cause it  is  large,"  said  Beauvallet,  "  but  because  it  is  his  principal  organ  of  speech."- 
Editor. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PAklS.  133 

Complete  et  entiere.  Samson  ne  vous  promet  pas  le  ciel,  il 
vous  offre  des  compensations  solides  ici  bas." 

It  would  be  difficult  to  paint  the  contrast  between  two  char- 
acters in  fewer  words.  In  1845,  when  Mdlle.  Sylvanie  Ples- 
sy  seceded  from  the  Comedie-Frangaise,  Regnier  wrote  a  kind 
epistle,  recommending  her  to  come  and  explain  matters  either 
personally  or  by  letter.  "  Let  your  letter  be  kind  and  affec- 
tionate, and  be  sure  that  things  will  right  themselves  better 
than  you  expect." 

Samson  also  wrote,  but  simply  to  say  that  if  she  did  not 
come  back  at  once  all  the  terrors  of  the  law  would  be  invoked 
against  her.  Which  was  done.  The  Comedie-Frangaise 
instituted  proceedings,  claiming  two  hundred  thousand  francs' 
damages,  and  twenty  thousand  francs  "  a  titre  de  provision."* 
The  court  cast  MdHe.  Plessy  in  six  thousand  francs  provision, 
deferring  judgment  on  the  principal  claim.  Two  years  later 
Mdlle.  Plessy  returned  and  re-entered  the  fold.  Thanks  to 
Samson,  she  did  not  pay  a  single  farthing  of  damages,  and  the 
Comedie  bore  the  costs  of  the  whole  of  the  lawsuit.f 

Both  Samson  and  Regnier  were  very  proud  of  their  profes- 
sion, but  their  pride  showed  itself  in  different  ways.  Regnier 
would  have  willingly  made  every  one  an  actor — that  is,  a  good 
actor ;  he  was  always  teaching  a  great  many  amateurs,  stag- 
ing and  superintending  their  performances.  Samson,  on  the 
other  hand,  had  no  sympathy  whatsoever  with  that  kind  of 
thing,  and  could  rarely  be  induced  to  give  it  aid,  but  he  was 
very  anxious  that  every  public  speaker  should  study  elocution. 
"  Eloquence  and  elocution  are  two  different  things,"  he  said  ; 
"  and  the  eloquent  man  who  does  not  study  elocution,  is  like 
an  Apollo  with  a  bad  tailor,  and  who  dresses  without  a 
looking-glass.  I  go  further  still,  and  say  that  every  one  ought 
to  learn  how  to  speak,  not  necessarily  with  the  view  of  amusing 
his  friends  and  acquaintances,  but  with  the  view  of  not  annoy- 
ing them.  I  am  a  busy  man,  but  should  be  glad  to  devote 
three  hours  a  week  to  teach  the  rising  generation,  and  espe- 
cially the  humbler  ones,  how  to  speak." 

In  connection  with  that  wish  of  Samson,  that  every  man 
whose  duties  compelled  him,  or  who  voluntarily  undertook  to 
speak  in  public,  should  be  a  trained  elocutionist,  I  remember 
a  curious  story  of  which  I  was  made  the  recipient  quite  by 
accident.     It  was  in  the  year  '60,  one  morning  in  the  summer, 

*  Damages  claimed  by  one  of  the  parties,  pending  the  final  verdict.— Editor. 
t  Curiously  enough,  it  was   Emile  Augier's  "  Aventuriere  "  that  caused    Mdlle.  iPlessy's 
secession,  just  as  it  did  thirty-five  years  later,  in  the  case  of  Mdlle.  Sarah  Bernhardt— Editor. 


154  ^^  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PAktS, 

that  I  happened  to  meet  Samson  in  the  Rue  Vivienne.  We 
exchanged  a  few  words,  shook  hands,  and  each  went  his  own 
way.  In  the  afternoon  I  was  sitting  at  Tortoni's,  when  a  gen- 
tleman of  about  thirty-live  came  up  to  me.  "  Monsieur,"  he 
said,  "  will  you  allow  me  to  ask  you  a  question  ,''  "  "  Certain- 
ly, monsieur,  if  it  be  one  I  can  answer,"  I  replied.  "  I  be- 
lieve," he  said,  "  that  I  saw  you  in  the  Rue  Vivienne  this 
morning  talking  to  some  one  whose  name  1  do  not  know,  but 
to  whom  I  am  under  great  obligations.  I  was  in  a  great 
hurry  and  in  a  cab,  and  before  I  could  stop  the  cabman  both 
of  you  had  disappeared.  Will  you  mind  telling  me  his  name  ?  " 
"  I  recollect  being  in  the  Rue  Vivienne  and  meeting  with  M. 
Samson  of  the  Comedie-Frangaise,"  I  answered.  "  I  thought 
so,"  remarked  my  interlocutor.  "  Allow  me  to  thank  you, 
monsieur."     With  this  he  lifted  his  hat  and  went  out. 

The  incident  had  slipped  my  memory  altogether,  when  I 
was  reminded  of  it  by  Samson  himself,  about  three  weeks 
afterwards,  in  the  green-room  of  the  Comedie-Fran^aise.  I  had 
been  there  but  a  few  moments  when  he  came  in.  "  You  are 
the  man  who  betrayed  me,"  he  said  with  a  chuckle.  "  I  have 
been  cudgelling  my  brain  for  the  last  three  weeks  as  to  who  it 
could  have  been,  for  I  spoke  to  no  less  than  half  a  dozen 
friends  and  acquaintances  in  the  Rue  Vivienne  on  the  morn- 
ing I  met  you,  and  they  all  wear  imperials  and  moustaches. 
A  nice  thing  you  have  done  for  me  ;  you  have  burdened  me 
with  a  grateful  friend  for  the  rest  of  my  life  !  " 

And  then  he  told  me  the  story,  how  two  years  before  he  had 
been  at  Granville  during  the  end  of  the  summer ;  how  he  had 
strolled  into  the  Palais  de  Justice  and  heard  the  procureur- 
imperial  make  a  speech  for  the  prosecution,  the  delivery  of 
which  would  have  disgraced  his  most  backward  pupil  at  the 
Conservatoire.  "  I  was  very  angry  with  the  fellow,  and  felt 
inclined  to  write  him  a  letter,  telling  him  that  there  was  no 
need  to  torture  the  innocent  audience,  as  well  as  the  prisoner 
in  the  dock.  I  should  have  signed  it.  I  do  not  know  why  I 
did  not,  but  judge  of  my  surprise  when,  the  same  evening  at 
dinner,  I  found  myself  seated  opposite  him.  I  must  have 
scowled  at  him,  and  he  repaid  scowl  for  scowl.  It  appears 
that  he  was  living  at  the  hotel  temporarily,  while  his  wife  and 
child  were  away.  I  need  not  tell  you  the  high  opinion  our 
judges  have  of  themselves,  and  I  dare  say  he  thought  it  the 
height  of  impertinence  that  I,  a  simple  mortal,  should  stare  at 
him.  I  soon-  came  to  the  conclusion,  however,  that  if  I  wanted 
to  spare  my  fellow-creatures  such  an  infliction  as  I  had  endured 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  135 

that  day,  I  ought  not  to  arouse  the  man's  anger.  So  I  looked 
more  mild,  then  entered  into  conversation  with  him.  You 
should  have  seen  his  face  when  I  began  to  criticise  his  tone  and 
gestures.  But  he  evidently  felt  that  1  was  somewhat  of  an 
authority  on  the  subject,  and  at  last  I  took  him  out  on  the  beach 
and  gave  him  a  lesson  in  delivering  a  speech,  and  left  him  there 
without  revealing  my  name.  Next  morning  I  went  away,  and 
never  set  eyes  on  him  again  until  three  weeks  ago,  when  he  left 
his  card,  asking  for  an  interview.  He  is  a  very  intelligent  man, 
and  has  profited  by  the  first  lesson.  During  the  three  days  he 
remained  in  Paris  I  gave  him  three  more.  He  says  that  if 
ever  I  get  into  a  scrape,  he'll  do  better  than  defend  me — pros- 
ecute me,  and  I'm  sure  to  get  off." 

I  have  never  seen  Samson  give  a  lesson  at  the  Conservatoire, 
but  I  was  present  at  several  of  Regnier's,  thanks  to  Auber, 
whom  I  knew  very  well,  and  who  was  the  director,  and  to 
Regnier  himself,  who  did  not  mind  a  stranger  being  present, 
provided  he  felt  certain  that  the  stranger  was  not  a  scoffer.  I 
believe  that  Samson  would  have  objected  without  reference  to 
the  stranger's  disposition  ;  at  any  rate,  Auber  hinted  as  much, 
so  I  did  not  prefer  my  request  in  a  direct  form. 

I  doubt,  moreover,  whether  a  lesson  of  Samson  to  his  pupils 
would  have  been  as  interesting  to  the  outsider  as  one  of 
Regnier's.  Of  all  the  gifts  that  go  to  the  making  of  a  great 
actor,  Regnier  had  naturally  only  two — taste  and  intelligence  ; 
the  others  were  replaced  by  what,  for  want  of  a  better  term, 
one  might  call  the  tricks  of  the  actor ;  their  acquisition  de- 
manded constant  study.  For  instance,  Regnier's  appearance 
off  the  stage  was  absolutely  insignificant;  his  voice  was  natu- 
rally husky  and  indistinct,  and,  moreover,  what  the  French  call 
nasillarde,  that  is,  produced  through  the  nose.  His  features 
were  far  from  mobile  ;  the  eyes  were  not  without  expression, 
but  these  never  twinkled  with  merriment  nor  shone  with 
passion.  Consequently  the  smallest  as  well  as  largest  effect 
necessary  to  the  interpretation  of  a  character  had  to  be  thought 
out  carefully  beforehand,  and  then  to  be  tried  over  and  over 
again  materially.  Each  of  his  inflections  had  to  be  timed  to  a 
second  ;  but  when  all  this  was  accomplished,  the  picture  pre- 
sented by  him  was  so  perfect  as  to  deceive  the  most  experienced 
critic,  let  alone  an  audience,  however  intelligent.  In  fact,  but 
for  his  own  frank  admission  of  all  this,  his  contemporaries  and 
posterity  would  have  been  never  the  wiser,  for,  to  their  honor 
be  it  said,  his  fellow-actors  were  so  interested  in  watching  him 
"  manipulate  himself,"  as  they  termed  it,  as  to  never  breathe  a 


136  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

word  of  it  to  the  outside  world.  They  all  acknowledged  that 
they  had  learned  something  from  him  during  rehearsal.  For 
instance,  in  one  of  his  best-known  characters,  that  of  the  old 
servant  in  Madame  de  Girardin's  "  La  joie  fait  peur,"  *  there 
is  a  scene  which  as  played  by  Regnier  and  Delaunay,  looked 
to  the  spectator  absolutely  spontaneous.  The  smallest  detail 
had  been  minutely  regulated.  It  is  where  the  old  retainer, 
while  dusting  the  room,  is  talking  to  himself  about  his  young 
master,   Lieutenant  Adrien  Desaubiers,  who  is  reported  dead. 

"  I  can  see  him  now,"  says  Noel,  who  cannot  resign  himself 
to  the  idea ;  "  I  can  see  him  now,  as  he  used  to  come  in  from 
his  long  walks,  tired,  starving,  and  shouting  before  he  was 
fairly  into  the  house.  '  Here  I  am,  my  good  Noel ;  I  am 
dying  with  hunger.  Quick !  an  omelette.'  "  At  that  moment 
the  young  lieutenant  enters  the  room,  and  having  heard  Noel's 
last  sentence,  repeats  it  word  for  word. 

Short  as  was  the  sentence,  it  had  been  arranged  that  Delau- 
nay should  virtually  cut  it  into  four  parts. 

At  the  words,  "//  is  /,"  Regnier  shivered  from  head  to  foot; 
at  ''''Here  I am^  my  good  Noel^^^  he  lifted  his  eyes  heavenwards, 
to  make  sure  that  the  voice  did  not  come  from  there,  and  that 
he  was  not  laboring  under  a  kind  of  hallucination  ;  at  the 
words,  "  /  avi  dymg  with  hunger,''^  he  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  it  was  a  real  human  voice  after  all ;  and  at  the  final, 
"  Quick  /  an  omeietie,^^  he  turned  round  quickly,  and  fell  like  a 
log  into  the  young  fellow's  arms. 

I  repeat,  the  whole  of  the  scene  had  been  timed  to  the 
fraction  of  a  second  ;  nevertheless,  on  the  first  night,  Regnier, 
nervous  as  all  great  actors  are  on  such  occasions,  forgot  all 
about  his  own  arrangements,  and,  at  the  first  sound  of  Delau- 
nay's  voice,  was  so  overcome  with  emotion  that  he  literally 
tumbled  against  the  latter,  who  of  course  was  not  prepared  to 
bear  him  up,  and  had  all  his  work  to  do  to  keep  himself  from 
falling  also.  Meanwhile  Regnier  lay  stretched  at  full  length 
on  the  stage,  and  the  house  broke  into  tumultuous  applause. 

"  That  was  magnificent,"  said  Delaunay  after  the  perform- 
ance.    "  Suppose  we  repeat  the  thing  to-morrow  ?  " 

But  Regnier  would  not  hear  of  it ;  he  stuck  to  his  original 
conception  in  four  tempi.  He  preferred  trusting  to  his  art 
rather  than  to  the  frank  promptings  of  nature. 

That  is  why  a  lesson  of  Regnier  to  his  pupils  was  so  inter- 

*  There  are  several  English  versions  of  the  play,  and  I  am  under  the  impression  that  the 
late  Tom  Robertson  was  inspired  by  it  when  he  adapted  "  Caste."  I  allude  to  that  scene 
in  the  third  act,  where  George  d'Alroy  returns  unexpectedly,  and  where  Polly  Ecdes  breaks 
the  news  to  her  sister. — Editor. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PA  RIS.  1 3  7 

esting  to  the  outsider.  The  latter  was,  as  it  were,  initiated 
into  all  the  resources  the  great  actor  has  at  his  command 
wherewith  to  produce  his  illusion  upon  the  public.  Among 
Regnier's  pupils  those  were  his  favorites  who  never  allowed 
themselves  to  be  carried  away  by  their  feelings,  and  who 
trusted  to  these  resources  as  indicated  to  them  by  their  tutor. 
He  was  to  a  certain  extent  doubtful  of  the  others.  "  Feelings 
vary ;  effects  intelligently  conceived,  studied,  and  carried  out 
ought  never  to  vary,"  he  said.  Consequently  it  became  one 
of  his  theories  that  those  most  plentifully  endowed  with 
natural  gifts  were  not  likely  to  become  more  perfect  than  those 
who  had  been  treated  niggardly  in  that  respect,  provided  the 
vocation  and  the  perseverance  were  there.  The  reverse  of 
Samson,  who  was  proudest  of  Rachel,  Regnier  was  never  half 
as  proud  of  M.  Coquelin  as  of  others  who  had  given  him  far 
more  trouble.  Augustine  Brohan  explained  the  feeling  in  her 
own  inimitable  way.  "  Regnier  est  comme  le  grand  seigneur 
qui  s'enamourache  d'une  paysanne  a  qui  il  faut  tout  enseigner ; 
si  moi  j'etais  homme,  j'aimerais  mieux  une  demoiselle  de  bonne 
famille,  qui  n'aurait  pas  besoin  de  tant  d'enseignement." 

Mdlle.  Brohan  exaggerated  a  little  bit.  Regnier's  pupils 
were  not  peasant  children,  to  whom  he  had  to  teach  every- 
thing ;  a  great  many,  like  Coquelin,  required  very  little  teach- 
ing, and  all  the  others  had  the  receptive  qualities  which  make 
teaching  a  pleasure.  The  latter,  boys  and  girls,  had  to  a 
certain  extent  become  like  Regnier  himself,  "  bundles  of 
tricks,"  and,  what  is  perhaps  not  so  surprising  to  students  of 
psychology  and  physiology,  their  features  had  contracted  a 
certain  likeness  to  his.  At  the  first  blush  one  might  have 
mistaken  them  for  his  children.  And  they  might  have  been, 
for  the  patience  he  had  with  them.  It  was  rarely  exhausted, 
but  he  now  and  then  seemed  to  be  waiting  for  a  new  supply. 
At  such  times  there  was  a  frantic  clutch  at  the  shock,  grey- 
haired  head,  or  else  a  violent  blowing  of  the  perky  nose  in  a 
large  crimson  checkered  handkerchief,  its  owner  standing  all 
the  while  on  one  leg ;  the  attitude  was  irresistibly  comic,  but  the 
pupils  were  used  to  it,  and  not  a  muscle  of  their  faces  moved. 

Those  who  imagine  that  Regnier's  courses  were  merely  so 
many  lessons  of  elocution  and  gesticulation  would  be  altogether 
mistaken.  Regnier,  unlike  many  of  his  great  fellow-actors  of 
that  period,  had  received  a  good  education ;  he  had  been 
articled  to  an  architect,  he  had  even  dabbled  in  painting,  and 
there  were  few  historical  personages  into  whose  characters  he 
had  not  a  thorough  insight.     He  was  a  fair  authority  upon 


138  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

costume  and  manners  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  his  acquaint- 
ance with  Roman  and  Greek  antiquities  would  have  done 
credit  to  many  a  professor.  He  was  called  "  le  comedien 
savant "  and  "  le  savant  comedien."  As  such,  whenever  a 
pupil  failed  to  grasp  the  social  or  political  importance  of  one 
of  the  dramatis  personce  of  Racine's  or  Corneille's  play,  there 
was  sure  to  be  a  disquisition,  telling  the  youngster  all  about 
him,  but  in  a  way  such  as  to  secure  the  attention  of  the 
listener — a  way  that  might  have  aroused  the  envy  of  a  univer- 
sity lecturer.  The  dry  bones  of  history  were  clothed  by  a 
man  with  an  eye  for  the  picturesque. 

"  Who  do  you  think  Augustus  was  ?  "  he  said  one  day  when 
I  was  present  to  the  pupil,  who  was  declaiming  some  lines  of 
"  Cinna."  "  Do  you  think  he  was  the  concierge  or  le  commis- 
sionnaire  du  coin  } "  And  forthwith  there  was  a  sketch  of 
Augustus.  Absolutely  quivering  with  life,  he  led  his  listener 
through  the  streets  of  Rome,  entered  the  palace  with  him,  and 
once  there,  became  Augustus  himself.  After  such  a  scene  he 
would  frequently  descend  the  few  steps  of  the  platform  and 
drop  into  his  arm-chair,  exhausted. 

Every  now  and  then,  in  connection  with  some  character  of 
Moliere  or  Regnard,  there  would  be  an  anecdote  of  the  great 
interpreter  of  the  character,  but  an  anecdote  enacted,  after 
which  the  eyes  woul/d  fill  with  tears,  and  the  ample  checkered 
handkerchief  come  into  requisition  once  more. 

Regnier  was  a  great  favorite  with  most  of  his  fellow- 
actors  and  the  employes  of  the  Comedie-Fran^aise,  but  he  was 
positively  worshipped  by  Giovanni,  the  wigmaker  of  the  es- 
tablishment. They  were  in  frequent  consultation  even  in  the 
green-room,  the  privilege  of  admission  to  which  had  been 
granted  to  the  Italian  Figaro.  The  consultations  became  most 
frequent  when  one  of  the  members  undertook  a  part  new  to 
him.  It  was  often  related  of  Balzac  that  he  firmly  believed  in 
the  existence  of  the  characters  his  brain  had  created.  The 
same  might  be  said  of  Regnier  with  regard  to  the  characters 
created  by  the  great  playwrights  of  his  own  time  and  those  of 
the  past.  Of  course,  I  am  not  speaking  of  those  who  had  an 
historical  foundation.  But  Alceste,  Harpagon,  Georges  Dan- 
din,  Sganarelle,  and  Scapin  were  as  real  to  him  as  Orestes 
and  Oedipus,  as  Augustus  and  Mohammed.  He  would  give 
not  only  their  biographies,  but  describe  their  appearance,  their 
manners,  their  gait,  and  even  their  complexion.  The  first  time 
I  heard  him  do  so,  I  made  sure  that  he  was  trying  to  mystify 
Giovanni ;  but  Rachel,  who  was  present,  soon  undeceived  me, 


A  A'  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PA  RIS.  139 

And  the  Italian  would  sit  listening  reverently,  then  start  up 
and  exclaim,  "  Ze  sais  ce  qu'il  vous  f aut,  Monsu  R^gnier,  ze 
vais  faire  oune  parruque  a  etonner  Moliere  lui-meme."  And 
he  kept  his  word,  because  he  considered  that  the  wig  con- 
tributed as  much  to,  or  detracted  from,  the  success  of  an  actor 
as  his  diction,  and  more  than  his  clothes.  When  Delaunay 
became  a  societaire,  his  first  part  was  that  of  the  lover  in 
M.  Viennet's  "Migraine."  "Voila  Monsu  Delaunay,  oune 
veritable  parruque  di  societaire.  Zouez  a  present,  vous  etes 
sour  de  votre  affaire." 

One  day  Beauvallet  found  him  standing  before  the  window 
of  Brandus,  the  music-publisher  in  the  Rue  de  Richelieu.  He 
was  contemplating  the  portrait  of  Rossini,  and  he  looked  sad. 

"  What  are  you  standing  there  for,  Giovanni  t  "  asked  Beau- 
vallet. 

"Ah,  Monsu  Bouvallet,  I  am  looking  at  the  portrait  of 
Maestro  Giovanni  Rossini,  and  when  I  think  that  his  name  is 
Giovanni  like  mine,  when  I  see  that  abominable  wig  which 
looks  like  a  grass  plot  after  a  month  of  drought,  I  feel 
ashamed  and  sad.  But  I  will  go  and  see  him,  and  make  him 
a  wig  for  love  or  money  that  will  take  twenty  years  off  his  age." 
He  went,  but  Rossini  would  not  hear  of  it,  or  rather  Madame 
Rossini  put  a  spoke  in  his  wheel.  Giovanni  never  men- 
tioned his  name  again.  It  was  Ligier  who  brought  Giovanni 
to  Paris,  and  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  he  worked  unre- 
mittingly for  the  glory  of  the  Comedie-Fran^aise,  and  when 
one  of  the  great  critics  happened  to  speak  favorably  of 
the  "  make-up  "  of  an  actor,  as  Paul  de  St.  Victor  did  when 
Regnier  "  created  Noel,"  Giovanni  used  to  leave  his  card  at 
his  house.  It  was  Giovanni  who  made  the  wigs  for  M.  An- 
cessy,  the  musical  director  at  the  Odeon,  who,  under  the  man- 
agement of  M.  Edouard  Thierry,  occupied  the  same  position 
at  the  Com6die-Fran9aise.  M.  Ancessy  was  not  only  a  good 
chef  d'orchestre,  but  a  composer  of  talent ;  but  he  had  one 
great  weakness — he  was  as  bald  as  a  billiard-ball  and  wished 
to  pass  for  an  Absalom.  Giovanni  helped  him  to  carry  out  the 
deception  by  making  three  artistic  wigs.  The  first  was  of  very 
short  hair,  and  was  worn  from  the  ist  to  the  loth  of  the  month ; 
from  the  nth  to  the  20th  M.  Ancessy  donned  one  with  hair 
that  was  so  visibly  growing  as  to  cover  his  ears.  From  the 
20th  to  the  last  day  of  the  month  his  locks  were  positively 
flowing,  and  he  never  failed  to  say  on  that  last  evening  in  the 
hearing  of  everyone,  "  What  a  terrible  nuisance  my  hair  is  to 
ijie  !     I  must  have  it  cut  to-morrow." 


MO  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS, 


CHAPTER   VII. 

I  KNEW  Auber  from  the  year  '42  or  '43  until  the  day  of  his 
death.  He  and  I  were  in  Paris  during  the  siege  and  the  Com- 
mune ;  we  saw  one  another  frequently,  and  I  am  positive  that  the 
terrible  misfortunes  of  his  country  shortened  his  life  by  at  least 
ten  years.  For  though  at  the  beginning  of  the  campaign  he  was 
close  upon  ninety,  he  scarcely  looked  a  twelvemonth  older  than 
when  I  first  knew  him,  nearly  three  decades  before ;  that  is,  a 
very  healthy  and  active  old  man,  but  still  an  old  man.  So 
much  nonsense  has  been  written  about  his  perpetual  youth, 
that  it  is  well  to  correct  the  error.  But  the  ordinary  French 
public,  and  many  journalists  besides,  could  not  understand  an 
octogenarian  being  on  horseback  almost  every  day  of  his  life, 
any  more  than  they  understood  later  on  M.  de  Lesseps 
doing  the  same.  They  did  not  and  do  not  know  M.  Mackenzie- 
Grieves,  and  half  a  dozen  English  residents  in  Paris  of  a  sim- 
ilar age,  who  scarcely  ever  miss  their  daily  ride.  If  they  had 
known  them,  they  might  perhaps  have  been  less  loud  in  their 
admiration  of  the  fact. 

What  added,  probably,  to  Auber's  reputation  of  possessing 
the  secret  of  perpetual  youth  was  his  great  fondness  for  women's 
society,  his  very  handsome  appearance,  though  he  was  small 
comparatively,  and  his  faultless  way  of  dressing.  He  was 
most  charming  with  the  fairer  sex,  and  many  of  the  female 
pupils  of  the  Conservatoire  positively  doted  on  him.  Though 
polite  to  a  degree  with  men — and  I  doubt  whether  Auber 
could  have  been  other  than  polite  with  no  matter  whom 
— his  smiles,  I  mean  his  benevolent  ones,  for  he  could  smile 
very  sceptically,  were  exclusively  reserved  for  women.  When 
he  heard  Mozart's  "  Don  Juan  "  for  the  first  time,  he  said, 
"  This  is  the  music  of  a  lover  of  twenty,  and  if  a  man  be  not 
an  imbecile,  he  may  always  have  in  a  little  corner  of  his  heart 
the  sentiment  or  fancy  that  he  is  only  twenty." 

There  was  but  one  drawback  to  Auber's  enjoyment  of  the 
society  of  women — he  was  obliged  to  take  off  his  hat  in  their 
presence,  and  he  hated  being  without  that  article  of  dress. 
He  might  have  worn  a  skull-cap  at  home,  though  there  was  no 
iiecessity  for  it,  as  far  as  his  hair  was  concerned,  for  up  to  the 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  141 

last  he  was  far  from  bald ;  but  he  wanted  his  hat.  He  com- 
posed with  his  hat  on,  he  had  his  meals  with  his  hat  on,  and 
though  he  would  have  frequently  preferred  to  take  his  seat  in 
the  stalls  or  balcony  of  a  theatre,  he  invariably  had  a  box,  and 
generally  one  on  the  stage,  in  order  to  keep  his  hat  on.  He 
would  often  stand  for  hours  on  the  balcony  of  his  house  in  the 
Rue  Saint-Georges  with  his  hat  on.  "  I  never  feel  as  much  at 
home  anywhere,  not  even  in  my  own  apartment,  as  in  the 
synagogue,"  he  said  one  day.  He  frequently  went  there  for 
no  earthly  reason  than  because  he  could  sit  among  a  lot  of 
people  with  his  hat  on.  In  fact,  those  frequent  visits,  coupled 
with  his  dislike  to  be  bareheaded,  made  people  wonder  now 
and  then  whether  Auber  was  a  Jew.  The  supposition  always 
made  Auber  smile.  ''  That  would  have  meant  the  genius  of  a 
Meyerbeer,  a  Mendelsohn,  or  a  Halevy,"  he  said.  "  No,  I  have 
been  lucky  enough  in  my  life,  but  such  good  fortune  as  that 
never  fell  to  my  lot."  For  there  was  no  man  so  willing — nay, 
anxious — to  acknowledge  the  merit  of  others  as  Auber.  But 
Auber  was  not  a  Jew,  and  his  mania  for  keeping  on  his  hat 
had  nothing  to  do  with  his  religion.  It  was  simply  a  mania, 
and  nothing  more.  When,  in  January,  '55,  Gerard  de  Nerval 
was  found  suspended  from  a  lamp-post  in  the  Ruede  la  Vieille- 
Lanterne,  he  had  his  hat  on  his  head ;  his  friends,  and  even 
the  police,  pretended  to  argue  from  this  that  he  had  not  com- 
mitted suicide,  but  had  been  murdered.  "  A  man  who  is  going 
to  hang  himself  does  not  keep  his  hat  on,"  they  said.  "  Pour- 
quoi  pas,  mon  Dieu  ?  "  asked  Auber,  simply.  "  If  I  were  going 
to  kill  myself,  I  should  certainly  keep  my  hat  on."  In  short, 
it  was  the  only  thing  about  Auber  which  could  not  be  explained. 
Auber  was  exceedingly  fond  of  society,  and  yet  he  was  fond 
of  solitude  also.  Many  a  time  his  friends  reported  that,  return- 
ing home  late  from  a  party,  they  found  Auber  standing  opposite 
his  house  in  the  Rue  Saint-Georges,  with  apparently  no  other 
object  than  to  contemplate  it  from  below.  After  his  return 
to  Paris  from  London,  whither  he  had  been  sent  by  his  father, 
in  order  to  become  conversant  with  English  business  habits,  he 
never  left  the  capital  again,  though  at  the  end  of  his  life  he 
regretted  not  having  been  to  Italy.  It  was  because  Rossini, 
who  was  one  of  his  idols,  had  said  "that  a  musician  should 
loiter  away  some  of  his  time  under  that  sky."  But  almost 
immediately  he  comforted  himself  with  the  thought  that  Paris, 
after  all,  was  the  only  city  worth  living  in.  "  I  was  very  fond 
of  my  mother,  but  I  have  one  grievance  against  her  memory. 
What  did  she  want  to  go  to  Caen  for  just  at  the  moment  when 


142  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

I  was  about  to  be  born  ?  But  for  that  I  should  have  been  a 
real  Parisian."  I  do  not  think  it  made  much  difference,  for  I 
never  knew  such  an  inveterate  Parisian  as  Auber.  When  the 
investment  of  Paris  had  become  an  absolute  certainty,  some  of 
his  friends  pressed  him  to  leave ;  he  would  not  hear  of  it. 
They  predicted  discomfort,  famine,  and  what  not.  "  The  latter 
contingency  will  not  affect  me  much,  seeing  that  I  eat  but  once 
a  day,  and  very  little  then.  As  for  the  sound  of  the  firing 
disturbing  me,  I  do  not  think  it  will.  It  has  often  been  said 
that  the  first  part  of  my  overture  to  '  Fra  Diavolo  '  was  inspired 
by  the  retreating  tramp  of  a  regiment;  there  may  be  some 
truth  in  it.  If  it  be  vouchsafed  to  me  to  hear  the  retreating 
tramp  of  the  Germans,  I  will  write  an  overture  and  an  opera, 
which  will  be  something  different,  I  promise  you." 

I  do  not  suppose  that,  personally,  Auber  suffered  any  priva- 
tions during  the  siege.  A  man  in  his  position,  who  required 
but  one  meal  a  day,  and  that  a  very  light  one,  was  sure  to  find 
it  somewhere  ;  but  he  had  great  trouble  to  find  sufficient  fodder 
for  his  old  faithful  hack,  that  had  carried  him  for  years,  and 
when,  after  several  months  of  scheming  and  contriving  to  that 
effect,  he  was  forced  to  give  it  up  as  food  for  others,  his  cup 
of  bitterness  was  full.  "  lis  m'ont  pris  mon  vieux  cheval  pour 
le  manger,"  he  repeated,  when  I  saw  him  after  the  event ; 
"  je  I'avais  depuis  vingt  ans."  It  was  really  a  great  blow  to 
him. 

There  is  another  legend  about  Auber  which  is  not  founded 
upon  facts,  namely,  that  he  was  pretty  well  independent  of 
sleep.  It  was  perfectly  true  that  he  went  to  bed  very  late  and 
rose  very  early,  but  most  people  have  overlooked  the  fact  that 
during  the  evening  he  had  had  a  comfortable  doze,  of  at  least 
an  hour  and  a  half  or  two  hours,  at  the  theatre.  He  rarely 
missed  a  performance  at  the  Opera  or  Opera-Comique,  except 
when  his  own  work  was  performed.  And  during  that  time  he 
slumbered  peacefully,  "en  homme  du  monde,"  said  Nestor 
Roqueplan,  "  without  snoring." 

"  I  never  knew  what  it  meant  to  snore,"  said  Auber,  apolo- 
getically, "  until  I  took  to  sleeping  in  Veron's  box  ;  and  as  it  is, 
I  do  not  snore  now  except  under  provocation.  But  there  would 
be  no  possibility  of  sleeping  by  the  side  of  Veron  without 
snoring.  You  have  to  drown  his,  or  else  it  would  awaken 
you." 

Auber  was  a  brilliant  talker,  but  he  scarcely  ever  liked  to 
exert  himself  except  on  the  subject  of  music.  It  was  all  in  i\\\ 
to  him,  and  the  amount  of  work  he  did  must  have  been  some- 


AN  ENGLJSHMa  N-  TN  PARIS,  1 43 

thing  tremendous.  There  are  few  students  of  the  history  of 
operatic  music,  no  matter  how  excellent  their  memories,  who 
could  give  the  complete  list  of  Auber's  works  by  heart.  We 
tried  it  once  in  1850,  when  that  list  was  much  shorter  than  it 
is  now ;  there  was  not  a  single  one  who  gave  it  correctly.  The 
only  one  who  came  within  a  measurable  distance  was  Roger, 
the  tenor. 

In  spite  of  his  world-wide  reputation,  even  at  that  time, 
Auber  was  as  modest  about  his  work  as  Meyerbeer,  but  he  had 
more  confidence  in  himself  than  the  latter.  Auber  was  by  no 
means  ungrateful  to  the  artists  who  contributed  to  his  success  ; 
"  but  I  don't  '  coddle  '  them,  and  put  them  in  cotton-wool,  like 
Meyerbeer,"  he  said.  "  It  is  perfectly  logical  that  he  should 
do  so.  The  Nourrits,  the  Levasseurs,  the  Viardot-Garcias,  and 
the  Rogers,  are  not  picked  up  at  street-corners ;  but  bring  me 
the  first  urchin  you  meet,  who  has  a  decent  voice,  and  a  fair 
amount  of  intelligence,  and  in  six  months  he'll  sing  the  most 
difficult  part  I  ever  wrote,  with  the  exception  of  that  of  Masa- 
niello.  My  operas  are  a  kind  of  warming-pan  for  great  singers. 
There  is  something  in  being  a  good  warming-pan." 

At  the  first  blush,  this  sounds  something  like  jealousy  in  the 
guise  of  humility,  but  I  am  certain  that  there  was  no  jealousy 
in  Auber's  character.  Few  men  have  been  so  uniformly 
successful,  but  he  also  had  his  early  struggles,  "  when  perhaps 
I  did  better  work  than  I  have  done  since."  The  last  sentence 
was  invariably  trolled  out  when  a  pupil  of  the  Conservatoire 
complained  to  him  of  having  been  unjustly  dealt  with.  I 
remember  Coquelin  the  younger  competing  for  the  "  prize  of 
Comedy  "  in  '65  or  '66.  He  did  not  get  it,  and  when  we  came 
out  of  Auber's  box  at  the  Conservatoire,  the  young  fellow  came 
up  to  him  with  tears  in  his  eyes.  I  fancy  they  were  tears  of 
anger  rather  than  of  sorrow. 

"Ah,  Monsieur  Auber,"  he  exclaimed,  "  that's  an  injustice." 

"  Perhaps  so,  my  dear  lad,"  replied  Auber ;  "  but  remember 
that  the  verdict  on  all  things  in  this  world  may  be  summed  up 
in  the  words  you  have  just  uttered,  '  It's  an  injustice.'  Let  me 
give  you  a  bit  of  advice.  If  you  mean  to  become  a  good 
Figaro,  you  must  be  the  first  to  laugh  at  an  injustice  instead  of 
weeping  over  it."  Wherewith  he  turned  his  back  upon  the 
now  celebrated  comedian.  In  the  course  of  these  notes  I  shall 
have  occasion  to  speak  of  Auber  again. 

Auber  need  not  have  generalized  to  young  Coquelin  ;  he 
might  have  cited  one  instance  of  injustice  in  his  own  profession, 
to  which,  fortunately,  there  was  no  parallel  for  at  least  thirty 


144  ^^^  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARI^, 

years.  In  the  forties  the  critics  refused  to  recognize  the 
genius  of  Felicien  David,  just  as  they  had  refused  to  recognize 
the  genius  of  Hector  Berlioz.  In  the  seventies  they  were 
morally  guilty  of  the  death  of  Georges  Bizet,  the  composer  of 
"  Carmen." 

I  knew  little  or  nothing  of  Hector  Berlioz,  but  I  frequently 
met  Felicien  David  at  Auber's.  It  was  a  pity  to  behold  the 
man  even  after  his  success — a  success  which,  however,  did  not 
put  money  in  his  purse.  His  moral  sufferings,  his  material 
privations,  had  left  their  traces  but  too  plainly  on  the  face  as  well 
as  on  the  mind.  David  had  positively  starved  in  order  to  buy 
the  few  books  and  the  paper  necessary  to  his  studies,  and  yet 
he  had  the  courage  to  say.  "  If  I  had  to  begin  over  again,  I 
would  do  the  same."  The  respectability  that  drives  a  gig 
when  incarnated  in  parents  who  refuse  to  believe  in  the  power 
of  soaring  of  their  offspring  because  they,  the  parents,  cannot 
see  the  wings,  has  assuredly  much  to  answer  for.  Flotow's 
father  stops  the  supplies  after  seven  years,  because  his  son  has 
not  come  up  to  time  like  a  race-horse.  Berlioz's  father  does  not 
give  him  so  long  a  shrift ;  he  allows  him  three  months  to  con- 
quer fame.  Felicien  David  had  no  father  to  help  or  to  thwart 
him  in  his  ambition.  He  was  an  orphan  at  the  age  of  five,  and 
left  to  the  care  of  a  sister,  who  was  too  poor  to  help  him ;  but 
he  had  an  uncle  who  was  well-to-do,  and  who  allowed  him  the 
magnificent  sum  of  fifty  francs  per  month — for  a  whole  quarter 
— and  then  withdrew  it,  notwithstanding  the  assurance  of 
Cherubini  that  the  young  fellow  had  the  making  of  a  great  com- 
poser in  him.  And  the  worst  is  that  these  young  fellows  suffer 
in  silence,  while  there  are  hundreds  of  benevolent  rich  men 
who  would  willingly  open  their  purses  to  them.  When  they  do 
reveal  their  distressed  condition,  it  is  generally  to  some  one  as 
poor  as  themselves.  These  rich  men  buy  the  autographs  of  the 
deceased  genius  for  small  or  large  sums  which  would  have  pro- 
vided the  struggling  ones  with  comforts  for  days  and  days. 
I  have  before  me  such  a  letter  which  I  bought  for  ten  francs. 
I  would  willingly  have  given  ten  times  the  amount  not  to  have 
bought  it.  It  is  written  to  a  friend  of  his  youth.  "  As  for 
money,"  it  says,  "  seeing  that  I  am  bound  to  speak  of  it,  things 
are  going  from  bad  to  worse.  And  it  is  very  certain  that  in  a 
little  while  I  shall  have  to  give  it  up  altogether.  I  have  been 
ill  for  three  weeks  with  pains  in  the  back,  and  fever  and  ague 
everywhere.  I  dare  say  that  my  illness  was  brought  on  by  my 
worries,  and  by  the  bad  food  of  the  Paris  restaurants,  also  by 
the  constant  dampness.     Why  am  I  not  a  little  better  off  ?     i 


AJV  ENGLISBMAM  W  PARIS.  145 

fancy  that  the  slight  comforts  an  artist  may  reasonably  expect 
would  do  me  a  great  deal  of  good.  I  am  not  speaking  of  the 
body,  though  it  is  a  part  of  ourselves  which  considerably  affects 
our  intellect,  but  my  imagination  would  be  the  better  for  it,  for 
how  can  my  brain,  constantly  occupied  as  it  is  with  the  worry 
of  material  wants,  act  unhampered?  Really,  I  do  not  hesitate 
to  say  that  poverty  and  privation  kill  the  imagination." 

They  did  not  kill  the  imagination  in  David's  case,  but  they 
undermined  his  constitution.  It  was  at  that  period  that  he 
fell  in  with  the  Saint-Simoniens,  to  the  high  priest  of  which, 
M.  Enfantin,  who  eventually  became  the  chairman  of  the  Paris, 
Lyons,  and  Mediterranean  Railway  Company,  he  took  me  many 
years  later.  After  their  dispersion,  the  group  to  which  he  be- 
longed went  to  the  East,  and  it  is  to  this  apparently  fortuitous 
circumstance  that  the  world  owes  not  only  "  Le  Desert,"  "  La 
Perle  du  Bresil,"  and  "  L'Eden,"  but  probably  also  Meyerbeer's 
"  Africaine."  Meyerbeer  virtually  acknowledged  that  but  for 
David's  scores,  so  replete  with  the  poetry  of  the  Orient,  he 
would  have  never  thought  of  such  a  subject  for  one  of  his 
operas.  M.  Scribe,  on  the  other  hand,  always  maintained 
that  the  idea  emanated  from  him,  and  that  it  dated  from  1847, 
when  the  composer  was  given  the  choice  between  "  La  Prophete" 
and  "  L' Africaine,"  and  chose  the  former.  One  might  almost 
paraphrase  the  accusation  of  the  wolf  against  the  lamb  in  La 
Fontaine's  fable.  "  M.  Scribe,  if  you  did  not  owe  your  idea 
to  Felicien  David,  you  owed  it  to  Montigny,  the  director  of  the 
Gymnase,  who  in  the  thirties  produced  a  play  with  a  curious 
name  and  a  more  curious  plot,  at  the  Ambigu-Comique."  *  One 
thing  is  certain,  thet  ''  L' Africaine"  was  discarded,  if  ever  it  was 
offered,  and  would  never  have  been  thought  of  again  but  for 
Meyerbeer's  intense  and  frankly  acknowledged  admiration  of 
FeUcien  David's  genius. 

To  return  for  a  moment  to  Felicien  David,  whose  melancholy 
vanished  as  if  by  magic  when  he  related  his  wanderings  in  the 
East.  I  do  not  mean  the  poetical  side  of  them,  which  inspired 
him  with  his  great  compositions,  but  the  ludicrous  one.     I   do 

*  I  have  taken  some  pains  to  unearth  this  play.  It  was  called  "  Amazampo ;  or,  The  Dis- 
covery of  Quinine."  The  scene  was  laid  in  Peru  in  1636.  Amazampo,  the  chief  of  a  Peru- 
vian tribe,  is  in  love  with  Maida,  who  on  her  part  is  in  love  with  Ferdinand,  the  son  of  the 
viceroy.  Amazampo  is  heart-broken,  and  is  stricken  down  with  fever.  In  his  despair  and 
partial  delirium  he  tries  to  poison  himself,  and  drinks  the  water  of  a  pool  in  which  several 
trunks  of  a  tree  called  ki7ia,  reported  poisonous,  have  been  lying  for  years.  He  feels  the 
effect  almost  immediately,  but  not  the  effect  he  expected.  He  recovers,  and  takes  advantage 
of  his  recovered  health  to  forget  his  love  passion,  and  to  be  avenged  upon  the  oppressors  of 
his  country,  many  of  whom  are  dying  with  fever.  Lima  becomes  a  huge  cemetery.  Then 
the  wife  of  the  viceroy  is  stricken  down.  Maida  wishes  to-  save  her,  but  is  forestalled  by 
Amazampo,  who  compels  Dona  Theodora  to  drink  the  liquor,  and  so  forth.  But  Ania»> 
ampo  and  Maida  die, — Editor. 

10 


146  ^^V  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS, 

not  remember  the  dress  of  the  Saint-Simoniens,  I  was  too  young 
at  the  time  to  have  noticed  it,  but  am  told  it  consisted  of  a 
blue  tunic  and  trousers  to  match,  a  scarlet  jersey,  which  but- 
toned at  the  back,  and  could  not  be  undone  except  with  the  aid 
of  some  one  else.  It  was  meant  to  symbolize  mutual  depen- 
dence upon  one  another.  "  As  far  as  Marseilles  everything 
went  comparatively  well,"  said  David;  "we  lived  by  giving 
concerts,  and  though  the  receipts  were  by  no  means  magnifi- 
cent, they  kept  the  wolf  from  the  door.  Our  troubles  began  at 
Constantinople.  Whether  they  did  not  like  our  music,  or  our- 
selves, or  our  dresses,  I  have  never  been  able  to  make  out,  but 
we  were  soon  denounced  to  the  authorities,  and  marched  off  to 
prison,  though  our  incarceration  did  not  last  more  than  a  couple 
of  hours,  thanks  to  our  ambassador,  Admiral  Roussin.  Our 
liberation,  however,  was  conditional ;  we  had  to  leave  at  once. 
We  made  our  way  to  Smyrna,  where  my  music  seemed  to  meet 
with  a  little  more  favor.  I  performed  every  night,  but  in  the 
open  air,  and  some  one  took  the  hat  r^und,  just  as  if  we  had 
been  a  company  of  ambulant  musicians  to  the  manner  born. 
We  were,  however,  not  altogether  unhappy,  for  we  had  enough 
to  eat  and  to  drink,  which  with  me,  at  any  rate,  was  a  para- 
mount consideration.  Up  till  then  sufficient  food  had  not  been 
a  daily  item  in  my  programme  of  life.  My  companions,  never- 
theless, became  restless ;  they  said  they  had  not  come  to  eat 
and  drink  and  play  music,  but  to  convert  the  most  benighted 
part  of  Europe  to  their  doctrines ;  so  we  moved  to  Jaffa  and 
Jerusalem,  then  to  Alexandria,  and  finally  to  Cairo.  By  the 
time  we  got  there,  only  three  of  us  were  left ;  the  rest  had  gone 
homeward.  Koenig-Bey  had  just  at  that  moment  undertaken 
the  tuition  of  Mehemet-Ali's  children — there  were  between 
sixty  and  seventy  at  that  time  ;  it  was  he  who  presented  me  to 
their  father,  with  a  view  of  my  becoming  the  professor  of  music 
to  the  inmates  of  the  harem.  '  It  is  of  no  use  to  try  to  get  you 
the  appointment  of  professor  of  music  to  the  young  princes, 
because  Mehemet,  though  intelligent  enough,  would  certainly 
not  hear  of  it.  He  would  not  think  it  necessary  that  a  man- 
child  should  devote  himself  to  so  effeminate  an  accomplish- 
ment. I  am  translating  his  own  thoughts  on  the  subject,  not 
mine.  When  I  tell  you  that  my  monthly  report  about  their 
intellectual  progress  is  invariably  waved  off  with  the  words, 
"  Tell  me  how  much  they  have  gained  or  lost  in  weight,"  you 
will  understand  that  I  am  not  speaking  at  random.  The  vice- 
roy thinks  that  hard  study  should  produce  a  corresponding 
decrease  in  weight,  which  is  not  always  the  case,  for  those  more 


AN  ENGUSJJMAN  IN  PARIS.  147 

or  less  inclined  to  obesity  make  flesh  in  virtue  of  their  sitting 
too  much.  Consequently  the  fat  kine  have  a  very  bad  time  of 
it,  and  among  the  latter  is  one  of  the  most  intelligent  boys, 
Mohammed-Said/  " 

"  Those  who  would  infer  from  this,"  said  David  one  day, 
referring  to  the  same  subject,  "  that  Mehemet-Ali  was  lacking 
in  intelligence,  would  commit  a  grave  error.  I  am  convinced, 
from  the  little  I  saw  of  him,  that  he  was  a  man  of  very  great 
natural  parts.  His  features,  though  not  absolutely  handsome, 
were  very  striking  and  expressive.  He  was  over  sixty  then,  but 
looked  as  if  he  could  bear  any  amount  of  fatigue.  His  con- 
stitution must  originally  have  been  an  iron  one.  Instead  of 
the  Oriental  repose  which  I  expected,  there  was  a  kind  of 
semi-European,  serrii-military  stiffness  about  him,  which,  how- 
ever, soon  wore  oif  in  conversation.  I  say  advisedly  conversa- 
tion, albeit  that  he  did  not  understand  a  word  of  French,  which 
was  the  only  language  I  spoke,  and  that  I  could  not  catch  a 
word  of  his.  But  in  spite  of  Koenig-Bey's  acting  the  interpre- 
ter, it  was  a  conversation  between  us  both.  He  seemed  to 
catch  the  meaning  of  my  words  the  moment  they  left  my  lips, 
and  every  now  and  then  smiled  at  my  remarks.  He  as  it  were 
read  the  thoughts  that  provoked  them,  and  I  do  not  wonder  at 
his  having  been  amused,  for  I  myself  was  never  so  amused  in 
my  life.  Perhaps  you  will  be,  when  I  tell  you  that  I  was  not 
to  see  the  ladies  I  had  to  teach ;  my  instruction  was  to  be  given 
to  the  eunuchs,  who,  in  their  turn,  had  to  transmit  them  to  the 
viceroy's  wives  and  daughters.  Of  course,  I  tried  to  point  out 
the  impossibility  of  such  a  system,  but  Mehemet-Ali  shook  his 
head  with  a  knowing  smile.  That  was  the  only  way  he  would 
have  his  womenkind  initiated  into  the  beauties  of  Mozart  and 
Mendelssohn.  I  need  not  tell  you  that  the  arrangement  came 
to  nought." 

Nearly  all  these  conversations  which  I  have  noted  down 
here,  without  much  attempt  at  transition,  took  place  at  different 
times.  One  day,  when  he  was  relating  some  experiences  of 
his  wanderings  through  the  less  busy  haunts  of  Egypt,  I  hap- 
pened to  say,  "  After  all,  Monsieur  David,  they  did  you  good ; 
they  inspired  you  with  the  themes  of  your  most  beautiful 
works." 

It  was  a  very  bitter  smile  that  played  on  his  lips,  but  only 
for  a  moment ;  the  next  his  face  resumed  its  usual  melancholy 
expression.  "  Yes,  they  did  me  good.  Do  you  know  what 
occurred  on  the  eve  of  the  first  performance  of  '  Le  Desert,'  on 
the  morrow  of  which  I  may  say  without  undue  pride  that  I 


1 48  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PA RIS. 

found  myself  famous  ?  Well,  I  will  tell  you.  But  for  Azevedo, 
I  should  have  gone  supperless  that  night.*  I  met  him  on  the 
Boulevards,  and  I  almost  forced  him  to  take  some  tickets,  for 
I  was  hungry  and  desperate.  I  had  been  running  about  that 
morning  to  dispose  of  some  tickets  for  love  or  money,  for  what 
I  feared  most  was  an  empty  house.  I  had  sold  half  a  dozen, 
perhaps,  but  no  one  had  paid  me.  Azevedo  said,  '  Yes,  send 
me  some  this  afternoon.'  '  I  can  give  them  to  you  now,'  I  re- 
pHed,  '  for  I  carry  my  box  office  upon  me.'  Then  he  under- 
stood, and  gave  me  the  money.  May  God  bless  him  for  it, 
forever  and  ever ! 

"  Now  would  you  like  to  hear  what  happened  after  the  perform- 
ance?" he  continued.  "The  place  was  full  and  the  applause 
tremendous.  Next  morning  the  papers  were  full  of  my  name  ; 
I  was,  according  to  most  of  them,  '  a  revelation  in  music'  But 
for  all  that  I  was  living  in  an  attic  on  a  fifth  floor,  and  had  not 
sufficient  money  to  pay  my  orchestra,  let  alone  to  arrange  for 
another  concert.  As  for  the  score  of  '  Le  Desert,'  it  went  the 
round  of  every  publisher  but  one,  and  was  declined  by  all  these. 
At  last  the  firm  of  Escudier  offered  me  twelve  hundred  francs 
for  it,  which  of  course,  I  was  glad  to  take.  They  behaved 
handsomely  after  all,  because  they  arranged  for  a  series  of 
performances  of  it,  which  I  was  to  direct  at  a  fee  of  a  thou- 
sand francs  per  performance.  Those  good  Saint-Simoniens, 
the  Pereiras,  Enfantin,  Michel  Chevalier,  had  not  lifted  a  finger 
to  help  me  in  my  need  ;  nevertheless  I  was  not  going  to  con- 
demn good  principles  on  account  of  the  men  who  represented 
them  not  very  worthily.  Do  you  know  what  was  the  result  of 
this  determination  not  to  be  unjust  if  others  were  ?  I  embarked 
my  little  savings  in  a  concern  presided  over  by  one  of  them. 
I  lost  every  penny  of  it ;  since  then  I  have  never  been  able  to 
save  a  penny." 

Felicien  David  was  right — he  never  made  money;  first  of 
all,  "  because,"  as  Auber  said,  "  he  was  too  great  an  artist  to  be 
popular  ;  "  secondly,  because  the  era  of  cantatas  and  oratorios 
had  not  set  in  in  France ;  thirdly,  because  he  composed  very 
slowly;  and  fourthly,  "because  he  had  no  luck."  The  per- 
formances of  his  principal  theatrical  work  were  interrupted  by 
the  Coup-d'  Etat.  I  am  alluding  to  "  La  Perle  du  Bresil,"  which, 
though  represented  at  the  Opera-Comique  in  1850,  only  ran  for 
a  few  nights  there,  divergencies  of  opinion  having  arisen  between 
the  composer  and  M.  Emile  Perrin,  who  was  afterwards  director 

*  Alexis  Azevedo,  one  of  the  best  musical  critics  of  the  time,  as  enthusiastic  in  his  likes  as 
unreasoning  in  his  dislikes.     He  became  a  fervent  admirer  of  Felicien  David.— Editor. 


A^r  ENGLISHMAN'  IN  PARIS.  149 

of  the  Grand  Opera,  and  finally  of  the  Comedie-Fran^aise. 
When  it  was  revived,  on  November  22,  185 1,  the  great  event 
which  was  to  transform  the  second  republic  into  the  second 
empire  was  looming  on  the  horizon.  In  1862,  Napoleon  III. 
made  Felicien  David  an  officer  of  the  Legion  d'Honneur  ;  Louis 
Philippe  had  bestowed  the  knighthood  upon  him  in  '46  or'47, 
after  a  performance  of  his  "  Christophe  Colomb  "  at  the  Tuil- 
eries.  When  Auber  was  told  of  the  honor  conferred,  he  said, 
"  Napoleon  is  worse  than  the  fish  with  the  ring  of  Polycrates ; 
it  did  not  take  him  eleven  years  to  bring  it  back."  Alexandre 
Dumas  opined  that  "  it  was  a  pearl  hid  in  a  dunghill  for  a 
decade  or  more."  When,  towards  the  end  of  the  Empire,  a 
street  near  the  projected  opera  building  was  named  after  Auber, 
and  when  he  could  see  his  bust  on  the  facade  of  the  building, 
the  scaffolding  of  which  had  been  removed,  Auber  remarked 
that  the  Emperor  had  been  good  enough  to  give  him  credit. 
"  Now  we  are  quits,"  he  added,  "  for  ^e  was  David's  debtor  for 
eleven  years.  At  any  rate,  I'll  do  my  best  to  square  the  account, 
so  you  need  not  order  any  hatbands  until  '79."  When  '79 
came,  he  had  been  in  his  tomb  for  nearly  eight  years. 

I  wrote  just  now  that  Felicien  David  composed  very  slowly. 
But  for  this  defect,  if  it  was  one,  Verdi  would  have  never  put 
his  name  to  the  score  of  "  Aida."  The  musical  encyclopedias 
will  tell  you  that  Signor  Ghislanzoni  is  the  author  of  the  libretto, 
and  that  the  khedive  applied  to  Signor  Verdi  for  an  opera  on 
an  Egyptian  subject.  The  first  part  of  that  statement  is  utterly 
untrue,  the  other  part  is  but  partially  true.  Signor  Ghislanzoni 
is  at  best  but  the  adapter  in  verse  and  translator  of  the  libretto. 
The  original  in  prose  is  by  M.  Camille  du  Locle,  founded  on 
the  scenario  supplied  by  Mariette-Bey,  whom  Ismail-Pasha  had 
given  carte  blanche  with  regard  to  the  music  and  words.  Mari- 
ette-Bey intended  from  the  very  first  to  apply  to  a  French  play- 
wright, when  one  night,  being  belated  at  Memphis  in  the  Sera- 
peum,  and  unable  to  return  on  foot,  he  all  at  once  remembered 
an  old  Egyptian  legend.  Next  day  he  committed  the  scenario 
of  it  to  paper,  showed  it  to  the  khedive,  and  ten  copies  of  it 
were  printed  in  Alexandria.  One  of  these  was  sent  to  M.  du 
Locle,  who  developed  the  whole  in  prose. 

M.  du  Locle  had  also  been  authorized  to  find  a  French  com- 
poser, but  it  is  very  certain  that  Mariette-Bey  had  in  his  mind's 
eye  the  composer  of  "  Le  Desert,"  though  he  may  not  have 
expressly  said  so.  At  any  rate,  M.  du  Locle  applied  to  David, 
who  refused,  although  the  "  retaining  fee  "  was  fifty  thousand 
francs.     It  was  because  he  could  not  comply  with  the  first  and 


150  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PAR  J S. 

foremost  condition,  to  have  the  score  ready  in  six  months  at 
the  latest.  Then  Wagner  was  thought  of.  It  is  most  probable 
that  he  would  have  refused.  To  Mariette-Bey  belongs  the 
credit  furthermore  of  having  entirely  stage-managed  the 
opera. 

Thus  Felicien  David  who  had  revealed  "  the  East  in  music  " 
to  the  Europeans,  no  more  reaped  the  fruits  of  his  originality 
than  Decamps,  who  had  revealed  it  in  painting.  Was  not 
Auber  right  when  he  said  to  young  Coquelin  that  the  verdict 
on  all  things  in  this  world  might  be  summed  up  in  the  one 
phrase,  "  It's  an  injustice  "  ? 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

A  FEW  weeks  ago,*  when  rummaging  among  old  papers, 
documents,  memoranda,  etc.,  I  came  upon  some  stray  leaves 
of  a  catalogue  of  a  picture  sale  at  the  Hotel  Bullion t  in  1845. 
I  had  marked  the  prices  realized  by  a  score  or  so  of  paintings 
signed  by  men  who,  though  living  at  that  time,  were  already 
more  or  less  famous,  and  many  of  whom  have  since  then 
acquired  a  world-wide  reputation.  There  was  only  one  excep- 
tion to  this — that  of  Herrera  the  elder,  who  had  been  dead 
nearly  two  centuries,  and  whose  name  was,  and  is  still,  a  house- 
hold word  among  connoisseurs  by  reason  of  his  having  been 
the  master  of  Velasquez.  The  handiwork  of  the  irascible  old 
man  was  knocked  down  for  three  francs  seventy-five  centimes, 
though  no  question  was  raised  as  to  the  genuineness  of  it  in 
my  hearing.  It  was  a  saint — the  catalogue  said  no  more, — and 
I  have  been  in  vain  trying  to  recollect  why  I  did  not  buy  it. 
There  must  have  been  some  cogent  reason  for  my  not  having 
done  so,  for  "  the  frame  was  no  doubt  worth  double  the  money," 
to  use  an  auctioneer's  phrase.  Was  it  suspicion,  or  what  ? 
At  any  rate,  two  years  later,  I  heard  that  it  had  been  sold  to 
an  American  for  fourteen  thousand  francs,  though,  after  all, 
that  was  no  guarantee  of  its  value. 

In  those  days  it  was  certainly  better  to  be  a  live  artist  than 
a  dead  one,  for,  a  little  further  on  among  these  pages,  I  came 
upon  a  marginal  note  of  the  prices  fetched  by  three  works  of 
Meissonier,  "  Le  Corps  de  Garde,"  "  Une  partie  de  piquet," 
and  "  Un  jeune  homme  regardant  des  dessins,"  all  of  which 

*  Written  in  1882. 

t  The  Hotel  Bullion  was  formally  the  town   mansion  of  the  financier  of  that  name,  aiid 
rituated  in  the  Rue  Coquilliire- — Editor. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  1 5 1 

had  been  in  the  salon  of  that  year,*  and  each  of  which  fetched 
3000  francs.  I  should  not  like  to  say  what  their  purchasing 
price  would  be  to-day,  allowing  for  the  difference  in  the  value 
of  money.  Further  on  still  there  is  a  note  of  a  picture  by  Al- 
fred de  Dreux,  which  realized  a  similar  amount.  Allowing  for 
that  same  difference  in  the  value  of  money,  that  work  would 
probably  not  find  a  buyer  now  among  real  connoisseurs  at  200 
francs.t  At  the  same  time,  the  original  sketch  of  David's 
"  Serment  du  Jeu  de  Paume  "  did  not  find  a  purchaser  at  2500 
francs,  the  reserve  price.  A  landscape  by  Jules  Andre,  a  far 
greater  artist  than  Alfred  de  Dreux,  went  for  300  francs,  and 
Baron's  "  Oies  du  Frere  Philippe  "  only  realized  200  francs 
more.  There  was  not  a  single  "bid"  for  Eugene  Delacroix' 
"  Marc-Aurele,"  and  when  he  did  sell  a  picture  it  was  for  500 
or  600  francs;  nowadays  it  would  fetch  100,000  francs.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  drawings  of  Decamps'  admirable  "  Histoire 
de  Samson"  realized  1000  francs  each. 

Yet  Gabriel  Decamps  was  a  far  unhappier  man  than  Eugene 
Delacroix.  The  pictures  rejected  by  the  public  became  the 
"  apples  "  of  Delacroix'  eyes  with  which  .he  would  not  part, 
subsequently,  at  any  price,  as  in  the  case  of  his  "  Marino 
Faliero."  Decamps,  one  day,  while  he  lived  in  the  Faubourg 
Saint-Denis,  deliberately  destroyed  one  hundred  and  forty  draw- 
ings, the  like  of  which  were  eagerly  bought  up  for  a  thousand 
francs  apiece,  though  at  present  they  would  be  worth  four  times 
that  amount.  Delacroix  was  content  with  his  God-given 
genius  ;  "  he  saw  everything  he  had  made,  and  behold  it  was 
very  good."  Decamps  fumed  and  fretted  at  the  supposed  sys- 
tematic neglect  of  the  Government,  which  did  not  give  him  a 
commission.  "  You  paint  with  a  big  brush,  but  you  are  not  a 
great  painter,"  said  Sir  Joshua  to  a  would-be  Michael-Angelo. 
To  Gabriel  Decamps  the  idea  of  being  allowed  or  invited  by 
the  State  to  cover  a  number  of  yards  of  canvas  or  wall  or  ceil- 
ing, was  so  attractive  that  he  positively  lost  his  sleep  and  his 
appetite  over  it.  It  was,  perhaps,  the  only  bitter  drop  in  his 
otherwise  tolerably  full  cup  of  happiness,  but  that  one  drop 

*  The  annual  salon  was  held  in  the  Louvre  then ;  in  1849  it  was  transferred  to  the  Tuile- 
ries.  In  1850,  '51  and  '52  it  was  removed  to  the  galleries  of  the  Palais-Royal ;  in  1853  and 
'54  the  salon  was  held  in  the  Hotel  des  Menus-Plaisirs,  in  the  Faubourg  Poissonni^re, 
which  became  afterwards  the  storehouse  for  the  scenery  of  the  Grand  Opera.  In  1855  the 
exhibition  took  place  in  a  special  annex  of  the  Palcds  de  I'Industrie ;  after  that,  it  was  lodged 
in  the  Palais  itself. — Editor. 

t  Alfred  de  Dreux  vi-as  not  an  unknown  figure  in  London  society.  He  came  in  1848.  He 
was  a  kind  of  Comte  d'Orsay,  and  painted  chiefly  equestrian  figures.  After  the  Coup  d'Etat 
he  returned  to  Paris,  and  was  patronized  by  society,  and  subsequently  by  Napoleon  III. 
himself,  whose  portrait  he  painted.  He  was  killed  in  a  duel,  the  cause  of  which  has  never 
been  revealed. — Editor. 


152  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

very  frequently  embittered  the  whole.  He  had  many  good 
traits  in  his  character,  though  he  was  not  uniformly  good-tem- 
pered. There  was  an  absolute  indifference  as  to  the  monetary 
results  of  his  calling,  and  an  inherent  generosity  to  those  who 
"  had  fallen  by  the  way."  But  he  was  something  of  a  bear 
and  a  recluse,  not  because  he  disliked  society,  but  because  he 
deliberately  suppressed  his  sociable  qualities,  lest  he  should 
arouse  the  suspicion  of  making  them  the  stepping-stone  to  his 
ambition.  No  man  ever  misread  the  lesson,  "  Do  well  and  fear 
not,"  so  utterly  as  did  Decamps.  He  was  never  tired  of  well- 
doing ;  and  he  was  never  tired  of  speculating  what  the  world 
would  think  of  it.  There  is  not  a  single  picture  from  his 
brush  that  does  not  contain  an  original  thought ;  he  founded 
an  absolutely  new  school — no  small  thing  to  do.  The  world 
at  large  acknowledged  as  much,  and  yet  he  would  not  enjoy 
the  fruits  of  that  recognition,  because  it  lacked  the  "  official 
stamp."  When  Decamps  consented  to  forget  his  real  or  fan- 
cied grievances  he  became  a  capital  companion,  provided  one 
had  a  taste  for  bitter  and  scathing  satire,  I  fancy  Jonathan 
Swift  must  have  been  something  like  Gabriel  Decamps  in  his 
daily  intercourse  with  his  familiars.  But  he  rarely  said  an  ill- 
natured  thing  of  his  fellow-artists.  His  strictures  were  reserved 
for  the  political  men  of  his  time,  and  of  the  preceding  reign. 
The  Bourbons  he  despised  from  the  bottom  of  his  heart,  and 
during  the  Restoration  his  contempt  found  vent  in  caricatures, 
which,,  at  the  moment,  must  have  seared  like  a  red-hot  iron. 
He  had  kept  a  good  many  of  these  ephemeral  productions,  and, 
I  am  bound  to  say,  they  struck  one  afterwards  as  unnecessarily 
severe.  "  If  they  "  (meaning  the  Bourbons)  "  had  continued 
to  reign  in  France,"  he  said  one  day,  "  I  would  have  applied 
for  letters  of  naturalization  to  the  Sultan." 

Decamps  was  killed,  like  Gericault,  by  a  fall  off  his  horse, 
but  long  before  that  he  had  ceased  to  work.  "  I  cannot  add 
much  to  my  reputation,  and  do  not  care  to  add  to  my  store," 
he  said.  In  1855,  the  world  positively  rang  with  his  name, 
but  I  doubt  whether  this  universal  admiration  gave  him  much 
satisfaction.  He  exhibited  more  than  fifty  works  at  the  Ex- 
position Universelle  of  that  year,  a  good  many  of  which  had 
been  rejected  by  the  "hanging  committees "  of  previous 
salons.  True  to  his  system,  he  rarely,  perhaps  never  directly, 
called  the  past  judgment  in  question,  but  he  lived  and  died  a 
dissatisfied  man.  Unlike  MirabeaUj  who  had  not  the  courage 
to  be  unpopular,  Decamps  derived  ho  gratification  from  popu- 
larity. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  153 

I  knew  Eugene  Delacroix  better  than  any  of  the  others  in 
the  marvellous  constellation  of  painters  of  that  period,  and 
our  friendship  lasted  till  the  day  of  his  death,  in  December, 
1863.  I  was  also  on  very  good  terms  with  Horace  Vernet ; 
but  though  the  latter  was  perhaps  a  more  lively  companion, 
the  stronger  attraction  was  towards  the  former.  I  was  one  of 
the  few  friends  whom  he  tolerated  whilst  at  work.  Our  friend- 
ship lasted  for  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century,  and  during  that 
time  there  was  never  a  single  unpleasantness  between  us, 
though  I  am  bound  to  admit  that  Delacroix'  temper  was  very 
uncertain.  Among  all  those  men  who  had  a  profound,  inerad- 
icable contempt  for  the  bourgeois,  I  have  only  known  one  who 
despised  him  even  to  a  greater  extent  than  he  ;  it  was  Gustave 
Flaubert.  Though  Delacroix'  manners  were  perfect,  he  could 
scarcely  be  polite  to  the  middle  classes.  With  the  exception 
of  Dante  and  Shakespeare,  Delacroix  was  probably  the  great- 
est poet  that  ever  lived  ;  a  greater  poet  undoubtedly  than  Vic- 
tor Hugo,  in  that  he  was  absolutely  indifferent  to  the  material 
results  of  his  genius.  If  Shakespeare  and  the  author  of  the 
"  Inferno  "  had  painted,  they  would  have  painted  like  Dela- 
croix ;  his  "  Sardanapale  "  is  the  Byronic  poem,  condensed 
and  transferred  to  canvas. 

Long  as  I  knew  Delacroix,  I  had  never  been  able  to  make 
out  whether  he  was  tall  or  short,  and  most  of  his  friends  and 
acquaintances  were  equally  puzzled.  As  we  stood  around  his 
coffin  many  were  surprised  at  its  length.  His  was  decidedly  a 
curious  face,  at  times  stony  in  its  immobility,  at  others  quiver- 
ing from  the  tip  of  chin  to  the  juncture  of  the  eyebrows,  and 
with  a  peculiar  movement  of  the  nostrils  that  was  almost  pen- 
dulum-like in  its  regularity.  It  gave  one  the  impression  of 
their  being  assailed  by  some  unpleasant  smell,  and,  one  da}-, 
when  Delacroix  was  in  a  light  mood,  I  remarked  upon  it. 
"You  are  perfectly  right,"  he  replied;  "I  always  fancy  there 
is  corruption  in  the  air,  but  it  is  not  necessarily  of  a  material 
kind." 

Be  this  as  it  may,  he  liked  to  surround  himself  with  flowers, 
and  his  studio  was  often  like  a  hot-house,  apart  from  the  floral 
decorations.  The  temperature  was  invariably  very  high,  and 
even  then  he  would  shiver  now  arid  again.  I  have  always  had 
an  idea  that  Delacroix  had  Indian  blood  in  his  veins,  which 
idea  was  justified  to  a  certain  extent  by  his  appearance,  albeit 
that  there  was  no  tradition  to  that  effect  in  hisfamily.  But  ic 
was  neither  the  black  hair,  the  olive  skin,  nor  the  peculiar 
formation  of  the  features  whicJi  forced  that  conclusion  upon 


154 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 


me ;  it  was  the  character  of  Delacroix,  which  for  years  and 
years  I  endeavored  to  read  thoroughly,  without  succeeding  to 
any  appreciable  degree.  There  was  one  trait  that  stood  out  so 
distinctly  that  the  merest  child  might  have  perceived  it — his 
honesty  ;  but  the  rest  was  apparently  a  mass  of  contradiction. 
It  is  difficult  to  imagine  a  poet,  and  especially  a  painter-poet, 
without  an  absorbing  passion  for  some  woman — not  necessarily 
for  the  same  woman  ;  to  my  knowledge  Delacroix  had  no  such 
passion,  for  one  can  scarcely  admit  that  Jenny  Leguillou,  his 
housekeeper,  could  have  inspired  such  a  feeling.  True,  when 
I  first  knew  Delacroix  he  was  over  forty,  but  those  who  had 
known  him  at  twenty  and  twenty-five  never  hinted  at  any 
romantic  attachment  or  even  at  a  sober,  homely  affection. 
And  assuredly  a  man  of  forty  is  not  invulnerable  in  that  re- 
spect. And  yet,  the  woman  who  positively  bewitched,  one 
after  another,  so  many  of  Delacroix'  eminent  contemporaries, 
Jules  Sandeau,  Alfred  de  Musset,  Michel  de  Bourges,  Chopin, 
Pierre  Leroux,  Cabet,  Lammenais,  etc.,  had  no  power  over 
him. 

Paul  de  Musset,  perhaps  as  a  kind  of  revenge  for  the  wrongs 
suffered  by  his  brother,  once  gave  an  amusing  description  of 
the  miscarried  attempt  of  George  Sand  "  to  net "  Eugene 
Delacroix. 

It  would  appear  that  the  painter  had  shown  signs  of  yield- 
ing to  the  charms  which  few  men  were  able  to  withstand,  or, 
at  any  rate,  that  George  Sand  fancied  she  could  detect  such 
signs.  Whether  it  was  from  a  wish  on  George  Sand's  part  to 
precipitate  matters  or  to  nip  the  thing  in  the  bud,  it  would  be 
difficult  to  determine,  but  it  is  certain  that  she  pursued  her 
usual  tactics — that  is,  she  endeavored  to  provoke  an  admission 
of  her  admirer's  feeling.  Though  I  subsequently  ascertained 
that  Paul  de  Musset's  story  was  substantially  true,  I  am  not 
altogether  prepared,  knowing  his  animosity  against  her,  to 
accept  his  hinted  theory  of  the  lady's  desire  "  de  brusquer  les 
fian9ailles." 

One  morning,  then,  while  Delacroix  was  at  work,  George 
Sand  entered  his  studio.  She  looked  out  of  spirits,  and  al- 
most immediately  stated  the  purpose  of  her  visit. 

"  My  poor  Eugene !  "  she  began  ;  "I  am  afraid  I  have  got 
sad  news  for  you." 

''  Oh,  indeed,"  said  Delacroix,  without  interrupting  his  work, 
and  just  giving  her  one  of  his  cordial  smiles  in  guise  of  wel- 
come. 

"  Yes,  my  dear  friend,  I  have  carefully  consulted  my  own 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  155 

heart,  and  the  upshot  is,  I  am  grieved  to  tell  you,  that  I  feel  I 
cannot  and  could  never  love  you." 

Delacroix  kept  on  painting.     "  Is  that  a  fact  1 "  he  said. 

"  Yes,  and  I  ask  you  once  more  to  pardon  me,  and  to  give 
me  credit  for  my  candor — my  poor  Delacroix." 

Delacroix  did  not  budge  from  his  easel. 

"  You  are  angry  with  me,  are  you  not  ?  You  will  never 
forgive  me  ?  " 

"Certainly  I  will.  Only  I  want  you  to  keep  quiet  for  ten 
minutes ;  I  have  got  a  bit  of  sky  there  which  has  caused  me  a 
good  deal  of  trouble,  it  is  just  coming  right.  Go  and  sit  down 
or  else  take  a  little  walk,  and  come  back  in  ten  minutes." 

Of  course,  George  Sand  did  not  return;  and  equally,  of 
course,  did  not  tell  the  story  to  any  one,  but  somehow  it 
leaked  out.  Perhaps  Jenny  Leguillou  had  overheard  the  scene 
— she  was  quite  capable  of  listening  behind  a  screen  or  door — 
and  reported  it.  Delacroix  himself,  when  "chaffed  "  about  it, 
never  denied  it.  There  was  no  need  for  him  to  do  so,  because 
theoretically  it  redounded  to  the  lady's  honor ;  had  she  not 
rejected  his  advances  ? 

I  have  noted  it  here  to  prove  that  the  poetry  of  Delacroix 
n'allait  pas  se  faufiler  dans  les  jupons,  because,  though  we 
would  not  take  it  for  granted  that  where  George  Sand  failed 
others  would  have  succeeded,  it  is  nevertheless  an  authenti- 
cated fact  that  only  one  other  man  among  the  many  on  whom 
she  tried  her  wiles  remained  proof  against  them.  That  man 
was  Prosper  Merimee,  the  author  of  "  Colomba  "  and  "  Car- 
men," the  friend  of  Panizzi.  "  Quand  je  fais  un  roman,  je 
choisis  mon  sujet ;  je  ne  veux  pas  que  Ton  me  decoupe  pour 
en  faire  un.  Madame  Sand  ne  met  pas  ses  amants  dans  son 
coeur,  elle  les  mets  dans  ses  livres  ;  et  elle  le  fait  si  diablement 
vite  qu'on  n'a  pas  le  temps  de  la  devancer."  Merimee  was 
right,  each  of  George  Sand's  earlier  books  had  been  written 
with  the  heart's  blood  of  one  of  the  victims  of  her  insatiable 
passions — for  I  should  not  like  to  prostitute  the  word  "  love  " 
to  her  liaisons  ;  and  I  am  glad  to  think  that  Eugene  Delacroix 
was  spared  that  ordeal.  It  would  have  killed  him  ;  and  the 
painter  of  "  Sardanapale  "  was  more  precious  to  his  own  art 
than  to  hers,  which,  with  all  due  deference  to  eminent  critics, 
left  an  unpleasant  sensation  to  those  who  were  fortunate 
enough  to  be  free  from  incipient  hysteria. 

A  liaison  with  George  Sand  would  have  killed  Eugene  De- 
lacroix, I  am  perfectly  certain ;  for  he  would  have  staked  gold, 
she  would  have  only  played  with  counters.     It  would  have 


156  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS, 

been  the  vitiated  atmosphere  in  which  the  candle  of  his  life 
and  of  his  genius — which  were  one,  in  this  instance — would 
have  been  extinguished. 

As  it  was,  that  candle  burned  very  low  at  times,  because, 
during  the  years  I  knew  Delacroix,  he  had  nearly  always  one 
foot  in  the  grave  ;  the  healthy  breezes  of  art's  unpolluted  air 
made  the  candle  burn  brightly  now  and  again  ;  hence  the 
difference  in  quality,  as  striking,  of  some  of  his  pictures. 

Perhaps  on  account  of  his  delicate  health,  Delacroix  was 
not  very  fond  of  society,  in  which,  however,  he  was  ever  wel- 
come, and  particularly  fitted  to  shine,  though  he  rarely  at- 
tempted to  do  so.  I  have  said  that  Dante  and  Shakespeare, 
if  they  had  painted,  would  have  painted  as  Delacroix  did ;  I 
am  almost  tempted  to  add  that  if  Delacroix'  vocation  had  im- 
pelled him  that  way,  he  would  have  sung  as  they  sang — of 
course,  I  do  not  mean  that  he  would  have  soared  as  high,  but 
his  name  would  have  lived  in  literature  as  it  does  in  painting, 
though  perhaps  not  with  so  brilliant  a  halo  around  it.  For, 
unlike  many  great  painters  of  his  time,  Delacroix  was  essenti- 
ally lettre.  One  has  but  to  read  some  of  his  critical  essays  in 
the  Revue  des  Deux  Mo?ides  of  that  period,  to  be  convinced 
of  that  at  once.  Theophile  Gautier  said,  one  evening,  that  it 
was  "  the  style  of  a  poet  in  a  hurry."  The  sentences  give  one 
the  impression  of  newly-minted  gold  coins.  Nearly  every  one 
contains  a  thought,  which,  if  reduced  to  small  change,  would 
still  make  an  admirable  paragraph.  He  gives  to  his  readers 
what  he  expects  from  his  authors — a  sensation,  a  shock  in 
two  or  three  lines.  The  sentences  are  modelled  upon  his 
favorite  prose  author,  who,  curious  to  relate,  was  none  other 
than  Napoleon  I.  I  often  tried  to  interest  him  in  English 
literature.  Unfortunately,  he  knew  no  English  to  speak  of, 
and  was  obliged  to  have  recourse  to  translations.  Walter 
Scott  he  thought  long-winded,  and,  after  a  few  attempts  at 
Shakespeare  in  French,  he  gave  it  up.  "  Ca  ne  pent  pas  etre 
cela,"  he  said.  But  he  had  several  French  versions  of  "  Gul- 
liver's Travels,"  all  of  which  he  read  in  turn.  One  day,  I 
quoted  to  him  a  sentence  from  Carlyle's  "  Lectures  on  He- 
roes :  "  "  Show  me  how  a  man  sings,  and  I  will  tell  you  how 
he  will  fight."  "  C'est  cela,"  he  said  ;  "  if  Shakespeare  had 
been  a  general,  he  would  have  won  his  battles  like  Napoleon 
by  thunder  claps  "  (par  des  coups  de  foudre). 

Delacroix  had  what  a  great  many  Frenchmen  lack — a  keen 
sense  of  humor,  but  it  was  considerably  tempered  by  what, 
for  the  want  of  a  better  term,  I  may  call  the  bump  of  rever- 


■AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  157 

ence.  He  could  not  be  humorous  at  the  expense  of  those  he 
admired  or  respected,  consequently  his  attempts  at  caricature 
at  the  early  period  of  his  career  in  Le  Nain  Jatine  were  a  fail- 
ure ;  because  Delacroix'  admiration  and  respect  were  not  nec- 
essarily reserved  for  those  with  whom  he  agreed  in  art  or  poli- 
tics, but  for  every  one  who  attempted  something  great  or  use- 
ful, though  he  failed.  The  man  who,  at  the  age  of  sixty, 
would  enthusiastically  dilate  upon  his  meeting  forty  years  be- 
fore with  Gros,  whose  hat  he  had  knocked  off  by  accident,  was 
not  the  likely  one  to  hold  up  to  ridicule  the  celebrity  of  the 
hour  or  day  without  malice  prepense.  And  this  malice 
prepense  never  uprose  within  him,  except  in  the  presence  of 
some  bumptious,  ignorant  nobody.  Then  it  positively  boiled 
over,  and  he  did  not  mind  what  trick  he  played  his  interlocu- 
tor. The  latter  might  be  a  wealthy  would-be  patron,  an  influ- 
ential Government  official,  or  a  well-known  picture-dealer;  it 
was  all  the  same  to  Delacroix,  who  had  an  utter  contempt  for 
patronage,  nepotism,  and  money.  It  was  as  good  as  a  clever 
scene  in  a  comedy  to  see  him  rise  and  draw  himself  up  to  his 
full  height,  in  order  to  impress  his  victim  with  a  sense  of  the 
importance  of  what  he  was  going  to  say.  To  get  an  idea  of 
him  under  such  circumstances,  one  must  go  and  see  his  por- 
trait in  the  Louvre,  painted  by  himself,  with  the  semi-supercili- 
ous, semi-benevolent  smile  playing  upon  the  parted  lips,  and 
showing  the  magnificent  regular  set  of  teeth,  of  which  he  was 
very  proud,  beneath  the  black  bushy  moustache,  which  reminds 
one  curiously  of  that  of  Rembrandt.  Of  course,  the  victim  was 
mesmerized,  and  stood  listening  with  all  attention,  promising 
himself  to  remember  every  word  of  the  spoken  essay  on  art, 
with  the  view  of  reproducing  it  as  his  own  at  the  first  favorable 
opportunity.  And  he  generally  did,  to  his  own  discomfiture 
and  the  amusement  of  his  hearers,  who,  if  they  happened  to 
know  Delacroix,  which  was  the  case  frequently,  invariably  de- 
tected the  source  of  the  speaker's  information.  1  once  heard 
a  spoken  essay  on  Holbein  reproduced  in  that  way,  which 
would  have  simply  made  the  fortune  of  any  comic  writer.  The 
human  parrot  had  not  even  been  parrot-like,  for  he  had  mud- 
dled the  whole  in  transmission.  I  took  some  pains  to  repro- 
duce his  exact  words,  and  I  never  saw  Delacroix  laugh  as  when 
I  repeated  it  to  him.  For,  as  a  rule,  and  even  when  he  was 
mystifying-  tha,t  kind  of  numskull  in  the  presence  of  half  a 
dozen  well-informed  friends,  Delacroix  remained  perfectly  seri- 
ous, though  the  others  had  to  bite  their  lips  lest  they  should 
explode.     In  fact,  it  would  have  been  difficult  at  any  time  to 


158  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

guess  or  discover,  beneath  the  well-bred  man  of  the  world,  with 
his  charming,  courtly,  though  somewhat  distant  manner,  the 
painter,  who  gave  us  "  La  Barque  de  Dante,"  and  "  Les  Mas- 
sacres de  Scio  ;  "  still,  Delacroix  was  that  man  of  the  world, 
exceedingly  careful  of  his  appearance,  particular  to  a  degree 
about  his  nails,  which  he  wore  very  long,  dressed  to  perfection, 
and,  in  spite  of  the  episode  with"  George  Sand  recorded  above, 
most  ingratiating  with  women. 

Different  altogether  was  he  in  his  studio.  Though  he  was 
"  at  home  "  from  three  till  five,  to  visitors  of  both  sexes,  it  was 
distinctly  understood  that  he  would  not  interrupt  his  work  for 
them,  or  play  the  host  as  the  popular  painter  of  to-day  is  sup- 
posed to  do.  The  atelier,  encumbered  with  bric-a-brac  and 
sumptuous  hangings  and  afternoon  tea,  had  not  been  invented  : 
if  the  host  wore  a  velvet  coat,  a  Byronic  collar,  and  gorgeous 
papooshes,  it  was  because  he  liked  these  things  himself,  not 
because  he  intended  to  impress  his  visitors.  As  a  rule,  the 
host,  though  in  his  youth  perhaps  he  had  been  fond  of  ex- 
travagant costumes,  did  not  like  them :  Horace  Vernet  often 
worked  in  his  shirt-sleeves,  Paul  Delaroche  nearly  always  wore 
a  blouse,  and  Ingres,  until  he  became  "  a  society  man,"  which 
was  very  late  in  life,  donned  a  dressing-gown.  Delacroix  was, 
if  anything,  more  slovenly  than  the  rest  when  at  work.  An 
old  jacket  buttoned  up  to  the  chin,  a  large  muffler  round  his 
neck,  a  cloth  cap  pulled  over  his  ears,  and  a  pair  of  thick  felt 
slippers  made  up  his  usual  garb.  For  he  was  nearly  always 
shivering  with  cold,  and  had  an  affection  of  the  throat,  besides, 
which  compelled  him  to  be  careful.  "  But  for  my  wrapping 
up,  I  should  have  been  dead  at  thirty,"  he  said. 

Nevertheless,  at  the  stroke  of  eight,  winter  and  summer,  he 
was  in  his  studio,  which  he  did  not  leave  until  dark,  during 
six  months  of  the  year,  and  a  little  before,  during  the  other 
six.  Contrary  to  the  French  habit,  he  never  took  luncheon, 
and  generally  dined  at  home  a  little  after  six — the  fatigue  of 
dining  out  being  too  much  for  him. 

I  may  safely  say  that  I  was  one  of  Delacroix'  friends,  with 
whom  he  talked  without  restraint.  I  often  went  to  him  of  an 
evening  when  the  weather  prevented  his  going  abroad,  which, 
in  his  state  of  health,  was  very  often.  He  always  chafed  at 
such  confinement ;  for  though  not  fond  of  society  in  a  general 
way,  he  liked  coming  to  the  Boulevards,  aftey  his  work  was 
over,  and  mixing  with  his  familiars.  Delacroix  smoked,  but, 
unlike  many,  addicted  to  tobacco,  could  not  sit  idle.  His 
hands,  as  well  as  his  brain,  wanted  to  be  busy ;  consequently, 


AN  ENGLliiHMAN  IN  PA RJS.  1 5 9 

when  imprisoned  by  rain  or  snow,  he  sat  sketching  figures  or 
groups,  talking  all  the  while.  By  then  his  name  had  become 
familiar  to  every  art  student  throughout  the  world,  and  he  often 
received  flattering  letters  from  distant  parts.  One  evening, 
shortly  after  the  death  of  David  d'Angers,  to  an  episode  in 
whose  life  I  have  devoted  a  considerable  space  in  these  notes, 
Delacroix  received  an  American  newspaper,  the  title  of  which 
I  have  forgotten,  but  which  contained  an  exceedingly  able 
article  on  the  great  sculptor,  as  an  artist,  and  as  a  man.  It 
wound  up  with  the  question,  "And  what  kind  of  monument 
will  be  raised  to  him  by  the  man  who  virtually  shortened  his 
life  by  sending  him  into  exile,  because  David  remained  true  to 
the  republican  principles  which  Napoleon  only  shammed — or, 
if  not  shammed,  deliberately  trod  underfoot  to  ascend  a  tyrant's 
throne  ? " 

I  translated  the  whole  of  the  article,  and,  when  I  came  to 
the  last  lines,  Delacroix  shook  his  head  sadly.  "  You  remem- 
ber," he  said,  "the  answer  of  our  friend  Dumas,  when  they 
asked  him  for  a  subscription  towards  a  monument  to  a  man 
whom  every  one  had  reviled  in  the  beginning  of  his  career. 
*  They  had  better  be  content  with  the  stones  they  threw  at 
him  during  his  existence.  No  monument  they  can  raise  will 
be  so  eloquent  of  their  imbecility  and  his  genius.'  I  may  take 
it,"  he  went  on,  "that  such  a  question  will  be  raised  one  day 
after  my  death,  perhaps  many  years  after  I  am  gone.  If  you 
are  alive  you  will,  by  my  will,  raise  your  voice  against  the 
project.  I  have  painted  my  own  portrait ;  while  I  am  here,  I 
will  take  care  that  it  be  not  reproduced  ;  I  will  forbid  them  to 
do  so  after  I  am  at  rest.  There  shall  not  be  a  bust  on  my 
tomb." 

About  a  fortnight  before  his  death  he  made  a  will  to  that 
effect,  and  up  to  the  present  hour  (1883)  its  injunctions  have 
been  respected.  Delacroix  lies  in  a  somewhat  solitary  spot  in 
Pere-Lachaise.  Neither  emblem,  bust,  nor  statue  adorns  his 
tomb,  which  was  executed  according  to  his  own  instructions. 
"  They  libelled  me  so  much  during  my  life,"  he  said  one  day, 
"  that  I  do  not  want  them  to  libel  me  after  my  death,  on  canvas 
or  in  marble.  They  flattered  me  so  much  afterwards,  that  I 
know  their  flattery  to  be  fulsome,  and,  if  anything,  I  am  more 
afraid  of  it  than  of  their  libels." 

It  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  greater  contrast  than  there 
existed  between  Eugene  Delacroix,  both  as  a  man  and  an  artist, 
and  Horace  Vernet.  The  one  loved  his  art  with  the  passionate 
devotion  of  an  intensely  poetical  lover  for  his  wayward  mis- 


l6o  AN  ENGLlSHx^iAN  IN  PARIS. 

tress,  whom  to  cease  wooing  for  a  moment  might  mean  an 
irreparable  breach,  or,  at  least,  a  long  estrangement ;  the  other 
loved  his  with  the  calm  affection  of  the  cherished  husband  for 
the  faithful  wife  w4io  had  blessed  him  with  a  numerous  off- 
spring, whom  he  had  known  from  his  very  infancy,  a  marriage 
with  whom  had  been  decided  upon  when  he  was  a  mere  lad, 
whom,  he  might  even  neglect  for  a  little  while  without  the  bond 
being  in  any  way  relaxed.  According  to  their  respective  cer- 
tificates of  birth,  Vernet  was  the  senior  by  ten  years  of  Dela- 
croix. When  I  first  knew  them,  about  1840,  Vernet  looked 
ten  years  younger  than  Delacroix.  If  they  had  chosen  to  dis- 
guise themselves  as  musketeers  of  the  Louis  XIII.  period, 
Vernet  would  have  reminded  one  of  both  Aramis  and  D'Arta- 
gnan  ;  Delacroix,  of  Athos. 

Montaigne  spoke  Latin  before  he  could  speak  French; 
Vernet  drew  men  and  horses  before  he  had  mastered  either 
French  or  Latin.  His  playthings  were  stumpy,  worn-out 
brushes,  discarded  palettes,  and  sticks  of  charcoal ;  his  alpha- 
bet, the  pictures  of  the  Louvre,  where  his  father  occupied  a 
set  of  apartments,  and  where  he  was  born,  a  month  before  the 
outbreak  of  the  first  Revolution.  He  once  said  to  me,  "  Je 
suis  peintre  comme  il  y  a  des  hommes  qui  sont  rois — parceque 
ils  ne  peuvent  pas  etre  autre  chose.  II  fallait  un  homme  de 
genie  pour  sortir  d'un  pareil  bourbier  et  malheureusement  je 
n'ai  que  du  talent."  By  the  "  bourbier  "  he  meant  his  great- 
grandfather, his  two  grandfathers,  and  his  father,  all  of  whom 
were  painters  and  draughtsmen. 

Posterity  will  probably  decide  whether  Horace  Vernet  was 
a  genius  or  merely  a  painter  of  great  talent,  but  it  will  scarcely 
convey  an  approximate  idea  of  the  charm  of  the  man  himself. 
There  was  only  one  other  of  his  contemporaries  who  exercised 
the  same  spell  on  his  companions — Alexandre  Dumas  pere. 
Though  Vernet  was  a  comparative  dwarf  by  the  side  of  Dumas, 
the  men  had  the  same  qualities,  physical,  moral,  and  mental. 
Neither  of  them  knew  what  bodily  fatigue  meant ;  both  could 
work  for  fourteen  or  fifteen  hours  a  day  for  a  fortnight  or  a 
month ;  both  would  often  have  "  a  long  bout  of  idleness,"  as 
they  called  it,  which,  to  others  not  endowed  with  their  strength 
and  mental  activity,  would  have  meant  hard  labor.  Both  were 
fond  of  earning  money,  fonder  still  of  spending  it ;  both  created 
almost  without  an  effort.  Dumas  roared  with  laughter  while 
writing ;  Vernet  sang  at  the  top  of  his  voice  w^hile  painting,  or 
bandied  jokes  with  his  visitors,  who  might  come  and  go  as 
they  liked  at  all  hours.     Dumas,  especially  in  the  earlier  days 


A  A'  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  j6i 

of  his  career,  had  to  read  a  great  deal  before  he  could  catch 
the  local  color  of  his  novels  and  plays — he  himself  has  told 
us  that  he  was  altogether  ignorant  of  the  history  of  France. 
But  when  he  had  finished  reading  up  the  period  in  question, 
he  wrote  as  if  he  had  been  born  in  it.  Vernet  was  a  walking 
cyclopaedia  on  military  costume ;  he  knew,  perhaps,  not  much 
more  than  that,  but  that  he  knew  thoroughly,  and  never  had 
to  think  twice  about  the  uniforms  of  his  models,  and,  as  he 
himself  said,  "  I  never  studied  the  thing,  nor  did  I  learn  how  to 
paint  or  to  draw.  According  to  many  people,  I  do  not  know 
how  to  paint  or  to  draw  now  :  it  may  be  so  ;  at  any  rate  I  have 
the  comfort  of  having  wasted  nobody's  time  in  trying  to  learn." 

Like  Dumas,  he  was  very  proud  of  his  calling  and  of  the  name 
he  had  made  for  himself  in  it,  which  he  would  not  have  changed 
for  the  title  of  emperor — least  of  all  for  that  of  king  ;  for,  like  his 
great  contemporary,  he  was  a  republican  at  heart.  It  did  not 
diminish  either  his  or  Dumas'  admiration  for  Napoleon  I.  "  I 
can  understand  an  absolute  monarchy,  nay,  a  downright  auto- 
cracy, and  I  can  understand  a  republic,"  said  Vernet,  "  but  I 
fail  to  understand  the  use  of  a  constitutional  king,  just  because 
it  implies  and  entails  the  principle  of  succession  by  inheritance. 
An  autocracy  means  one  ruler  over  so  many  millions  of  sub- 
jects ;  a  constitutional  monarchy  means  between  five  and  six 
hundred  direct  rulers,  so  many  millions  of  indirect  ones,  and 
one  subject  who  is  called  king.  Who  would  leave  his  child 
the  inheritance  of  such  slavery  ?  A  la  bonne  heure,  give  me  a 
republic  such  as  we  understand  it  in  France,  all  rulers,  all 
natural-born  kings,  gods  in  mortals'  disguise  who  dance  to  the 
piping  of  the  devil.  There  have  been  two  such  since  I  was 
born ;  there  may  be  another  half-dozen  like  these  within  the 
next  two  centuries,  because,  before  you  can  have  an  ideal  re- 
public, you  must  have  ideal  republicans,  and  Nature  cannot 
afford  to  fritter  away  her  most  precious  gifts  on  a  lot  of  down- 
at-heels  lawyers  and  hobnail-booted  scum.  She  condescends 
now  and  then  to  make  an  ideal  tyrant — she  will  never  make 
a  nation  of  ideal  republicans.  You  may  just  as  well  ask  her 
to  make  a  nation  of  Raffaelles  or  Michael  Angelos,  or  Shake- 
speareSjOr  Moli^res." 

Both  men,  in  spite  of  their  republican  opinions,  were  person- 
ally attached  to  some  members  of  the  Orleans  family ;  both 
had  an  almost  invincible  objection  to  the  Bourbons.  Vernet 
had  less  occasion  to  be  outspoken  in  his  dislike  than  Dumas, 
but  he  refused  to  receive  the  Due  de  Berri  when  the  latter 
offered  to  come  and  see  the  battle-pieces  Vernet  was  painting 

u 


1 62  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

for  the  then  Duke  of  Orleans  (Louis-Philippe).  Vernet  had 
stipulated  that  his  paintings  should  illustrate  exclusively  the 
campaigns  of  the  First  Republic  and  the  Empire,  though  sub- 
sequently he  depicted  some  episodes  of  the  Algerian  wars,  in 
which  the  son  of  the  king  had  distinguished  himself.  "  Tri- 
color cockades  or  no  pictures,"  he  remarked,  and  Louis-Phi- 
lippe good-humoredly  acquiesced.  Though  courteous  to  a  de- 
gree, he  never  minced  matters  to  either  king  or  beggar.  While 
in  Russia  Nicholas  took  a  great  fancy  to  him.  It  appears  that 
the  painter,  who  must  have  looked  even  smaller  by  the  side  of 
the  Czar  than  he  did  by  that  of  Dumas,  had  accompanied  the 
former,  if  not  on  a  perilous,  at  least  on  a  very  uncomfortable 
journey  in  the  middle  of  the  winter.  He  and  the  Emperor 
were  the  only  two  men  who  had  borne  the  hardships  and  priva- 
tions without  grumbling,  nay,  with  Mark  Tapleyean  cheerful- 
ness. That  kind  of  fortitude  was  at  all  times  a  passport  to 
Nicholas'  heart,  doubly  so  in  this  instance,  by  reason  of  Vernet's 
by  no  means  robust  appearance.  From  that  moment  Nicholas 
became  very  attached  to,  and  would  often  send  for,  him.  They 
would  often  converse  on  subjects  even  more  serious,  and,  one 
day,  after  the  partition  of  Poland,  Nicholas  proposed  that 
Vernet  should  paint  a  picture  on  the  subject. 

*'  I  am  afraid  I  cannot  do  it,  sire,"  was  the   answer.     "  I 
have  never  painted  a  Christen  the  cross."  ^ 

"  The  moment  I  had  said  it,"  continued  Vernet,  when  he 
told  me  the  story,  which  is  scarcely  known,  "  I  thought  my 
last  hour  had  struck.  I  am  positively  certain  that  a  Russian 
would  have  paid  these  words  with  his  life,  or  at  least  with  life- 
long exile  to  Siberia.  I  shall  never  forget  the  ^k  he  gave 
me;  there  was  a  murderous  gleam  in  the  eyesY*but  it  was., 
over  in  an  instant.  Nevertheless,  I  feel  convinced  that 
Nicholas  was  mad,  and,  what  is  more,  I  feel  equally  convinced 
that  there  is  incipient  madness  throughout  the  whole  of  the 
Romanoff  family.  I  saw  a  good  many  of  its  members  during 
my  stay  in  Russia.  They  all  did  and  said  things  which  would 
have  landed  ordinary  men  and  women  in  a  lunatic  asylum. 
At  the  same  time  there  was  an  unmistakable  touch  of  genius 
about  some  of  them.  I  often  endeavored  to  discuss  the  mat- 
ter with  the  resident  foreign  physicians,  but,  as  you  may 
imagine,  they  were  very  reticent.  But  mark  my  words,  one 
day  there  will  be  a  terrible  flare-up.  Of  course,  the  foreigner, 
who  sees  the  superstitious  reverence,  the  slavish  respect  with 
which  they  are  surrounded,  scarcely  wonders  that  these  men 
and  women  should,  in  the  end,  consider  themselves  above,  and 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  i  (i^i 

irresponsible  to,  the  millions  of  grovelling  mortals  whom  they 
rule ;  in  spite  of  all  this,  the  question  can  only  be  one  of  time, 
and  when  the  Russian  Empire  falls,  the  cataclysm  will  be  un- 
like any  other  that  has  preceded  it." 

There  was  a  comic  side  to  Horace  Vernet's  character.  By 
dint  of  painting  battle-pieces  he  had  come  to  consider  himself 
an  authority  on  strategy  and  tactics,  and  his  criticisms  on  M. 
Thiers'  system  of  fortifications  used  to  set  us  roaring.  I  am 
under  the  impression — though  I  will  not  strictly  vouch  for  it — 
that  at  the  recommendation  of  one  or  two  of  the  inveterate 
jokers  of  our  set,  Laurent-Jan*  and  Mery,  he  had  a  couple  of 
interviews  with  M.  Thiers,  but  we  never  ascertained  the  result 
of  them.  It  is  almost  certain  that  the  minister  of  Louis- 
Philippe,  who  at  one  period  of  his  life  considered  himself  a 
Napoleon  and  a  Vauban  rolled  into  one,  did  not  entertain 
Vernet's  suggestions  with  the  degree  of  enthusiasm  to  which 
he  thought  them  entitled  ;  at  any  rate,  from  that  time,  the  men- 
tion of  M.  Thiers'  name  generally  provoked  a  contemptuous 
shrug  of  the  shoulders  on  Vernet's  part.  "  C'est  tout  a  fait 
comme  Napoleon  et  Jomini,  mon  cher  Vernet,"  said  Laurent- 
Jan  ;  "  mais,  apres  tout,  qu'est  que  cela  vous  fait  ?  La  pos- 
terity jugera  entre  vous  deux,  elle  saura  bien  debrouiller  la 
part  que  vous  avez  contribuee  a  ces  travaux  immortels." 

Much  as  Horace  Vernet  admired  his  great  contemporaries 
in  art  and  literature,  his  greatest  worship  was  reserved  for 
Alfred  de  Vigny,  the  soldier-poet,  though  the  latter  was  by  no 
means  a  sympathetic  companion.  Next  to  his  society,  which 
was  rarely  to  be  had,  he  preferred  that  of  Arthur  Bertrand, 
the  son  of-^^ooleon's  companion  in  exile.  Arthur  Bertrand 
.4iad;an'^ftMWrother,  Napoleon  Bertrand,  who,  at  the  storming 
-  of  CfTnstantine,  put  on  a  new  pair  of  white  kid  gloves,  brought 
from  Paris  for  the  purpose.  Horace  Vernet  made  at  least 
fifty  sketches  of  that  particular  incident,  but  he  never  painted 
the  picture.  "  I  could  not  do  it  justice,"  he  said,  when  re- 
monstrated with  for  his  procrastination.  "I  should  fail  to 
realize  the  grandeur  of  the  thing."  Thereupon  Laurent-Jan, 
who  had  no  bump  of  reverence,  proposed  a  poem,  in  so  many 
cantos,  to  be  illustrated  by  Vernet.  I  give  the  plan  as  de- 
veloped by  the  would-be  author. 

I.  The  kid  in  its  ancestral  home  among  the  mountains.     A 

*  Laurent- Jan  was  a  witty,  though  incorrigibly  idle  journalist.  He  is  entirely  forgotten 
now  save  by  such  men  as  MM.  Ars^ne  Houssaye  and  Roger  de  Beauvoir,  who  were  his 
contemporaries.  He  was  the  author  of  a  clever  parody  on  Kotzebue's  "  Menschenhass  und 
Reue,"  known  on  the  English  stage  as  "  The  Stranger." — Editor. 


1 64  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

mysterious  voice  from  heaven  tells  it  that  its  skin  will  be  re- 
quired for  a  pair  of  gloves.  The  kid  objects,  and  inquires 
why  the  skin  of  some  other  kid  will  not  do  as  well.  The 
voice  reveals  the  glorious  purpose  of  the  gloves.  The  kid 
consents,  and  at  the  same  moment  a  hunter  appears  in  sight. 
The  kid,  instead  of  taking  to  its  heels,  assumes  a  favorable 
position  to  be  shot.     It  makes  a  dying  speech. 

2.  A  glove-shop  on  the  Boulevard.  Enter  Napoleon  Ber- 
trand,  asking  for  a  pair  of  gloves.  The  girl  tells  him  that  she 
has  only  one  pair  left,  and  communicates  the  legend  connected 
with  it.  The  price  is  twenty  francs.  Napoleon  Bertrand 
demurs  at  it,  and  tells  her,  in  his  turn,  what  the  gloves  are 
wanted  for.  The  girl  refuses  to  take  the  money,  and  her  em- 
ployer, overhearing  the  conversation,  dismisses  her  there  and 
then.  He  keeps  the  wages  due  to  her  as  the  price  of  the 
gloves.  Napoleon  Bertrand  puts  the  latter  in  his  pocket, 
offers  the  girl  his  arm,  and  invites  her  to  breakfast  in  a  cabi?iet 
partiailier,  "en  tout  bien,  en  tout'  honneur."  To  prove  his 
perfectly  honorable  intentions,  he  tells  her  the  story  of  Jeanne 
d'Arc.  The  girl's  imagination  is  fired  by  the  recital,  and  after 
luncheon  she  goes  in  search  of  a  book  on  the  subject.  An 
unscrupulous,  dishonest  second-hand  bookseller  palms  off  an 
edition  of  Voltaire's  "  La  Pucelle."  The  girl  writes  to  Napo- 
leon Bertrand  to  tell  him  that  he  has  made  a  fool  of  her,  that 
Jeanne  d'Arc  was  no  better  than  she  should  be,  and  that  she 
is  going  to  join  the  harem  of  the  Bey  of  Constantine. 

3.  Napoleon  Bertrand  stricken  with  remorse  before  Constan- 
tine. Orders  given  for  the  assault.  Napoleon  Bertrand  looks 
for  his  gloves,  and  finds  that  they  are  too  small.  He  can  just 
get  them  on,  but  cannot  grasp  the  handle  of  the  sword.  His 
servant  announces  a  mysterious  stranger,  a  veiled  female 
stranger.  She  is  admitted  ;  she  has  made  her  escape  from 
the  harem ;  a  mysterious  voice  from  heaven — the  same  that 
spoke  to  the  kid — having  warned  her  the  night  before  that  the 
gloves  would  be  too  small,  and  that  she  was  to  let  a  piece  in. 
Reconciliation.  Tableau.  The  bugles  are  sounding  "  boot  and 
saddle."     Storming  of  Constantine. 

I  have  reproduced  the  words  of  Laurent-Jan ;  I  will  not  at- 
tempt to  reproduce  his  manner,  which  was  simply  inimitable. 
Horace  Vernet  and  Arthur  Bertrand  shook  with  laughter,  and 
the  latter  offered  Laurent-Jan  to  keep  him  for  a  twelvemonth 
if  he  would  write  the  poem.  Jan  consented,  and  lived  upon 
the  fat  of  the.  land  during  that  time,  but  the  poem  never  saw 
the  light. 


AI\r  ENGLISHMAN-  IN  PARIS.  t6^ 

Arthur  Bertrand  was  one  of  the  most  jovial  fellows  of  his 
time.  He,  Eugene  Sue,  and  Latour-Mezeria  were  the  best 
customers  of  the  florist  on  the  Boulevards.  It  was  he  who  ac- 
companied the  Prince  de  Joinville  to  St.  Helena  to  bring  back 
the  remains  of  Napoleon.  After  their  return,  a  new  figure 
joined  our  set  now  and  then.  It  was  the  Abbe  Coquereau, 
the  chaplain  of  "  La  Belle-Poule."  The  Abbe  Coquereau  was 
the  first  French  Catholic  priest  who  discarded  the  gown  and 
the  shovel  hat,  and  adopted  that  of  the  English  clergy.  He 
was  a  charming  man,  and  by  no  means  straight-laced,  but  he 
drew  the  line  at  accompanying  Arthur  in  his  nightly  perambu- 
lations. One  evening  he,  Arthur  Bertrand,  and  Alexandre 
Dumas  were  strolling  along  the  Boulevards  when  the  latter 
tried  to  make  the  abbe  enter  the  Varietes.  The  abbe  held 
firm,  or  rather  took  to  his  heels. 

In  those  days  there  were  still  a  great  many  veterans  of  the 
grande  armee  about,  and  a  great  deal  of  Horace  Vernet's 
money  went  in  entertaining  them  at  the  various  cafes  and 
restaurants — especially  when  he  was  preparing  sketches  for  a 
new  picture.  The  ordinary  model,  clever  and  eminently  use- 
ful as  he  was  at  that  period,  was  willingly  discarded  for  the 
old  and  bronzed  warrior  of  the  Empire,  some  of  whom  were 
even  then  returning  from  Africa.  "  They  may  just  as  well 
earn  the  money  I  pay  the  others,"  he  said  ;  consequently  it 
was  not  an  unusual  thing  to  see  a  general,  a  couple  of  colonels, 
half  a  dozen  captains,  and  as  many  sergeants  and  privates,  all 
of  whom  had  served  under  Napoleon,  in  Vernet's  studio  at  the 
same  time.  Of  course  the  officers  were  only  too  pleased  to 
give  their  services  gratuitously,  but  Vernet  had  a  curious  way 
of  making  up  his  daily  budget.  Twenty  models  at  four  francs 
— for  models  earned  no  more  then — eighty  francs.  Fifteen  of 
them  refuse  their  pay.  The  eighty  francs  to  be  divided  be- 
tween five.  And  the  five  veterans  enjoyed  a  magnificent  in- 
come for  weeks  and  weeks  at  a  time. 

Truth  compels  me  to  state,  however,  that  during  those  weeks 
"  the  careful  mother  could  not  have  taken  her  daughter  "  to 
Vernet's  studio.  A  couple  of  live  horses,  not  unfrequently 
three,  an  equal  number  of  stuffed  ones,  camp  kettles,  broken 
limbers,  pieces  of  artillery,  an  overturned  ammunition  wagon, 
a  collection  of  uniforms,  that  would  have  made  the  fortune 
of  a  costumier,  scattered  all  over  the  place  ;  drums, 
swords,  guns  and  saddles  :  and,  amidst  this  confusion,  a  score 
of  veterans,  some  of  whom  had  been  comrades-in-arms  and 
who  seemed  oblivious,  for  the  time  being,  of  their  hard-earned 


l66  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARt^. 

promotion  in  the  company  of  those  who  had  been  less  lucky 
than  they,  every  man  smoking  his  hardest  and  telling  his  best 
garrison  story  :  all  these  made  up  a  scene  worthy  of  Vernet 
himself,  but  somewhat  appalling  to  the  civilian  who  happened 
to  come  upon  it  unawares. 

Vernet  was  never  happier  than  when  at  work  under  such 
circumstances.  Perched  on  a  movable  scaffolding  or  on  a 
high  ladder,  he  reminded  one  much  more  of  an  acrobat  than 
of  a  painter.  Like  Dumas,  he  could  work  amidst  a  very  Babel 
of  conversation,  but  the  sound  of  music,  however  good,  dis- 
turbed him.  In  those  days,  itinerant  Italian  musicians  and 
pifferari,  who  have  disappeared  from  the  streets  of  Paris 
altogether  since  the  decree  of  expulsion  of  '8i,  were  numer- 
ous, and  grew  more  numerous  year  by  year.  I,  for  one,  feel 
sorry  for  their  disappearance,  for  I  remember  having  spent 
half  a  dozen  most  delightful  evenings  listening  to  them. 

The  thing  happened  in  this  way.  Though  my  regular  visits 
to  the  Quartier-Latin  had  ceased  long  ago,  I  returned  now  and 
then  to  my  old  haunts  during  the  years  '63  and  '64,  in  com- 
pany of  a  young  Englishman  who  was  finishing  his  medical 
studies  in  Paris,  who  had  taken  up  his  quarters  on  the  left 
bank  of  the  Seine,  and  who  has  since  become  a  physician 
in  very  good  practice  in  the  French  capital.  He  had  been 
specially  recommended  to  me,  and  I  was  not  too  old  to  enjoy 
an  evening  once  a  week  or  a  fortnight  among  my  juniors.  At 
a  cafe,  which  has  been  demolished  since  to  make  room  for  a 
much  more  gorgeous  establishment  at  the  corners  of  the 
Boulevards  Saint-Michel  and  Saint-Germain,  we  used  to  notice 
an  elderly  gentleman,  scrupulously  neat  and  exquisitely  clean, 
though  his  clothes  were  very  threadbare.  He  always  sat  at 
the  same  table  to  the  right  of  the  counter.  His  cup  of  coffee 
was  eked  out  by  frequent  supplements  of  water,  and  mean- 
while he  was  always  busy  copying  music — at  least,  so  it  seemed 
to  us  at  first.  We  soon  came  to  a  different  conclusion,  though, 
because  every  now  and  then  he  would  put  down  his  pen,  lean 
back  against  the  cushioned  seat,  look  up  at  the  ceiling  and 
smile  to  himself — such  a  sweet  smile  ;  the  smile  of  a  poet  or 
an  artist,  seeking  inspiration  from  the  spirits  supposed  to  be 
hovering  now  and  then  about  such. 

That  man  was  no  copyist,  but  an  obscure,  unappreciated 
genius  perhaps,  biding  his  chance,  hoping  against  hope,  mean- 
while living  a  life  of  jealously  concealed  dreams  and  hardship. 
For  he  looked  sad  enough  at  the  best  of  times,  with  a  kind  of 
settled  melancholy  which  apparently  only  one  thing  could  dis 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  167 

pel — the  advent  of  a  couple  or  trio  of  pifferari.  Then  his  face 
would  light  up  all  of  a  sudden,  he  would  gently  push  his  music 
away,  speak  to  them  in  Italian, .asking  them  to  play  certain 
pieces,  beating  time  with  an  air  of  contentment  which  was 
absolutely  touching  to  behold.  On  the  other  hand,  the  young 
pifferari  appeared  to  treat  him  with  greater  deference  than 
they  did  the  other  customers  ;  the  little  girl  who  accompanied 
them  was  particularly  eager  for  his  approval. 

In  a  little  while  we  became  very  friendly  with  the  old  gentle- 
man, and,  one  evening,  he  said,  "  If  you  will  be  here  next 
Wednesday,  the  pifferari  will  give  us  something  new." 

On  the  evening  in  question  he  looked  quite  smart  ;  he  had 
evidently  "  fait  des  frais  de  toilette,"  as  our  neighbors  have  it ; 
he  wore  a  different  coat,  and  his  big  white  neckcloth  was  some- 
what more  starched  than  usual.  He  seemed  quite  excited. 
The  pifferari,  on  the  other  hand,  seemed  anxious  and  subdued. 
The  cafe  was  very  full,  for  all  the  habitues  liked  the  old  gentle- 
man, and  had  made  it  a  point  of  responding  to  his  quasi-invita- 
tion.  They  were  well  rewarded,  for  I  have  rarely  heard 
sweeter  music.  It  was  unlike  anything  we  were  accustomed 
to  hear  from  such  musicians  ;  there  was  an  old-world  sound 
about  it  that  went  straight  to  the  heart,  and  when  we  looked 
at  the  old  gentleman  amidst  the  genuine  applause 'after  the 
termination  of  the  first  piece,  there  were  two  big  tears  coursing 
down  his  wrinkled  cheeks. 

The  pifferari  came  again  and  again,  and  though  they  never 
appealed  to  him  directly,  we  instinctively  guessed  that  there 
existed  some  connection  between  them.  All  our  efforts  to  get 
at  the  truth  of  the  matter  were,  however,  in  vain,  for  the  old 
gentleman  was  very  reticent. 

Meanwhile  my  young  friend  had  passed  his  examinations,  and 
shifted  his  quarters  to  my  side  of  the  river.  He  did  not 
abandon  the  Quartier-Latin  altogether,  but  my  inquiries 
about  the  old  musician  met  with  no  satisfactory  response. 
He  had  disappeared.  Nearly  two  years  went  by,  when,  one  after- 
noon, he  called.  "  Come  with  me,"  he  said  ;  "  I  am  going  to 
show  you  a  curious  nook  of  Paris  which  you  do  not  know,  and 
take  you  to  an  old  acquaintance  whom  you  will  be  pleased  to 
see  again." 

The  "  curious  nook"  of  Paris  still  exists  to  a  certain  extent, 
only  the  pifferari  have  disappeared  from  it.  It  is  situated 
behind  the  Pantheon,  and  is  more  original  than  its  London 
counterpart — Saffron  Hill.  It  is  like  a  corner  of  old  Rome, 
Florence,  or  Naples,  without  the  glorious  Italian  sun  shining 


1 68  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

above  it  to  lend  picturesqueness  to  the  rags  and  tatters  of  its 
population  ;  swarthy  desperadoes  with  golden  rings  in  their 
ears  and  on  their  grimy  fingers,  their  greasy,  soft  felt  hats 
cocked  jauntily  on  their  heads,  or  drawn  over  the  flashing 
dark  eyes,  before  which  their  womankind  cower  and  shake  ; 
old  men  who  but  for  the  stubble  on  their  chins  would  look 
like  ancient  cameos ;  girls  with  shapely  limbs  and  hand- 
some faces ;  middle-aged  women  who  remind  one  of  the 
witches  in  Macbeth  ;  w^omen  younger  still,  who  have  neither 
shape  nor  make  ;  urchins  and  little  lassies  who  remind  one  of 
the  pictures  of  Murillo  :  in  short,  a  population  of  wood-carvers 
and  modellers,  vendors  of  plaster  casts,  artist-models,  sugar- 
bakers  and  mosaic-workers,  living  in  the  streets  the  greater 
part  of  the  day,  retiring  to  their  wretched  attics  at  night,  sober 
and  peaceful  generally,  but  desperate  and  unmanageable  when 
in  their  cups. 

The  cab  stopped  before  a  six-storied  house  which  had  seen 
better  days,  in  a  dark,  narrow  street,  into  which  the  light  of 
day  scarcely  penetrated.  The  moment  we  alighted  we  heard  a 
charivari  of  string  instruments  and  voices,  and  as  we  ascended 
the  steep,  slimy,  rickety  staircase  the  sound  grew  more  distinct. 
When  we  reached  the  topmost  landing,  my  friend  knocked  at 
one  of  the  three  or  four  doors,  and,  without  waiting  for  an 
answer,  we  entered.  It  was  a  scantily  furnished  room  with  a 
bare  brick  floor,  an  old  bedstead  in  one  corner,  a  few  rush- 
bottomed  chairs,  and  a  deal  table  ;  but  everything  was  scru- 
pulously clean.  Behind  the  table,  a  cotton  nightcap  on  his 
head,  his  tall  thin  frame  wrapt  in  an  old  overcoat,  stood  our 
old  friend,  the  composer ;  in  front,  half  a  dozen  urchins,  in 
costumes  vaguely  resembling  those  of  the  Calabrian  peasantry, 
grimy  like  coalheavers,  their  black  hair  standing  on  end  with 
attention,  were  rehearsing  a  new  piece  of  music.  Then  I  under- 
stood it  all.  He  was  the  professor  of  pifferari,  an  artist  for  all 
that,  an  unappreciated  genius,  perhaps,  who,  rather  than  not  be 
heard  at  all,  introduced  a  composition  of  his  own  into  their 
hackneyed  programme,  and  tasted  the  sweets  of  popularity, 
without  the  accompanying  rewards  which,  nowadays,  popularity 
invariably  brings.  This  one  had  known  Paisiello  and  Rossini, 
had  been  in  the  thick  of  the  excitement  on  the  first  night  of 
the  "  Barbiere,"  and  had  dreamt  of  similar  triumphs.  Perhaps 
his  genius  was  as  much  entitled  to  them  as  that  of  the  others, 
but  he  had  loved  not  wisely,  but  .too  well,  and  when  he  awoke 
from  the  love-dream,  he  was  too  ruined  in  body  and  mind  to 
be  able  to  work  for  the  realization  of  the  artistic  one,     He 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  169 

would  accept  no  aid.  Three  years  later,  we  carried  him  to  his 
grave.  A  simple  stone  marks  the  place  in  the  cemetery  of 
Montparnasse. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

As  will  appear  by-and-by,  I  was  an  eye-witness  of  a  good 
many  incidents  of  the  Revolution  of  '48,  and  a  great  many 
more  have  been  related  to  me  by  friends,  whose  veracity  was 
and  still  is  beyond  suspicion.  Neither  they  nor  I  have  ever 
been  able  to  establish  a  sufficiently  valid  political  cause  for 
that  upheaval.  Perhaps  it  was  because  we  were  free  from  the 
prejudices  engendered  by  what,  for  want  of  a  better  term,  I  must 
call  "  dynastic  sentiment."  We  were  not  blind  to  the  faults  of 
Louis- Philippe,  but  we  refused  to  look  at  them  through  the  spec- 
tacles supplied  in  turns  by  the  Legitimists,  the  Imperialists, 
and  Republicans.  How  far  these  spectacles  were  calculated 
to  improve  people's  vision,  the  following  specimen  will  show. 

I  have  lying  before  me  a  few  sheets  of  quarto  paper,  sewn 
together  in  a  primitive  way.  It  is  a  manuscript  skit,  in  the 
form  of  a  theatrical  duologue,  professing  to  deal  with  the  king's 
well-known  habit  of  shaking  hands  with  every  one  with  whom 
he  came  in  contact.  The  dramatis  personce  are  King  Fip  I., 
Roi  des  Epiciers-read,  King  of  the  Philistines  or  Shopkeepers, 
and  his  son  and  heir.  Grand  Poulot  (Big  Spooney).  The 
monarch  is  giving  the  heir-apparent  a  lesson  in  the  art  of 
governing.  "  Do  not  be  misled,"  he  says,  "  by  a  parcel  of 
theorists,  who  will  tell  you  that  the  citizen-monarchy  is  based 
upon  the  sovereign  will  of  the  people,  or  upon  the  strict  ob- 
servance of  the  Charter ;  this  is  merely  so  much  drivel  from 
the  political  Rights  or  Lefts.  In  reality,  it  does  not  signify  a 
jot  whether  France  be  free  at  home  and  feared  and  respected 
abroad,  whether  the  throne  be  hedged  round  with  republican 
institutions  or  supported  by  an  hereditary  peerage,  whether  the 
language  of  her  statesmen  be  weighty  and  the  deeds  of  her 
soldiers  heroic.  The*  citizen-monarchy  and  the  art  of  govern- 
ing consist  of  but  one  thing — the  capacity  of  the  principal 
ruler  for  shaking  hands  with  any  and  every  ragamuffin  and 
out-of-elbows  brute  he  meets."  Thereupon  King  Fip  shows 
his  son  how  to  shake  hands  in  every  conceivable  position — on 
foot,  on  horseback,  at  a  gallop,  at  a  trot,  leaning  out  of  a 
carriage,  and  so  forth.     Grand  Poulot  is  not  only  eager  to 


1 7  o  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

learn,  but  ambitious  to  improve  upon  his  sire's  method.  "  Hoa^ 
would  it  do,  dad,"  he  asks,  "  if,  in  addition  to  shaking  hands 
with  them,  one  inquired  after  their  health,  in  the  second  person 
singular — '  Comment  vas  tu,  mon  vieux  cochon  ? '  or,  better 
still,  *  Comment  vas  tu,  mon  vieux  citoyen  ? ' "  "  It  would  do 
admirably,"  says  papa  ;  "  but  it  does  not  matter  whether  you 
say  cochon  or  citoyen,  the  terms  are  synonymous." 

I  am  inclined  to  think  that  beneath  this  rather  clever  banter 
there  was  a  certain  measure  of  truth.  Louis-Philippe  was  by 
no  means  the  ardent  admirer  of  the  bourgeoisie  he  professed 
to  be.  He  did  not  foster  any  illusions  with  regard  to  their 
intellectual  worth,  and  in  his  inmost  heart  he  resented  their 
so-called  admiration  of  him,  which  he  knew  to  be  would-be 
patronage  under  another  name.  They  had  formed  a  hedge 
round  him  which  prevented  any  attempt  on  his  part  at  con- 
ciliating his  own  caste,  the  old  noblesse.  It  is  doubtful  whether 
he  would  have  been  successful,  especially  in  the  earlier  years 
of  his  reign  ;  but  their  ostracism  of  him  and  his  family  rankled 
in  his  mind,  and  found  vent  now  and  again  in  an  epigram  that 
stung  the  author  as  much  as  the  party  against  which  it  was 
directed.  "  There  is  more  difficulty  in  getting  people  to  my 
court  entertainments  from  across  the  Seine  than  from  across 
the  Channel,"  he  said. 

The  fact  is,  that  the  whole  of  the  Faubourg  St.  Germain  was 
conspicuous  by  its  absence  from  the  Tuileries  in  those  days, 
and  that  the  English  were  in  rather  too  great  a  majority. 
They  were  not  always  a  distinguished  company.  I  was  little 
more  than  a  lad  at  this  time,  but  I  remember  Lord 's  in- 
variable answer  when  his  friends  asked  him  what  the  dinner 
had  been  like,  and  whether  he  had  enjoyed  himself :  "  The 
dinner  was  like  that  at  a  good  table-d'hote,  and  I  enjoyed  my- 
self as  I  would  enjoy  myself  at  a  good  hotel  in  Switzerland  or 
at  Wiesbaden,  where  the  proprietor  knew  me  personally,  and 
had  given  orders  to  the  head  waiter  to  look  after  my  comforts. 
But,"  he  added,  "  it  is,  after  all,  more  pleasant  dining  there, 
when  the  English  are  present.  At  any  rate,  there  is  no  want 
of  respect.  When  the  French  sit  round  the  table,  it  is  not 
like  a  king  dining  with  his  subjects,  but  like  half  a  hundred 
kings  dining  with  one  subject."  Allowing  for  a  certain  amount 
of  exaggeration,  there  was  a  good  deal  of  truth  in  the  remarks, 
as  I  found  out  afterwards.  "  The  bourgeoisie  in  their  attitude 
towards  me,"  said  Louis-Philippe,  one  day,  to  the  English 
nobleman  I  have  just  quoted,  "  are  always  reminding  me  of 
Adalb^ron  of  Rheims  with  Hugues  Capet :   '  Qui  t'as  fait  roi?' 


c 


AN  ENGL  ISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  1 7 1 

asked  the  bishop.  '  Qui  t'as  fait  due  ? '  retorted  the  king. 
I  have  made  them  dukes  to  a  greater  extent,  though,  than  they 
have  made  me  king." 

For  Louis-Philippe  was  a  witty  king — wittier,  perhaps,  than 
any  that  had  sat  on  the  throne  of  France  since  Henri  IV. 
Some  of  his  mots  have  become  historical,  and  even  his  most 
persistent  detractors  have  been  unable  to  convict  him  of  pla- 
giarism with  regard  to  them.  What  he  specially  excelled  in 
was  the  "  mot  de  la  fin  "  anglice — the  clenching  of  an  argu- 
ment, such  as,  for  instance,  his  final  remark  on  the  death  of 
Talleyrand.  He  had  paid  him  a  visit  the  day  before.  When 
the  news  of  the  prince's  death  was  brought  to  him,  he  said, 
"  Are  you  sure  he  is  dead  t  " 

"  Very  sure,  sire,"  was  the  answer.  "  Why,  did  not  your 
majesty  himself  notice  yesterday  that  he  was  dying  ?  " 

"  I  did,  but  there  is  no  judging  from  appearances  with  Tal- 
leyrand, and  I  have  been  asking  myself  for  the  last  four  and 
twenty  hours  what  interest  he  could  possibly  have  in  departing 
at  this  particular  moment." 

To  those  who  knew  Louis-Philippe  personally,  it  was  very 
patent  that  he  disliked  those  who  had  been  instrumental  in 
setting  him  on  the  throne,  and  who,  under  the  cloak  of  "  liberty, 
fraternity,  and  equality,"  were  seeking  their  own  interest  only, 
namely,  the  bourgeoisie.  He  knew  their  quasi-good  will  to 
him  to  be  so  much  sheer  hypocrisy,  and  perhaps  he  and  they 
were  too  much  alike  in  some  respects,  in  their  love  of  money 
for  the  sake  of  hoarding  it.  It  was,  perhaps,  the  only  serious 
failing  that  could  be  laid  to  the  charge  of  the  family,  because 
none  of  its  members,  with  the  exception  of  the  Due  d'Orleans, 
were  entirely  free  from  it.  It  must  not  be  inferred,  though, 
that  Louis-Philippe  kept  his  purse  closed  to  really  deserving 
cases  of  distress.  Far  from  it.  I  have  the  following  story 
from  my  old  tutor,  to  whom  I  am,  moreover,  indebted  for  a 
great  many  notes,  dealing  with  events  of  which  I  could  not 
possibly  have  had  any  knowledge  but  for  him. 

In  1829  the  greater  part  of  the  Galerie  d'Orleans  in  the 
Palais-Royal  was  completed.  The  unsightly  wooden  booths 
had  been  taken  down,  and  the  timber  must  have  been 
decidedly  worth  a  small  fortune.  Several  contractors  made 
very  handsome  offers  for  it,  but  Louis-Philippe  (then 
Due  d'Orleans)  refused  to  sell  it.  It  was  to  be  distributed 
among  the  poor  of  the  neighborhood  for  fuel  for  the  ensuing 
winter,  which  threatened  to  be  a  severe  one.  One  day,  when 
th^  duke  was  inspecting  the  works  in  company  of  his  steward, 


172  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PA RIS. 

an  individual,  who  was  standing  a  couple  of  yards  away,  began 
to  shout  at  the  top  of  his  voice,  "  Vive  Louis-Philippe !  " 
"  Go  and  see  what  the  fellow  wants,  for  assuredly  he  wants 
something,"  said  the  duke,  who  was  a  Voltairean  in  his  way, 
and  had  interpreted  the  man's  enthusiasm  aright.  Papa  Sour- 
nois  was  one  of  those  nondescripts  for  whom  even  now  there 
appear  to  be  more  resources  in  the  French  capital  than  else- 
where. At  the  period  in  question  he  mainly  got  his  living  by 
selling  contre-marques  (checks)  at  the  doors  of  the  theatre. 
He  had  heard  of  the  duke's  intention  with  regard  to  the  wood, 
hence  his  enthusiastic  cry  of  "  Vive  Louis-Philippe  !  "  A  cart- 
load of  wood  was  sent  to  his  place ;  papa  Sournois  converted 
it  into  money,  and  got  drunk  with  the  proceeds  for  a  fortnight. 
When  the  steward,  horribly  scandalized,  told  the  duke  of  the 
results  of  his  benevolence,  the  latter  merely  laughed,  and  sent 
for  the  wife,  who  made  her  appearance  accompanied  by  a 
young  brood  of  five.  The  duke  gave  her  a  five-franc  piece, 
and  told  her  to  apply  to  the  concierge  of  the  Palais-Royal  for 
a  similar  sum  every  day  during  the  winter  months.  Of  course, 
five  francs  a  day  was  not  as  much  as  a  drop  of  water  out  of 
the  sea  when  we  consider  Louis-Philippe's  stupendous  income, 
and  yet,  when  the  Tuileries  were  sacked  in  1848,  documents 
upon  documents  were  found,  compiled  with  the  sole  view  of 
saving  a  few  francs  per  diem  out  of  the  young  princes'  "keep.'" 

"  I  am  so  sick  of  the  word  *  fraternity,'  "  said  Prince  Metter- 
nich,  after  his  return  from  France,  "  that,  if  I  had  a  brother,  I 
should  call  him  cousin."  Though  it  was  to  the  strains  of  the 
Marseillaise  that  Louis-Philippe  had  been  conducted  to  the 
H6tel-de-Ville  on  the  day  when  Lafayette  pointed  to  him  as 
"  the  best  of  all  republics,"  a  time  came  when  Louis-Philippe 
got  utterly  sick  of  the  Marseillaise. 

But  what  was  he  to  do,  seeing  that  his  attempt  at  introduc- 
ing a  new  national  hymn  had  utterly  failed  ?  The  mob  refused 
to  sing  "  La  Parisienne,"  composed  by  Casimir  de  la  Vigne, 
after  Alexandre  Dumas  had  refused  to  write  a  national  hymn ; 
and  they,  moreover,  insisted  on  the  king  joining  in  the  chorus 
of  the  old  hymn,  as  he  had  hitherto  done  on  all  public  occa- 
sions.* They  had  grumblingly  resigned  themselves  to  his 
beating  time   no  longer,   but  any  further  refusal  of  his  co- 

*  When  there  was  no  public  occasion,  his  political  antagonists  or  merely  practical  jokers 
who  knew  of  his  dislike  invented  one,  like  Edouard  d'Ourliac,  a  well-known  journalist  and 
the  author  of  several  novels,  who,  whenever  he  had  nothing  better  to  do,  recruited  a  band  of 
street-arabs  to  go  and  sing  the  Marseillaise  under  the  king's  windows.  They  kept  on  sing- 
ing until  Louis- Philippe,  in  sheer  self-defence,  was  obliged  to  come  out  and  join  in  the  song 
—Editor. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  1 73 

operation  might  have  been  resented  in  a  less  peaceful  fashion. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  was  the  bourgeoisie  who  were  of 
opinion  that,  now  that  the  monarchy  had  entered  upon  a  more 
conservative  period,  the  intoning  of  the  hymn,  at  any  rate  on 
the  sovereign's  part,  was  out  of  place,  and  savored  too  much 
of  a  republican  manifestation.     "  It  was  Guizot  who  told  him 

so,"  said  Lord ,  who  had  been'  standing  on  the  balcony  of 

the  Tuileries  on  the  occasion  of  the  king's  "  saint's  day,"  *  and 
had  heard  the  minister  make  the  remark. 

"  And  what  did  the  king  reply  ?  "  was  the  question. 

"  Do  not  worry  yourself,  monsieur  le  ministre ;  I  am  only 
moving  my  lips  ;  1  have  ceased  to  pronounce  the  words  for 
many  a  day." 

These  were  the  expedients  to  which  Louis-Philippe  was 
reduced  before  he  had  been  on  the  throne  half  a  dozen  years. 
"  I  am  like  the  fool  between  two  stools,"  observed  the  king, 

in  English,  afterwards,  when  speaking  to  Lord ,  "  only  I 

happen  to  be  between  the  comfortably  stuffed  easy-chair  of  the 
bourgeois  drawing-room  and  the  piece  of  furniture  seated  on 
which  Louis  XIV.  is  said  to  have  received  the  Dutch  ambas- 
sadors." 

While  speaking  of  the  Marseillaise,  here  are  two  stories  in 
connection  with  it  which  are  not  known  to  the  general  reader. 
The  first  was  told  to  me  by  the  old  tutor  already  mentioned  ; 
the  second  aroused  a  great  deal  of  literary  curiosity  in  the  year 
i860,  and  bears  the  stamp  of  truth  on  the  face  of  it.  It  was, 
however,  never  fully  investigated,  or,  at  any  rate,  the  results  of 
the  investigation  were  never  published.f 

"  We  were  all  more  or  less  aware,"  said  my  informant,  "  that 
Rouget  de  I'lsle  was  not  the  author  of  the  whole  of  the  words 
of  the  Marseillaise.  But  none  of  us  in  Lyons,  where  I  was 
born,  knew  who  had  written  the  last  strophe,  commonly  called 
the  *  strophe  of  the  children,'  and  I  doubt  whether  they  were  any 
wiser  in  Paris.  Some  of  my  fellow-students — for  I  was  nearly 
eighteen  at  that  time — ^^credited  Andre  Chenier  with  the  author- 
ship of  the  last  strophe,  others  ascribed  it  to  Louis-Fran9ois 
Dubois,  the  poet.!  All  this  was,  however,  so  much  guess- 
work, when,  one  day  during  the  Reign  of  Terror,  the  report 
spread  that   a  ci-devant   priest,  or  rather  a  priest    who  had 

*  In  France  it  is  the  Patron  Saint's  day,  not  the  birthday,  that  is  kept. 

t  I  have  inserted  them  here  in  order  not  to  fall  into  repetitions  on  the  same  subject. — 
Editor. 

%  Louis-Frangois  Dubois,  the  author  of  several  heroic  poems,  "Ankarstrbm,"  "  Genevieve 
et  Siegfried,"  etc.,  which  are  utterly  forgotten.  His  main  title  to  the  recollection  of  poster- 
ity consists  in  his  having  saved,  during  the  Revolution,  a  great  many  literary  works  of  value 
which  he  returned  to  the  State  afterwards. — Editor. 


174  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

refused  to  take  the  oath  to  the  Republic,  had  been  caught  sol- 
emnizing a  religious  marriage,  and  that  he  was  to  be  brought 
before  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal  that  same  afternoon. 
Though  you  may  not  think  so,  merely  going  by  what  you  have 
read,  the  appearance  of  a  priest  before  the  Tribunal  always 
aroused  more  than  common  interest,  nor  have  you  any  idea 
what  more  than  common  interest  meant  in  those  days.  A 
priest  to  the  Revolutionaries  and  to  the  Terrorists,  they  might 
hector  and  bully  as  they  liked,  was  not  an  ordinary  being. 
They  looked  upon  him  either  as  something  better  than  a  man 
or  worse  than  a  devil.  They  had  thrown  the  religious  compass 
they  had  brought  from  home  with  them  overboard,  and  they 
had  not  the  philosophical  one  to  take  its  place.  You  may 
work  out  the  thing  for  yourself ;  at  any  rate,  the  place  was 
crammed  to  suffocation  when  we  arrived  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville. 
It  was  a  large  room,  at  the  upper  end  of  which  stood  an  oblong 
table,  covered  with  a  black  cloth.  Seated  around  it  were  seven 
self-constituted  judges.  Besides  their  tricolor  scarfs  and 
their  waists,  they  wore,  suspended  by  a  ribbon  from  their  necks, 
a  small  silver  axe. 

"  As  a  rule  there  was  very  little  speechifying.  *  La  mort  sans 
phrase,'  which  had  become  the  fashion  since  Louis  XVL's  ex- 
ecution, was  strictly  adhered  to.  Half  a  dozen  prisoners  were 
brought  in  and  taken  away  without  arousing  the  slightest  ex- 
citement, either  in  the  way  of  commiseration  or  hatred.  After 
having  listened,  the  judges  either  extended  their  hands  on  the 
table  or  put  them  to  their  foreheads.  The  first  movement 
meant  acquittal  and  liberation,  the  second  death ;  not  always 
by  the  guillotine  though,  for  the  instrument  was  not  perfect  as 
yet,  and  did  not  work  sufBciently  quickly  to  please  them.  All 
at  once  the  priest  was  brought  in,  and  a  dead  silence  prevailed. 
He  was  not  a  very  old  man,  though  his  hair  was  snow-white. 

"  *  Who  art  thou  ? '  asked  the  president. 

"  The  prisoner  drew  himself  up  to  his  full  height.  *  I  am 
the  Abbe  Pessoneaux,  a  former  tutor  at  the  college  at  Vienne, 
and  the  author  of  the  last  strophe  of  the  Marseillaise,'  he  said 
quietly. 

"  I  cannot  convey  to  you  the  impression  produced  by  those 
simple  words.  The  silence  became  positively  oppressive ;  you 
could  hear  the  people  breathe.  The  president  did  not  say  an- 
other word  ;  the  priest's  reply  had  apparently  stunned  him 
also  :  he  merely  turned  round  to  his  fellow-judges.  Soldiers  and 
jailers  stood  as  if  turned  into  stone ;  every  eye  was  directed 
towards  the  table,  watching  for  the  movement  of  the  judges' 


AN  ENGLISHMAN-  IN  PARIS.  ty^ 

hands.  Slowly  and  deliberately  they  stretched  them  forth,  and 
then  a  deafening  cheer  rang  through  the  room.  The  Abbe 
Pessoneaux  owed  his  life  to  his  strophe,  for,  though  his  story 
was  not  questioned  then,  it  was  proved  true  in  every  particular. 
On  their  way  to  Paris  to  be  present  at  the  taking  of  the  Tuil- 
eries  on  the  loth  of  August,  the  Marseillais  had  stopped  at 
Vienne  to  celebrate  the  P'ete  of  the  Federation.  On  the  eve 
of  their  arrival  the  Abbe  Pessoneaux  had  composed  the  strophe, 
and  but  for  his  seizure  the  authorship  would  have  always  re- 
mained a  matter  of  conjecture,  for  Rouget  de  I'Isle  would  have 
never  had  the  honesty  to  acknowledge  it." 

My  tutor  was  right,  and  I  owe  him  this  tardy  apology ;  it 
appears  that,  after  all,  Rouget  de  I'Isle  had  not  the  honesty  to 
acknowledge  openly  his  indebtedness  to  those  who  made  his 
name  immortal,  and  that  his  share  in  the  Marseillaise  amounts 
to  the  first  six  strophes.  He  did  not  write  a  single  note  of  the 
music.  The  latter  was  composed  by  Alexandre  Boucher,  the 
celebrated  violinist,  in  1790,  in  the  drawing-room  of  Madame 
de  Mortaigne,  at  the  request  of  a  colonel  whom  the  musician 
had  never  met  before,  whom  he  never  saw  again.  The  soldier 
was  starting  next  morning  with  his  regiment  for  Marseilles,  and 
pressed  Boucher  to  write  him  a  march  there  and  then.  Rouget 
de  ITsle,  an  officer  of  engineers,  having  been  imprisoned  in 
1 79 1,  for  having  refused  to  take  a  second  oath  to  the  Consti- 
tution, heard  the  march  from  his  cell,  and,  at  the  instance  of 
his  jailer,  adapted  the  words  of  a  patriotic  hymn  he  was  then 
writing  to  it. 

One  may  fancy  the  surprise  of  Alexandre  Boucher,  when  he 
heard  it  sung  everywhere  and  recognized  it  as  his  own  compo- 
sition, though  it  had  been  somewhat  altered  to  suit  the  words. 
But  the  pith  of  the  story  is  to  come.  I  give  it  in  the  very  words 
of  Boucher  himself,  as  he  told  it  to  a  Paris  journalist  whom  I 
knew  well. 

"  A  good  many  years  afterwards,  I  was  seated  next  to  Rouget 
de  ITsle  at  a  dinner-party  in  Paris.  We  had  never  met  before, 
and,  as  you  may  easily  imagine,  I  was  rather  interested  in  the 
gentleman,  whom,  with  many  others  at  the  same  board,  I  com- 
plimented on  his  production  ;  only  I  confined  myself  to  com- 
plimenting him  on  Yvispoem. 

"  *  You  don't  say  a  word  about  the  music,'  he  replied  ;  *  and 
yet,  being  a  celebrated  musician,  that  ought  to  interest  you. 
Do  not  you  like  it  ? ' 

" '  Very  much  indeed,'  I  said,  in  a  somewhat  significant 
tone. 


176  AM  EMgLI^HMAN  W  PARi^, 

"  '  Well,  let  me  be  frank  with  you.  The  music  is  not  mine. 
It  was  that  of  a  march  which  came,  Heaven  knows  whence, 
and  which  they  kept  on  playing  at  Marseilles  during  the  Ter- 
ror, when  I  was  a  prisoner  at  the  fortress  of  St.  Jean.  I  made 
a  few  alterations  necessitated  by  the  words,  and  there  it  is.' 

"  Thereupon,  to  his  great  surprise,  I  hummed  the  march 
as  I  had  originally  written  it. 

"  *  Wonderful ! '  he  exclaimed  ;  '  how  did  you  come  by  it  ? ' 
he  asked. 

"  When  I  told  him,  he  threw  himself  round  my  neck.  But 
the  next  moment  he  said — 

"  '  I  am  very  sorry,  my  dear  Boucher,  but  I  am  afraid  that 
you  will  be  despoiled  forever,  do  what  you  will ;  for  your 
music  and  my  words  go  so  well  together,  that  they  seem  to 
have  sprung  simultaneously  from  the  same  brain,  and  the 
world,  even  if  I  proclaimed  my  indebtedness  to  you,  would 
never  believe  it.' 

"  *  Keep  the  loan,'  I  said,  moved,  in  spite  of  myself,  by  his 
candor.  '  Without  your  genius,  my  march  would  be  forgotten 
by  now.  You  have  given  it  a  patent  of  nobility.  It  is  yours 
forever.'  " 

I  return  to  Louis-Philippe,  who,  at  the  time  of  my  tutor's 
story,  and  for  some  years  afterwards,  I  only  knew  from  the 
reports  that  were  brought  home  to  us.  Of  course,  I  saw  him 
several  times  at  a  distance,  at  reviews  and  on  popular  holidays, 
and  I  was  surprised  that  a  king  of  whom  every  one  spoke  so 
well  in  private,  who  seemed  to  have  so  much  cause  for  joy 
and  happiness  in  his  own  family,  should  look  so  careworn  and 
depressed  in  public.  For,  young  as  I  was,  I  did  not  fail  to  see 
that  beneath  the  calm  and  smiling  exterior,  there  was  a  great 
deal  of  hidden  grief.  But  I  was  too  young  to  understand  the 
deep  irony  of  his  reply  to  one  of  my  relatives,  a  few  months 
before  his  accession  to  the  throne  :  "  The  crown  of  France 
is  too  cold  in  winter,  too  warm  in  summer ;  the  sceptre  is  too 
blunt  as  a  weapon  of  defence  or  attack,  it  is  too  short  as  a  stick 
to  lean  upon  :  a  good  felt  hat  and  a  strong  umbrella  are  at  all 
times  more  useful."  Above  all,  I  was  too  young  to  understand 
the  temper  of  the  French  where  their  rulers  were  concerned, 
and  though,  at  the  time  of  my  writing  these  notes,  I  have  lived 
for  fifty  years  amongst  them,  I  doubt  whether  I  could  give  a 
succinct  psychological  account  of  their  mental  attitude  towards 
their  succeeding  regimes,  except  by  borrowing  the  words  of 
one  of  their  cleverest  countrywomen,  Madame  Emile  de 
Girardin  :     "  When  Marshal  Soult  is  in  the  Opposition,  he  is 


AN-  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  177 

acknowledged  to  have  won  the  battle  of  Toulouse ;  when  he 
belongs  to  the  Government,  he  is  accused  of  having  lost  it." 
Since  then  the  Americans  have  coined  a  word  for  that  state  of 
mind — "  cussedness." 

Louis- Philippe's  children,  and  especially  his  sons,  some  of 
whom  I  knew  personally  before  I  had  my  first  invitation  to 
the  Tuileries,  seemed  to  take  matters  more  cheerfully.  Save 
the  partisans  of  the  elder  branch,  no  one  had  a  word  to  say 
against  them.  On  the  contrary,  even  the  Bonapartists  ad- 
mired their  manly  and  straightforward  bearing.  I  remember 
being  at  Tortoni's  one  afternoon  when  the  Due  d'Orleans  and 
his  brother,  the  Due  de  Nemours,  rode  by.  Two  of  my  neigh- 
bors, unmistakable  Imperialists,  and  old  soldiers  by  their  looks, 
stared  very  hard  at  them ;  then  one  said  ,  "  Si  le  petit  au  lieu 
de  filer  le  parfait  amour  partout,  avait  mis  tous  ses  ceufs  dans 
le  meme  panier,  il  aurait  eu  des  grands  comme  cela  et  nous  ne 
serious  pas  dans  I'impasse  ou  nous  sommes." 

"  Mon  cher,"  replied  the  other,  "  des  grands  comme  cela  ne 
se  font  qu'a  loisir,  pas  entre  deux  campagnes."  * 

The  admiration  of  these  two  veterans  was  perfectly  justified  : 
they  were  very  handsome  young  men,  the  sons  of  Louis-Phi- 
lippe, and  notably  the  two  elder  ones,  though  the  Due  d'Orleans 
was  somewhat  more  delicate-looking  than  his  brother,  De 
Nemours.  The  boys  had  all  been  brought  up  very  sensibly, 
perhaps  somewhat  too  strict  for  their  position.  They  all  went 
to  a  public  school,  to  the  College  Henri  IV.,  and  1  remember 
well,  about  the  year  ^2>^,  when  I  had  occasion  of  a  morning  to 
cross  the  Pont-Neuf,  where  there  were  still  stalls  and  all  sorts 
of  booths,  seeing  the  blue-and-yellow  carriage  with  the  royal 
livery.  It  contained  the  Dues  d'Aumale  and  de  Montpensier, 
who  had  not  finished  their  studies  at  that  time. 

But  though  strictly  brought  up,  they  were  by  no  means  milk- 
sops, and  what,  for  want  of  a  better  term,  I  may  call  "  mother's 
babies  : "  quite  the  reverse.  It  was  never  known  how  they 
managed  it,  but  at  night,  when  they  were  supposed  to  be  at 
home,  if  not  in  bed,  they  were  to  be  met  with  at  all  kinds  of 
public  places,  notably  at  the  smaller  theatres,  such  as  the 
Vaudeville,  the  Varietes,  and  the  Palais-Royal,  one  of  which, 
at  any  rate,  was  a  goodly  distance  from  the  Tuileries.  It  was 
always  understood  that  the  king  knew  nothing  about  these 

*  It  reminds  one  of  the  answer  of  the  younger  Dumas  to  a  gentleman  whose  wife  had  been 
notorious  for  her  conjugal  faithlessness,  and  whose  sons  were  all  weaklings.  "Ah,  Mon- 
sieur Dumas,  c'est  un  fils  comme  vous  qu'il  me  fallait,"  he  exclaimed.  "  Mon  cher  mon- 
sieur," came  the  reply,  "  quand  on  veut  avoir  un  fils  comme  moi,  11  faut  le  faire  soi-meme," 
— EmroR. 

\2 


1  yS  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

little  escapades,  but  I  am  inclined  to  doubt  this  :  I  fancy  he 
connived  at  them ;  because,  when  Lord told  him  casually- 
one  day  that  he  had  met  his  sons  the  night  before,  Louis- 
Philippe  seemed  not  in  the  least  surprised,  he  only  anxiously 
asked,  "  Where  ?  " 

"  At  the  Cafe  de  Paris,  your  majesty." 

The  king  seemed  relieved.  "  That's  all  right,"  he  said, 
laughing.  "  As  long  as  they  do  not  go  into  places  where  they 
are  likely  to  meet  with  Guizot,  I  don't  mind  ;  for  if  he  saw 
them  out  in  the  evening,  it  might  cost  me  my  throne.  Guizot 
is  so  terribly  respectable.  I  am  afraid  there  is  a  mistake  either 
about  his  nationality  or  about  his  respectability  ,  they  are  badly 
matched." 

The  fact  is,  that  though  Louise-Philippe  admired  and  re- 
spected Guizot,  he  failed  to  understand  him.  To  the  most  re- 
spectable of  modern  kings — not  even  Charles  I.  and  William 
III.  excepted — if  by  respectability  we  mean  an  unblemished 
private  life  — Guizot's  respectability  was  an  enigma.  The  man 
who,  in  spite  of  his  advice  to  others,  "  Enrichissez  vous,  en- 
richissez  vous,"  was  as  poor  at  the  end  of  his  ministerial  career 
as  at  the  beginning,  must  have  necessarily  been  a  puzzle  to  a 
sovereign  who,  with  a  civil  list  of  ^750,000,  was  haunted  by  the 
fear  of  poverty,  and  haunted  to  such  a  degree  as  to  harass  his 
friends  and  counsellors  with  his  apprehensions.  "  My  dear 
minister,"  he  said  one  day  to  Guizot,  after  he  had  recited  a  long 
list  of  his  domestic  charges — "  My  dear  minister,  I  am  telling  you 
that  my  children  will  be  wanting  for  bread."  The  recollection  of 
his  former  misery  uprose  too  frequently  before  him  like  a  hor- 
rible night-mare,  and  made  him  the  first  bourgeois  instead  of 
the  first  gentilhomme  of  the  kingdom,  as  his  predecessors  had 
been.  When  a  tradesman  drops  a  shilling  and  does  not  stoop 
to  pick  it  up,  his  neglect  becomes  almost  culpable  improvi- 
dence ;  when  a  prince  drops  a  sovereign  and  looks  for  it,  the 
deed  maybe  justly  qualified  as  mean.  The  leitmotiv  of  Louis- 
Philippe's  conversation,  witty  and  charming  as  it  was,  partook 
of  the  avaricious  spirit  of  a  Thomas  Guy  and  a  John  Overs 
rather  than  of  that  of  the  great  adventurer  John  Law.  The 
chinking  of  the  money-bags  is  audible  through  both,  but  in  the 
one  case  the  orchestration  is  strident,  disagreeable,  depress- 
ing; in  the  other,  it  is  generous,  overflowing  with  noble  im- 
pulses, and  cheering.  I  recollect  that  during  my  stay  at  Tre- 
port  and  Eu,  in  1843,  when  Queen  Victoria  paid  her  visit  to 
Louis-Philippe,  the  following  story  was  told  to  me.  Lord 
— —  and  I  were  quartered  in  a  little  hostelry  on  the  Place  du 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  179 

Chteau.     One  morning  Lord came  home  laughing  till  he 

could  laugh  no  longer.  "What  do  you  think  the  king  has 
done  now  ? "  he  asked.  I  professed  my  inability  to  guess. 
*'  About  an  hour  ago,  he  and  Queen  Victoria  were  walking  in 
the  garden,  when,  with  true  French  politeness,  he  offered  her 
a  peach.  The  queen  seemed  rather  embarrassed  how  to  skin 
it,  when  Louis-Philippe  took  a  large  clasp-knife  from  his  pocket. 
'  When  a  man  has  been  a  poor  devil  like  myself,  obliged  to 
live  upon  forty  sous  a  day,  he  always  carries  a  knife.  I  might 
have  dispensed  with  it  for  the  last  few  years ;  still,  I  do  not 
wish  to  lose  the  habit — one  does  not  know  what  may  happen,' 
he  said.  Of  course,  the  tears  stood  in  the  queen's  eyes.  He 
really  ought  to  know  better  than  to  obtrude  his  money  worries 
upon  every  one." 

I  must  confess  that  I  was  not  as  much  surprised  as  my 
interlocutor,  who,  however,  had  known  Louis-Philippe  much 
longer  than  I.  Not  his  worst  enemies  could  have  accused 
the  son  of  Philippe  Egalite  of  being  a  coward :  the  bulletins  of 
Valmy,  Jemmappes,  and  Neerwinden  would  have  proved  the 
contrary.  But  the  contempt  of  physical  danger  on  the  battle- 
field does  not  necessarily  constitute  heroism  in  the  most 
elevated  sense  of  the  term,  although  the  world  in  general 
frequently  accepts  it  as  such.  A  man  can  die  but  once,  and  the 
semi-positivism,  semi-Voltaireanism  of  Louis-Philippe  had  un- 
doubtedly steeled  him  against  the  fear  of  death.  His  religion, 
throughout  life,  was  not  even  skin-deep  ;  and  when  he  accepted 
the  last  rites  of  the  Church  on  his  death-bed,  he  only  did  so  in 
deference  to  his  wife.  *'  Ma  femme,  es-tu  contente  de  moi  ?  '* 
were  his  words  the  moment  the  priests  were  gone. 

Nevertheless,  he  was  too  good  a  husband  to  grieve  his  wife, 
who  was  deeply  religious,  by  any  needless  display  of  unbelief. 
He  always  endeavored,  as  far  as  possible,  to  find  an  excuse  for 
staying  away  from  church.  He,  as  well  as  the  female  members 
of  his  family,  were  very  fond  of  music ;  and  Adam,  the  com- 
poser, was  frequently  invited  to  come  and  play  for  them  in  the 
private  apartments.  In  fact,  after  his  abdication,  he  seriously 
intended  to  write,  in  conjunction  with  Scribe,  the  libretto  of  an 
opera  on  an  English  historical  subject,  the  music  of  which 
should  be  composed  by  Halevy.  The  composer  of  "  La 
Juive  "  and  the  author  of  "  Les  Huguenots  "  came  over  once  to 
consult  with  the  king,  whose  death,  a  few  months  later,  put 
an  end  to  the  scheme. 

On  the  occasion  of  Adam's  visits  the  princesses  worked 
at  their  embroidery,  while  the  king  often  stood  by  the  side  of 


l8o  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

the  performer.  Just  about  that  period  the  chamber  organ  was 
introduced,  and,  on  the  recommendation  of  Adam,  one  was 
ordered  for  the  Tuileries.  The  first  time  Louis-PhiUppe  heard 
it  played  he  was  delighted  :  "  This  will  be  a  distinct  gain  to 
our  rural  congregations,"  he  said.  "  There  must  be  a  great 
many  people  who,  like  myself,  stay  away  from  church  on 
account  of  their  objection  to  that  horrible  instrument,  the  serpent. 
Is  it  not  so,  my  wife  ? " 

The  ideal  purpose  of  life,  if  ever  he  possessed  it,  had  been 
crushed  out  of  him — first,  by  his  governess,  Madame  de  Gen- 
lis  ;  secondly,  by  the  dire  poverty  he  suffered  during  his  exile ; 
and,  notwithstanding  all  that  has  been  said  to  the  contrary, 
France  wanted  at  that  moment  an  ideal  ruler,  not  the  rational 
father  of  a  large  family  who  looked  upon  his  monarchy  as  a 
suitable  means  of  providing  for  them.  He  was  an  usurper  with- 
out the  daring,  the  grandeur,  the  lawlessness  of  the  usurper. 
The  lesson  of  Napoleon  I.'s  method  had  been  thrown  away 
upon  him,  as  the  lesson  of  Napoleon  III.'s  has  been  thrown 
away  upon  his  grandson.  When  I  said  France,  I  made  a  mis- 
take,— I  should  have  said  Paris  ;  for  since  1789  there  was  no 
longer  a  King  of  France,  there  was  only  a  King  of  Paris.  Such 
a  thing  as  a  Manchester  movement,  as  a  Manchester  school  of 
politics,  would  have  been  and  is  still  an  impossibility  in  France. 

And,  unfortunately,  Paris,  which  had  applauded  the  glorious 
mise-en-schie  of  the  First  Empire,  which  had  even  looked  on 
approvingly  at  some  of  the  pomp  and  state  of  Louis  XVIII. 
and  Charles  X.,  jeered  at  Louis-Philippe  and  his  court  with  its 
ridiculous  gatherings  of  tailors,  drapers,  and  bootmakers,  "  ces 
gardes  nationaux  d'un  pays  ou  il  n'y  a  plus  rien  de  national  a. 
garder,"  and  their  pretentious  spouses  "  qui,"  according  to  the 
Duchesse  de  la  Tremoille,  "  ont  plus  de  chemises  que  nos 
aieules  avaientdes  robes." Z*^  She  and  the  Princesse  Bagration 
were  the  only  female  representatives  of  the  Faubourg  St.  Ger- 
main who  attended  these  gatherings  ;  for  the  Countess  Le  Hon, 
of  whom  I  may  have  occasion  to  speak  again,  and  who  was  the 
only  other  woman  at  these  receptions  that  could  lay  claim  to 
any  distinction,  was  by  no  means  an  aristocrat.  And  be  it 
remembered  that  in  those  days  ridicule  had  still  the  power  to 
kill. 

Nor  was  the  weapon  wielded  exclusively  by  the  aristocracy ; 

*  She  had  unconsciously  borrowed  the  words  from  the  Duchesse  de  CoisUn,  who,  under 
similar  circumstances  a  few  years  before,  said  to  Madame  de  Chateaubriand,  "  Cela  sent  la 
parvenue  ;  nous  autres,  femmes  de  la  cour,  nous  n'avions  que  deux  chemises  ;  on  les  renou- 
velait  quand  elles  ^taient  us^es ;  nous  ^tions  vetues  de  robes  de  soie  et  nous  n'avions  pas 
I'air  de  grisettes  comme  ces  deraoiselles  de  maintenant." — Editor, 


AN  ENGLISHMAN- IN  Paris.  iSi 

the  lower  classes  could  be  just  as  satirical  against  the  new  court 
element.  I  was  in  the  Tuileries  gardens  on  the  first  Sunday  in 
June,  r837,  when  the  Duchesse  d'Orleans  made  her  entree  into 
Paris.  The  weather  was  magnificent,  and  the  set  scene — as 
distinguished  from  some  of  the  properties,  to  use  a  theatrical 
expression — in  keeping  with  the  weather.  The  crowd  itself  was 
a  pleasure  to  look  at,  as  it  stood  in  serried  masses  behind  the 
National  Guards  and  the  regular  infantry  lining  the  route  of 
the  procession  from  the  Arc  de  Triomphe  to  the  entrance  of  the 
Chateau.  All  at  once  an  outrider  passes,  covered  with  dust, 
and  the  crowd  presses  forward  to  get  a  better  view.  A  woman 
of  the  people,  in  her  nice  white  cap,  comes  into  somewhat  vio- 
lent contact  with  an  elegantly  dressed  elderly  lady  accompanied 
by  her  daughter.  The  woman,  instead  of  apologizing,  says 
aloud  that  she  wishes  to  see  the  princess  :  "  You  will  have  the 
opportunity  of  seeing  her  at  court,  mesdames,"  she  adds.  The 
elegant  lady  vouchsafes  no  reply,  but  turns  to  her  daughter : 
"  The  good  woman,"  says  the  latter,  shrugging  her  shoulders, 
"  is  evidently  not  aware  that  she  has  got  a  much  greater  chance 
of  going  to  that  court  than  we  have.  She  has  only  got  to  marry 
some  grocer  or  other  tradesman,  and  she  will  be  considered  a 
grande  dame  at  once."  Then  the  procession  passes — first  the 
National  Guards  on  horseback,  then  the  king  and  M.  de  Mon- 
talivet,  followed  by  Princesse  Helene,  with  her  young  husband 
riding  by  the  side  of  the  carriage.  So  far  so  good :  the  first 
three  or  four  carriages  were  more  or  less  handsome,  but  Heaven 
save  us  from  the  rest,  as  well  as  from  their  occupants  !  They 
positively  looked  like  some  of  those  wardrobe-dealers  so  admi- 
rably described  by  Balzac. 

When  all  is  over,  the  woman  of  the  people  turns  to  the 
elegant  lady :  "  I  ask  your  pardon,  madame  ;  it  was  really  not 
worth  while  hurting  you.  If  these  are  grandes  dmnes^  I  prefer 
ks  petites  whom  I  see  in  my  neighborhood,  the  Rue  Notre- 
Dame  de  Lorette.  Comme  elles  etaient  attifees  !  " — Anglice, 
"  What  a  lot  of  frumps  they  looked  !  " 

In  fact,  Louis-Philippe  and  his  queen  sinned  most  grievously 
by  overlooking  the  craving  of  the  Parisians  for  pomp  and  dis- 
play. No  one  was  better  aware  of  this  than  his  children, 
notably  the  Due  d'Orleans,  Princess  Clementine,"*  and  the 
Due   de   Nemours.     They   called   him   familiarly  "  le  pbre." 

*  The  mother  of  Prince  Ferdinand  of  Saxe-Coburg,  the  present  ruler  of  Bulgaria.  She 
was  a  particular  favorite  of  Queen  Victoria,  and  Louis- Philippe  himself  not  only  considered 
her  the  cleverest  of  his  three  daughters,  but  the  most  likely  successor  to  his  sister  Adelaide, 
as  his  private  adviser.  That  the  estimate  of  her  abilities  was  by  no  means  exaggerated,  sub- 
sequent events  have  proved.    The  last  time  I  saw  the  princess  was  at  the  garden  party  at 


i82  AJV  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

"  II  est  trop  pbre,"  said  the  princess  in  private;  "  il  fait  con- 
currence au  Pere  Eternel."  She  was  a  very  clever  girl — per- 
haps a  great  deal  cleverer  than  any  of  her  brothers,  the  Solon 
of  the  family,  the  Due  de  Nemours,  included — but  very  fond 
of  mischief  and  practical  joking.  She  found  her  match,  though, 
in  her  brother,  the  Prince  de  Joinville,  the  son  of  Louis- 
Philippe  of  whom  France  heard  most  and  saw  least,  for  he 
was  a  sailor.  One  day,  his  sister  asked  him  to  bring  her  a 
complete  dress  of  a  Red-Skin  chieftain's  wife.  His  absence 
was  shorter  than  usual,  and,  a  few  days  before  his  return,  he 
told  her  in  a  letter  that  he  had  the  costume  she  wanted. 
"  Here,  Clementine,  this  is  for  you,"  he  said,  at  his  arrival, 
putting  a  string  of  glass  beads  on  the  table. 

"Very  pretty,"  said  Clementine,  "but  you  promised  me  a 
complete  dress." 

"  This  is  the  complete  dress.  I  never  saw  them  wear  any 
other." 

I  did  not  see  the  Prince  de  Joinville  very  often,  perhaps  two 
or  three  times  in  all;  once  on  the  occasion  of  his  marriage 
with  Princess  Frangoise  de  Bourbon,  the  daughter  of  Dom 
Pedro  I.  of  Brazil,  and  sister  of  the  present  emperor,  when  the 
prince  brought  his  young  bride  to  Paris.  He  was  a  clever 
draughtsman  and  capital  caricaturist ;  but  if  the  first  of  these 
talents  proved  an  unfailing  source  of  delight  to  his  parents,  the 
second  frequently  inspired  them  with  terror,  especially  his 
father,  who  never  knew  which  of  his  ministers  might  become 
the  next  butt  for  his  third  son's  pencil.  I  have  seen  innumer- 
able sketches,  ostensibly  done  to  delight  his  young  wife  and 
brothers,  which,  had  they  been  published,  would  have  been 
much  more  telling  against  his  father's  pictorial  satirists  than 
anything  they  produced  against  the  sovereign.  For  in  those 
days,  whatever  wisdom  or  caution  they  may  have  learnt  after- 
wards, the  sons  of  Louis-Philippe  were  by  no  means  disposed 
to  sit  down  tamely  under  the  insults  levelled  at  the  head  of 
their  house.  In  fact,  nearly  the  whole  of  Louis-Philippe's 
children  had  graphic  talents  of  no  mean  order.  The  trait  came 
to  them  from  their  mother,  who  was  a  very  successful  pupil  of 
Angelica  Kauffman.  Princesse  Marie,  who  died  so  young, 
executed  a  statue  of  Jeanne  d'Arc,  which  was  considered  by 
competent  judges,  not  at  all  likely  to  be  influenced  by  the  fact 

Sheen-House,  on  the  occasion  of  the  silver  wedding  of  the  Count  and  Countess  de  Paris. 
I  did  not  remember  her  for  the  moment,  for  a  score  of  years  had  made  a  difference.  I  asked 
an  Austnan  attache^  who  she  was.  The  answer  came  pat,  "Alexander  III.'s  nightmare, 
Francis- Joseph's  bog,  and  Bismarck's  sleeping  draught ;  one  of  the  three  clever  womeu  in 
F.urope;  Bulgaria's  mother." — Editor. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS,  183 

of  the  artist's  birth,  a  very  creditable  piece  of  work  indeed.  I 
never  saw  it,  so  I  cannot  say,  but  I  have  seen  some  miniatures 
by  the  Due  de  Nemours,  which  might  fairly  rank  with  per- 
formances by  the  best  masters  of  that  art,  short  of  genius. 

It  is  a  curious,  but  nevertheless  admitted  fact  that  the  world 
has  never  done  justice  to  the  second  son  of  Louis-Philippe. 
He  was  not  half  as  great  a  favorite  with  the  Parisians  as  his 
elder  brother,  although,  in  virtue  of  his  remarkable  likeness  to 
Henri  IV.,  whom  the  Parisians  still  worship, — probably  because 
he  is  dead, — he  ought  to  have  commanded  their  sympathies. 
This  lukewarmness  towards  the  Due  de  Nemours  has  generally 
been  ascribed  by  the  partisans  of  the  Orleanist  dynasty  to  his 
somewhat  reticent  disposition,  which  by  many  people  was  mis- 
taken for  hauteur.  I  rather  fancy  it  was  because  he  was  sus- 
pected of  being  his  father's  adviser,  and,  what  was  worse,  his 
father's  adviser  in  a  reactionary  sense.  He  was  accused  of 
being  an  anti-parliamentarian,  and  he  never  took  the  trouble 
to  refute  the  charge,  probably  because  he  was  too  honest  to 
tell  a  lie.*  I  met  the  Due  de  Nemours  for  the  first  time  in  the 
studio  of  a  painter,  Eugene  Lami,  just  as  I  met  his  elder 
brother  in  that  of  Decamps.  In  fact,  all  these  young  princes 
were  sincere  admirers  and  patrons  of  art,  and,  if  they  had  had 
their  will,  the  soirees  at  the  Tuileries  would  have  been  graced 
by  the  presence  of  artists  more  frequently  than  they  were  ; 
but,  preposterous  and  scarcely  credible  as  it  may  seem,  the 
bourgeoisie  looked  upon  this  familiar  intercourse  of  the  king's 
sons  with  artists,  literary  men,  and  the  like,  as  so  much  con- 
descension, if  not  worse,  of  which  they,  the  bourgeoisie,  would 
not  be  guilty  if  they  could  help  it.  It  behooves  me,  however,  to 
be  careful  in  this  instance,  for  the  English  aristocracy  at  home 
was  not  much  more  liberal  in  those  days. 

The  first  thing  that  struck  one  in  the  Due  de  Nemours  was 
the  vast  extent  of  his  general  information  and  the  marvellous 
power  of  memory.  Eugene  Lami  had  just  returned  from 
London,  and,  in  the  exercise  of  his  profession,  had  come  in 
contact  with  some  members  of  the  oldest  families.  The  mere 
mention  of  the  name  sufficed  as  the  introduction  to  the  general 
and  anecdotal  history  of  such  a  family,  and  I  doubt  whether 
the  best  official  at  Herald's  College  could  have  dissected  a 

*  There  was  a  similar  divergence  of  dynastic  opinion  during  the  Second  Empire  between 
the  sovereign  and  those  placed  very  near  him  on  the  throne.  When  Alphonse  Daudet  came 
to  Paris  to  make  a  name  in  literature,  the  Due  de  Morny  offered  him  a  position  as  secretary. 
"  Before  I  accept  it,  monsieur  le  due,  I  had  better  tell  you  that  I  am  a  Legitimist,"  replied 
the  future  novelist.  "  Don't  let  that  trouble  you,"  laughed  De  Morny ;  "  so  am  I  to  a  cer- 
tain extent,  and  the  Empress  is  even  more  of  a  Legitimist  than  I  am."— Editor, 


1 84  ^^  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

pedigree  as  did  the  Due  de  Nemours.  Eugene  Lami  was  at 
that  time  engaged  upon  designing  some  new  uniforms  for  the 
army,  many  of  which  disappeared  only  after  the  war  of  1870. 
He  lived  in  the  Rue  des  Marais,  the  greater  part  of  which  was 
subsequently  demolished  to  make  room  for  the  Boulevard  de 
Magenta,  and  in  the  same  house  with  two  men  whose  names 
have  become  immortal,  Honore  de  Balzac  and  Paul  Delaroche. 
I  have  already  spoken  of  both,  but  I  did  not  mention  the  inci- 
dent that  led  to  the  painter's  acquaintance  with  the  novelist, 
an  incident  so  utterly  fanciful  that  the  boldest  farce-writer 
would  think  twice  before  utilizing  it  in  a  play.  It  was  told  to 
me  by  Lami  himself.  One  morning,  as  he  and  Paul  Delaroche 
were  working,  there  was  a  knock  at  the  door,  and  a  stout  indi- 
vidual, dressed  in  a  kind  of  monastic  garb,  appeared  on  the 
threshold.  Delaroche  remembered  that  he  had  met  him  on  the 
staircase,  but  neither  knew  who  he  was,  albeit  that  Balzac's 
fame  was  not  altogether  unknown  to  them.  "  Gentlemen," 
said  the  visitor,  "I  am  Honore  Balzac,  a  neighbor  and  a 
confrere  to  boot.  My  chattels  are  about  to  be  seized,  and  I 
would  ask  you  to  save  a  remnant  of  my  library."  ^ 

Of  course,  the  request  was  granted.  The  books  were  stowed 
away  behind  the  pictures  ;  and,  after  that,  Balzac  often  dropped 
in  to  have  a  chat  with  them,  but  neither  Delaroche  nor  Lami, 
the  latter  least  of  all,  ever  conceived  a  sincere  liking  for  the 
great  novelist.  Their  characters  were  altogether  dissimilar.  I 
have  seen  a  good  many  men  whose  names  have  become  house- 
hold words  among  the  refined,  the  educated,  and  the  art-loving 
all  the  world  over ;  I  have  seen  them  at  the  commencement, 
in  the  middle,  and  at  the  zenith  of  their  career;  I  have  seen 
none  more  indifferent  to  the  material  benefits  of  their  art  than 
Eugene  Lami  and  Paul  Delaroche,  not  even  Eugene  Delacroix 
and  Decamps.  Balzac  was  the  very  reverse.  To  make  a  for- 
tune was  the  sole  ambition  of  his  life. 

To  return  for  a  moment  to  Louis-Philippe's  sons.  I  have 
said  that  the  Due  de  Nemours  was  essentially  the  grand  sei- 
gneur of  the  family ;  truth  compels  me  to  add,  however,  that 
there  was  a  certain  want  of  pliability  about  him  which  his  social 
inferiors  could  not  have  relished.  It' was  Henri  IV.  minus  the 
bonhomie,  also  perhaps  minus  that  indiscriminate  galanterie 
which  endeared  Ravaillac's  victim  to  all  classes,  even  when  he 
was  no  longer  young.  In  the  days  of  which  I  am  treating  just 
now,  the  Due  de  Nemours  was  very  young.  As  for  his  cour- 
age, it  was  simply  above  suspicion  ;  albeit  that  it  was  called  in 
c^uestion  after  the  revolution  of  '48  ^  to  his  father's  intense  sor- 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  185 

row.  No  after-dinner  encomium  was  ever  as  absolutely  true 
as  that  of  Sir  Robert  Peel  on  the  sons  and  daughters  of  the 
last  King  of  France,  when  he  described  them  as  respectfully 
brave  and  chaste.  Nevertheless,  had  the  Due  de  Nemours  and 
his  brothers  been  a  thousand  times  as  brave  as  they  were,  party 
spirit,  than  which  there  is  nothing  more  contemptible  in  France, 
would  have  found  the  opportunity  of  denying   that  bravery. 

If  these  notes  are  ever  published.  Englishmen  will  smile  at 
what  I  am  about  to  write  now,  unless  their  disgust  takes  an- 
other form  of  expression.  The  exploits  of  the  Due  d'Aumale 
in  Algeria  are  quoted  by  independent  military  authorities  as 
so  many  separate  deeds  of  signal  heroism.  They  belong  to 
history,  and  not  a  single  historian  has  endeavored  to  impair 
their  value.  Will  it  be  believed  that  the  Opposition  journals 
of  those  days  spoke  of  them  with  ill-disguised  contempt  as 
mere  skirmishes  with  a  lot  of  semi-savages .?  And,  during  the 
Second  Republic,  many  of  these  papers  returned  to  the  charge 
because  the  Due  d'Aumale,  being  the  constitutionally-minded 
son  of  a  constitutionally-minded  king,  resigned  the  command 
of  his  army  instead  of  bringing  it  to  France  to  coerce  a  nation 
into  retaining  a  ruler  whom,  ostensibly  at  least,  she  had  volun- 
tarily accepted,  and  whom,  therefore,  she  was  as  free  to  reject. 

In  connection  with  these  Algerian  campaigns  of  the  Due 
d'Aumale,  I  had  a  story  told  me  by  his  brother,  De  Montpensier, 
which  becomes  particularly  interesting  nowadays,  when  spiritu- 
alism or  spiritism  is  so  much  discussed.  He  had  it  from  two 
unimpeachable  sources,  namely,  from  his  brother  D'Aumale  and 
from  General  Cousin-Montauban,  afterwards  Comte  de  Palikao, 
the  same  who  was  so  terribly  afraid,  after  the  expedition  in  China, 
that  the  emperor  would  create  him  Comte  de  Pekin,  and  who 
sent  an  aide-de-camp  in  advance  to  beg  the  sovereign  not  to  do 
so.* 

It  was  to  General  Montauban  that  Abd-el-Kader  surrendered 
after  the  battles  of  Isly  and  Djemma-Gazhouat.  It  was  in  the 
latter  engagement  that  a  Captain  de  Gereauxfell,  and  when  the 
news  of  his  death  reached  his  family  they  seemed  almost  pre- 
pared for  it.  It  transpired  that,  on  the  very  day  of  the  engage- 
ment, and  at  the  very  hour  in  which  Captain  de  G^reaux  was 
struck  down,  his  sister,  a  young  and  handsome  but  very  im- 
pressionable girl,  started  all  of  a  sudden  from  her  chair,  exclaim- 
ing that  she  had  seen  her  brother,  surrounded  by  Arabs,  who 

*  In  order  to  understand  this  dread  on  Montauban's  part,  the  English  reader  should  be 
told  that  the  term  p^kin  is  the  contemptuous  nickname  for  the  civilian,  with  the  French 
soldier. — Editor. 


l86  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

were  felling  him  to  the  ground.  Then  she  dropped  to  the  floof 
in  a  dead  swoon. 

A  few  years  elapsed,  when  General  Montauban,  who  had 
become  the  military  governor  of  the  province  of  Oran,  received 
a  letter  from  the  De  Gereaux  family,*  requesting  him  to  make 
some  further  inquiries  respecting  the  particulars  of  the  captain's 
death.  The  letter  was  written  at  the  urgent  prayer  of  Mdlle. 
de  Gereaux,  who  had  never  ceased  to  think  and  speak  of  her 
brother,  and  who,  on  one  occasion,  a  month  or  so  before  the 
despatch  of  the  petition,  had  risen  again  from  her  chair,  though  in 
a  more  composed  manner  than  before,  insisting  that  she  had  once 
more  seen  her  brother.  This  time  he  was  dressed  in  the  na- 
tive garb,  he  seemed  very  poor,  and  w^as  delving  the  soil.  These 
visions  recurred  at  frequent  intervals,  to  the  intense  distress  of 
the  family,  who  could  not  but  ascribe  them  to  the  overstrung 
imagination  of  Mdlle.  de  Gereaux.  A  little  while  after,  she 
maintained  having  seen  her  brother  in  a  white  robe  and  turban, 
and  intoning  hymns  that  sounded  to  her  like  Arabic.  She 
implored  her  parents  to  institute  inquiries,  and  General  Mon- 
tauban was  communicated  with  to  that  effect.  He  did  all  he 
could  ;  the  country  was  at  peace,  and,  after  a  few  months,  tid- 
ings came  that  there  was  a  Frenchman  held  prisoner  in  one  of 
the  villages  on  the  Morocco  frontier,  who  for  the  last  two  or 
three  years  had  entirely  lost  his  reason,  but  that,  previous  to 
that  calamity,  he  had  been  converted  to  Islamism.  His  mental 
derangement  being  altogether  harmless,  he  was  an  attendant 
at  the  Mosque.  As  a  matter  of  course,  the  information  had 
been  greatly  embellished  in  having  passed  through  so  many 
channels,  nor  was  it  of  so  definite  a  character  as  I  have  noted 
it  down,  but  that  was  the  gist  of  it. 

Meanwhile,  Montauban  had  been  transferred  to  another 
command,  and  for  a  twelvemonth  after  his  successor's  arrival 
the  inquiry  was  allowed  to  fall  in  abeyance.  When  it  was  finally 
resumed,  the  French  prisoner  had  died,  but,  from  a  document 
written  in  his  native  language  found  upon  him  and  brought  to 
Oran,  there  remained  little  doubt  that  he  was  Captain  de 
Gereaux. 

To  return  for  a  moment  to  the  Due  d'Aumale,  who,  curiously 
enough,  exercised  a  greater  influence  on  the  outside  world  in 
general  than  any  of  his  other  brethren — an  influence  due  prob- 
ably to  his  enormous  wealth  rather  than  to  his  personal  quali- 
ties, though  the  latter  may,  to  some  people,  have  seemed  re- 
markable. I  -met  him  but  seldom  during  his  father's  lifetime. 
He  was  the  beau-ideal  of  the  preux  chevalier,  according  to  thQ 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  187 

French  notion  of  the  modern  Bayard — that  is,  handsome,  brave 
to  a  fault,  irresistibly  fascinating  with  women,  good-natured  in 
his  way,  and,  above  all,  very  witty.  It  was  he  who,  after  the 
confiscation  of  the  D'Orleans'  property  by  Napoleon  III.,  re- 
plied to  the  French  Ambassador  at  Turin,  who  inquired  after 
his  health,  "  I  am  all  right ;  health  is  one  of  the  things  that  can- 
not be  confiscated."  Nevertheless,  upon  closer  acquaintance, 
I  failed  to  see  the  justifying  cause  for  the  preference  mani- 
fested by  public  opinion,  and,  upon  more  minute  inquiry  I  found 
that  a  great  many  people  shared  my  views.  I  am  at  this  mo- 
ment convinced  that,  but  for  his  having  been  the  heir  of  that 
ill-fated  Prince  de  Conde,  and  consequently  the  real  defender 
in  the  various  suits  resulting  from  the  assassination  of  that  prince 
by  Madame  de  Feucheres,  he  would  have  been  in  no  way  dis- 
tinguished socially  from  the  rest  of  the  D'Orleans. 

The  popularity  of  his  eldest  brother,  the  Due  d'Orleans,  was, 
on  the  contrary,  due  directly  to  the  man  himself.  As  far  as 
one  can  judge  of  him,  he  was  the  reverse  of  Charles  II.,  in 
that  he  never  said  a  wise  thing  and  never  did  a  foolish  one. 
He  was  probably  not  half  so  clever  as  his  father,  nor,  brave  as 
he  may  have  been,  would  he  have  ever  made  so  dashing  a ' 
soldier  as  his  brother  D'Aumale,  or  so  rollicking  a  sailor  as  his 
brother  De  Joinville.  He  did  not  pretend  to  the  wisdom  of 
his  brother  De  Nemours,  nor  to  the  mystic  tendencies  of  his 
youngest  sister,  nor  to  the  sprightly  wit  of  Princesse  Clemen- 
tine, and  yet  withal  he  understood  the  French  nation  better 
than  any  of  them.  Even  his  prenuptial  escapades,  secrets  to 
no  one,  were  those  of  the  grand  seigneur,  though  by  no  means 
affichees  ;  they  endeared  him  to  the  majority  of  the  people. 
"  Chacun  colon-ise  a  sa  fa^on,"  was  the  lenient  verdict  on  his 
admiration  for  Jenny  Colon,  at  a  moment  when  colonization  in 
Algeria  was  the  topic  of  the  day.  On  the  whole  he  liked  artists 
better,  perhaps,  than  art  itself,  yet  it  did  not  prevent  him  from 
buying  masterpieces  as  far  as  his  means  would  allow  him. 
Though  still  young,  in  the  latter  end  of  the  thirties,  I  was 
already  a  frequent  visitor  to  the  studios  of  the  great  French 
painters,  and  it  was  in  that  of  Decamps  that  I  became  alive 
to  his  character  for  the  first  time.  I  was  talking  to  the  great 
painter  when  the  duke  came  in.  We  had  met  before,  and 
shook  hands,  as  he  had  been  taught  to  do  by  his  father  when 
he  met  with  an  Englishman.  But  I  could  not  make  out  why 
he  was  carrying  a  pair  of  trousers  over  his  arm.  After  we  had 
been  chatting  for  about  ten  minutes,  I  wondering  all  the  while 
Avhat  he  was  going  to  do  with  the  nether  garment,  he  caught 


1 88  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARTS. 

one  of  my  side  glances,  and  burst  out  laughing.  "  I  forgot," 
he  said,  "  here,  Decamps,  here  are  your  breeches."  Then  he 
turned  to  me  to  explain.  "  I  always  bring  them  up  with  me 
when  I  come  in  the  morning.  The  concierge  is  very  old,  and 
it  saves  her  trudging  up  four  flights  of  stairs."  The  fact  was, 
that  the  concierge,  before  she  knew  who  he  was,  had  once 
asked  him  to  take  up  the  painter's  clothes  and  boots.  From 
that  day  forth  he  never  failed  to  ask  for  them  when  passing 
her  lodge. 

I  can  but  repeat,  the  Due  d'Orleans  was  one  of  the  most 
charming  men  I  have  known.  I  always  couple  him  in  my  mind 
with  Benjamin  Disraeli,  and  Alexandre  Dumas  the  elder.  I 
knew  the  English  statesman  almost  as  well  during  part  of  my 
life  as  the  French  novelist.  Though  intellectually  wide  apart 
from  them,  the  duke  had  one,  if  not  two  traits  in  common  with 
both  ;  his  utter  contempt  for  money  affairs  and  the  personal 
charm  he  wielded.  I  doubt  whether  this  personal  charm  in  the 
other  two  men  was  due  to  their  intellectual  attainments  ;  with 
the  Due  d'Orleans  it  was  certainly  not  the  case.  He  rarely,  if 
ever,  said  anything  worth  remembering;  in  fact,  he  frankly 
acknowledged  his  very  modest  scholarship,  and  his  inability 
either  to  remember  the  epigrams  of  others  or  to  condense  his 
thoughts  into  one  of  his  own.  "  I  should  not  like  to  admit  as 
much  to  my  father,  who,  it  appears,  is  a  very  fine  Greek  and 
Latin  scholar,"  he  said — "that  is,  if  I  am  to  believe  my 
brothers,  De  Nemours  and  D'Aumale,  who  ought  to  know  ; 
for,  notwithstanding  the  prizes  they  took  at  college,  I  believe 
they  are  very  clever.  Ah,  you  may  well  look  surprised  at  my 
saying,  *  notwithstanding  the  prizes  they  took,'  because  I  took 
ever  so  many,  although,  for  the  life  of  me,  I  could  not  construe 
a  Greek  sentence,  and  scarcely  a  Latin  one.  I  have  paid  very 
handsomely,  however,  for  my  ignorance."  And  then  he  told 
us  an  amusing  story  of  his  having  had  to  invent  a  secretary- 
ship to  the  duchess  for  an  old  schoolfellow.  "  You  see,  he 
came  upon  me  unawares  with  a  slip  of  paper  I  had  written  him 
while  at  college,  asking  him  to  explain  to  me  a  Greek  passage. 
There  was  no  denying  it,  I  had  signed  it.  What  is  worse  still, 
he  is  supposed  to  translate  and  to  reply  to  the  duchess's  Ger- 
man correspondence,  and,  when  I  gave  him  the  appointment, 
he  did  not  know  a  single  word  of  Schiller's  language,  so  I  had 
to  pay  a  German  tutor  and  him  too." 

I  have  said  that  the  Due  d'Orleans  was  absolutely  indifferent 
with  regard  to  money,  but  he  would  not  be  fleeced  with  impu- 
nity.    What  he  disliked  more  than   anything   else,  was  the 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  189 

greed  of  the  shop-keeping  bourgeois.  One  day,  while  travel- 
ling in  Lorraine,  he  stopped  at  the  posting-house  to  have  his 
breakfast,  consisting  of  a  couple  of  eggs,  a  few  slices  of  bread 
and  butter,  and  a  cup  of  coffee.  Just  before  proceeding  on  his 
journey,  his  valet  came  to  tell  him  that  mine  host  wanted  to 
charge  him  two  hundred  francs  for  the  repast.  The  duke 
merely  sent  for  the  mayor,  handed  him  a  thousand-franc  note, 
gave  him  the  particulars  of  his  bill  of  fare,  told  him  to  pay  the 
landlord  according  to  the  tariff,  and  to  distribute  the  remainder 
of  the  money  among  the  poor.  It  is  more  than  probable  that 
mine  host  was  among  the  first,  in  '48,  to  hail  the  republic : 
princes  and  kings,  according  to  him,  were  made  to  be  fleeced ; 
if  they  objected,  what  was  the  good  of  having  a  monarchy  ? 

The  popular  idol  in  France  must  distribute  largesse,  and 
distribute  it  individually,  or  be  profitable  in  some  other  way. 
Greed,  personal  interest,  underlies  most  of  the  political  strife 
in  France.  During  one  of  the  riots,  so  common  in  the  reign 
of  Louis-Philippe,  Mimi-Lepreuil,  a  well-known  clever  pick- 
pocket, was  shouting  with  all  his  might,  "Vive  Louis-Philippe  ! 
a  bas  la  RepubUque  !  "  As  a  rule,  gentlemen  of  his  profession 
are  found  on  the  plebeian  side,  and  one  of  the  superintendents 
of  police  on  duty,  who  had  closely  watched  him,  inquired  into 
the  reason  of  his  apostasy.  "  I  am  sick  of  your  Republicans," 
was  the  answer.  "I  come  here  morning  after  morning" — it 
happened  on  the  Place  de  la  Bourse, — "  and  dip  my  hands 
into  a  score  of  pockets  without  finding  a  red  cent.  During  the 
Revolution  of  July,  at  the  funeral  of  General  Lamarque,  I  did 
not  make  my  expenses.  Give  me  a  royal  procession  to  make 
money."     These  were  his  politics. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  say  what  the  Due  d'Orleans  would 
have  done,  had  he  lived  to  ascend  the  throne.  One  thing  is 
certain,  however,  that,  on  the  day  of  his  death,  genuine  tears 
stood  in  the  eyes  of  all  classes,  except  the  Legitimists.  As  I 
have  already  said,  they  ascribed  the  fatal  accident  to  God's 
vengeance  for  the  usurpation  of  his  father.  "  If  this  be  the 
case,"  said  an  irreverent  but  witty  journalist,  "  it  argues  but 
very  little  providence  on  the  part  oi  your  Providence,  for  now 
He  will  have  to  keep  the  peace  between  the  Due  de  Berri,  the 
Due  de  Reichstadt  and  the  Due  d'Orleang," 


190  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS, 


CHAPTER  X. 

I  WAS  returning  home  earlier  than  usual  on  Saturday  night, 
the  19th  of  February,  '48,  when,  at  the  corner  of  the  Rue 
Lafitte,  I  happened  to  run  against  a  young  Englishman  who 
had  been  established  for  some  years  in  Paris  as  the  represen- 
tative of  his  father,  a  wealthy  cotton-spinner  in  the  north. 
We  had  frequently  met  before,  and  a  cordial  feeling  had  sprung 
up  between  us,  based  at  first — I  am  bound  to  say — on  our  com- 
mon contempt  for  the  vanity  of  the  French. 

"  Come  and  breakfast  with  me  to-morrow  morning,"  he  said ; 
"  I  fancy  you  will  enjoy  yourself.  We  will  breakfast  in  my 
quarter,  and  you  will  see  the  National  Guards  in  all  their  glory. 
They  will  muster  very  strong  to-morrow,  if  it  be  fine." 

"  But  why  to-morrow  ?  "  I  replied.  "  I  was  under  the  im- 
pression that  the  idea  of  the  Reformist  banquet  in  the  Champs- 
Elysees  had  been  abandoned,  so  there  will  be  no  occasion  for 
them  to  parade  "i     Besides,  that  would  be  on  Tuesday  only." 

"  It  has  been  abandoned,  but  if  you  think  that  it  will  prevent 
them  from  turning  out,  you  are  very  much  mistaken ;  at  any 
rate,  come  and  listen  to  the  preliminaries." 

I  promised  him  to  come,  but  I  had  not  the  slightest  idea 
that  I  was  going  to  witness  a  kind  of  mild  prologue  to  a  revo- 
lution. 

Next  morning  turned  out  very  fine — balmy  spring  weather — 
and  as  I  sauntered  along  the  Boulevards  Montmartre  and 
Poissoniere  to  the  place  of  appointment  the  streets  were 
already  crowded  with  people  in  their  Sunday  clothes.  The 
place  where  I  was  to  meet  my  English  friend  was  situated  in 
the  midst  of  a  busy  quarter,  scarcely  anything  but  warehouses 
where  they  sold  laces,  and  flowers,  and  silks,  something  like 
the  neighborhood  at  the  back  of  Cheapside.  The  wealthy 
tradesmen  of  those  days  did  not  live  in  the  outskirts  of  Paris, 
as  they  did  later  on,;  and  when  my  friend  and  I  reached  the 
principal  cafe  and  restaurant  on  the  Place  du  Caire — I  think 
it  was  called  the  Cafe  Gregoire — there  was  scarcely  a  table 
vacant.  The  habitues  were,  almost  to  a  man.  National  Guards, 
prosperous  business  men,  considerably  more  anxious,  as  I 
found  out  in  a  short  time,  to  play  a  political  part  than  to  main- 
tain public  tranquillity.  If  1  remember  rightly,  one  of  them,  a 
chemist  and  druggist,  who  was  pointed  out  to  me  then,  became 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARlS.  i^t 

a  deputy  after  the  fall  of  the  Second  Empire  ;  and  I  may  notice 
en  passant  that  this  same  spot  was  the  political  hot-house 
which  produced,  afterwards,  Monsieur  Tirard,  who  started  life 
as  a  small  manufacturer  of  imitation  jewelry,  and  who  rose  to 
be  Minister  of  Finances  under  the  Third  Republic. 

The  breakfast  was  simply  excellent,  the  wine  genuine 
throughout,  the  coffee  and  cognac  all  that  could  be  wished ; 
and,  when  I  asked  my  friend  to  let  me  look  at  the  bill,  out  of 
simple  curiosity,  or,  rather,  for  the  sake  of  comparing  prices 
with  those  of  the  Cafes  de  Paris  and  Riche,  I  found  that  he 
had  spent  something  less  than  eleven  francs.  At  the  Cafe 
Riche  it  would  have  been  twenty-five  francs,  and,  at  the  present 
time,  one  would  be  charged  double  that  sum.  These  were  the 
palmy  days  of  the  Cuisine  Francaise,  or,  to  call  it  by  another 
name,  the  Cuisine  Bourgeoise,  for  which,  a  few  years  later,  a 
stranger  in  Paris  would  have  almost  sought  in  vain.  Luckily, 
however,  for  my  enjoyment,  and  digestive  organs,  I  was  no 
stranger  to  Paris  and  to  the  French ;  if  I  had  been,  both  the 
former  would  have  been  spoilt,  the  excitement  of  those  around 
me  being  such  as  to  lead  the  alien  to  believe  that  there  would 
be  an  instantaneous  departure  for  the  Tuileries,  and  a  revival 
of  the  bloody  scenes  of  the  first  revolution.  It  has  been  my 
lot,  in  after-years,  to  hear  a  great  deal  of  political  drivel  in 
French  and  English,  but  it  was  sound  philosophy  compared  to 
what  I  heard  that  morning.  I  have  spoken  before  of  the 
Hotel  des  Haricots,  where  men  like  Hugo,  Balzac,  Beranger, 
and  Alfred  de  Musset  chose  to  be  imprisoned  rather  than 
perform  their  duties  as  National  Guards.  After  that,  I  could 
fully  appreciate  their  reluctance  to  be  confounded  with  such  a 
set  of  pompous  windbags. 

It  came  to  nothing  that  day,  but  I  had  become  interested, 
and  made  an  appointment  with  my  friend  for  the  Tuesday, 
unless  something  should  happen  in  the  interval.  Still,  I  did 
not  think  that  the  monarchy  of  July  was  doomed,  though,  on 
returning  to  the  Boulevards,  I  could  not  help  noticing  that 
the  excitement  had  considerably  increased  during  the  time  I 
had  been  at  breakfast.  By  twelve  o'clock  that  night  I  was 
convinced  that  I  had  been  mistaken,  and  that  the  dynasty  of 
the  D'Orleans  had  not  a  week  to  live.  All  the  theatres  were 
still  open,  but  I  had  an  invitation  to  a  ball,  given  by  Poirson, 
the  then  late  director  of  the  Gymnase  Theatre,  at  his  house  in 
the  Faubourg  Poissonniere.  "  Nous  ne  danserons  plus  jamais 
sous  Louis-Philippe  !  "  was  the  general  cry,  which  did  not  pre- 
vent the  guests  from  thoroughly  enjoying  themselves. 


192  AjV  englishman  in  PARI3. 

Next  morning,  Monday,  there  seemed  to  be  a  lull  in  the 
storm,  but  on  the  Tuesday  the  signs  of  the  coming  hurricane 
were  plainly  visible  on  the  horizon.  The  Ministry  of  Marine 
was  guarded  by  a  company  of  linesmen.  I  had  some  business 
in  the  Rue  de  Rivoli,  which  at  that  time  ended  almost  abruptly 
at  the  Louvre ;  and,  on  my  way  to  the  Cafe  Gregoire,  I  met 
patrol  upon  patrol  of  National  Guards  beating  the  "  assembly." 
I  had  occasion  to  pass  before  the  Comedie-Fran9aise.  The 
ominous  black-lettered  slip  of  yellow  paper,  with  the  word 
Relache,  was  pasted  across  the  evening's  bill.  That  was 
enough  for  me.  I  remembered  the  words  of  my  old  tutor  : 
"When  the  Comedie-Francaise  shuts  its  doors  in  perilous 
times,  it  is  like  the  battening  down  of  the  hatches  in  dirty 
weather.  There  is  mischief  brewing."  When  I  got  to  the 
Place  du  Caire,  I  was  virtually  in  the  thick  of  it.  With  the 
exception  of  my  friend  and  I,  there  was  not  a  man  in  mufti. 
Even  the  proprietor  had  donned  his  uniform.  Our  fillet  of  beef 
was  brought  to  us  by  a  corporal,  and  our  coffee  poured  out  by 
a  sergeant.  Whether  these  warrior-waiters  meant  to  strike  one 
blow  for  freedom  and  to  leave  the  place  to  take  care  of  itself, 
we  were  unable  to  make  out ;  but  their  patrons  were  no  longer 
"messieurs,"  but  had  already  become  "  citoyens."  I  was 
tempted  to  say,  in  the  words  of  Dupin — the  one  who  was  Pres- 
ident of  the  Chamber  on  the  day  of  the  Coup  d'Etat,  and  who 
was  Louis-Philippe's  personal  friend,  "  Soyons  citoyens,  mais 
restons  messieurs,"  but  I  thought  it  better  not.  My  friend  had 
given  up  all  idea  of  attending  to  business.  "It  will  not  be  of  the 
least  use,"  he  said.  "If  I  had  ribbons  to  sell  instead  of  cottons, 
I  might  make  a  lot  of  money,  though ;  for  I  am  open  to  wager 
that  some  of  our  patriotic  neighbors,  while  they  are  going  to 
bell  the  cat  outside,  have  given  orders  to  their  workpeople  to 
manufacture  tricolor  cockades  and  rosettes  with  the  magic 
R.  F.  (Republique  Fran^aise)  in  the  centre." 

"  You  do  not  mean  that  they  would  think  of  such  a  thing  at 
such  a  critical  moment,  even  if  the  republic  were  a  greater 
probability  than  it  appears  to  be  ?  "  I  remonstrated. 

"  I  do  mean  to  say  so,"  he  replied,  beckoning  at  the  same 
time  to  a  sleek,  corpulent  lieutenant,  standing  a  few  paces 
away.  "  Can  you  do  with  a  nice  lot  of  narrow  silk  ribbon  ?  " 
he  asked,  as  the  individual  walked  up  to  our  table. 

"  What  color  ? "  inquired  the  lieutenant. 

My  friend  gave  me  a  significant  look,  and  named  all  the 
hues  of  the  rainbow  except  white,  red,  and  blue. 

**  Won't  do,"  said  the   lieutenant,   shaking  his   head.     "  If 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  I93 

it  had  been  red,  white,  and  blue  I  would  have  bought  as  much 
as  you  like,  because  I  am  manufacturing  rosettes  for  the  good 
cause."     After  this  he  walked  away. 

On  the  Thursday  afternoon  the  Boulevards  and  principal 
thoroughfares  swarmed  with  peripatetic  vendors  of  the  republi- 
can insignia,  and  some  of  my  friends  expressed  their  surprise 
as  to  where  they  had  come  from  in  so  short  a  time.  Seeing 
that  they  were  Frenchmen,  I  held  my  tongue,  even  when  one 
professed  to  explain,  "  They  have  come  from  England ;  they 
are  always  speculating  upon  our  misfortunes,  though  they  do 
it  cleverly  enough.  They  got  scent  of  what  was  coming,  and 
sent  them  over  as  quickly  as  they  could.  Truly  they  are  a 
great  nation — of  shopkeepers ! "  I  was  reminded  of  Beran- 
ger's  scapegrace,  when  he  was  accused  of  being  drunk. 

*'  Qu'est  que  cela  me  fait,  a  moi  ? 
Que  Ton  m'appelle  ivrogne  ?" 

he  sings. 

As  the  afternoon  wore  on,  the  excitement  increased  ;  the 
news  from  the  Boulevards  became  alarming,  and  at  about 
three  o'clock  the  company  marched  away.  As  a  matter  of 
course  we  followed,  and  equally,  as  a  matter  of  course,  did 
not  leave  them  until  2.30  next  morning.  Casualties  to  report. 
A  large  scratch  in  one  of  the  drummer's  cheeks,  made  by  an 
oyster-shell,  flung  at  the  company  as  it  turned  round  the 
corner  of  the.  Rue  de  Clery.  No  battles,  no  skirmishes,  a 
great  deal  of  fraternizing  with  "  le  peuple  souverain,"  whom, 
in  their  own  employ,  the  well-to-do  tradesmen  would  have 
ordered  about  like  so  many  mangy  curs. 

From  that  day  forth  I  have  never  dipped  into  any  history  of 
modern  France,  professing  to  deal  with  the  political  causes 
and  effects  of  the  various  upheavals  during  the  nineteenth 
century  in  France.  They  may  be  worth  reading  ;  I  do  not 
say  that  they  are  not.  I  have  preferred  to  look  at  the  men 
who  instigated  those  disorders,  and  have  come  to  the  conclu- 
sion that,  had  each  of  them  been  born  with  five  or  ten  thousand 
a  year,  their  names  would  have  been  absolutely  wanting  in 
connection  with  them.  This  does  not  mean  that  the  disorders 
would  not  have  taken  place,  but  they  would  have  always  been 
led  by  men  in  want  of  five  or  ten  thousand  a  year.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  the  D'Orleans  family  had  been  less  wealthy 
than  they  are  there  would  have  been  no  firmly  settled  third 
republic  ;  if  Louis-Napoleon  had  been  less  poor,  there  would, 
in  all  probability,  have  been  no  Second  Empire  j  if  the  latter 

13 


194  ^^  ENGLISHMA N  IN  PA RIS. 

had  lasted  another  year,  we  should  have  found  Gambetta  among 
the  ministers  of  Napoleon  III.,  just  like  Emile  Ollivier,  of  the 
"light  heart."  "  Les  convictions  politiques  en  France  sont 
basees  sur  le  fait  que  le  louis  d'or  vaut  sept  fois  plus  que  I'ecu 
de  trois  francs."  This  is  the  dictum  of  a  man  who  never 
wished  to  be  anything,  who  steadfastly  refused  all  offers  to 
enter  the  arena  of  public  life. 

My  friend  and  I  had  been  baulked  of  the  drama  we  expected 
— for  we  frankly  confessed  to  one  another  that  the  utter  anni- 
hilation of  that  company  of  National  Guards  would  have  left 
us  perfectly  unmoved, — and  got  instead  a  kind  of  first  act  of 
a  military  spectacular  play,  such  as  we  were  in  the  habit  of 
seeing  at  Franconi's.  The  civic  warriors  were  ostensibly 
bivouacking  on  the  Boulevard  St.  Martin  ;  they  stacked  their 
muskets  and  fraternized  with  the  crowd ;  it  would  not  have 
surprised  us  in  the  least  to  see  a  troupe  of  ballet  dancers 
advance  into  our  midst  and  give  us  the  entertainment  de 
rigueur — the  intermede.  It  was  the  only  thing  wanting  to 
complete  the  picture,  from  which  even  the  low  comedy  incident 
was  not  wanting.  An  old  woebegone  creature,  evidently  the 
worse  for  liquor,  had  fallen  down  while  a  patrol  of  regulars 
was  passing.  He  was  not  a  bit  hurt ;  but  there  and  then  the 
rabble  proposed  to  carry  him  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  and  to 
give  him  an  apotheosis  as  a  martyr  to  the  cause.  They  had 
already  fetched  a  stretcher,  and  were,  notwithstanding  his 
violent  struggles,  hoisting  him  on  it,  when  prevented  by  the 
captain  of  the  National  Guards. 

Still,  we  returned  next  day  to  the  Cafe  Gregoire.  In  the 
middle  of  the  place  there  lay  an  old  man — that  one,  stark 
dead,  who  had  been  fired  upon  without  rhyme  or  reason  by  a 
picket  of  the  National  Guards.  It  was  only  about  eleven 
o'clock,  and  those  valiant  defenders  of  public  order  were  still 
resting  from  their  fatigue — at  any  rate,  there  were  few  of  them 
about.  There  was  a  discussion  going  on  whether  they  should 
go  out  or  not — a  discussion  confined  to  the  captain,  two  lieu- 
tenants, and  as  many  sub-lieutenants.  They  appeared  not  to 
have  the  least  idea  of  the  necessity  to  refer  for  orders  to  the 
colonel  or  the  headquarters  of  the  regiment  or  the  legion,  as 
it  was  called.  They  meant  to  settle  the  matter  among  them- 
selves. The  great  argument  in  favor  of  calling  out  the  men 
was  that  one  of  them,  while  standing  at  his  window  that  very 
morning,  was  fired  at  by  a  passing  ragamuffin,  who,  instead  of 
hitting  him,  shattered  his  window-panes. 

"Well,"  said  one  of  the  lieutenants,  who  had  been  opposed 


AN-  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  195 

to  the  calling  out  of  the  men,  "  then  we  are  quits  after  all ;  for 
look  at  the  old  fellow  lying  out  there." 

"No,  we  are  not,"  retorts  the  captain  ;  "for  he  was  shot  by 
a  mistake,  so  he  doesn't  count." 

"  L'esprit  ne  perd  jamais  ses  droits  en  France ; "  so,  in 
another  moment  or  two,  the  bugle  sounded  lustily  throughout 
the  quarter.  We  followed  the  buglers  for  a  little  while,  it  be- 
ing still  too  early  for  our  breakfast,  and  consequently  enjoyed 
the  felicity  of  seeing  a  good  many  of  the  warriors  "  in  their 
habit  as  they  lived  "  indoors — namely,  in  dressing-gown  and 
slippers  and  smoking-caps.  For  most  of  them  opened  their 
windows  on  the  first,  second,  and  third  floors,  to  inquire 
whether  the  call  was  urgent.  The  buglers  entered  into  expla- 
nations. No,  the  call  was  not  urgent,  but  the  captain  had  de- 
cided on  a  military  promenade,  just  to  reassure  the  neighbor- 
hood, and  to  stimulate  the  martial  spirit  of  the  lagging  mem- 
bers of  the  company.  The  explanation  invariably  provoked 
the  same  answer,  and  in  a  voice  not  that  of  the  citizen- warrior ; 
"  Que  le  capitaine  attende  jusqu'apres  le  dejeuner." 

Davoust  has  said  that  the  first  condition  of  the  fitness  of  an 
army  is  its  commissariat.  In  that  respect  every  one  of  these 
National  Guards  was  fit  to  be  a  Davoust,  for  their  fortifying  of 
the  inner  man  was  not  accomplished  until  close  upon  two 
o'clock.  By  that  time  they  marched  out,  saluted  by  the  cries 
of  "  Vive  la  Reforme  !  "  of  all  the  ragtag  and  bobtail  from  the 
Faubourgs  du  Temple  and  St.  Antoine,  who  had  invaded  the 
principal  thoroughfares.  The  "  Marseillaise,"  the  "  Chant  des 
Girondins,"  "  La  Republique  nous  appelle  "  resounded  through 
the  air  ;  and  I  was  wondering  whether  they  were  packing  their 
trunks  at  the  Tuileries,  also  what  these  National  Guards  had 
come  out  for.  They  only  seemed  to  impede  the  efiicient  pa- 
trolling of  the  streets  by  the  regulars,  and,  instead  of  dispersing 
the  rabble,  they  attracted  them.  They  were  evidently  under 
the  impression  that  they  made  a  very  goodly  show,  and  at  every 
word  of  command  I  expected  to  see  the  captain  burst  asunder. 
When  we  got  to  the  Boulevard  St.  Martin,  the  latter  was  told 
that  the  sixth  legion  was  stationed  on  the  Boulevard  du  Tem- 
ple.    A  move  was  made  in  that  direction. 

-  Now  "  Richard  is  himself  again  ;  "  he  is  among  the  crowd 
he  likes  best — the  crowd  of  the  Boulevard  du  Crime,  with  its 
theatres,  large  and  small,  its  raree  and  puppet  shows,  it^  open- 
air  entertainments,  its  cafes  and  mountebanks  ;  and,  what  is 
more,  he  is  there  in  his  uniform,  distinguished  from  the  rest, 
and  consequently  the  cynosure  of  all  the  little  actresses  and 


196  AjV  englishman  in  PARIS. 

•pretty Jigurantes  who  have  just  left  the  rehearsal — for  by  this 
time  it  is  after  three — and  who  are  but  too  willing  to  be  enter- 
tained. Appointments  are  made  to  dine  or  to  sup  together, 
without  the  slightest  reference  as  to  what  may  happen  in  the 
interval.  All  at  once  there  is  an  outcry  and  a  rush  towards  the 
Porte  Saint-Martin  ;  our  warriors  are  obliged  to  leave  their  in- 
amoratas, and  when  they  come  to  look  for  their  muskets,  which 
they  have  placed  in  a  corner  for  convenience'  sake,  they  find 
that  a  good  many  have  disappeared.  The  customers  belonging 
to  the  sovereign  people  have  slunk  off  with  them.  Neverthe- 
less they  join  the  ranks,  for  the  bugle  has  sounded.  At  the 
corner  of  the  Faubourg  Saint-Martin,  whence  the  noise  pro- 
ceeded, they  are  met  by  three  or  four  score  of  the  sovereign 
people,  ragged,  unkempt,  who  are  pushing  in  front  6i  them  two 
of  the  students  of  the  Ecole  Polytechnique.  The  two  young 
fellov^s  are  very  pale,  and  can  scarcely  speak.  Still  they  man- 
age to  explain  that  the  Municipal  Guard  at. the  Saint-Martin 
barracks  have  fired  upon  the  people  :  then  they  go  their  way. 
Whither  ?  Heaven  only  knows.  But  our  captain,  in  the  most 
stentorian  of  voices,  gives  the  word  of  command,  "  To  the  right, 
wheel  !  "  and  we  are  striding  up  the  faubourg,  which  is  abso- 
lutely deserted  as  far  as  the  Rue  des  Marais.  A  collision  seems 
pretty  inevitable  now,  the  more  that  the  Municipal  Guards  are 
already  taking  aim,  when  all  at  once  our  captain  and  one  of 
the  lieutenants  rush  forward,  and  fling  themselves  into  the 
arms  of  the  officers  of  the  Municipal  Guards.  Tableau  ;  and 
I  am  baulked  once  more  of  a  good  fight.  I  leave  my  friend  to 
see  the  rest  of  this  ridiculous  comedy,  and  take  my  departure 
there  and  then. 

The  following  is  my  companion's  account  of  what  happened 
after  I  left.  I  am  as  certain  that  every  word  of  it  is  true  as  if 
I  had  been  there  myself,  though  it  seems  almost  incredible 
that  French  officers,  whose  worst  enemies  have  never  accused 
them  of  being  deficient  in  courage,  should  have  acted  so  in- 
considerately. 

"The  officers  of  the  National  Guards  appear  to  have  as- 
sumed at  once  the  office  of  protectors  of  the  regulars  against 
the  violence  of  the  crowd.  Why  the  regulars  should  have  sub- 
mitted to  this,  seeing  that  they  were  far  better  armed  than 
their  would-be  guardians,  I  am  unable  to  say.  Be  this  as  it 
may,  the  regulars  consented,  the  flag  floating  above  the  prin- 
cipal door  of  the  barracks  was  taken  down,  and  I  really  be- 
lieve that  the  Municipal  Guards  stacked  their  arms  and 
virtually  handed  them  over  to  the  others.     But  I  will  not  vouch 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  JN  PARIS.  J97 

for  it.  At  any  rate,  a  few  hours  afterwards,  while  the  com- 
pany had  gone  to  dinner,  the  barracks  were  assailed,  the 
men  and  officers  knocked  down  by  the  people,  and  the  build- 
ing set  on  fire.  When  the  fifth  legion  returned  about  eleven 
o'clock  to  the  Faubourg  Saint-Martin,  the  flames  were  leaping 
up  to  the  sky,  so  they  turned  their  heels  contentedly  in  the 
direction  of  the  Boulevard  du  Temple,  where  they  bivouacked 
between  the  Theatre  de  la  Gaite  and  the  Ambigu-Comique, 
while  those  who  had  made  appointments  with  the  little  ac- 
tresses went  round  by  the  stage-doors  to  keep  them.  That,  as 
far  as  I  could  judge,  was  the  part  of  the  fifth  legion  in  the 
day's  proceedings.  I  left  them  in  all  their  glory,  thinking 
themselves,  no  doubt,  very  fine  fellows. 

"  On  the  Thursday  morning  " — my  companion  told  me  all 
this  on  Saturday  evening,  the  26th  of  February — "  I  was  up 
betimes,  simply  because  the  drumming  and  bugling  prevented 
my  sleeping.  At  eight,  the  Cafe  Gregoire  was  already  very 
full,  the  heroes  of  the  previous  night  had  returned  to  perform 
their  ablutions,  and  also,  I  suppose,  to  reassure  their  anxious 
spouses ;  but  they  had  no  longer  that  conquering  air  I  noticed 
when  I  left  them  the  night  before.  Whether  they  had  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  both  in  love  and  war  they  had  reaped  but 
barren  victories,  I  cannot  say,  but  their  republican  ardor,  it 
seemed  to  me,  had  considerably  cooled  down.  I  am  con- 
vinced that,  notwithstanding  the  events  of  Wednesday  night 
in  the  Faubourg  Saint-Martin,  they  were  under  the  impression 
that  neither  the  people  nor  the  military  would  resort  to 
further  extremities.  I  cannot  help  thinking  that,  after  I  left, 
not  a  single  man  could  have  remained  at  his  post,  because  not 
one  amongst  them  seemed  to  have  an  idea  of  the  horrible 
slaughter  on  the  Boulevard  des  Capucines.^  They  were  not 
left  very  long  in  ignorance  of  the  real  state  of  affairs,  and  then 
they  saw  at  once  that  they  had  roused  a  spectre  they  would  be 
unable  to  lay.  From  that  moment,  it  is  my  opinion,  they  would 
have  willingly  drawn  back,  but  it  was  too  late.  While  they 
were  still  debating,  an  individual  rushed  in,  telling  them  that 

*  The  author,  as  will  be  seen  directly,  saw  nothing  of  that  massacre,  though  he  must  have 
passed  within  a  few  liundred  yards  of  the  spot  immediately  before  it  began.  It  would  have 
been  the  same  if  he  had ;  he  could  not  have  explained  the  cause,  seeing  that  the  most  pains- 
taking historians  who  have  consulted  the  most  trustworthy  eye-witnesses  have  failed  to  do 
so.  It  will  always  remain  a  mystery  whence  the  first  shot  came,  whether  from  the  military 
who  were  drawn  up  across  the  Boulevard  des  Capucines,  on  the  spot  where  now  stands  the 
Grand  Caf^,  or  from  the  crowd  that  wanted  to  pass,  in  order  to  proceed  to  Odillon-Barrot's 
to  serenade  him,  because,  notwithstanding  the  opposition  of  the  king,  he  was  to  be  included 
in  the  new  ministry,  which  Mol^  had  been  instructed  to  form.  It  may  safely  be  said,  how- 
ever, that,  but  for  that  shot  and  the  slaughter  consequent  upon  it,  the  revolution  might  have 
been  averted  then — ^after  all,  perhaps,  only  temporarily. — Editor. 


198  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

one  or  two  regiments,  commanded  by  a  general  (who  turned 
out  to  be  General  Bedeau),  had  drawn  up  in  front  of  the  bar- 
ricade which  had  been  thrown  up  during  the  night  in  the 
Boulevard  Bonne-Nouvelle,  and  was  being  defended  by  a  de- 
tachment of  the  fifth  legion.  They  all  ran  out,  and  I  ran  with 
them.  When  we  got  to  the  boulevard,  matters  had  already 
been  arranged,  and  they  were  just  in  time  to  join  the  escort 
General  Bedeau  had  accepted,  after  having  consented  not  to 
execute  the  orders  with  which  he  had  been  entrusted.  By  that 
time  I  began  to  perceive  which  way  the  wind  was  blowing : 
the  canaille  had  unceremoniously  linked  their  arms  in  those  of 
the  National  Guards,  and  insisted,  courteously  but  firmly,  on 
carrying  their  firearms.  When  we  got  to  the  Rue  Montmartre, 
they  took  the  horses  out  of  the  gun-carriages,  and  the  soldiers 
looked  tamely  on,  notwithstanding  the  commands  of  their  offi- 
cers. When  the  latter  endeavored  to  enforce  their  orders  by 
hitting  them  with  the  flat  of  their  swords,  they  simply  left  the 
ranks  and  joined  the  rabble.  I  had  had  enough  of  it  and 
made  my  way  home  by  the  back  streets.  I  had  had  enough 
of  it,  and  kept  indoors  until  this  afternoon." 

Thus  far  my  informant.  As  for  myself,  I  saw  little  on  the 
Wednesday  night  of  what  was  going  on.  It  was  my  own  fault : 
I  was  too  optimistic.  I  had  scarcely  gone  a  few  steps,  after 
my  dinner,  when,  just  in  front  of  the  Gymnase,  they  began 
shouting,  "  La  Patrie^  yournal  dii  soir ;  achetez  La  Patrie. 
Voyez  le  nouveau  ministere  de  Monsieur  Mole'."  I  remember 
giving  the  fellow  half  a  franc,  at  which  he  grumbled,  though  it 
was  three  times  the  ordinary  price.  On  opening  the  paper,  I 
rashly  concluded  from  what  I  read  that  the  revolution  was 
virtually  at  an  end,  and  I  was  the  more  confirmed  in  my 
opinion  by  the  almost  instantaneous  lighting  up  of  the  Boule- 
vards. It  was  like  a  fairy  scene  :  people  were  illuminating — a 
little  bit  too  soon,  as  it  turned  out.  Being  tired  of  wandering, 
and  feeling  no  inclination  for  bed,  I  turned  into  the  Gymnase. 
There  were  Bressant  and  Rose  Cheri  and  Arnal ;  I  would 
surely  be  able  to  spend  a  few  pleasant  hours.  But  alack  and 
alas  !  the  house  presented  a  very  doleful  appearance — dead- 
heads, to  a  man  ;  and  very  few  of  these,  people  who,  if  they 
could  not  fiddle  themselves,  like  Nero  while  Rome  was  burning, 
would  go  to  hear  fiddling  under  no  matter  what  circumstances, 
provided  they  were  not  asked  to  pay.  I  did  not  stay  long,  but 
when  I  came  out  into  the  streets  the  noise  was  too  deafening 
for  me.  The  "  Marseillaise  "  has  always  had  a  particularly 
jarring  effect  upon  my  nerves.     There  are  days  when  I  could 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  199 

be  cruel  enough  to  prefer  "  the  yells  of  those  ferocious  sol- 
diers, as  they  murder  in  cold  blood  the  sons  and  the  companions" 
of  one  section  of  defenceless  patriots,  to  the  stirring  strains  of  the 
other  section  as  they  figuratively  rush  to  the  rescue  ;  and  on 
that  particular  evening  I  felt  in  that  mood.  So,  when  I  got  to 
the  Boulevard  Montmartre,  I  turned  into  the  Theatre  des  Va- 
rietes.  I  remember  the  programme  up  to  this  day.  They  were 
playing  "Le  Suisse  de  Marly,"  "Le  Marquis  de  Lauzun," 
"  Les  Extremes  se  touchent,"  and  "  Les  Vieux  Pe'ches."  I  had 
seen  the  second  and  the  last  piece  at  least  a  dozen  times,  but 
I  was  always  ready  to  see  them  again  for  the  sake  of  Virginie 
Dejazet  in  the  one,  of  Bouffe  in  the  other.  The  lessee  at  that 
time  was  an  Englishman.  Bouffe  and  I  had  always  kept  up 
our  friendship  ;  so  I  made  up  my  mind  to  go  and  have  a  chat 
with  him,  hoping  that  Dejazet,  whose  conversation  affected  one 
like  a  bottle  of  champagne,  would  join  us.  The  house,  like 
the  Gymnase,  was  almost  empty,  but  I  made  my  way  behind 
the  scenes,  and  in  about  half  an  hour  forgot  all  about  the  events 
outside.  Bouffe  was  telling  me  anecdotes  about  his  London 
performances,  and  Dejazet  was  imitating  the  French  of  some  of 
the  bigwigs  of  King  Leopold's  court  ;  so  the  time  passed 
pleasantly  enough.  At  the  end  of  the  performance  we  pro- 
posed taking  supper,  and  turned  down  the  Rue  Montmartre. 
It  was  late  when  I  returned  home,  consequently  I  saw  nothing 
of  the  slaughter  on  the  Boulevard  des  Capucines. 

Though  I  had  gone  to  bed  late,  I  was  up  betimes  on  the 
Thursday  morning.  A  glance  at  the  Boulevards,  as  I  turned 
the  corner  of  my  street  about  half-past  nine,  convinced  me 
that  the  illuminations  of  the  previous  night  had  been  premature, 
and  that  before  the  day  was  out  there  would  be  an  end  of  the 
monarchy  of  July.  A  slight  mist  was  still  hanging  over  the 
city  as  I  strolled  in  the  direction  of  the  Madeleine,  and  the 
weather  was  damp  and  raw,  but  in  about  half  an  hour  the  sun 
broke  through.  A  shot  was  heard  now  and  then,  but  I  myself 
saw  no  collision  then  between  the  troops  and  the  people.  On 
the  contrary,  it  looked  to  me  as  if  the  former  would  have  been 
glad  to  be  left  alone.  As  I  had  been  obliged  to  leave  home 
without  my  usual  cup  of  tea  for  want  of  milk — the  servant  had 
told  me  there  was  none^-I  went  back  a  little  way  to  Tortoni's 
where  I  was  greeted  with  the  same  answer.  I  could  have  tea 
or  coffee  or  chocolate  made  with  water,  but  milk  there  was 
none  on  that  side  of  Paris,  and,  unless  things  took  a  turn,  there 
would  be  no  butter.  The  sovereign  people  had  thrown  up 
barricades  during  the  night  round  all  the  northern  and  north- 


200  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

western  issues,  and  would  not  let  the  milk-carts  pass.  They, 
no  doubt  had  some  more  potent  fiuids  to  fall  back  upon,  for  a 
good  many,  even  at  that  early  hour,  were  by  no  means  steady 
in  their  gait.  The  Boulevards  were  swarming  with  them. 
Since  then,  I  have  seen  these  sovereign  people  getting  the 
upper  hand  twice,  viz.,  on  the  4th  of  September,  '70,  and  on  the 
i8th  of  March,  '71.  I  have  seen  them  during  the  seige  of 
Paris,  and,  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that,  for  cold-blooded, 
apish,  monkeyish,  tigerish  cruelty,  there  is  nothing  on  the  face 
of  God's  earth  to  match  them,  and  that  no  concessions  wrung 
from  society  on  their  behalf  will  ever  make  them  anything  else 
but  the  fiends  in  human  shape  they  are. 

After  my  fruitless  attempt  to  get  my  accustomed  breakfast, 
I  resumed  my  perambulations,  this  time  taking  the  Rue 
Vivienne  as  far  as  the  Palais-Royal.  It  must  have  been  be- 
tween half-past  ten  and  eleven  when  I  reached  the  Place  du 
Carrousel,  which,  at  a  rough  guess,  was  occupied  by  about 
five  thousand  regular  infantry  and  horse  and  National 
Guards.  The  Place  du  Carrousel  was  not  then,  what  it  be- 
came later  on,  a  large  open  space.  Part  of  it  was  encumbered 
with  narrow  streets  of  very  tall  houses,  and  from  their  windows 
and  roofs  the  sovereign  people — according  to  an  officer  who 
had  been  on  duty  from  early  morn — had  been  amusing  them- 
selves by  firing  on  the  troops, — not  in  downright  volleys,  but 
with  isolated  shots,  picking  out  a  man  here  and  there.  "  But,"  I 
remonstrated,  "  half  a  dozen  pompiers  and  a  score  of  linesmen 
could  dislodge  them  in  less  than  ten  minutes,  instead  of  return- 
ing their  shots  one  by  one."  "  So  they  could,"  was  the  reply, 
"  but  orders  came  from  the  Chateau  not  to  do  so,  and  here  we 
are.  Besides,"  added  my  informant,  "  I  doubt  very  much,  if 
I  gave  my  men  the  word  of  command  to  storm  the  place, 
whether  they  would  do  so ;  they  are  thoroughly  demoralized. 
On  our  way  hither  I  had  the  greatest  difficulty  in  keeping  them 
together.  Without  a  roll-call  I  could  not  exactly  tell  you  how 
many  are  missing,  but  as  we  came  along  I  noticed  several  fall- 
ing out  and  going  into  the  wine-shops  with  the  rabble.  They 
did  not  come  back  again.  I  had  to  shut  my  eyes  to  it.  If  I  had 
attempted  to  prevent  it,  there  would  have  been  a  more  horrible 
slaughter  than  there  was  last  night  on  the  Boulevards,  and, 
what  is  worse,  the  men  who  remained  staunch  would  have 
been  in  a  minority,  and  not  able  to  stand  their  ground.  The 
mob  have  got  hold  of  the  muskets  of  the  National  Guards.  I 
dare  say,  as  you  came  along,  you  noticed  on  many  doors, 
written  up  in  chalk,  '  Arms  given  up,'  and  on  some  the  words 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PA  RIS.  2  o  i 

*  with  pleasure '  added  to  the  statement."  It  was  perfectly 
true ;  I  had  noticed  it. 

I  was  still  talking  to  the  captain  when  the  drums  began  to 
beat  and  the  buglers  sounded  the  salute.  At  the  same  moment 
I  saw  the  king,  in  the  uniform  of  a  general  of  the  National 
Guards,  cross  the  courtyard  on  horseback.  I  noticed  a  great 
many  ladies  at  the  ground-floor  windows  of  the  palace,  but 
could  not  distinguish  their  faces,  I  was  told  afterwards  that 
they  were  the  queen  and  the  princesses,  endeavoring  to  en- 
courage the  septuagenarian  monarch.  Louis-Philippe  was 
seventy-five  then. 

I  have  often  heard  and  seen  it  stated  by  historians  of  the 
revolution  of  '48,  that  the  Duke  d'Aumale  and  the  Prince  de 
Joinville,  had  they  been  in  Paris,  would  have  saved  their 
father's  crown.  This  is  an  assumption  which  it  is  difficult  to 
disprove,  seeing  how  popular  these  young  princes  were  then. 
But  if  the  assumption  is  meant  to  convey  that  the  mob  at  the 
sight  of  these  brave  young  fellows  would  have  laid  down  their 
arms  without  fighting,  I  can  unhesitatingly  contradict  it.  What 
the.  National  Guard  might  have  done  it  is  impossible  to  say. 
The  regulars,  no  doubt,  would  have  followed  the  princes 
into  battle,  as  they  would  have  followed  their  brother,  De 
Nemours,  notwithstanding  the  latter's  unpopularity.  There 
would  have  been  a  great  deal  of  bloodshed,  but  the  last  word 
would  have  remained  with  the  Government.  Louis-Philippe's 
greatest  title  to  glory  is  that  of  having  prevented  such  blood- 
shed. But  to  show  how  little  such  abnegation  of  self  is  under- 
stood by  even  the  most  educated  Frenchmen,  I  must  relate  a 
story  which  was  told  to  me  many  years  afterwards  by  a  French 
officer  who,  at  that  time,  had  just  returned  from  the  Pontifical 
States,  where  he  had  helped  to  defeat  the  small  army  of  Gari- 
baldi. He  was  describing  the  battle-field  of  Mentana  to 
Napoleon  IIL,  and  mentioned  a  prisoner  he  had  made  who 
turned  out  to  be  an  old  acquaintance  from  the  Boulevards. 
"  He  was  furious  against  Garibaldi,  sire,"  said  the  officer, 
*'  because  the  latter  had  placed  him  in  the  necessity,  as  it  were, 
of  firing  upon  his  own  countrymen  in  a  strange  land.  Said  the 
prisoner,  '  I  am  not  an  emigre  ;  I  would  not  have  gone  to 
Coblenz ;  I  am  a  Frenchman  from  the  crown  of  my  head 
to  the  sole  of  my  foot.  If  it  came  to  fighting  my  countrymen 
in  the  streets  of  Paris,  that  would  be  a  different  thing.  I 
should  not  have  the  slightest  scruple  of  firing  upon  the  Im- 
perial Guards  or  upon  the  rabble,  as  the  case  might  be,  for 
that  would  be  civil  war.'     That's  what  he  said,  sire." 


202  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

Napoleon  nodded  his  head,  and  with  his  wonderful,  sphinx- 
like smile,  replied,  "  Your  prisoner  was  right ;  it  makes  all  the 
difference."  The  Orleans  princes,  save  perhaps  one,  never 
knew  these  distinctions  ;  if  they  had  known  them,  the  Comte 
de  Paris  might  be  King  of  France  to-day. 

To  return  for  a  moment  to  Louis-Philippe  as  I  saw  him  at 
the  last  moments  of  his  reign.  He  felt  evidently  disappointed 
at  the  lukewarm  reception  he  received,  for  though  there  was  a 
faint  cry  among  the  regulars  of  "  Vive  le  Roi  I  "  it  was  immedi- 
ately drowned  by  the  stentorian  one  of  the  rabble  of  "  Vive  la 
Reforme !  "  in  which  a  good  many  of  the  National  Guards 
joined.  He  was  evidently  in  a  hurry  to  get  back  to  the  Tuil- 
eries,  and,  when  he  disappeared  in  the  doorway,  I  had  looked 
upon  him  for  the  last  time  in  my  life.  An  hour  and  a  half  later, 
he  had  left  Paris  forever. 

Personally  I  saw  nothing  of  the  flight  of  the  king,  nor  of  the 
inside  of  the  Tuileries,  until  the  royal  family  were  gone.  The 
story  of  that  flight  was  told  to  me  several  years  later  by  the 
Due  de  Montpensier.  What  is  worse,  in  those  days  it  never 
entered  my  mind  that  a  time  would  come  when  I  should"  feel 
desirous  of  committing  my  reminiscences  to  paper,  conse- 
quently I  kept  no  count  of  the  hours  that  went  by,  and  cannot, 
therefore,  give  the  exact  sequence  of  events.  I  do  not  know 
how  long  I  stood  among  the  soldiers  and  the  crowd,  scarcely 
divided  from  one  another  even  by  an  imaginary  line.  It  was 
not  a  pleasant  crowd,  though  to  my  great  surprise  there  were 
a  great  many  more  decently  dressed  persons  in  it  than  I  could 
have  expected,  so  I  stayed  on.  About  half  an  hour  after 
the  king  re-entered  the  Tuileries,  I  noticed  two  gentlemen 
elbow  their  way  through  the  serried  masses.  I  had  no  difficulty 
in  recognizing  the  one  in  civilian's  clothes.  Though  he  was 
by  no  means  so  famous  as  he  became  afterwards,  there  was 
hardly  a  Parisian  who  would  not  have  recognized  him  on  the 
spot.  His  portrait  had  been  drawn  over  and  over  again,  at 
least  as  many  times  as  that  of  the  king,  and  it  is  a  positive 
fact  that  nurses  frightened  their  babies  with  it.  He  was  the 
ugliest  man  of  the  century.  It  was  M.  Adolphe  Cremieux.* 
His  companion  was  in  uniform.  I  learnt  afterwards  that  it  was 
General  Gourgaud,  but  I  did  not  know  him  then  except  by 
name,  and  in  connection  with  his  polemics  with  the   Duke  of 

*  The  author  is  slightly  mistaken.  The  two  ugliest  men  in  France  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury were  Andrieux,  who  wrote  "  Les  Etourdis,'' and  Littr^  ;  but  Cremieux  ran  them  very 
hard.— Editor. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  203 

Wellington,  in  which  the  latter,  did  not  altogether  behave  with 
the  generosity  one  expects  from  an  English  gentleman  towards 
a  fallen  foe.  As  they  passed,  the  old  soldier  must  have  been 
recognized,  because  not  one,  but  at  least  a  hundred  cries 
resounded,  "  Vive  la  grande  armee :  Vive  I'Empereur  !  "  In 
after  years  I  thought  that  these  cries  sounded  almost  prophetic, 
though  I  am  pretty  sure  that  those  who  uttered  them  had 
not  the  slightest  hope  of,  and  perhaps  not  even  a  desire  for,  a 
Napoleonic  restoration,  at  any  rate,  not  the  majority.  There 
is  one  thing,  however,  which  could  not  have  failed  to  strike 
the  impartial  observer  during  the  next  twenty  years.  I  have 
seen  a  good  many  riots,  small  and  large,  during  the  second 
Republic  and  the  Second  Empire.  "  Seditious  cries,"  as  a 
matter  of  course,  were  freely  shouted.  I  have  never  heard  a 
single  one  of  "  Vivent  les  D'Orleans  !  "  or  "Vivent  les  Bour- 
bons !  "  I  have  already  spoken  more  than  once  about  the 
powerful  influence  of  the  Napoleonic  legend  in  those  days ;  I 
shall  have  occasion  to  refer  to  it  again  and  again  when  speak- 
ing about  the  nephew  of  the  first  Napoleon. 

Cremieux  and  Gourgaud  could  not  have  been  inside  the 
Tuileries  more  than  a  quarter  of  an  hour  when  they  rushed  out 
again.  They  evidently  made  a  communication  to  the  troops, 
because  I  beheld  the  latter  waving  their  arms,  but,  of  course, 
I  did  not  catch  a  word  of  what  they  said  ;  I  was  too  far  away. 
It  was,  I  learnt  afterwards,  the  announcement  of  the  advent 
of  a  new  ministry,  and  the  appointment  of  a  new  commander 
of  the  National  Guards.  When  I  saw  hats  and  caps  flung  into - 
the  air,  and  heard  the  people  shouting,  I  made  certain  that  the 
revolution  was  at  an  end.  I  was  mistaken.  It  was  not 
Cremieux's  communication  at  all  that  had  provoked  the  en- 
thusiasm ;  it  was  a  second  communication,  made  by  some  one 
from  the  doorway  of  the  Tuileries  immediately  after  the  emi- 
nent barrister  had  disappeared  among  the  crowd,  to  the  effect 
that  the  king  had  abdicated  in  favor  of  the  Comte  de  Paris, 
with  the  Duchesse  d'Orleans  as  regent.  Between  the  first  and 
second  announcements  there  could  not  have  elapsed  more  than 
five  or  six  minutes,  ten  at  the  utmost,  because,  before  I  had 
time  to  recover  from  my  surprise,  I  saw  Cremieux  and  Gour- 
gaud battle  through  the  tightly  wedged  masses  once  more,  and 
re-enter  the  Tuileries  to  verify  the  news.  I  am  writing  this 
note  especially  by  the  light  of  subsequent  information,  for,  I 
repeat,  it  was  impossible  to  understand  events  succinctly  by 
the  quickly  succeeding  effects  they  produced  at  the  time. 
Another  ten  minutes  elapsed — ten  minutes  which  I  shall  never 


204  ^^^'  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

forget,  because  every  one  of  the  thousands  present  on  the 
Place  du  Carrousel  was  m  momentary  danger  of  having  the 
life  "crushed  out  of  him.  It  was  no  one's  fault ;  there  was,  if  I 
recollect  rightly,  but  one  narrow  issue  on  the  river-side,  and 
there  was  a  dense  seething  mass  standing  on  the  banks,  not- 
withstanding the  danger  of  that  position,  for  the  insurgents 
were  firing  freely  and  recklessly  across  the  stream.  Egress  on 
the  opposite  side  of  the  Place  du  Carrousel,  that  of  the  Place 
du  Palais-Royal,  had  become  absolutely  impossible,  for  at  that 
moment  a  fierce  battle  was  raging  there  between  the  people 
and  the  National  Guards  for  the  possession  of  the  military  post 
of  the  Chateau  d'Eau  ;*  and  those  of  the  non-combatants  who 
did  not  think  it  necessary  to  pay  for  the  fall  or  the  mair^^nance 
of  the  monarchy  of  July  with  life  or  limb,  tried  to  get  out  of 
the  bullets'  reach.  There  was  but  one  way  of  doing  so,  by  a 
stampede  in  a  southerly  direction ;  the  Rue  de  Rivoli,  at  any 
rate  that  part  which  existed,  was  entirely  blocked  to  the  west, 
the  congeries  of-streets  that  have  been  pulled  down  since  to 
make  room  for  its  prolongation  to  the  east  were  bristling  with 
barricades:  hence  the  terrible,  suft'ocating  crush,  in  which 
several  persons  lost  their  lives.  The  most  curious  incident 
connected  with  these  awful  ten  minutes  was  that  of  a  woman 
and  her  baby.  When  Cremieux  issued  for  the  second  time 
from  the  Tuileries,  it  was  to  confirm  the  news  of  the  king's 
abdication.  Almost  immediately  afterwards,  the  masses  on  the 
quay  were  making  for  the  Place  de  la  Concorde  and  the  Palais- 
Bourbon,  whither,  it  was  rumored,  the  Duchesse  d'Orleans 
and  her  two  sons  were  going ;  and  gradually  the  wedged-in 
mass  on  the  Place  du  Carrousel  found  breathing  space.  Then 
the  woman  was  seen  to  fall  down  like  a  ninepin  that  has  been 
toppled  over  ;  she  was  dead,  but  her  baby,  which  she  had  held 
above  the  crowd,  and  which  they  had,  as  it  were,  to  wrench 
from  her  grasp,  was  alive  and  well. 

I  stood  for  a  little  while  longer  on  the  Place  du  Carrousel, 
trying  to  make  up  my  mind  whether  to  proceed  to  the  Place 
de  la  Concorde  or  to  the  Place  de  I'Hotel  de  Ville.  I  knew 
that  the  newly  elected  powers,  whosoever  they  might  be,  would 
make  their  appearance  at  the  latter  spot,  but  how  long  it  would 
be  before  they  came,  I  had  not  the  least  idea.  I  was  de- 
termined, however,  to  see  at  any  rate  one  act  of  the  drama  or 
the  farce  ;  for  even  then  there  was  no  knowing  in  what  guise 

*  So  called  after  a  large  ornamental  fountain ;  the  same,  I  believe,  which  subsequently 
was  transferred  to  what  is  now  called  the  Place  de  la  Republique,  and  which  finally  found 
Us  way  to  the  Avenue  Daumesnil,  where  it  stands  at  present. — Editor. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  205 

events  would  present  themselves.  I  could  hear  the  reports  of 
firearms  on  both  sides  of  me,  though  why  there  should  be 
firing  when  the  king  had  thrown  up  the  sponge,  I  could  not 
make  out  for  the  life  of  me.  I  did  not  know  France  so  well 
then  as  I  know  her  now.  I  did  not  know  then  that  there  is  no 
man  or,  for  that  matter,  no  woman  on  the  civilized  earth  so 
heedlessly  and  obdurately  bloodthirsty  when  he  or  she  works 
himself  into  a  fury  as  the  professedly  debonnaire  Parisian  pro- 
letarian. Nevertheless,  I  decided  to  go  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville, 
and  had  carefully  worked  my  way  as  far  as  the  site  of  the  pres- 
ent Place  du  Chatelet,  when  I  was  compelled  to  retrace  my 
steps.  The  elite  of  the  Paris  scum  was  going  to  dictate  its 
will  to  the  new  Government ;  it  was  marching  to  the  Chamber 
of  Deputies  with  banners  flying.  One  of  the  latter  was  a  red- 
and-white  striped  flannel  petticoat,  fastened  to  a  tremendously 
long  pole.  I  had  no  choice,  and  if  at  that  moment  my  friends 
had  seen  me  they  might  have  easily  imagined  that  I  had  be- 
come one  of  the  leaders  of  the  revolutionary  mob.  We  took 
by  the  Quai  de  la  Megisserie,  and  just  before  the  Pont  des 
Arts  there  was  a  momentary  halt.  The  vanguard,  which  I  was 
apparently  leading,  had  decided  to  turn  to  the  right ;  in  other 
words,  to  visit  the  abode  of  the  hated  tyrant.  Had  I  belonged 
to  the  main  division,  I  should  have  witnessed  a  really  more 
important  scene,  from  the  historical  point  of  view  ;  as  it  was,  I 
witnessed — 

The  Sacking  of  the  Tuileries. 

The  idea  that  "  there  is  a  divinity  that  hedgeth  round  a 
king  "  seemed,  I  admit,  preposterous  enough  at  that  moment ; 
but  I  could  not  help  being  struck  with  its  partial  truth  on  seeing 
the  rabble  invade  the  palace.  When  I  say  the  rabble,  I  mean 
the  rabble,  though  there  were  a  great  many  persons  whom  it 
would  be  an  insult  to  class  as  such,  and  who  from  sheer 
curiosity,  or  because  they  could  not  help  themselves,  had  gone 
in  with  them.  The  doors  proved  too  narrow,  and  those  who 
could  not  enter  by  that  way  entered  by  the  windows.  The 
whole  contingent  of  the  riff-raff,  male  and  female,  weltering, 
in  the  adjacent  streets — and  such  streets  ! — was  there.  Well, 
for.  the  first  ten  minutes  they  stood  positively  motionless,  not 
daring  to  touch  anything.  It  was  not  the  fear  of  being 
caught  pilfering  and  punished  summarily  that  prevented  them. 
The  minority  which  might  have  protested  was  so  utterly  in- 
significant in  numbers,  as  to  make  action  on  their  part  im- 
possible.    No,  it  was  neither  fear  nor  shame  that  stayed  the 


2o6  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

rabble's  hands ;  it  was  a  sentiment  for  which  I  can  find  no 
name.  It  was  the  consciousness  that  these  objects  had 
belonged  to  a  king,  to  a  royal  family,  which  made  them  gaze 
upon  them  in  a  kind  of  superstitious  wonder.  It  did  not 
last  long.  We  were  on  the  ground  floor,  which  mainly 
consisted  of  the  private  apartments  of  the  household  of 
Louis-Philippe.  We  were  wandering,  or  rather  squeezing, 
through  the  study  and  bedroom  of  the  king  himself,  through 
the  sitting-rooms  of  the  princes  and  princesses.  I  do  not 
think  that  a  single  thing  was  taken  from  there  at  that  particular 
time.  But  as  if  the  atmosphere  their  rulers  had  breathed  but 
so  very  recently  became  too  oppressive,  the  crowd  swayed 
towards  the  vestibule,  and  ascended  the  grand  staircase.  Then 
the  spell  was  broken.  The  second  batch  that  entered  through 
the  windows,  when  we  had  made  room  for  them,  were  ap- 
parently not  affected  by  wonder  and  respect,  for,  half  an  hour 
later,  when  I  came  down  again,  every  cupboard,  every  ward- 
robe, had  been  forced,  though  it  is  but  fair  to  say  that  very 
little  seems  to  have  been  taken  ;  the  contents,  books,  clothing, 
linen,  etc.,  were  scattered  on  the  floors  ;  but  the  cellars,  con- 
taining over  four  thousand  bottles  of  wine,  were  positively 
empty.  Two  hours  later,  however,  the  clothing,  especially 
that  of  the  princesses,  had  totally  disappeared.  It  had  dis- 
appeared on  the  backs' of  the  inmates  of  St.  Lazare,  the  doors 
of  which  had  been  thrown  open,  and  who  had  rushed  to  the 
Tuileries  to  deck  themselves  with  these  fine  feathers  which,  in 
this  instance,  did  not  make  fine  birds.  I  saw  some  of  them 
that  same  evening  on  the  Boulevards,  and  a  more  heart-rend- 
ing spectacle  I  have  rarely  beheld. 

The  three  hours  I  spent  at  the  Tuileries  were  so  crowded 
with  events  as  to  make  a  succinct  account  of  them  altogether 
impossible.  I  can  only  give  fragments,  because,  though  at 
first  the  wearers  of  broadcloth  were  not  molested,  this  tolerance 
did  not  last  long  on  the  part  of  the  new  possessors  of  the 
Tuileries  ;  and  consequently  the  former  gradually  dropped  off, 
and  those  of  them  who  remained  had  to  be  very  circumspect, 
and,  above  all,  not  to  linger  long  in  the  same  spot.  This  grow- 
ing hostility  might  have  been  nipped  in  the  bud  by  our  follow- 
ing the  example  of  the  National  Guards,  and  taking  off  our 
coats  and  fraternizing  with  the  rabble  ;  but  I  frankly  confess 
that  I  had  neither  the  courage  nor  the  stomach  to  do  so.  I 
have  read  descriptions  of  mutinous  sailors  stowing  in  casks  of 
rum  and  gorging  themselves  with  victuals  ;  revolting  as  such 
scenes  must  be  to  those  who  take  no  active  part  in  them,  I 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 


207 


doubt  whether  they  could  be  as  revolting  as  the  one  I  witnessed 
in  the  Galerie  de  Diane. 

The  Galerie  de  Diane  was  one  of  the  large  reception-rooms 
on  the  first  floor,  but  it  generally  served  as  the  dining  and  break- 
fast room  of  the  royal  family.  The  table  had  been  laid  for 
about  three  dozen  persons,  because,  as  a  rule,  Louis-Philippe 
invited  the  principal  members  of  his  military  and  civil  house- 
holds to  take  their  repasts  with  him.  The  breakfast  had  been 
interrupted,  and  not  been  cleared  away.  When  I  entered  the 
apartment  some  sixty  or  seventy  ruffians  of  both  sexes  were 
seated  at  the  board,  while  a  score  or  so  were  engaged  in  wait- 
ing upon  them.  They  were  endeavoring  to  accomplish  what 
the  Highest  Authority  has  declared  impossible  of  accomplish- 
ment, namely,  the  making  of  silken  purses  out  of  sows'  ears. 
They  were  "  putting  on  "  what  they  considered  "  company 
manners,"  and,  under  any  other  circumstances  but  these,  the 
attempt  would  have  proved  irresistibly  comic  to  the  educated 
spectator ;  as  it  was,  it  brought  tears  to  one's  eyes.  I  have 
already  hinted  elsewhere  that  the  cuisine  at  the  Tuileries  dur- 
ing Louis-Philippe's  reign  was .  execrable,  though  the  wine  was 
generally  good.  Bad  as  was  the  fare  on  that  abandoned  break- 
fast-table, it  must,  nevertheless,  have  been  superior  to  that 
usually  partaken  of  by  the  convives  who  had  taken  the  place 
of  the  fugitive  king  and  princes.  They,  the  convives,  however, 
did  not  think  so  ;  they  criticised  the  food,  and  ordered  the  im- 
provised attendants  "  to  give  them  something  different ;  "  then 
they  turned  to  their  female  companions,  filling  their  glasses 
and  paying  them  compliments.  But  for  the  fact  of  another 
batch  eagerly  claiming  their  turn,  the  repast  would  have  been 
indefinitely  prolonged ;  as  it  was,  the  provisions  in  the  palace 
were  running  short,  and  the  deficiency  had  to  be  made  up  by 
supplies  from  outside.  The  inner  man  being  refreshed,  the 
ladies  were  invited  to  take  a  stroll  through  the  apartments, 
pending  the  serving  of  the  cafe  and  liqueurs.  The  preparation 
of  the  mocha  was  somewhat  difficult,  seeing  the  utensils  neces- 
sary for  the  supply  of  so  large  a  company  were  probably  not 
at  hand,  and  the  ingredients  themselves  in  the  store-rooms  of 
the  palace.  Nothing  daunted,  one  of  the  self-invited  guests 
rose  and  said,  in  a  loud  voice,  "  Permettez  moi  d'offrir  le  cafe 
k  la  compagnie,"  which  offer  was  received  with  tumultuous  ap- 
plause. Suiting  the  action  to  the  word,  he  pulled  out  a  small 
canvas  bag,  and  took  from  it  two  five-franc  pieces.  "  Qu'on 
aille  chercher  du  cafe  et  du  meilleur,"  he  said  to  one  of  the 
guests  who  had  stepped  forward  to  execute  his  orders,  for  they 


2o8  AjV  englishman  in  PARIS. 

sounded  almost  like  it ;  and  I  was  wondering  why  those  pro- 
fessed champions  of  equality  did  not  tell  him  to  fetch  the  coffee 
himself.  Then  he  added,  "  Et  pendant  que  tu  y  es,  citoyen, 
apportedes  cigarres  pour  nous  et  des  cigarettes  pour  les  dames." 
The  "  citoyen  "  was  already  starting  on  his  errand,  when  the 
other  *' citoyen  "  called  him  back.  "  Ecoute,"  he  said;  "tu 
n'acheteras  rien  a  moins  d'y  etre  force.  Je  crois  que  tu  n'auras 
qu'k  demander  a  la  premiere  epicerie  venue  ce  qu'il  te  faut,  et 
ainsi  au  premier  bureau  de  tabac.  lis  ont  si  peur,  ces  sales 
bourgeois  qu'ils  n'oseront  pas  te  refuser.  En  tout  cas  prends 
un  fusil ;  on  ne  salt  pas  ce  qui  peut  arriver  ;  mais  ne  t'en  sers 
pas  qu'en  cas  de  necessite  : " — which  meant  plainly  enough, 
"  If  they  refuse  to  give  you  the  coffee  and  the  tobacco,  shoot 
them  down." 

Of  course,  I  am  unable  to  say  how  these  two  commodities 
were  eventually  procured ;  but  I  have  every  reason  to  believe 
that  this  messenger  had  only  "  to  ask  and  have,"  without  as 
much  as  showing  his  musket.  There  is  no  greater  cur  at  trou- 
blous times  than  the  Paris  shopkeeper.  The  merest  urchin  will 
terrify  him.  Even  on  the  previous  day  I  had  seen  bands  of 
gamins  who  had  constituted  themselves  the  guardians  of  the 
barricades — and  there  was  one  in  nearly  every  street — levy  toll 
without  the  slightest  resistance,  when  a  few  well-administered 
cuffs  would  have  sent  them  flying,  so  I  have  not  the  slightest 
doubt  that  our  friend  had  all  the  credit  of  his  generosity  with- 
out disbursing  a  penny — unless  his  delegate  fleeced  him  also, 
on  the  theory  that  a  man  who  could  "  fork  out "  ten  francs  at 
a  moment's  notice  was  nothing  more  or  less  than  a  bourgeois. 
However,  when  I  returned  after  about  forty  minutes'  absence, 
it  was  very  evident  that  both  the  coffee  and  the  tobacco  had 
arrived,  because  the  Galerie  de  Diane,  large  as  it  was,  was  full 
of  smoke,  and  three  saucepans,  filled  with  water,  were  standing 
on  the  fire,  while  two  or  three  smaller  ones  were  arranged  on 
the  almost  priceless  marble  mantelpiece.  Another  batch  of 
ravenous  republicans  had  taken  their  seats  at  the  board,  their 
predecessors  whiling  the  time  away  in  sweet  converse  with  the 
"ladies."  Some  of  the  latter  were  more  usefully  engaged; 
they  were  rifling  the  cabinets  of  the  most  rare  and  valuable 
Sevres,  and  arranging  the  cups,  saucers,  platters  on  their  tops 
to  be  ready  for  the  beverage  that  was  being  brewed.  I  was 
wondering  how  they  had  got  at  these  art-treasures,  having  no- 
ticed an  hour  before  that  their  receptacles  were  locked  and  the 
keys  taken  away.  The  doors  had  simply  been  battered  in  with 
the  hammer  of  the  great  clock  of  the  Tuileries. 


A  N  ENGLISH  MA  N  IiV  PA  AVS.  2  09 

It  was  of  apiece  with  the  wanton  destruction  I  had  witnessed 
elsewhere,  during  my  absence  from  the  Galerie  de  Diane.  Be- 
fore I  returned  thither,  I  had  seen  the  portrait  of  General 
Bugeaud  in  the  Salle  des  Marechaux,  literally  stabbed  with 
bayonets  ;  the  throne  treated  to  a  similar  fate,  and  carried  off 
to  the  Place  de  la  Bastille  to  be  burned  publicly ;  the  papers 
of  the  royal  family  mercilessly  flung  to  the  winds  ;  the  dresses 
of  the  princesses  torn  to  ribbons  or  else  put  on  the  backs  of 
the  vilest  of  the  vile. 

There  was  only  one  comic  incident  to  relieve  the  horror  of 
the  whole.  In  one  of  the  private  apartments  the  rabble  had 
come  upon  an  aged  parrot  screeching  at  the  top  of  its  voice, 
"  A  bas  Guizot !  "  The  bird  became  a  hero  there  and  then, 
and  was  absolutely  crammed  with  sweets  and  sugar.  That 
one  comic  note  was  not  enough  to  dispel  my  disgust,  and  after 
the  scene  in  the  Galerie  de  Diane  which  I  have  just  described, 
I  made  my  way  into  the  street. 

I  had  scarcely  proceeded  a  few  steps,  when  I  heard  the  not 
very  startling  news  that  the  republic  had  been  formally  pro- 
claimed in  the  Chamber  by  M.  de  Lamartine,  who  had  after- 
wards repaired  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville.  At  the  same  time,  peo- 
ple were  shouting  that  the  king  had  died  suddenly.  I  endeav- 
ored to  get  as  far,  but,  though  the  distance  was  certainly  not 
more  than  half  a  mile,  it  took  me  more  than  an  hour.  At  every 
few  yards  my  progress  was  interrupted  by  barricades,  the  self- 
elected  custodians  of  which  were  particularly  anxious  to  show 
their  authority  to  a  man  like  myself,  dressed  in  a  coat.  At 
last  I  managed  to  get  to  the  corner  of  the  Rues  des  Lombards 
and  Saint-Martin,  and  just  in  time  to  enjoy  a  sight  than  which 
I  have  witnessed  nothing  more  comic  during  the  succeeding 
popular  uprisings  in  subsequent  years.  I  was  just  crossing, 
when  a  procession  hove  in  sight,  composed  mainly  of  ragged 
urchins,  dishevelled  women,  and  riff-raff  of  both  sexes.  In 
their  midst  was  an  individual  on  horseback,  dressed  in  the 
uniform  of  a  general  of  the  First  Republic,  whom  they  were 
cheering  loudly.  The  stationary  crowd  made  way  for  them, 
and  mingled  with  the  escort.  The  moment  I  had  thrown  in 
my  lot  with  the  latter,  retreat  was  no  longer  possible,  and  in  a 
very  short  time  I  found  myself  in  the  courtyard  of  the  Hotel 
de  Ville,  and,  in  another  minute  or  so,  in  the  principal  gallery 
on  the  first  floor,  where,  it  appears,  some  members  of  the  Pro- 
visional Government  were  already  at  work.  I  had  not  the  re- 
motest notion  who  they  were,  nor  did  I  care  to  inquire,  having 
merely  come  to  look  on.     The  work  of  the  members  of  the  Pro- 


210  AN  ENGLISHMA N  IN  PA RIS. 

visional  Government  seemed  mainly  to  consist  in  consuming 
enormous  quantities  of  charcuterie  and  washing  them  down  with 
copious  libations  of  cheap  wine.  The  place  was  positively  reek- 
ing with  the  smell  of  both,  not  to  mention  the  fumes  of  tobacco. 
Every  one  was  smoking  his  hardest.  The  entrance  of  the  in- 
dividual in  uniform  caused  somewhat  of  a  sensation  ;  a  member 
— whom  I  had  never  seen  before  and  whom  I  have  never  be- 
held since — stepped  forward  to  ask  his  business.  The  new- 
comer did  not  appear  to  know  himself ;  at  any  rate,  he  stam- 
mered and  stuttered,  but  his  escort  left  him  no  time  to  betray 
his  confusion  more  plainly.  "  C'est  le  citoyen  gouverneur  de 
r Hotel  de  Ville,"  they  shouted  as  with  one  voice  ;  and  there 
and  then  the  new  governor  was  installed,  though  I  am  perfectly 
sure  that  not  a  soul  of  all  those  present  knew  as  much  as  his 
name. 

Subsequent  inquiries  elicited  the  fact  that  the  man  was  a 
fourth  or  fifth-rate  singer,  named  Chateaurenaud,  and  engaged 
at  the  Opera  National  (formerly  the  Cirque  Olympique)  on  the 
Boulevard  du  Temple.  On  that  day  they  were  having  a  dress 
rehearsal  of  a  new  piece  in  which  Chateaurenaud  was  playing 
a  military  part.  He  had  just  donned  his  costume  when,  hear- 
ing a  noise  on  the  Boulevards,  he  put  his  head  out  of  the 
window.  The  mob  caught  sight  of  him.  "  A  general,  a 
general  !  "  cried  several  urchins  ;  and  in  less  time  than  it  takes 
to  tell,  the  theatre  was  invaded,  and  notwithstanding  his 
struggles,  Chateaurenaud  was  carried  off,  placed  on  horseback, 
and  conducted  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  where,  for  the  next  fort- 
night, he  throned  as  governor.  For,  curious  to  relate,  M.  de 
Lamartine  ratified  his  appointment  (?)  on  the  morning  of  the 
25th  of  February.  Chateaurenaud  became  an  official  of  the 
secret  police  during  the  Second  Empire.  I  often  saw  him  on 
horseback  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne,  when  the  Emperor  drove 
in  that  direction. 

I  did  not  stay  long  in  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  but  made  my  way 
back  to  the  Boulevards  as  best  I  could ;  for  by  that  time  dark- 
ness had  set  in,  and  the  mob  was  shouting  for  illuminations, 
and  obstructing  the  thoroughfares  everywhere.  Every  now 
and  then  one  came  upon  a  body  which  had  been  lying  there 
since  the  morning,  but  they  took  no  notice  of  it.  Their  prin- 
cipal concern  seemed  the  suitable  acknowledgment  of  the 
advent  ot  the  Second  Republic  by  the  bourgeoisie  by  means 
of  colored  devices,  or,  in  default  of  such,  by  colored  lamps 
or  even  candles.  Woe  to  the  houses,  the  inhabitants  of  which 
remained  deaf  to  their  summons  to  that  effect.     In  a  very  few 


AJSr  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  i  1 1 

minutes  every  window  was  smashed  to  atoms,  until  at  last  a 
timid  hand  was  seen  to  arrange  a  few  bottles  with  candles 
stuck  into  them  on  the  sill,  and  light  them.  Then  they 
departed,  to  impose  their  will  elsewhere. 

That  night  after  dinner,  the  first  person  of  my  acquaintance  I 
met  was  Mery.  He  had  been  in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  from 
the  very  beginning  of  the  proceedings  ;  it  was  he  who  solemnly 
assured  me  that  the  first  cry  of  "  Vive  la  Republique  ! "  had 
been  uttered  by  M.  de  Lamartine.  I  was  surprised  at  this, 
because  I  had  been  told  that  early  in  the  morning  the  poet  had 
paid  a  visit  to  the  Duchess  d'Orleans  to  assure  her  of  his 
devotion  to  her  cause.  "  That  may  be  so,"  said  Mery,  to 
whom  I  repeated  what  I  had  heard  ;  "  but  you  must  remember 
that  Lamartine  is  always  hard  up,  and  closely  pursued  by 
duns.  A  revolution  with  the  prospect  of  becoming  president 
of  the  republic  was  the  only  means  of  staving  off  his  creditors. 
He  clutched  at  it  as  a  last  resource." 

Alexandre  Dumas  was  there  also,  but  I  have  an  idea  that 
he  would  have  willingly  passed  the  sponge  over  that  incident 
of  his  life,  for  I  never  could  get  him  to  talk  frankly  on  the 
subject.  Tl^is  does  not  mean  that  he  would  have  recanted  his 
republican  principles,  but  that  he  was  ashamed  at  having  lent 
his  countenance  to  such  a  republic  as  that.  I  fancy  there 
were  a  great  many  like  him. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

I  KNEW  Louis-Napoleon,  if  not  intimately,  at  least  very  well, 
for  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century,  and  I  felt  myself  as  little  com- 
petent to  give  an  opinion  on  him  on  the  last  as  on  the  first 
day  of  our  acquaintance.  I  feel  almost  certain  of  one  thing 
though ;  that,  if  he  had  had  very  ample  means  of  his  own,  the 
Second  Empire  would  have  never  been.  Since  its  fall  I  have 
heard  and  read  a  great  deal  about  Louis-Napoleon's  unfaltering 
belief  in  his  star ;  I  fancy  it  would  have  shone  less  brightly  to 
him  but  for  the  dark,  impenetrable  sky  of  impecuniosity  in  which 
it  was  set.  Mery  said  that  Lamartine  proclaimed  the  Second 
Republic  as  a  means  of  staving  off  his  creditors  ;  and  the  ac- 
cusation was  justified  by  Lamartine's  own  words  in  the  Assem- 
blee  Nationale  itself  on  the  nth  of  September,  1848:  "  Je 
declare  hautement  que  le  24  Fevrier  a  midi,  je  ne  pensais  pas 
a  la  Republique."     To  use  a  popular  locution,  the  author  of 


2 1 2  ^.V  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PA RIS. 

"  L'Histoire  des  Girondins  "  suspected,  perhaps,  that  Louis- 
Napoleon  might  take  a  leaf  from  his,  the  author's,  book ;  for 
the  needy  man,  though  perhaps  not  a  better  psychologist  than 
most  men,  has  a  very  comprehensive  key  to  the  motives  of  a 
great  number  of  his  fellow-creatures,  especially  if  they  be  French- 
men and  professional  politicians.  I  am  speaking  by  the  light 
of  many  years'  observation.  Furthermore,  the  pecuniary  em- 
barrassments of  Louis-Napoleon  were  no  secret  to  any  one. 
"  I  have  established  a  republic  for  money's  sake,"  Lamartine 
said  to  himself  ;  "  some  one  will  endeavor  to  overthrow  it  for 
money's  sake."  I  am  aware  that  this  is  not  a  very  elevated 
standard  whereby  to  judge  political  events  ;  but  I  do  not  pro- 
fess to  be  an  historian — mine  is  only  the  little  huckster  shop 
of  history. 

It  is  more  than  probable  that  this  was  the  reason  why  Lamar- 
tine told  Louis-Napoleon  to  go  back  to  England,  in  their  inter- 
view— a  secret  one — on  the  2d  of  March,  1848. 

It  was  M.  de  Persigny  who  told  me  this  many  years  after- 
wards. "The  Prince  could  afford  to  humor  De  Lamartine  in 
that  way,"  he  added,  "  for  if  ever  a  man  was  justified  in  believ- 
ing in  his  star  it  was  he.  I'll  tell  you  a  story  which  is  scarcely 
known  to  half  a  dozen  men,  including  the  Emperor  and  myself  ; 
I  am  not  aware  of  its  having  been  told  by  any  biographer.  The 
moment  we  ascertained  the  truth  of  the  news  that  reached  us 
from  Paris,  we  made  for  the  coast,  and,  on  Saturday  morning, 
we  crossed  in  the  mail-packet.  It  w^as  very  rough,  and  we  had 
a  good  shaking,  so  that  when  we  got  to  Boulogne  we  were  ab- 
solutely 'done  up.'  But  we  heard  that  a  train  was  to  start  for 
Paris,  and,  as  a  matter  of  course,  the  Prince  would  not  lose  a 
minute.  We  had  to  walk  to  Neufchatel,  about  three  miles  dis- 
tant, because  there  was  something  the  matter  with  the  rails,  I 
do  not  know  what.  We  flung  ourselves  into  the  first  compart- 
ment, which  already  contained  two  travellers.  Almost  immedi- 
ately we  had  got  under  weigh,  one  of  these,  who  had  looked 
very  struck  when  he  entered,  addressed  the  Prince  by  name. 
He  turned  out  to  be  Monsieur  Biesta,  who  had  paid  a  visit  to 
Napoleon  during  his  imprisonment  at  Ham,  and  who  immedi- 
ately recognized  him.  Monsieur  Biesta  had  just  left  the  Due 
de  Nemours.  I  do  not  know  whether  he  was  at  that  time  a 
Republican,  a  Monarchist,  or  an  Imperialist,  but  he  was  a  man 
of  honor,  and  it  was  thanks  to  him  that  the  son  of  Louis-Phi- 
lippe made  his  escape.  The  other  one  was  the  Marquis  d'Arra- 
gon,  who  died  about  a  twelvemonth  afterwards.  All  went  well 
until  we  got  to  Amiens,  where  we  had  to  wait  a  very  long  while, 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  :2i3 

the  train  which  was  to  have  taken  us  on  to  Paris  having  just  left. 
For  once  in  a  way  the  Prince  got  impatient.  He  who  on  the 
eve  of  the  Coup  d'Etat  remained,  at  any  rate  outwardly,  per- 
fectly stolid,  was  fuming  and  fretting  at  the  delay.  One  would 
have  thought  that  the  whole  of  Paris  was  waiting  at  the  North- 
ern station  to  receive  him  with  open  arms,  and  to  proclaim 
him  Emperor  there  and  then.  But  impatient  or  not,  we  had  to 
wait,  and,  what  was  worse  or  better,  the  train  that  finally  took 
us  came  to  a  dead  stop  at  Persan,  where  the  news  reached  us 
that  the  rails  had  been  broken  up  by  the  insurgents  at  Pontoise, 
that  a  frightful  accident  had  happened  in  consequence  to  the 
train  we  had  missed  by  a  few  minutes  at  Amiens,  in  which  at 
least  thirty  lives  were  lost,  besides  a  great  number  of  wounded. 
But  for  the  merest  chance  we  should  have  been  among  the  pas- 
sengers. Was  I  right  in  saying  that  the  Prince  was  justified 
in  believing  in  his  star  ?  " 

I  did  not  meet  with  Louis-Napoleon  until  he  was  a  candidate 
for  the  presidency  of  the  Second  Republic,  and  while  he 
was  staying  at  the  Hotel  du  Rhin  in  the  Place  Vendome.  Of 
course,  I  had  heard  a  great  deal  about  him,  but  my  informants, 
to  a  man,  were  English.  While  the  latter  were  almost  unani- 
mous in  predicting  Louis-Napoleon's  eventual  advent  to  the 
throne,  the  French,  though  in  no  way  denying  the  influence  of 
the  Napoleonic  legend,  were  apt  to  shrug  their  shoulders  more 
or  less  contemptuously  at  the  pretensions  of  Hortense's  son  ; 
for  few  ever  designated  him  by  any  other  name,  until  later  on, 
when  the  nickname  of  "  Badinguet "  began  to  be  on  every  one's 
lips.  Consequently,  I  was  anxious  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  him  ; 
but  before  noting  the  impressions  produced  by  that  first  meet- 
ing, I  will  devote  a  few  lines  to  the  origin  of  that  celebrated 
sobriquet. 

Personally,  I  never  heard  it  in  connection  with  Louis-Na- 
poleon until  his  betrothal  to  Mdlle.  Eugenie  de  Montijo  became 
common  "  talk ; "  but  I  had  heard  and  seen  it  in  print  a  good 
many  years  before,  and  even  as  late  as  '48.  There  was,  how- 
ever, not  the  slightest  attempt  at  that  time  to  couple  it  with 
the  person  of  the  future  Emperor.  Three  solutions  have  made 
the  round  of  the  papers  at  various  times  :  (i)  that  it  was  the 
name  of  the  stonemason  or  bricklayer  who  lent  Louis-Napo- 
leon his  clothes  to  facilitate  his  escape  from  Ham  in  June, 
1845  5  (2)  that  it  was  the  name  of  the  soldier  who  was  wound- 
ed by  the  Prince  on  the  5th  of  August,  1840,  at  Boulogne, 
when  the  latter  fired  on  Captain  Col-Puygellier  ;  (3)  that  about 
the  latter  end  of  the  forties  a  pipe-manufacturer  introduced  a 


i>  1 4  ^ A"  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PA  RIS. 

pipe,  the  head  of  which  resembled  that  of  Louis-Napoleon,  and 
that  the  pipemaker's  name  was  Badinguet. 

The  latter  solution  may  be  dismissed  at  once  as  utterly  with- 
out foundation.  With  regard  to  that  having  reference  to  the 
stonemason,  no  stonemason  lent  Louis-Napoleon  his  clothes. 
The  disguise  was  provided  by  Dr.  Conneau  from  a  source 
which  has  never  been  revealed.  There  was,  moreover,  no 
stonemason  of  the  name  of  Badinguet  at  Ham,  and,  when  Louis- 
Napoleon  crossed  the  drawbridge  of  the  castle,  his  face  par- 
tially hidden  by  a  board  he  was  carrying  on  his  shoulder,  a 
workman,  who  mistook  him  for  one  of  his  mates,  exclaimed, 
"  Hullo,  there  goes  Bertoux."     Bertoux,  not  Badinguet. 

The  name  of  the  soldier  wounded  by  Louis-Napoleon  was 
Geoffroy  ;  he  was  a  grenadier,  decorated  on  the  battle-field  ; 
and  shortly  after  Napoleon's  accession  to  the  throne,  he  granted 
him  a  pension.  There  can  be  no  possible  mistake  about  the 
narne,  seeing  that  it  was  attested  at  the  trial  subsequent  to  the 
fiasco  before  the  Court  of  Peers. 

The  real  fact  is  this  :  Gavarni,  like  Balzac,  invented  many 
names,  suggested  in  many  instances  by  those  of  their  friends 
and  acquaintances,  or  sometimes  merely  altered  from  those 
they  had  seen  on  sign-boards.  The  great  caricaturist  had  a 
friend  in  the  Departement  des  Landes  named  Badingo  ;  about 
'38  he  began  his  sketches  of  students  and  their  companions 
("  Etudiants  et  Etudiantes"),  and  in  one  of  them  a  medical 
student  shows  his  lady-love  an  articulated  skeleton. 

"  Look  at  this,"  says  the  former ;  "  this  is  Eugenie,  the  former 
sweetheart  of  Badinguet — that  tall,  fair  girl  who  was  so  fond 
of  meringues.     He  has  had  her  mounted  for  thirty-six  francs.^' 

The  connection  is  very  obvious ;  it  only  wanted  one  single 
wag  to  remember  the  sT^it  when  Napoleon  became  engaged  to 
Eugenie  de  Montijo.  He  set  the  ball  rolling,  and  the  rest 
followed  as  a  matter  of  course. 

At  the  same  time,  Gavarni  had  not  been  half  as  original  as 
he  imagined,  in  the  invention  of  the  name.  Badinguet  was  a 
character  in  a  one-act  farce  entitled  "  Le  Mobilier  de  Rosine," 
played  for  the  first  time  in  1828,  at  the  Theatre  Montansier  ; 
and  there  is  a  piece  of  an  earlier  date  even,  in  which  Grassot 
played  a  character  by  the  name  of  Badinguet.  In  1848,  there 
was  a  kind  of  Jules  Vernesque  piece  at  the  Porte  Saint-Martin, 
in  which  Badinguet,  a  Parisian  shopkeeper,  starts  with  his  wife 
Euphemie  for  some  distant  island. 

To  return  to  Louis-Napoleon  at  the  Hotel  du  Rhin,  and  my 
first  glimpse  of  him.     I  must  own  that  1  was  disappointed  with 


A.V  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  2 1 5 

it.  Though  I  had  not  the  slightest  ground  for  expecting  to 
see  a  fine  man,  I  did  not  expect  to  see  so  utterly  an  insignificant 
one,  and  badly  dressed  in  the  bargain.  On  the  evening  in 
question,  he  wore  a  brown  coat  of  a  peculiar  color,  a  green 
plush  waistcoat,  and  a  pair  of  yellowish  trousers,  the  like  of 
which  I  have  never  seen  on  the  legs  of  any  one  off  the  stage. 
And  yet  Lord  Normanby,  and  a  good  many  more  who  have 
said  that  he  looked  every  inch  a  king,  were  not  altogether  wrong. 
There  was  a  certain  gracefulness  about  him  which  owed  ab- 
solutely nothing  either  to  his  tailor,  his  barber,  or  his  bootmaker. 
"  The  gracefulness  of  awkwardness"  sounds  remarkably  like  an 
Irish  bull,  yet  I  can  find  no  other  term  to  describe  his  gait  and 
carriage.  Louis-Napoleon's  legs  seemed  to  have  been  an  after- 
thought of  his  Creator — they  were  too  short  for  his  body,  and 
his  head  appeared  constantly  bent  down,  to  supervise  their  mo- 
tion ;  consequently,  their  owner  was  always  at  a  disadvantage 
when  compelled  to  make  use  of  them.  But  when  standing  still, 
or  on  horseback,  there  was  an  indescribable  something  about 
the  man  which  at  once  commanded  attention.  I  am  not  over- 
looking the  fact  that,  on  the  occasion  of  our  first  meeting,  my 
curiosity  had  been  aroused  ;  but  I  doubt  whether  any  one,  en- 
dowed with  the  smallest  power  of  observation,  though  utterly 
ignorant  with  regard  to  his  previous  history,  and  equally  scep- 
tical with  regard  to  his  future  destiny,  could  have  been  in  his 
company  for  any  length  of  time  without  being  struck  with  his 
appearance. 

When  I  entered  the  apartment  on  the  evening  in  question, 
Louis-Napoleon  was  leaning  in  his  favorite  attitude  against  the 
mantelpiece,  smoking  the  scarcely  ever  absent  cigarette,  and 
pulling  at  the  heavy  brown  mustache,  the  ends  of  which  in 
those  days  were  not  waxed  into  points  as  they  were  later  on. 
There  was  not  the  remotest  likeness  to  any  portrait  of  the  Bona- 
parte family  I  had  ever  seen.  He  wore  his  thin,  lank  hair  much 
longer  than  he  did  afterwards.  The  most  startling  features 
were  decidedly  the  aquiline  nose  and  the  eyes ;  the  latter  of  a 
grayish-blue,  were  comparatively  small  and  somewhat  almond- 
shaped,  but,  except  at  rare  intervals,  there  was  an  impenetrable 
look,  which  made  it  exceedingly  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to 
read  their  owner's  thoughts  by  them.  If  they  were  "  the  win- 
dows of  his  soul,"  their  blinds  were  constantly  down.  The  "  I  am 
pleased  to  see  you,  sir,"  with  which  he  welcomed  me,  holding 
out  his  hand  at  the  same  time,  was  the  English  of  an  educated 
German  who  had  taken  great  pains  to  get  the  right  accent  and 
pronunciation,  without,  however,  completely  succeeding ;  and 


2 1 6  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

when  I  heard  him  speak  French,  I  detected  at  once  his  constant 
struggle  with  the  same  difficulties.  The  struggle  lasted  till  the 
very  end  of  his  life,  though,  by  dint  of  speaking  very  slowly, 
he  overcame  them  to  a  marvellous  extent.  But  the  moment 
he  became  in  any  way  excited,  the/'s  and  /'s  and  the/'s  were 
always  trying  to  oust  the  7/s  and  d's  and  the  /^'s  from  their 
newly-acquired  positions,  and  oftien  gained  a  momentary  vic- 
tory. There  is  an  amusing  story  to  that  effect,  in  connection 
with  Napoleon's  first  interview  with  Bismarck.  I  will  not  vouch 
for  its  truth,  but,  on  the  face  of  it,  it  sounds  blunt  enough  to 
be  genuine.  The  Emperor  was  complimenting  the  German 
statesman  on  his  French. 

"  M.  de  Bismarck,  I  have  never  heard  a  German  speak 
French  as  you  do,"  said  Napoleon. 

"  Will  you  allow  me  to  return  the  compliment,  sire  1 " 

"  Certainly." 

"  I  have  never  heard  a  Frenchman  speak  French  as  you 
do."  =* 

When  Prince  Louis-Napoleon  held  out  his  hand  and  I  looked 
into  his  face,  I  felt  almost  tempted  to  put  him  down  as  an 
opium-eater.  Ten  minutes  afterwards,  I  felt  convinced  that 
to  use  a  metaphor,  he  himself  was  the  drug,  and  that  every 
one  with  whom  he  came  in  contact  was  bound  to  yield  to  its 
influence.  When  I  came  away  that  evening,  I  could  have 
given  Cavaignac,  Thiers,  Lamartine,  Hugo,  and  the  rest,  who 
wanted  to  make  a  cat's-paw  of  him,  a  timely  warning,  if  they 
would  have  condescended  to  listen  to,  and  profit  by  it,  which  I 
am  certain  they  would  not  have  done.  Strange  as  it  may  seem, 
every  one  of  these  men,  and,  with  the  exception  of  one,  all  un- 
doubtedly clever,  thought  Louis  Napoleon  either  an  imbecile 
or  a  secret  drunkard.  And,  what  is  more,  they  endeavored  to 
propagate  their  opinion  throughout  the  length  and  breadth,  not 
only  of  France,  but  of  Europe. 

As  usual,  the  one  who  was  really  the  greatest  nonentity  among 
the  latter  was  most  lavish  in  his  contempt.  I  am  alluding  to 
General  Cavaignac.  The  nobodies  who  have  governed  or 
misgoverned  France  since  the  fall  of  Sedan  were,  from  an  in- 
tellectual point  of  view,  eagles  compared  to  that  surly  and 
bumptuous  drill-sergeant,  who  had  nothing,  absolutely  nothing, 
to  recommend  him  for  the  elevated  position  he  coveted.     He 

*  In  the  documents  relating  to  the  affair  at  Strasburg,  there  is  the  report  to  Louis- 
Philippe  by  an  officer  in  the  46th  regiment  of  the  line,  named  Pleign^,  in  which  the  latter, 
borrowing  the  process  of  Balzac  as  applied  to  the  French  of  the  Baron  de  Nucingen,  credits 
Louis-Napoleon  with  the  following  phrase  :  "  Fous  Hes  ticori  de  Chuillet ;  fous  te/ez  Hre 
UM^a/ef  chf  vous  i^core."— Editor. 


AN-  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS, 


2iy 


was  the  least  among  all  those  brilliant  African  soldiers  whose 
names  and  prowess  were  on  every  one's  lips ;  he  had  really 
been  made  a  hero  of,  at  so  much  per  line,  by  the  staff  of  the 
National^  where  his  brother  Godefroy  wielded  unlimited  power. 
He  was  all  buckram  ;  and,  in  the  very  heart  of  Paris,  and  in 
the  midst  of  that  republic  whose  fiercest  watchword,  whose  loud- 
est cry,  was  "  equality,"  he  treated  partisans  and  opponents  alike, 
as  he  would  have  treated  a  batch  of  refractory  Arabs  in  a  distant 
province  of  that  newly-conquered  African  soil.  He  disliked 
every  one  who  did  not  wear  a  uniform,  and  assumed  a  critical 
attitude  towards  every  one  who  did.  His  republicanism  was 
probably  as  sincere  as  that  of  Thiers — it  meant  "  La  Republique 
c'est  moi:  "  with  this  difference,  that  Thiers  was  amiable, 
witty,  and  charming,  though  treacherous,  and  that  Cavaignac 
was  the  very  reverse.  His  honesty  was  beyond  suspicion  ; 
that  is,  he  felt  convinced  that  he  was  the  only  possible  saviour 
of  France  :  but  it  was  impaired  by  his  equally  sincere  convic- 
tion that  bribery  and  coercion — of  cajoling  he  would  have  none 
— were  admissible,  nay,  incumbent  to  attain  that  end.  "  Thiers, 
c'est  la  republique  en  ecureuil,  Cavaignac  c'est  la  republique 
en  ours  mal  leche,"  said  a  witty  journalist.  He  and  Louis- 
Napoleon  were  virtually  the  two  men  who  were  contending  for 
the  presidential  chair,  and  the  chances  of  Cavaignac  may  be 
judged  by  the  conclusion  of  the  verbal  report  of  one  of  Lamo- 
ricibre's  emissaries,  who  canvassed  one  of  the  departments. 

"  '  The  thing  might  be  feasible,'  said  an  elector,  *  if  your 
general's  name  was  Genevieve  de  Brabant,  or  that  of  one  of 
the  four  sons  of  Aymon."*  But  his  name  is  simply  Cavaignac 
— Cavaignac,  and  that's  all.  I  prefer  Napoleon ;  at  any  rate, 
there  is  a  ring  about  that  name.'  And  1  am  afraid  that  eleven- 
twelfths  of  the  electors  are  of  the  same  opinion." 

As  for  Ledru  Rollin,  Raspail,  Changarnier,  and  even  La- 
martine  and  the  Prince  de  Joinville,  some  of  whom  were  candi- 
dates against  their  will,  they  were  out  of  the  running  from  the 
very  start,  though,  curiously  enough,  the  son  of  the  monarch 
whom  the  republic  had  driven  from  the  throne  obtained  more 
votes  than  the  man  who  had  proclaimed  that  republic.  These 
votes  were  altogether  discarded  as  unconstitutional,  though 
one  really  fails  to  see  why  one  member  of  a  preceding  dynasty 
should  have  been  held  to  be  more  eligible  than  another.  Be 
this  as  it  may,*the  votes  polled  by  the  sailor  prince  amounted 
to  over  twenty-three  thousand,  showing  that  he  enjoyed  a  cer- 

*  The  four  knights  of  'a  Carlovingian  legend,  who  were  mounted  on  one  horse  named 
Bayard.— Editor. 


2 1 8  JA^  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS, 

tain  measure  of  popularity.  It  is  doubtful  whether  the  Due 
d'Aumale  or  the  Due  de  Nemours  would  have  obtained  a  fifth 
of  that  number.  As  I  have  already  said,  the  latter  was  dis- 
liked by  his  father's  opponents  for  his  suspeeted  Legitimist  ten- 
deneies,  and  taeitly  blamed  by  some  of  the  partisans  of  the 
Orleanist  regime  for  his  laek  of  resistance  on  the  2  4th  of  Febru- 
ary ;  the  former's  submission  "  to  the  will  of  the  nation,"  as  em- 
bodied in  a  manifesto  "to  the  inhabitants  of  Algeria,"  provoked 
no  enthusiasm  either  among  friends  or  foes.*  Perhaps  public 
rumor  was  not  altogether  wrong,  when  it  averred  that  the 
D'Orleans  were  too  tight-fisted  to  spend  their  money  in  elec- 
tioneering literature.  •  The  expense  involved  in  that  item  was  a 
terrible  obstacle  to  Louis-Napoleon  and  his  few  faithful  hench- 
men ;  for,  though  the  Napoleonic  idea  was  pervading  all  classes 
of  society,  there  was,  correctly  speaking,  no  Bonapartist  party 
to  shape  it  for  the  practical  purposes  of  the  moment.  The 
Napoleonic  idea  was  a  fond  remembrance  of  France's  glorious 
past,  rather  than  a  hope  of  its  renewal  in  the  future.  Even 
the  greatest  number  of  the  most  ardent  worshippers  of  that 
marvellous  soldier  of  fortune,  doubted  whether  his  nephew  was 
sufficiently  popular  to  obtain  an  appreciable  following,  and 
those  who  did  not  doubt  were  mostly  poor.  While  Dufaure 
and  Lamoriciere  were  scattering  money  broadcast,  and  using 
pressure  of  the  most  arbitrary  kind,  in  order  to  insure  Cavai- 
gnac's  success,  Louis-Napoleon  and  his  knot  of  partisans  were 
absolutely  reduced  to  their  own  personal  resources.  Miss 
Howard — afterwards  Comtesse  de  Beauregard — and  Princesse 
Mathilde  had  given  all  they  could  ;  a  small  loan  was  obtained 
from  M.  Fould ;  and  some  comparatively  scanty  supplies  had 
been  forthcoming  from  England — it  was  said  at  the  time,  with 
how  much  truth  I  know  not,  that  Lords  Palmerston  and 
Malmesbury  had  contributed  :  but  the  exchequer  was  virtually 
empty.  A  stray  remittance  of  a  few  thousand  francs,  from  an 
altogether  unexpected  quarter,  and  most  frequently  from  an 
anonymous  sender,  arrived  now  and  then ;  but  it  was  what  the 
Germans  call  "  a  drop  of  water  in  a  very  hot  frying-pan  ;  "  it 
barely  sufficed  to  stop  a  hole.  Money  was  imperatively  wanted 
for  the  printing  of  millions  upon  millions  of  handbills, 
thousands  and  thousands  of  posters,  and  their  distribution  ;  for 
the  expenses  of  canvassers,  electioneering  agents,  and  so  forth. 
The  money  went  to  the  latter,  the  rest  was  obtained  on  credit. 

*  During  the  sacking  of  the  Tuileries,  the  mob  ruthlessly  destroyed  the  busts  and  pictures 
of  every  living  son  of  Louis-Philippe,  with  the  exception  of  those  of  the  Prince  de  Joiuville. 
—  Editor. 


AlSr  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  2 19 

Prince  Louis,  confident  of  success,  emptied  his  pockets  of  the 
last  five-franc  pieces  ;  when  he  had  no  more,  he  promised  to 
pay.  He  was  as  badly  off  as  his  famous  uncle  before  the  turn 
of  fortune  came. 

In  connection  with  this  dire  impecuniosity,  I  remember  a 
story  for  the  truth  of  which  I  can  vouch  as  if  I  had  had  it  from 
Louis-Napoleon's  own  lips.  In  front  of  Siraudin's  confec- 
tioner's shop  at  the  angle  of  the  Boulevard  des  Capucines  and 
the  Rue  de  la  Paix,  there  sits  an  old  woman  with  two  wooden 
legs.  About  '48,  when  she  was  very  pretty  and  dressed  with 
a  certain  coquettishness,  she  was  already  there,  though  sitting 
a  little  higher  up,  in  front  of  the  wall  of  the  Ministry  of  Foreign 
Affairs,  which  has  since  made  room  for  the  handsome  establish- 
ment of  Giroux.  Behind  her,  on  the  wall,  were  suspended  for 
sale  some  cheap  and  not  very  artistically  executed  reproduc- 
tions of  Fragonard,  "  Le  Coucher  de  la  Marie'e,"  etc.,  all  of 
which  would  fetch  high  prices  now ;  also  songs,  the  tunes  of 
which  she  played  with  great  taste  on  her  violin.  It  was  re- 
ported that  she  had  been  killed  during  the  attack  on  the  minis- 
try, but  to  people's  great  surprise  she  reappeared  a  few  days 
afterwards.  Prince  Louis,  who  was  staying  in  the  Place  Ven- 
dome,  then  used  to  take  a  short  cut  by  the  Rue  Neuve  des 
Capucines  to  the  Boulevards,  and  it  seems  that  he  never 
passed  her  without  giving  her  something.  In  a  few  weeks  she 
came  to  look  upon  his  contributions  as  a  certain  part  of  her 
income.  She  knew  who  he  was,  and,  curiously  enough,  seemed 
to  be  aware  not  only  of  his  political  preoccupations,  but  of  his 
pecuniary  embarrassments.  I  am  unable  to  say  whether  she 
was  in  sympathy  with  the  former,  but  she  was  evidently  con- 
cerned about  the  latter  ;  for,  one  evening,  after  thanking  Louis- 
Napoleon,  she  added,  *'  Monseigneur,  je  voudrais  vous  dire  un 
mot." 

"  Parlez,  madame." 

"  On  me  dit  que  vous  etes  fort  gene  dans  ce  moment.  J'ai 
trois  billets  de  mille  francs  chez  moi,  qui  ne  font  rien.  Voulez- 
vous  me  permettre  de  vous  les  offrir;  vous  me  les  rendrez 
quand  vous  serez  empereur." 

Prince  Louis  did  not  accept  them,  but  he  never  forgot  a 
kindness,  and  when  he  did  become  Emperor,  he  offered  her  a 
small  annuity.  The  answer  was  characteristic  of  her  indepen- 
dence. "  Dites  a  I'empereur  qu'il  est  bien  bon  de  se  rappeler 
de  moi,  mais  je  ne  puis  pas  accepter  son  offre.  S'il  avait 
accepte  mon  argent,  je  ne  dis  pas,  maintenant,  non."  And 
while  I  am  writing  these  notes,  she  still  sits  in  her  usual  place, 


2  2  o  A  A'  £A'GL  ISHMA  N  IN  PA  RIS. 

though  I  have  heard  it  said  more  than  once  that  she  is  the 
owner  of  one  or  two  houses  in  the  Avenue  de  I'Opera,  and 
that  she  gave  a  considerable  marriage  portion  to  her  daughter, 
who  has  remained  ignorant  of  the  sources  of  her  mother's  in- 
come, who  was  educated  in  the  country,  and  has  never  been  to 
Paris.  One  of  the  conditions  of  her  marriage  was  that  she 
should  emigrate  to  Australia.  For  the  latter  part  of  the  story, 
I  will,  however,  not  vouch. 

During  the  months  of  October  and  November,  '48,  I  saw 
Prince  Louis  at  least  a  dozen  times,  though  only  once  away 
from  his  own  apartments.  There  was  really  "  nowhere  to  go," 
for  most  of  the  salons  had  closed  their  doors,  and  those  which 
remained  open  were  invaded  by  political  partisans  of  all  shades> 
Conversation,  except  on  one  topic,  there  was  little  or  none. 
Social  entertainments  were  scarcely  to  be  thought  of  after  the 
bloody  disorders  in  June  :  Paris  trade  suffered  in  consequence, 
and  the  whole  of  the  shop-keeping  element,  which  virtually 
constituted  the  greater  part  of  the  Garde  Nationale,  regretted 
the  fall  of  the  Orleans  dynasty  to  which  it  had  so  materially 
contributed.  After  these  disorders  in  June,  the  troops  bivou- 
acked for  a  whole  month  on  the  Boulevards  :  on  the  Boulevard 
du  Temple  with  its  seven  theatres ;  on  the  Boulevard  Poisson- 
niere,  almost  in  front  of  the  Gymnase  ;  on  the  Boulevard  Mont- 
martre,  in  front  of  the  Varietes ;  on  the  Place  de  la  Bourse,  in 
front  of  the  Vaudeville.  The  new  masters  did  not  care  to  be 
held  up  to  ridicule ;  they  insinuated,  rather  than  asserted,  that 
the  insults  levelled  from  the  stage  had  contributed  to  the  in- 
surrection ;  and,  seeing  that  the  bourgeoisie,  very  contrite  al- 
ready, did  not  care  to  hear  "  the  praise  of  the  saviours  of  the 
country  "  by  command,  they  deserted  the  play-houses  and  kept 
their  money  in  their  pockets.  The  Constituent  Assembly  was 
compelled  to  grant  the  managers  an  indemnity ;  but,  as  it  could 
not  keep  the  soldiers  there  forever,  and  as  it  cared  still  less  to 
vote  funds  to  its  enemies  while  its  supporters  were  clamoring 
for  every  cent  of  it,  the  strict  supervision  gradually  relaxed. 
The  first  to  take  advantage  of  this  altered  state  of  things  was 
Clairville,  with  his  "  La  Propriete  c'est  le  Vol  "  (November 
28,  '48),  a  skit  on  the  celebrated  phrase  of  Proudhon.  It  is 
very  doubtful  whether  the  latter  had  uttered  it  in  the  sense 
with  which  the  playwright  invested  it ;  but  fear  is  proverbially 
illogical,  and  every  one  in  Paris  ran  to  see  the  piece,  trusting 
probably  that  it  might  produce  a  salutary  effect  on  those  who 
intended  to  take  the  philosopher's  axiom  literally, 

"  La  Propriety  c'est  le  Vol  "  was  described  on  the  bills  as 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  221 

"  a  socialistic  extravaganza  in  three  acts  and  seven  tableaux." 
The  scene  of  the  first  tableau  represents  the  garden  of  Eden. 
The  Serpent,  who  is  the  Evil  Spirit,  declares  war  at  once  upon 
Adam,  who  embodies  the  principle  of  Property.  The  Serpent 
was  a  deliberate  caricature  of  Proudhon  with  his  large  spec- 
tacles. 

In  the  subsequent  tableaux,  Adam,  by  a  kind  of  metempsy- 
chosis, had  been  changed  into  Bonichon,  an  owner  of  house 
property  in  the  Paris  of  the  nineteenth  century.  The  Serpent, 
though  still  wearing  his  spectacles,  had  been  equally  trans- 
formed into  a  modern  opponent  of  all  property.  We  are  in 
February,  '48.  Bonichon  and  some  of  his  fellow-bourgeois  are 
feasting  in  honor  of  the  proposed  measures  of  reform,  when 
they  are  scared  out  of  their  wits  by  the  appearance  of  the  Ser- 
pent, who  informs  them  that  the  Republic  has  sidled  up  to  Re- 
form, managed  to  hide  itself  beneath  its  cloak,  and  been  pro- 
claimed. The  next  scene  brings  us  to  the  year  1852  (four  years 
in  advance  of  the  period),  when  the  right  of  every  one  to  live 
by  the  toil  of  his  hands  has  become  law.  Bonichon  is  being 
harassed  and  persecuted  by  a  crowd  of  handicraftsmen  and 
others,  who  insist  on  working  for  him  whether  he  likes  it  or 
not.  The  glazier  smashes  his  windows,  in  order  to  compel  him 
to  have  new  panes  put  in.  The  paperhanger  tears  the  paper 
off  his  walls  on  the  same  principle.  The  hackney  coachman 
flings  Bonichon  into  his  cab,  takes  him  for  a  four  hours'  drive, 
and  charges  accordingly.  A  dentist  imitates  the  tactics  of 
Peter  the  Great  with  his  courtiers,  forces  him  into  a  chair  and 
operates  upon  his  grinders,  though,  unlike  Peter,  he  claims  the 
full  fee.  A  dozen  or  so  of  modistes  and  dressmakers  invade 
his  apartments  with  double  the  number  of  gowns  for  Madame 
Eve  Bonichon,  who,  the  reverse  of  her  husband,  does  not  object 
to  his  violent  appeal  for  her  custom.  Perhaps  Madame  Octave, 
a  charming  woman  who  played  the  part,  did  well  to  submit, 
because  during  the  first  tableau,  the  audience,  though  by  no 
means  squeamish,  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  Madame 
Eve  would  be  all  the  better  for  a  little  more  clothing. 

And  so  the  piece  goes  on.  The  first  performance  took  place 
twelve  days  before  the  presidential  election,  when  Cavaignac 
was  still  at  the  head  of  affairs.  Notwithstanding  his  energetic 
suppression  of  the  disorders  in  June,  every  one,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  the  journalistic  swashbucklers  of  Z<?  iVh!//^?/?^/,  hoped 
to  get  rid  of  him ;  and  a  song  aimed  at  him  cruelly  dissected 
his^utter  insignificance  from  a  mental,  moral,  and  political  point 


222  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PA RIS. 

of  view.     When  Louis-Napoleon  gained  the  day,  the  song  was 
changed  for  a  more  kindly  one. 

It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  during  those  days  France 
was  absolutely  governed  by  the  National.  I  made  a  list,  by 
no  means  complete,  at  the  time,  of  the  various  appointments 
and  high  places  that  had  fallen  to  the  members  of  the  staff 
and  those  connected  with  it  financially  and  otherwise.  I  have 
kept  it,  and  transcribe  it  here  with  scarcely  any  comment. 

Armand  Marrast,  the  editor,  became  a  member  of  the  Pro- 
visional Government,  Mayor  of  Paris,  and  subsequently  Presi- 
dent of  the  National  Assembly. 

Marrast  (No.  2)  became  Procure ur-Gen^ral  at  Pau. 

Marrast  (No.  3),  who  had  been  a  captain  of  light  horse  during 
the  reign  of  Louis-Philippe,  was  given  a  colonelcy  unattached. 

Marrast  (No.  4)  became  Vice-principal  of  the  Lyc^e  Cor- 
neille. 

Bastide,  one  of  the  staff,  became  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs. 

Vaulabelle,  one  of  the  staff,  became  Minister  of  Public 
Education. 

Goudchaux,  the  banker  of  the  National.,  became  Minister 
of  Finances. 

Recurt,  the  chief  -physician  to  the  staff,  became  Minister  of 
the  Interior  and  subsequently  Minister  of  Public  Works  (Pres- 
ident of  the  Board  of  Works). 

Trelat,  another  physician,  became  Minister  of  Public 
Works. 

Marie,  the  solicitor  to  the  Natio7ial^  became  a  member  of 
the  Provisional  Government,  a  member  of  the  Executive 
Committee,  and  subsequently  Minister  of  Justice. 

Genin,  one  of  the  staff,  became  chief  of  the  literary  depart- 
ment at  the  Ministry  of  Pubhc  Education. 

Charras,  one  of  the  staff,  became  Under-Secretary  of  State, 
at  the  Ministry  for  War. 

Degouve-Denuncques,  one  of  the  staff,  became  Prefect  of 
the  Department  of  the  Somme. 

Buchez,  third  physician  and  an  occasional  contributor,  be- 
came Deputy  Mayor  of  Paris  and  subsequently  President  of 
the  Assembly  up  to  the  15th  of  May  (when  he  had  to  make 
room  for  M.  Armand  Marrast  himself).  As  will  be  seen, 
within  a  month  of  the  republicans'  advent  to  power,  M.  Buchez 
had  been  raised  to  one  of  the  highest  functions  in  the  State, 
though  absolutely  devoid  of  any  political  or  parliamentary 
talent,  as  was  shown  later  on  by  his  "  Histoire  Parlementaire  de 
la  Revolution  Frant^aise,"  an  utterly  commonplace  production. 


A  A^  ENGLISHMA N  IN  PA RIS.  2^3 

Dussart,  one  of  the  staff,  became  Prefect  of  the  Seine- 
Inferieure.  ^ 

Adam,  one  of  the  staff,  became  Chief  Secretary  of  the 
Prefecture  of  the  Seine. 

Sain  de  Bois-le  Comte,  one  of  the  staff,  became  minister 
plenipotentiary  at  Turin. 

Felicien  Mallefille,  one  of  the  staff,  became  minister  pleni- 
potentiary at  Lisbon. 

Anselme  Petetin,  one  of  the  staff,  became  minister  pleni- 
potentiary at  Hanover. 

Auguste  Petetin  (his  brother),  one  of  the  staff,  became  Pre- 
fect of  the  Department  of  the  Cote-d'Or. 

Frederic  Lacroix,  one  of  the  staff,  became  chief  secretary 
for  civil  affairs  in  Algeria. 

Hetzel,  one  of  the  staff,  became  chief  secretary  to  the 
Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs. 

Rousset,  one  of  the  staff,  became  Prefect  of  the  Department 
of  the  Loire. 

Duclerc,  shorthand  reporter,  became  for  a  little  while  Min- 
ister of  Finances. 

Pagnerre,  publisher  of  the  National,  and  bookseller,  became 
a  mayor,  a  member  of  the  Provisional  Government,  a  member 
of  the  Executive  Committee,  and  finally  Director  of  the  Comp- 
toir  d'Escompte. 

Achille  Gregoire,  the  printer  of  the  National,  became  Pre- 
fect of  the  Department  of  the  Upper-Saone. 

Clement  Thomas,  called  the  Constable  of  the  National,  be- 
came the  Commander-in-chief  of  the  National  Guard  of  the 
Seine. 

There  are  a  few  more,  friends  and  allies,  such  as  Lalanne, 
who  M^as  made  director  of  the  national  workshops  ;  Levrault, 
who  was  sent  to  Naples  as  minister  plenipotentiary ;  Carette, 
who  became  Civil-Chief  at  Constantine  ;  Carteron,  who  was 
appointed  keeper  of  the  national  archives,  etc. 

As  a  matter  of  course,  all  these  adventurers  had  revolving 
around  them  a  number  of  satellites,  as  eager  as  the  former  to 
reap  the  fruits  of  the  situation.  Most  of  them,  like  the  cat  of 
Heine's  epigram,  had  to  devour  their  steak  raw ;  they  did  not 
know  how  to  cook  it.  Ministers,  prefects,  and  high  dignitaries 
of  State  as  they  were,  they  felt  awkward  in  the  society  of 
those  to  whom  no  illusion  was  possible  with  regard  to  their 
origin  and  that  of  their  political  fortunes. 

They  haunted,  therefore,  by  preference,  the  less  well  fre- 
quented restaurants  and  cafes,  the  wings  of  the  minor  theatres, 


224  ^  ^  ENGLISH  Ma  N  IN  PA  RIS. 

on  the  pretext  that  they  were  the  elect  of  the  people,  and  that 
the  people  were » their  fittest  companions.  Their  erstwhile 
leader  and  chief  scorned  to  stoop  to  such  tricks.  He  was  an 
educated  man,  with  a  thick  veneer  of  the  gentleman  about 
him,  which,  however,  did  not  prevent  him  from  being  one  of 
the  two  most  arrant  snobs  I  have  met  anywhere.  1  advisedly 
say  anywhere,  for  France  herself  does  not  produce  that  objec- 
tionable genus  to  any  appreciable  extent.  You  may  find  a 
good  many  cads,  you  will  find  comparatively  few  snobs.  Com- 
pared to  Armand  Marrast,  Eugene  Sue  was  nowhere  as  a  snob. 
He  was  a  thickset  man  with  a  rubicund  face,  with  a  mass  of 
gray  woolly  hair  and  a  kind  of  stubbly,  small  moustache.  His 
manners  were  supposed  to  be  modelled  on  those  of  the  nobles 
of  the  old  regime  ;  said  manners  mainly  consisting  of  swagger- 
ing impudence  to  those  whom  he  considered  his  equals,  and 
freezing  insolence  to  those  he  deemed  his  inferiors.  The 
latter,  I  need  not  say,  were  by  far  the  most  numerous.  He 
who  bellowed  most  loudly  that  birth  should  carry  no  privilege, 
never  forgot  to  remind  his  hearers,  by  deeds,  if  not  by  words, 
that  he  was  of  noble  descent.  "  Si  sa  famille  etait  nobie,  sa 
mere  s'est  surement  endormie  dans  I'antichambre  un  jour  qu'un 
valet-de-chambre  entreprenant  etait  trop  pres,"  said  the  Mar- 
quis d'Arragon  one  evening.*  He  felt  greatly  flattered  at  the 
caricaturists  of  the  day  representing  him  in  the  court  dress  of 
Louis  XVI. 's  reign,  though  to  most  people  he  looked  like  a 
"  marquis  de  quatre  sous."t 

He  professed  to  be  very  fond  of  antique  furniture  and  deco- 
rations, and  this  fondness  was  the  main  cause  of  his  ousting 
his  former  subaltern,  Buchez,  from  the  presidential  chair  of 
the  Assembly,  for,  shortly  before  the  revolution  of  '48,  the 
official  residence  of  that  functionary  had  been  put  in  thorough 
repair,  its  magnificent  furniture  had  been  restored,  etc. 

The  depression  of  business  inspired  M.  Armand  Marrast 
with  the  happy  thought  of  giving  some  entertainments  in  the 
hope  of  reviving  it.  During  the  Third  Republic,  though  I  had 
ceased  to  live  in  France  permanently,  I  have  seen  a  good  many 
motley  gatherings  at  the  Elys^e-Bourbon,  and  at  the  H6tel-de- 
Ville,  especially  in  M.  Grevy's  time,  though  Mac-Mahon's 
presidency  offered  some  diverting  specimens  also ;  but  I 
have  never  seen  anything  like  the  social  functions  at  the 
Palais-Bourbon  during  the   months   of  September,    October, 

*  The  remark  was  not  original.  The  Marquise  d'Esprem^nil  Isaid  it  of  lierself  when  slie 
saw  her  son  join  the  Revolution  of  '89. — Editor. 

t  The  peripatetic  vendors  of  songs,  dressed  as  nobles,  who  up  till  '60  were  frequently 
singing  their  compositions  in  the  street.— Editor. 


A  AT  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  225 

and  November,  1848.  They  were  absolutely  the  festive 
scenes  of  Paul  de  Kock  on  a  large  scale,  amidst  Louis  XIV. 
and  Louis  XV.  furniture,  instead  of  the  bourgeois  mahogany, 
and  with  an  exquisitely  artistic  background,  instead  of  the 
commonplace  paper-hangings  of  the  lower  middle-class  dwell- 
ings. The  corps  diplomatique  was  virtually  on  the  horns  of  a 
dilemma.  After  the  February  revolution,  the  shock  of  which  was 
felt  throughout  the  whole  of  Europe,  and  caused  most  of  the  sov- 
ereigns to  shake  on  their  thrones,  it  had  stood  by  M.  de  Lamar- 
tine,  and  even  by  his  successor  at  the  French  Foreign  Office,  M. 
Bastide,  if  not  with  enthusiasm,  at  least  with  a  kind  of  com- 
placency. The  republic  proclaimed  by  the  former,  might, 
after  all,  contain  elements  of  vitality.  The  terrible  disorders 
in  June  tended  to  shake  this  reluctant  confidence  ;  still,  there 
was  but  little  change  in  the  ambassador's  outward  attitude, 
until  it  became  too  evident  that,  unless  a  strong  dictator  should 
intervene,  mob  rule  was  dangerously  nigh.  Then  the  corps 
diplomatique  began  to  hold  aloof.  Of  course  there  were 
exceptions,  such  as,  for  instance,  Mr.  Richard  Rush,  the 
minister  of  the  United  States,  who  had  been  the  first  to  con- 
gratulate the  Provisional  Government,  and  the  various  rep- 
resentives  of  the  South-American  republics ;  but  even  the 
latter  could  scarcely  refrain  from  expressing  their  astonishment 
at  the  strange  company  in  which  they  found  themselves.  The 
women  were  perhaps  the  most  remarkable,  as  women  generally 
are  when  out  of  their  element.  The  greater  part  had  probably 
never  been  in  a  drawing-room  before,  and,  notwithstanding  M. 
Taine's  subsequently  expressed  dictum  about  the  facility  with 
which  a  Parisian  grisette,  shopwoman,  or  lady's-maid  may  be 
transformed  at  a  few  moments  into  a  semblance  of  a  grattde 
dame,  these  very  petites  bourgeoises  and  their  demoiselles 
made  a  very  indifferent  show.  Perhaps  the  grisette,  shop- 
woman,  or  lady's-maid  would  have  acquitted  herself  better. 
Her  natural  taste,  sharpened  by  constant  contact  with  her  social 
superiors,  might  have  made  up  for  the  slender  resources  of 
her  wardrobe  ;  and,  as  the  French  say,  "  one  forgives  much 
in  the  way  of  solecism  to  the  prettily  dressed  woman."  As  it 
was,  the  female  section  of  M.  Marrast's  guests  could  advance 
no  valid  plea  for  mercy  on  that  score.  The  daughters  looked 
limp  with  their  choregraphic  exertions  ;  the  emblem  of  inno- 
cence, "  la  sainte  mousseline,"  as  Ambroise  Thomas  called  it 
afterwards,  hung  in  vague,  undefined  folds  on  angular  figures, 
perhaps  because  the  starch  necessary  to  it  had  been  appropriated 
by  the  matrons.     The  latter  were  rigid  to  a  degree,  and  looked 

^5 


226  AN-  ENGLISHMAN  JN  PARIS. 

daggers  at  their  spouses  and  their  friends  at  the  slightest 
attempt  to  stir  them  to  animation.  "  Fais  done  danser  ma 
vieille,"  was  the  consecrated  formula  with  which  a  not  very  eager 
cavalier  was  dragged  to  the  seat  where  said  "  vieille"  was 
reposing  in  all  the  majesty  of  her  unaccustomed  finery,  consider- 
ably impaired  in  the  wearer's  transit  on  foot  from  her  domicile 
at  Montrouge  of  Menilmontant  to  the  banks  of  the  Seine  ; 
for  the  weather  that  year  was  almost  tropical,  even  in  the 
autumn,  and  consequently  the  cab  had  been  dispensed  with. 
It  would  appear,  from  a  remark  I  overheard,  that  Jehu,  in  the 
way  of  business,  preferred  as  fares  the  partisans  of  and  ad- 
herents to  the  fallen  regimes  even  of  the  latest  one.  Said  a 
portly  dame  to  her  neighbor,  alluding  to  the  cabman,  "  II  a 
absolument  refuse  de  nous  prendre.  II  a  dit  qu'il  etait  dans 
I'opposition,  et  qu'il  ne  voulait  pas  trahir  ses  principes  a  moins 
de  dix  francs.  Dix  francs,  ma  chere,  nous  aurions  pu  souper 
chez  nous,  et  sans  compter  les  frais  de  toilette  et  de  blanchis- 
sage.  Quant  a  I'honneur  d'etre  ici,  9a  ne  compte  pas  pour 
grand'chose,  vu  que  tout  le  quartier  y  est ;  nous  demeurons  k 
Batignolles,  et  il  a  fallu  descendre  en  ville  ce  matin  pour  avoir 
une  paire  de  gants  blancs.  Chez  nous,  partout  la  meme  re- 
ponse  :  '  Des  gants  blancs,  madame,  nous  n'en  avons  plus. 
Presque  toutes  les  dames  du  quartier  vont  au  Palais-Bourton 
ce  soir,  et  depuis  hier  il  nous  reste  que  des  petites  pointures 
(sizes),  des  sept  et  des  sept  et  demies.' " 

As  for  the  "  elu  du  peuple  souverain,"  when  he  had  failed  to 
draw  his  "  vieille"  into  the  mazy  dance,  and  been  snubbed  for 
his  pains  in  the  bargain,  he  returned  to  his  fellow-deputies, 
many  of  whom  might  be  easily  recognized  by  the  golden- 
fringed  tricolor  rosette  in  their  buttonholes,  though  some  had 
merely  kept  it  in  their  pockets.  The  "  elu  du  peuple"  did  not 
dance  himself.  Perhaps  the  most  curious  group  was  that  of 
the  young  attaches  and  clerks  of  the  Foreign  Office  who  had 
come  to  enjoy  themselves,  who,  even  at  that  time,  were  nearly 
all  of  good  birth,  and  who,  to  use  a  colloquial  expression, 
looked  not  unlike  brass  knockers  on  a  pigsty.  This  was  the 
society  Louis-Napoleon  was  to  sweep  away  with  the  aid  of 
men,  some  of  whom  I  have  endeavored  to  sketch  in  subsequent 
notes.  I  would  fain  say  a  few  words  of  a  "  shipwrecked  one," 
of  the  preceding  dynasty,  whose  acquaintance  I  did  not  make 
until  thti  vessel  he  had  steered  so  long  had  foundered,  and 
of  the  self-constituted  pilot  of  the  interim  regime.  I  am  allud- 
ing to  MM.  Guizot  and  de  Lamartine. 


AJN-  IlNGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS, 


227 


CHAPTER  XII. 

That  sentence  of  Louis-Philippe  to  Lord ,  quoted  else- 
where :  "  Guizot  is  so  terribly  respectable  ;  I  am  afraid  there 
is  a  mistake  either  about  his  nationality  or  his  respectability, 
for  they  are  badly  matched,"  reflected  the  opinion  of  the  ma- 
jority of  Frenchmen  with  regard  to  the  eminent  statesman. 
The  historian  who  was  supposed  to  know  Cromwell  and  Wash- 
ington as  well  as  if  he  had  lived  with  them,  was  credited  at  last 
with  being  a  stern  rigid  Puritan  in  private  life  like  the  first, 
impatient  of  contradiction  like  the  second, — in  short,  a  kind  of 
walking  copy-book  moral,  who  never  unbent,  whose  slightest 
actions  were  intended  by  him  to  convey  a  lesson  to  the  rest  of 
mankind.  Unable  to  devote  much  time  to  her  during  the  week, 
Guizot  was  in  the  habit  of  taking  his  mother  for  a  stroll  in  the 
Park  of  St.  Cloud  on  Sundays.  The  French,  v/ho  are  never 
tired  of  shouting,  "  Oh,  ma  mere !  oh,  ma  mere ! "  resented 
such  small  attentions  on  the  part  of  the  son,  because,  they 
maintained,  they  were  meant  as  exhibitions.  Even  such  a 
philosopher  as  Ernest  Renan  failed  to  see  that  there  were  two 
dissimilar  men  in  Guizot,  the  Guizot  of  public  life  and  the 
Guizot  of  home  life  ;  that,  behind  the  imperious,  haughty,  bat- 
tlesome  orator  of  the  chamber,  with  his  almost  marble  mask, 
there  was  a  tender  and  loving  heart,  capable  of  the  most  deep- 
seated  devotion ;  that  the  cares  of  State  once  thrown  off,  the 
supercilious  stare  melted  like  ice  beneath  the  sun  of  spring 
into  a  prepossessing  smile,  captivating  every  one  with  whom 
he  came  in  contact. 

Guizot  regretted  this  erroneous  conception  the  world  had 
formed  of  his  character.  "  But  what  can  I  do  ?  "  he  asked. 
"  In  reality,  I  haven't  the  courage  to  be  unpopular  any  more 
than  other  people ;  but  neither  have  I  the  courage  to  prance 
about  in  my  own  drawing-room  as  if  I  were  on  wires  " — this 
was  a  slight  slap  at  M.  Thiers, — "  nor  can  I  write  on  subjects 
with  which  I  have  no  sympathy  " — that  was  a  second, — "  and 
I  should  cut  but  a  sorry  figure  on  horseback  " — that  was  a 
third  ; — "  consequently  people  who,  I  am  sure,  wish  me  well, 
but  who  will  not  come  and  see  me  at  home,  hold  me  up  as  a 
misanthrope,  while  I  know  that  I  am  nothing  of  the  kind." 

With  this  he  took  from  his  table  an  article  by  M.  Renan  on 


2  2S  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

the  first  volume  of  his  "  Memoires,"  an  article  couched  in  the 
most  flattering  terms,  but  giving  the  most  conventional  portrait 
of  the  author  himself.  "  Why  doesn't  he  come  and  see  me  ? 
He  would  soon  find  that  I  am  not  the  solitary,  tragic,  buckram 
figure  that  has  already  become  legendary,  and  which,  like  most 
legendary  figures,  is  absolutely  false." 

-This  conversation — or  rather  monologue,  for  I  was  careful 
not  to  interrupt  him — took  place  in  the  early  part  of  the  Second 
Empire,  in  the  house  in  the  Rue  de  la  Ville-Leveque  he  oc- 
cupied for  five  and  twenty  years,  and  until  i860.  The  Coup 
d'Etat  had  irretrievably  shattered  Guizot's  political  career.  It 
had  destroyed  whatever  hopes  may  have  remained  after  the 
flight  of  Louis-Philippe.  Consequently  Guizot's  proper  place 
is  among  the  men  of  that  reign  ;  the  reason  why  I  insert  him 
here  is  because  my  acquaintance  with  him  only  began  after  his 
disappearance  from  public  life. 

It  occurred  in  this  way.  One  evening,  after  dinner  at  M. 
de  Morny's  we  were  talking  about  pictures,  and  especially 
about  those  of  the  Spanish  school,  when  our  host  turned  to  me. 
"  Have  you  ever  seen  '  the  Virgin'  belonging  to  M.  Guizot  ?  " 
he  asked.  I  told  him  I  had  not.  "  Then  go  and  see  it,"  he  said. 
"  It  is  one  of  the  finest  specimens  of  its  kind  I  ever  saw,  I 
might  say  the  finest."  Next  day  I  asked  permission  of  M. 
Guizot  to  come  and  see  it,  and,  almost  by  return  of  post,  I  re- 
ceived an  invitation  for  the  following  Thursday  night  to  one 
of  his  "  at  homes." 

Until  then  I  had  never  met  M.  Guizot,  except  at  one  of  his 
ministerial  soirees  under  the  preceding  dynasty.  The  apart- 
ment offered  nothing  very  striking :  the  furniture  was  of  the 
ordinary  kind  to  be  found  in  almost  every  bourgeois  drawing- 
room,  with  this  difference — that  it  was  considerably  shabbier ; 
for  Guizot  was  poor  all  his  life.  The  man  who  had  said  to  the 
nation,  "  Enrichissez  vous,  enrichissez  vous,"  had  never  acted 
upon  the  advice  himself.  I  know  for  a  fact  that,  while  he  was 
in  power,  he  was  asked  to  appoint  to  the  post  of  receiver-gen- 
eral of  the  Gironde  one  of  the  richest  financiers  in  France, 
who  had  expressed  the  intention  to  share  the  magnificent  bene- 
fits of  the  appointment  with  him.  M.  Guizot  simply  and 
steadfastly  refused  to  do  anything  of  the  kind. 

On  the  evening  in  question,  a  lamp  with  a  reflector  was 
placed  in  front  of  the  picture  I  had  come  to  see,  probably  in 
my  honor.  M.  de  Morny  had  not  exaggerated  the  beauty  of 
it,  but  it  bore  no  signature,  and  M.  Guizot  himself  had  no  idea 
with  regard  to  the  painter.     *'  There  is  a  curious  story  con- 


AN-  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  229 

hected  with  it,"  he  said,  "  but  I  cannot  tell  it  you  now  ;  come 
and  see  me  one  morning  and  I  will.  As  an  Englishman  it  will 
interest  you ;  especially  if  you  will  take  the  trouble  to  read 
between  the  lines.  I  will  tell  you  a  few  more,  perhaps,  but  the 
one  connected  with  the  picture  is  '  la  bonne  bouche.'  " 

The  company  at  M.  Guizot's,  on  that  and  other  occasions, 
mainly  consisted  of  those  who  had  been  vanquished  in  the 
recent  struggle  with  Louis-Napoleon,  or  thought  they  had  been ; 
for  a  great  many  were  mere  word- spinners,  who  had  been  quite 
as  vehement  in  their  denunciations  of  the  man  they  were  now 
surrounding  when  he  was  in  power,  as  they  were  in  their 
diatribes  against  the  man  who,  after  all,  saved  France  for 
eighteen  years  from  anarchy,  and  did  not  indulge  more  freely 
in  nepotism,  peculation,  and  kindred  amenities  than  those  who 
came  after  him.  But,  at  the  outset  of  these  notes,  I  took  the 
resolution  to  eschew  poHtics,  and  I  will  endeavor  to  keep  it  as 
far  as  possible. 

As  a  matter  of  course,  I  soon  availed  myself  of  M.  Guizot's 
permission  to  call  upon  him  in  the  morning,  and  it  was  then 
that  he  told  me  the  following  story  connected  with  the  picture. 

"After  the  Spanish  marriages.  Queen  Isabella  wished  to 
convey  to  me  a  signal  mark  of  her  gratitude — for  what,  Heaven 
alone  knows,  because  it  is  the  only  political  transaction  I  would 
willingly  efface  from  my  career.  So  she  conferred  upon  me 
the  dukedom  of  San  Antonio,  and  sent  me  the  patent  with  a 
most  affectionate  letter.  Honestly  speaking,  I  was  more  than 
upset  by  this  proof  of  royal  kindness,  seeing  that  I  had  not 
the  least  wish  to  accept  the  title.  I  felt  equally  reluctant  to 
offend  her  by  declining  the  high  distinction  offered,  I  felt  sure, 
from  a  most  generous  feeling.  I  went  to  see  the  king,  and 
explained  my  awkward  position,  adding  that  the  name  of  Guizot 
was  all-sufficient  for  me.  *  You  are  right,'  said  the  king. 
'  Leave  the  matter  to  me  ;  I'll  arrange  it.'  And  he  did,  much 
to  the  disgust  of  M.  de  Salvandy,  who  had  received  a  title  at 
the  same  time,  but  who  could  not  accept  his  while  the  Prime 
Minister  declined. 

"  Then  she  sent  me  this  picture.  Some  witty  journalist  said 
at  the  time,  that  it  was  symbolical  of  her  own  married  state  ; 
for  let  me  tell  you  that  the  unfitness  of  Don  Francis  d'Assis 
was  *  le  secret  de  poHchinelle,'  however  much  your  countrymen 
may  have  insisted  that  it  only  leaked  out  after  the  union.  Per- 
sonally I  was  entirely  opposed  to  it,  and,  in  fact,  it  was  not  a 
ministerial  question  at  all,  but  one  of  court  intrigue.  Lord 
Palmerston  chose  to  make  it  the  former,  and  he,  and  your 


230  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARI6\ 

countrymen  through  him,  are  not  only  morally  but  virtually  re- 
sponsible for  the  subsequent  errors  of  Isabella.  Do  you  know 
what  his  ultimatum  was  when  the  marriage  had  been  con- 
tracted, when  there  was  no  possibiUty  of  going  back  ?  You 
do  not.  Well,  then,  I  will  tell  you.  '  If  Isabella  has  not  a 
child  within  a  twelvemonth,  then  there  will  be  war  between 
England  and  France.'  I  leave  you  to  ponder  the  consequences 
for  yourself,  though  I  assure  you  that  I  washed  my  hands  of 
the  affair  from  that  moment.  But  the  French  as  well  as  the 
English  would  never  believe  me,  and  history  will  record  that 
'  the  austere  M.  Guizot,'  for  that  is  what  they  choose  to  call  me, 
*  lent  his  aid  to  proceedings  which  would  make  the  most 
debased  pander  blush  with  shame.' 

"It  is  not  the  only  time  that  my  intentions  have  been  pur- 
posely misconceived  and  misconstrued ;  nay,  I  have  been 
taxed  with  things  of  which  I  was  as  innocent  as  a  child.  In 
1846,  almost  at  the  same  period  that  the  Spanish  imbroglio 
took  place,  Count  de  Montalembert  got  up  in  the  Upper  House 
one  day  a,nd  declared  it  a  disgrace  that  France  should  have 
begged  the  tomb  of  Napoleon  I.  from  Russia.  Now,  the  fact 
was  that  France  had  not  begged  anything  at  all.  The  prin- 
cipal part  of  the  monument  at  the  Invalides  is  the  sarcophagus. 
The  architect  Visconti  was  anxious  that  it  should  consist  of 
red  porphyry;  M.  Duchatel  and  myself  were  of  the  same 
opinion.  Unfortunately,  we  had  not  the  remotest  notion  where 
such  red  porphyry  was  to  be  found.  The  Egyptian  quarries, 
whence  the  Romans  took  it,  were  exhausted.  Inquiries  were 
made  in  the  Vosges,  in  the  Pyrenees,  but  without  result,  and 
we  were  going  to  abandon  the  porphyry,  when  news  arrived  at 
the  Ministry  of  the  Interior  that  the  kind  of  stone  we  wanted 
existed  in  Russia. 

*'  Just  then  my  colleague,  M.  de  Salvandy,  was  sending  M. 
Leouzon  le  Due  to  the  north  on  a  special  mission,  and  I  in- 
structed him  to  go  as  far  as  St.  Petersburg  and  consult  Count  de 
Rayneval,  our  ambassador,as  to  the  best  means  of  getting  the 
porphyry.  A  few  months  later,  M.  le  Due  sent  me  specimens 
of  a  stone  from  a  quarry  on  the  banks  of  the  Onega  Lake, 
which,  if  not  absolutely  porphyry,  was  the  nearest  to  it  to  be 
had.  M.  Visconti  having  approved  of  it,  I  forwarded  further 
instructions  for  the  quantity  required,  and  so  forth. 

'*  The  quarry,  it  appears,  belonged  to  the  Crown,  and  had 
never  been  worked,  could  not  be  worked,  without  due  permis- 
sion and  the  payment  of  a  certain  tax.  After  a  great  many 
formalities,  mainly  raised  by  speculators  who  had  got  wind  of  the 


AAT  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  23 1 

affair,  and  had  bribed  various  officials  to  oppose,  or,  at  any 
rate,  intercept  the  petition  sent  by  M.  le  Due  for  the  necessary 
authorization.  Prince  Wolkensky,  the  Minister  of  State,  ac- 
quainted the  Czar  himself  with  the  affair,  and  Nicholas,  without 
a  moment's  hesitation,  granted  the  request,  remitting  the  tax 
which  M.  le  Due  had  estimated  at  about  six  thousand  francs. 
This  took  place  at  a  cabinet  council,  and,  unfortunately  forme, 
the  Czar  thought  fit  to  make  a  little  speech.  *  What  a  strange 
destiny  ! '  he  said,  rising  from  his  seat  and  assuming  a  solemn 
tone—'  what  a  strange  destiny  this  man's ' — alluding  to  Napo- 
leon— '  even  in  death  !  It  is  we  who  struck  him  the  first  fatal 
blow,  by  the  burning  of  our  holy  and  venerable  capital,  and  it 
is  from  us  that  France  asks  his  tomb.  Let  the  French  envoy 
have  everything  he  requires,  and,  above  all,  let  no  tax  be 
taken.' 

"  That  was  enough  ;  the  German  and  French  papers  got  hold 
of  the  last  words  with  the  rest  ;  they  confounded  the  tax  with 
the  cost  of  working,  which  amounted  to  more  than  two  hun- 
dred thousand  francs  ;  and  up  to  this  day,  notwithstanding  the 
explanations  I  and  my  colleagues  offered  in  reply  to  the  inter- 
pellation of  M.  de  Montalembert,  the  story  remains  that 
Russia  made  France  a  present  of  the  tomb  of  Napoleon." 

From  that  day  forth  I  often  called  upon  M.  Guizot,  espe- 
cially in  the  daytime,  when  1  knew  that  he  had  finished  work- 
ing ;  for  when  he  found  that  his  political  career  was  irrevoc- 
ably at  an  end,  he  turned  very  cheerfully — I  might  say  gladly — 
to  his  original  avocation,  literature.  Without  the  slightest 
fatigue,  without  the  slightest  worry,  he  produced  a  volume  of 
philosophical  essays  or  history  every  year  ;  and  if,  unlike 
Alexandre  Dumas,  he  did  not  roar  with  laughter  while  compos- 
ing, he  was  often  heard  to  hum  a  tune.  "  En  effet,"  said  one 
of  his  daughters,  the  Countess  Henriette  de  Witt  (both  his 
daughters  bore  the  same  name  and  titles  when  married),  "  no- 
tre  pere  ne  chante  presque  jamais  qu'en  travaillant."  This 
did  not  mean  that  work,  and  work  only,  had  the  effect  of  put- 
ting M.  Guizot  in  good  humor.  He  was,  according  to  the 
same  authority,  uniformly  sweet-tempered  at  home,  whether 
sitting  in  his  arm-chair,  surrounded  by  his  family,  or  gently 
strolling  up  and  down  his  library.  "  C'est  la  politique  qui  le 
rendait  mechant,"  said  Madame  de  Witt,  "  heureusement  il  la 
laissait  a  la  porte.  Et  tr^s  souvent  il  I'oubliait  de  parti-pris  au 
miUeu  du  conseil  et  alors  il  nous  ecrivait  des  lettres,  mais  des 
lettres,  comme  on  n'en  ecrit  plus.  En  voila  deux  qu'il  m'a 
^crites    lorsque    j'etais    tr^s    jeune   fille,"     Whereupon   she; 


232  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

showed  me  what  were  really  two  charming  gossiping  little  es- 
says on  the  art  of  punctuation.  It  appears  that  the  little  lady 
was  either  very  indifferent  to,  or  ignorant  of,  the  art  ;  and  the 
father  wrote,  "  My  dear  Henriette :  I  am  afraid  I  shall  still 
have  to  take  you  to  task  with  regard  to  your  punctuation  : 
there  is  little  or  none  of  it  in  your  letters.  All  punctuation, 
commas  or  other  signs,  mark  a  period  of  repose  for  the  mind — 
a  stage,  more  or  less  long  — an  idea  which  is  done  with  or  mo- 
mentarily suspended,  and  which  is  being  divided  by  such  a 
sign  from  the  next.  You  suppress  those  periods,  those  inter- 
vals ;  you  write  as  the  stream  flows,  as  the  arrow  flies.  That 
will  not  do  at  all,  because  the  ideas  one  expresses,  the  things 
of  which  we  speak,  are  not  all  intimately  connected  with  one 
another  like  drops  of  water." 

The  second  letter  showed  that  Mdlle.  Guizot  must  have 
taken  her  revenge,  either  very  cleverly,  or  that  she  was  past  all 
redemption  in  the  matter  of  punctuation  ;  and  as  the  latter 
theory  is  scarcely  admissible,  knowing  what  we  do  of  her  after- 
life, we  must  admit  the  former.     The  letter  ran  as  follows  : — 

"  My  dear  Henriette  ; 

"  I  dare  say  you  will  find  me  very  provoking,  but  let  me  beg 
of  you  not  to  fling  so  many  commas  at  my  head.  You  are 
absolutely  pelting  me  with  them,  as  the  Romans  pelted  that 
poor  Tarpeia  with  their  bucklers." 

It  reminds  one  of  Marguerite  Thuillier,  who  "  created  Mimi  " 
in  Miirger  and  Barriere's  "  Vie  de  Boheme,"  when  Miirger  fell 
in  love  with  her.  "  I  can't  do  with  him,"  she  said  to  his 
collaborateur,  who  pleaded  for  him, — "  I  can't  do  with  him  ; 
he  is  too  badly  dressed,  he  looks  like  a  scarecrow."  Barriere 
advised  his  friend  to  go  to  a  good  tailor  and  have  himself 
rigged  out  in  the  latest  fashion.  The  advice  was  acted  upon  ; 
Barriere  waited  anxiously  for  the  effect  of  the  transformation 
upon  the  lady's  heart.  A  fortnight  elapsed,  and  poor  Miirger 
was  snubbed  as  usual.  Barriere  interceded  once  more.  "  I 
can  do  less  with  him  than  before,"  was  the  answer  ;  "  he  is 
too  well  dressed,  he  looks  like  a  tailor's  dummy." 

To  return  to  M.  Guizot,  whom,  in  the  course  of  the  whole 
of  our  acquaintance,  I  have  only  seen  once  "put  out."  It  was 
when  the  fiat  went  forth  that  his  house  was  to  come  down  to 
make  room  for  the  new  Boulevard  Malesherbes.  The  authorities 
had  been  as  considerate  as  possible  ;  they  had  made  no  at- 
^ tempt  to   treat  the   eminent  historian   as  a  simple   owner  of 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  233 

house-property  fighting  to  get  the  utmost  value  ;  they  offered 
him  three  hundred  thousand  francs,  and  M.  Guizot  himself 
acknowledged  that  the  sum  was  a  handsome  one.  "  But  I 
have  got  thirty  thousand  volumes  to  remove,  besides  my  notes 
and  manuscripts,"  he  wailed.  Then  his  good  temper  got  the 
better  of  him,  and  he  had  a  "sly  dig,"  at  his  former  adversary, 
Adolphe  Thiers.  "  Serves  me  right  for  having  so  many  books  ; 
happy  the  historian  who  prefers  to  trust  to  his  imagination." 

M.  Guizot  made  up  his  mind  to  have  his  library  removed  to 
Val-Richer,  and  never  to  live  in  Paris  again  ;  but  his  children 
and  friends  prevailed  upon  him  not  to  forsake  society  altogether, 
and  to  take  a  modest  apartment  near  his  old  domicile,  in  the 
Faubourg  St.  Honore,  opposite  the  English  embassy,  which, 
however,  in  those  days  had  not  the  monumental  aspect  it  has 
at  present. 

"  It  is  doubtful,"  said  M.  Guizot  afterwards  to  me,  "  whether 
the  idea  of  living  in  the  country  would  have  ever  entered  my 
mind  ten  or  fifteen  years  ago.  At  that  time,  I  would  not  have 
gone  a  couple  of  miles  to  see  the  most  magnificent  bit  of  nat- 
ural scenery :  I  should  have  gone  a  thousand  to  see  a  man  of 
talent." 

And  in  fact,  up  till  1830,  when  he  was  nearly  forty-four,  he 
had  never  seen  the  sea,  "  And  if  it  had  not  been  for  an  elec- 
toral journey  to  Normandy,  I  might  not  have  seen  it  then."  I 
pointed  out  to  him  that  M.  Thiers  had  never  had  a  country 
house  ;  that  he  did  not  seem  to  care  for  nature,  for  birds,  or 
for  flowers. 

"  Ah,  that's  different,"  he  smiled.  "  I  did  not  care  much 
about  the  country,  because  I  had  never  seen  any  of  it.  Thiers 
does  not  like  it,  because  the  birds,  the  flowers,  the  trees,  live 
and  grow  without  his  interference,  and  he  does  not  care  that 
anything  on  earth  should  happen  without  his  having  a  hand  in  it." 

Thiers  was  the  only  man  at  whom  M.  Guizot  tilted  in  that 
way.  Though  brought  up  in  strict  Protestant,  one  might  almost 
say  Calvinistic  principles,  he  was  an  ardent  admirer  of  Roman 
Catholicism,  which  he  called  "  the  most  admirable  school  of 
respect  in  the  world."  No  man  had  suffered  more  from  the 
excesses  of  the  first  Revolution,  seeing  that  his  father  perished 
on  the  scaffold,  yet  I  should  not  like  to  say  that  he  was  not 
somewhat  of  a  republican  at  heart,  but  not  of  a  republic  '*  which 
begins  with  Plato,  and  necessarily  ends  with  a  gendarme." 
"The  Republic  of  '48,"  he  used  to  say,  "  it  had  not  even  a  Monk, 
let  alone  a  Washington  or  a  Cromwell ;  and  Louis-Napoleon 
had  to  help  himself  to  the  throne.     And  depend  upon  it,  if 


234  ^^  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

there  had  been  a  Cromwell,  he  would  have  crushed  it  as  the 
English  one  crushed  the  monarchy.  As  for  Washington,  he 
would  not  have  meddled  with  it  at  all." 

"  Yes,"  he  said  on  another  occasion,  "  I  am  proud  of  one 
thing — of  the  authorship  of  the  law  on  elementary  education  ; 
but,  proud  as  I  am  of  it,  if  I  could  have  foreseen  the  uses  to 
which  it  has  been  put,  to  which  it  is  likely  to  be  put  when  I  am 
gone,  I  would  have  sooner  have  seen  half  of  the  nation  unable 
to  distinguish  an  '  A  from  a  bull's  foot,'  as  your  countrymen 
say." 

With  Guizot  died  almost  the  last  French  statesman,  "  who 
not  only  thought  that  he  had  the  privilege  to  be  poor,  but  who 
carried  the  privilege  too  far  ;  "  as  some  one  remarked  when  he 
heard  the  news  of  his  demise.  Towards  the  latter  years  of  his 
life,  he  occupied  a  modest  apartment,  on  the  fourth  floor,  in 
the  Rue  Billaut  (now  the  Rue  Washington).  Well  might  M. 
de  Falloux  exclaim,  as  he  toiled  up  that  staircase,  ''  My  respect 
for  him  increases  with  every  step  I  take." 

Since  M.  de  Falloux  uttered  these  words,  and  very  long  be- 
fore, I  have  only  known  one  French  statesman  whose  staircase 
and  whose  poverty  might  perhaps  inspire  the  same  reflections 
and  elicit  similar  praise.     I  am  alluding  to  M.  Rouher. 

M.  de  Lamartine's  poverty  did  not  breed  the  same  respect. 
There  was  no  dignity  about  it.  It  was  the  poverty  of  Oliver 
Goldsmith  sending  to  Dr.  Johnson  and  feasting  with  the  guinea 
the  latter  had  forwarded  by  the  messenger  pending  his  own 
arrival.  Mery  had  summed  up  the  situation  with  regard  to 
Lamartine's  difficulties  on  the  evening  of  the  24th  of  February, 
'48,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  suspect  that  his  statement  had 
been  exaggerated.  The  dynasty  of  the  younger  branch  of  the 
Bourbons  had  been  overthrown  because  Lamartine  saw  no  other 
means  of  liquidating  the  350,000  francs  he  still  owed  for  his 
princely  journey  to  the  East.  I  had  been  to  Lamartine's  house 
once  before  that  revolution,  and,  though  his  wife  was  an  Eng- 
lishwoman, I  felt  no  inclination  to  return  thither.  The  house- 
hold gave  me  the  impression  of  "  Du  Jellaby  dore."  The  sight 
of  it  would  have  furnished  Dickens  with  as  good  a  picture  as 
the  one  he  sketched.  The  principal  personage,  however,  was 
not  quite  so  disinterested  as  the  future  mother-in-law  of  Prince 
Turveydrop.  Of  course,  at  that  time,  there  was  no  question  of 
a  republic,  but  the  politics  advocated  and  discussed  during  the 
lunch  were  too  superfine  for  humble  mortals  like  myself,  who 
instinctively  felt  that — 

**  Quel(jues  billets  de  njille  francs  feraient  bien  mieux  I'affajre  " 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  235 

of  the  host.  And  the  instinct  was  not  a  deceptive  one.  Four 
months  after  February,  1848,  M.  de  Lamartine  had  virtually 
ceased  to  exist,  as  far  as  French  politics  were  concerned. 
From  that  time  until  the  day  of  his  death,  the  world  only  heard 
of  him  in  connection  with  a  new  book  or  new  poem,  the  avowed 
purpose  of  which  was,  not  to  make  the  world  better  or  wiser, 
but  to  raise  money.  He  kept  singing  like  the  benighted  mu- 
sician on  the  Russian  steppes  keeps  playing  his  instrument,  to 
keep  away  the  wolves. 

I  knew  not  one  but  a  dozen  men,  all  of  whom  visited  M.  de 
Lamartine.  I  have  never  been  able  to  get  a  single  story  or 
anecdote  about  him,  not  bearing  upon  the  money  question. 
He  is  ten  times  worse  in  that  respect  than  Balzac,  with  this 
additional  point  in  the  latter's  favor — that  he  never  whines  to 
the  outside  world  about  his  impecuniosity.  M.  Guizot  pro- 
duces a  volume  every  twelvemonth,  and  asks  nothing  of  any 
one  ;  he  leaves  the  advertising  of  it  to  his  publisher :  M.  de 
Lamartine  spends  enormous  sums  in  publicity,  and  subsidizes, 
besides,  a  crowd  of  journalists,  who  devour  his  creditors'  sub- 
stance while  he  keeps  repeating  to  them  that  his  books  do  not 
sell.  "  If,  henceforth,  I  were  to  offer  pearls  dissolved  in  the 
cup  of  Cleopatra,  people  would  use  the  decoction  to  wash  their 
horses'  feet."  And,  all  the  while,  people  bought  his  works, 
though  no  one  cared  to  read  the  later  ones.  The  golden  lyre 
of  yore  was  worse  than  dumb  ;  it  emitted  false  and  weak  sounds, 
the  strings  had  become  relaxed,  the  golden  tongue  alone 
remained. 

When  a  national  subscription  is  raised  to  pay  his  debts,  the 
committee  are  so  afraid  of  his  wasting  the  money  that  they 
decide  to  have  the  proceeds  deposited  at  the  Comptoir  d'Es- 
compte,  and  that  de  Lamartine  shall  not  be  able  to  draw  a 
farthing  untill  all  his  affairs  are  settled.  One  morning  he 
deputes  a  friend  to  ask  for  forty  thousand  francs,  in  order  to 
pay  some  bills  that  are  due.  They  refuse  to  advance  the 
money.  De  Lamartine  invites  them  to  his  own  house,  but  they 
stand  firm  at  first.  Gradually  they  give  way.  "  How  much  do 
you  really  want  ?  "  is  the  question  asked  at  last.  "  Fifty  thou- 
sand francs,"  is  the  answer ;  "  but  I  fancy  I  shall  be  able  to 
manage  with  thirty  thousand  francs." 

"  If  we  gave  you  fifty  thousand  francs,"  says  M.  Emile 
Pereire,  "  would  you  give  us  some  breathing-time  t  " 

"  Yes." 

And  Lamartine  pockets  the  fifty  thousand  francs,  thanks  tg 
his  eloquence. 


236  ^^  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

A  better  man,  though  not  so  great  a  poet,  was  B^ranger, 
whom  I  knew  for  many  years,  though  my  intimacy  with  him 
did  not  commence  until  a  few  months  after  the  February  rev- 
olution, when  I  met  him  coming  out  of  the  Palais-Bourbon. 
"  I  shall  feel  obliged,"  he  said,  "  if  you  will  see  me  home,  for 
I  am  not  at  all  well ;  these  violent  scenes  are  not  at  all  to  my 
taste."  Then,  with  a  very  wistful  smile,  he  went  on  :  "I  have 
been  accused  of  having  held  '  the  plank  across  the  brook  over 
which  Louis-Philippe  went  to  the  Tuileries.'  I  wish  I  could 
be  the  bridge  across  the  channel  on  which  he  would  return 
now.  Certainly  I  would  have  liked  a  republic,  but  not  such  a 
one  as  we  are  having  in  there,"  pointing  to  the  home  of  the 
Constituent  Assembly.  A  short  while  after,  Beranger  tendered 
his  resignation  as  deputy. 

He  lived  at  Passy  then,  in  the  Rue  Basse  ;  the  number,  if  I 
mistake  not,  was  twenty-three.  He  had  lived  in  the  same 
quarter  fifteen  years  before,  for  I  used  to  see  him  take  his 
walks  when  I  was  a  lad,  but  it  was  difficult  for  Beranger  to 
live  in  the  same  spot  for  any  length  of  time.  He  was,  first  of 
all,  of  a  very  nomadic  disposition  :  secondly,  his  quondam 
friends  would  leave  him  no  peace.  There  was  a  constant  in- 
road of  shady  individuals  who,  on  the  pretext  that  he  was 
the  people's  poet,"  drained  his  purse  and  his  cellar.  Previous 
to  his  return  to  Passy,  he  had  been  boarding  with  a  respect- 
able widow  in  the  neighborhood  of  Vincennes.  He  had 
adopted  the  name  of  Bonnin,  and  his  landlady  took  him  to  be 
a  modest,  retired  tradesman,  living  upon  a  small  annuity. 
When  his  birthday  came  round,  she  and  her  daughters  found 
out  that  they  had  entertained  an  angel  unawares,  for  carriage 
after  carriage  drove  up,  and  in  a  few  hours  the  small  dwelling 
was  filled  with  magnificent  flowers,  the  visitors  meanwhile  sur- 
rounding Beranger,  and  offering  him  their  congratulations.  As 
a  matter  of  course,  the  rumor  spread,  and  Be'ranger  fled  to  Passy, 
where  he  invited  Mdlle.  Judith  Frere  to  join  him  once  more. 
The  retreat  had  been  discovered,  and  he  resigned  himself  to 
be  badgered  more  than  ^  usual  for  the  sake  of  the  neighbor- 
hood— the  Bois  de  Boulogne  was  hard  by  ;  but  the  municipal 
council  of  Passy,  in  consideration  of  the  honor  conferred 
upon  the  arrondissement  and  B^ranger's  charity,  took  it  into 
their  heads  to  pass  a  resolution  offering  Beranger  the  most 
conspicuous  place  in  the  cemetery  for  a  tomb.  The  poet  fled 
once  more,  this  time  to  the  Quartier-Latin  ;  but  the  students 
insisting  on  pointing  him  out  to  their  female  companions,  who, 
in  their  enthusiasm,  made  it  a  point  of  embracing  him  on  every 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  237 

possible  occasions,  especially  in  the  "  Closerie  des  Lilas" — for 
to  the  end  Beranger  remained  fond  of  the  society  of  young 
folk, — Beranger  was  compelled  to  flit  once  more.  After  a 
short  stay  in  the  Rue  Vendome,  in  the  neighborhood  of  the 
Temple,  he  came  to  the  Quartier-Beaujon,  where  I  visited  him. 
There  have  been  so  many  tales  with  regard  to  Beranger's 
companion,  Mdlle.  Judith  Frere,  and  all  equally  erroneous,  that 
I  am  glad  to  be  able  to  rectify  them.  Mdlle.  Frere  was  by  no 
means  the  kind  of  upper  servant  she  was  generally  supposed 
to  be.  A  glance  at  her  face  and  a  few  moments  spent  in  her 
company  could  not  fail  to  convince  any  one  that  she  was  of 
good  birth.  She  had  befriended  Beranger  when  he  was  very 
young,  they  had  parted  for  some  time,  and  they  ended  their 
days  together,  for  the  poet  only  survived  his  friend  three  months. 
Beranger  was  a  model  of  honesty  and  disinterestedness. 
Ambition  he  had  little  or  none  ;  he  was  somewhat  fond  of 
teasing  children,  not  because  he  had  no  affection  for  them,  but 
because  he  loved  them  too  much.  His  portrait  by  Ary  Scheffer 
is  the  most  striking  likeness  I  have  ever  seen  ;  but  a  better 
one  still,  perhaps,  is  by  an  artist  who  had  probably  never  set 
eyes  on  him.  I  am  alluding  to  Hablot  Browne,  who  uncon 
sciously  reproduced  him  to  the  life  in  the  picture  of  Tom  Pinch. 
As  a  companion,  Be'ranger  was  charming  to  a  degree.  I  have 
never  heard  him  say  a  bitter  word.  The  day  I  saw  him  home, 
I  happened  to  say  to  him,  "  You  ought  to  be  pleased,  Victor 
Hugo  is  in  the  same  regiment  with  you."  "  Yes,"  he  answered 
"  he  is  in  the  band."  He  would  never  accept  a  pension  from 
Louis-Napoleon,  but  he  had  no  bitterness  against  him. 
Lamartine  was  very  bitter,  and  yet  consented  to  the  Emperor's 
heading  of  the  subscription-list  in  his  behalf.  That  alone 
would  show  the  difference  between  the  two  men. 


L 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

"  A  MAN  endowed  with  a  strong  will  and  energy,  active  and 
intelligent  to  a  degree,  w^ith  the  faculty  of  turning  up  at  every 
spot  where  his  presence  was  necessary  either  to  revive  the 
lagging  plot  or  to  gain  fresh  adherents  ;  a  man  better  ac- 
quainted than  all  the  rest  with  the  secret  springs  upon  which 
the  conspiracy  hung." 

This  description  of  M.  de  Persigny  is  borrowed  from  the 
indictment  at  the  trial  for  hi^h  treason  in  1836.     Every  partig- 


238  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

tilar  of  it  is  correct,  yet  it  is  a  very  one-sided  diagnosis  of  the 
character  of  Napoleon's  staunchest  henchman.  If  I  had  had 
to  paint  him  morally  and  mentally  in  one  line,  I  should,  with- 
out intending  to  be  irreverent,  have  called  him  the  John  the 
Baptist  of  the  revived  Napoleonic  legend.  There  could  be  no 
doubt  about  his  energy,  his  activity,  and  his  intelligence  ;  in 
respect  of  the  former  two  he  was  absolutely  superior  to  Louis- 
Napoleon,  but  they,  the  activity  and  energy  and  intelligence, 
would  only  respond  to  the  bidding  of  one  voice,  that  of  the 
first  Napoleon  from  the  grave,  which,  he  felt  sure,  had  ap- 
pointed him  the  chief  instrument  for  the  restoration  of  the 
Empire.  It  was  the  dream  that  haunted  his  sleep,  that  pur- 
sued him  when  awake.  Let  it  not  be  thought,  though,  that 
Louis-Napoleon  appeared  to  him  as  the  one  selected  by  Prov- 

.  idence  to  realize  that  dream.  Loyal  and  faithful  as  he  was  to 
him  from  the  day  they  met  until  his  (Persigny's)  death,  he 
would  have  been  equally  loyal  and  faithful,  though  perhaps  not 
so  deeply  attached,  to  Jerome,  the  ex-King  of  Westphalia,  to 
whom  he  appealed  first.  But  the  youngest  of  the  great 
Napoleon's  brothers  did  not  relish  adventures,  and  he  turned 
a  deaf  ear  to  Persigny's  proposals,  as  he  did  later  on  to  those 
of  M.  Thiers,  who  wished  him  to  become  a  candidate  for  the 
presidency  of  the  Second  Republic. 

I  was  talking  one  day  on  the  subject  of  the  latter's  refusal 
to  De  Persigny,  several  years  after  the  advent  of  the  Empire, 
and  commending  Jerome  for  his  abnegation  of  self  and  his 
fealty  to  his  nephew.  There  was  a  sneer  on  Persigny's  face 
such  as  I  had  never  seen  there  before  ;  for  though  he  was  by 
no  means  good-tempered,  and  frequently  very  violent,  he 
generally  left  the  members  of  the  Imperial  family  alone.  He 
noticed  my  surprise,  and  explained  at  once.  "  It  is  very 
evident  that  you  do  not  know  Jerome,  nor  did  I  until  a  few 
years  ago.  There  is  not  a  single  one  of  the  great  Napoleon's 
brothers  who  really  had  his  glory  at  heart ;  it  meant  money  and 
position  to  them,  that  is  all.  Do  you  know  why  Jerome  did 
not  fall  in  with  my  views  and  those  of  M.  Thiers  ?  Well,  I 
will  tell  you.  He  was  afraid  that  his  nephew  Louis  and  the 
rest  of  the  family  would  be  a  burden  on  him  ;  he  preferred  that 
others  should  take  the  chestnuts  out  of  the  fire  and  that  he 
should  have  the  eating  of  them.  That  is  what  his  self-abnega- 
tion meant,  nothing  more." 

I  am  afraid  that  De  Persigny  was  not  altogether  wrong  in 
his  estimate  of  the  ex-King  of  Westphalia.     He  was  insatiable 

^in  his  Remands  for  money  to  his  nephew,     In  fact,  with  the 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS,  539 

exception  of  Princesse  Mathilde,  the  whole  of  the  Emperor's 
family  was  a  thorn  in  his  side. 

The  Emperor  himself  was  absolutely  incapable  of  refusing  a 
service.  I  have  the  following  story  on  very  good  authority. 
De  Persigny,  who  was  as  lavish  as  his  Imperial  master,  was 
rarely  ever  out  of  difficulties,  and  in  such  emergencies  naturally 
appealed  to  the  latter.  He  had  wasted  on,  or  sunk  enormous 
sums  in,  his  country  estate  of  Chamarande,  where  he  enter- 
tained with  boundless  hospitality.  As  a  matter  of  course,  he 
was  always  being  pursued  by  his  creditors.  One  early  morn 
— Persigny  always  went  betimes  when  he  wanted  money — he 
made  his  appearance  in  the  Emperor's  private  room,  looking 
sad  and  dejected.  Napoleon  refrained  for  a  while  from  ques- 
tioning him  as  to  the  cause  of  his  low  spirits,  but  finally 
ventured  to  say  that  he  looked  ill. 

"  Ah,  sire,"  was  the  answer,  "  I  am  simply  bent  down  with 
sorrow.  This  Chamarande,  which  I  have  created  out  of 
nothing  as  it  were  " — it  had  cost  nearly  two  millions  of  francs 
— "  is  ruining  me.     I  shall  be  forced  to  give  it  up." 

De  Persigny  felt  sure  that  he  would  be  told  there  and  then 
not  to  worry  himself  ;  but  the  Emperor  was  in  a  jocular  mood, 
and  took  delight  in  prolonging  his  anxiety.  "  Believe  me,  my 
dear  due,"  said  Napoleon  with  an  assumed  air  of  indifference, 
"  it  is  the  best  thing  you  can  do.  Get  rid  of  Chamarande  '  it 
is  too  great  a  burden,  and  you'll  breathe  more  freely  when  it's 
gone." 

De  Persigny  turned  as  white  as  a  ghost ;  whereupon  Napo- 
leon, who  was  soft-hearted  to  a  degree,  took  a  bundle  of  notes 
from  his  drawer  and  handed  them  to  him.  De  Persigny  went 
away  beaming. 

It  must  not  be  inferred  from  this  that  De  Persigny  was 
grasping  like  Prince  Jerome  and  others,  who  constantly  drained 
Napoleon's  purse.  De  Persigny's  charity  was  proverbial,  but 
he  gave  blindly,  and  as  a  consequence,  was  frequently  imposed 
upon.  When  young  he  had  joined  the  Saint-Simoniens  ;  his 
great  aim  was  to  make  everybody  happy.  To  him  the  resto- 
ration of  the  Empire  meant  not  only  the  revival  of  Napoleon's 
glory,  but  the  era  of  universal  happiness,  of  universal  material 
prosperity.  As  a  rule,  he  was  thoroughly  unpractical ;  the 
whole  of  his  life's  work  may  be  summed  up  in  one  line — he 
conceived  and  organized  the  Coup  d'Etat.  As  such  he  was 
virtually  the  founder  of  the  Second  Empire.  In  that  task 
practice  went  hand  in  hand  with  theory ;  when  the  task  was 
accomplished,  his  inspiration  was  utterly  at  fault. 


^46  AJ\r  kl^GUsHMAN  /AT  PARIS. 

Historians  have  been  generally  content  to  attribute  the 
principal  role  in  the  Coup  d'Etat,  next  to  that  of  Louis-Napo- 
leon, to  M.  de  Morny.  Of  course,  I  am  speaking  of  those  who 
conceived  it,  not  of  those  who  executed  it.  The  parts  of 
Generals  Magnan  and  De  Saint- Arnaud,  of  Colonel  de 
Beville  and  M.  de  Maupas,  scarcely  admit  of  discussion. 
But  the  fact  is  that  De  Morny  did  comparatively  nothing 
as  far  as  the  conception  was  concerned.  The  prime  mover 
was  undoubtedly  De  Persigny,  and  it  is  a  very  moot  ques- 
tion whether,  but  for  him,  it  would  have  been  conceived  at 
all.  I  know  I  am  treading  on  dangerous  ground,  but 
I  have  very  good  authority  for  the  whole  of  the  following 
notes  relating  to  it.  In  De  Persigny's  mind  the  whole  of  the 
scheme  was  worked  out  prior  to  Louis-Napoleon's  election  to 
the  presidency,  though  of  course  the  success  of  it  depended  on 
that  election.  He  did  not  want  a  republic,  even  with  Louis- 
Napoleon  as  a  president  for  life ;  he  wanted  an  empire.  I 
should  not  like  to  affirm  that  Prince  Louis  would  not  have 
been  content  with  such  a  position ;  it  was  Persigny  who  put 
down  his  foot  exclaiming,  "  Aut  Ccesar  aut  nullus  /  "  That 
the  sentence  fell  upon  willing  ears,  there  is  equally  no  doubt, 
and  when  the  Prince-President  had  his  foot  upon  the  first  rung 
of  the  ladder,  he  would  probably  have  rushed,  or  endeavored 
to  rush  to  the  top  at  once,  regardless  of  the  risk  involved  in 
this  perilous  ascent,  for  there  would  have  been  no  one,  absolutely 
no  one,  to  steady  the  ladder  at  the  bottom.  De  Persigny  held 
him  back  while  he  busied  himself  in  finding  not  only  the  per- 
sonnel that  was  to  hold  the  ladder,  but  the  troops  that  would 
prevent  the  crowd  from  interfering  with  the  ladder-holders.  It 
was  he  who  was  the  first  to  broach  the  recall  of  De  Saint- Arnaud 
from  Africa  ;  it  was  he  who  drew  attention  to  M.  de  Maupas, 
then  little  more  than  an  obscure  prefect ;  it  was  he  who  was 
wise  enough  to  see  that  "  the  ladder-holders  "  would  have  to 
be  sought  for  in  England,  and  not  in  France.  "  The  English," 
he  said  to  Napoleon,  "  owe  you  a  good  turn  for  the  harm  they 
have  done  to  your  uncle.  They  are  sufficiently  generous  or 
sufficiently  sensible  to  do  that  good  turn,  if  it  is  in  their  interest 
to  do  so  ;  look  for  your  support  among  the  English." 

I  fancy  it  was  Lord  Palmerston's  dislike  of  Louis- Philippe 
on  account  of  "  the  Spanish  marriages,"  rather  than  a  senti- 
ment of  generosity  towards  Louis-Napoleon,  that  made  him 
espouse  his  cause,  but  I  feel  certain  that  he  did  espouse  it. 
I  have  good' ground  for  saying  that  his  interviews  with  Comte 
Walewski  were  much  more  frequent  than  his  ministerial  col- 


AjV  kNCUSHMAN  hV  PAkiS.  ±4i 

leagues  suspected,  or  the  relations  between  England  and 
France,  however  friendly  they  may  have  been,  warranted. 
But  everything  was  not  ready.  Palmerston  and  Walewski  on 
the  English  side  of  the  Channel,  Louis-Napoleon  and  De  Per- 
signy  on  the  French  side,  were  waiting  for  something.  What 
was  it  ?  Nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  laying  of  the  subma- 
rine cable  between  Dover  and  Calais,  the  concession  for  which 
was  given  on  the  8th  of  January,  185 1,  and  on  which  occasion 
the  last  words  to  Mr.  Walker  Breit  were  to  hurry  it  on  as  much 
as  possible,  "  seeing  that  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  for  the 
French  Government  to  be  in  direct  and  rapid  communication 
with  the  Cabinet  of  St.  fames. ^^  The  Cabinet  meant  Lord  Pal- 
merston. Nevertheless,  it  is  not  until  ten  months  later  that 
the  cable  is  laid,  and  from  that  moment  events  march  apace. 
Let  us  glance  at  them  for  a  moment.  Telegraphic  communi- 
cation between  Dover  and  Calais  is  established  on  the  13th 
of  November.  On  the  15th,  General  Saint- Arnaud  gives  or- 
ders that  the  decree  of  1849,  conferring  on  the  president  of  the 
National  Assembly  the  right  of  summoning  and  disposing  of 
the  military  forces  which  had  hitherto  been  hung  up  in  every 
barracks  throughout  the  land,  shall  be  taken  down.  On  the 
i6th,  Changarnier,  Leflo,  and  Baze,  with  many  others,  decide 
that  a  bill  shall  be  introduced  immediately,  conferring  once 
more  that  right  on  the  president  of  the  Assembly.  The  op- 
ponents of  the  Prince-President  are  already  rubbing  their  hands 
with  glee  at  the  thought  of  their  success,  for  it  means  that 
Prince  Louis  and  his  adherents  will  be  in  their  power,  and  in 
their  power  means  removal  to  Vincennes  or  elsewhere,  as 
prisoners  of  State.  On  the  i8th,  the  bill  is  thrown  out  by  a 
majority  of  108,  and  the  Assembly  is  virtually  powerless  hence- 
forth against  any  and  every  attack  from  the  military.  It  was 
on  that  very  evening  that  the  date  of  the  Coup  d'Etat  was 
fixed  for  the  2d  of  l5ecember,  notwithstanding  the  hesitation 
and  wavering  of  Louis-Napoleon.  On  the  26th  a  young  at- 
tache is  despatched  from  the  Ministry  of  Foreign  Affairs  to  the 
French  Embassy  in  London,  instead  of  the  ordinary  cabinet 
(or  queen's)  messenger,  which  proves  that  the  despatches  are 
more  important  than  usual.  They  contain  letters  from  the 
Prince-President  himself  to  Comte  Walewski,  the  contents  of 
which  are  probably  known  to  the  Marquis  de  Turgot,  but 
which  are  despatched  in  that  way,  instead  of  being  sent  di- 
rectly from  the  Elysee  by  a  trustworthy  person  because  the 
presidential  residence  is  watched  day  and  night  by  the  "  coun- 
ter-police "  of  the  Assembly.     The  reason  why  the  Marquis 

16 


24i  ^i^V  ENGLlSHMAiV  IN  PAKJS. 

de  Turgot  selects  a  young  aristocrat  is  because  he  feels  certain 
that  he  cannot  be  tampered  with.  On  the  29th  of  November 
a  connection  of  mine  receives  a  letter  from  a  friend  in  Lon- 
don, who  is  supposed  to  be  behind  the  scenes,  but  who  this 
time  is  utterly  in  the  dark.  It  is  to  the  following  effect : 
"  There  is  something  in  the  wind,  but  I  know  not  what.  Both 
yesterday  morning  (27th)  and  to-day  Walewski  has  been 
closeted  for  more  than  two  hours  each  time  with  Palmerston. 
There  is  to  be  a  grand  dinner  at  Walewski's  on  the  second  of 
next  month,  to  which  I  received  an  invitation.  Can  you  tell 
me  what  mischief  is  brewing  ?  " 

The  recipient  of  the  letter  was  neither  better  nor  worse  in- 
formed than  the  rest  of  us,  and  in  spite  of  all  the  asbartions  to 
the  contrary  which  have  been  made  since,  no  one  foresaw  the 
crisis  in  the  shape  it  came  upon  us.  On  the  contrary,  the 
general  opinion  was  that  in  the  end  Louis-Napoleon  would  get 
the  worse,  in  spite  of  the  magic  influence  of  his  name  with  the 
army.  It  was  expected  that  if  the  troops  were  called  upon  to 
act  against  the  National  Assembly,  they  would  refuse  and  turn 
against  their  leaders.  I  am  by  no  means  certain  that  the 
Prince-President  did  not  entertain  a  similar  opinion  up  to  the 
last  moment,  for  I  have  it  on  excellent  authority  that  as  late  as 
the  26th  of  November  he  endeavored  to  postpone  the  aifair 
for  a  month.  It  was  then  that  De  Persigny  showed  his  teeth, 
and  insisted  upon  the  night  of  the  ist  or  2d  of  December  as 
the  latest.  The  interview  was  a  very  stormy  one.  On  that 
very  morning  De  Persigny  had  received  a  letter  from  London, 
not  addressed  to  his  residence.  It  contained  a  draft  for 
;^2,ooo,  but  with  the  intimation  that  these  would  be  the  last 
funds  forthcoming.  He  showed  the  Prince-President  the  let- 
ter, and  Napoleon  gave  in  there  and  then.  The  letters  spoken 
of  just  now  were  despatched  on  the  same  day.  It  was  with 
that  money  that  the  Coup  d'Etatwas  made,  and  all  the  stories 
about  a  million  and  a  half  of  francs  being  handed  respectively 
to  De  Morny,  De  Maupas,  Saint- Arnaud,  and  the  rest  are  so 
much  invention. 

Up  to  six  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  the  ist  of  December, 
General  de  Saint- Arnaud  was  virtually  undecided, not  with  regard 
to  the  necessity  of  the  Coup  d'Etat,  but  with  regard  to  the 
opportuneness  of  it  within  the  next  twelve  hours.  I  have  the 
following  story  from  the  lips  of  Baron  Lacrosse,  who  was  one 
of  the  actors  in  it.  On  the  eve  of  the  Coup  d'Etat  he  was 
Minister  of  Public  Works,  and  as  such  was  present  at  the 
sitting  of  the  Assembly  on  the  ist  of  December.     A  member 


AN  ENGLISHMAN-  IN  PARIS.  243 

ascended  the  tribune  to  interpellate  the  Minister  for  War,  and, 
the  latter  being  absent,  the  question  was  deferred  until  next 
day.  That  same  evening,  ist  of  December,  there  was  an 
official  dinner  at  M.  Daviel's  the  Minister  of  Justice,  and  at 
the  termination  of  the  sitting,  M.  Lacrosse  called  in  his 
carriage  at  the  Ministry  for  War  to  take  his  colleague.  "  You 
may  make  up  your  mind  for  a  warm  half-hour  to-morrow,"  he 
said  with  a  smile,  as  he  entered  General  Saint- Arnaud's  room. 
"Why?"  asked  the  general.  "You  are  going  to  be  inter- 
pellated." "  I  expected  as  much,  and  was  just  considering 
my  answer.  I  am  glad  you  warned  me  in  time.  I  think  I  know 
what  to  say  now." 

I  do  not  believe  that  Baron  Lacrosse  had  the  faintest  inkling 
of  the  real  drift  of  the  remark,  nor  have  I  ever  asked  him 
directly  whether  he  had.  As  far  as  I  could  gather  afterwards 
from  one  or  two  people  who  were  there,  the  Elysee  presented  no 
unusual  feature  that  night.  The  reception  was  well  attended, 
as  the  ordinary  receptions  on  Mondays  generally  were,  for  the 
times  had  gone  by  when  the  courtyard  was  a  howling  wilderness 
dotted  with  two,  or  perhaps  three,  hackney  cabs.  It  would 
appear  that  a  great  many  well-known  men  and  a  corresponding 
number  of  pretty  women  moved  as  usual  through  the  salons, 
only  one  of  which  was  shut  up,  that  at  the  very  end  of  the 
suite,  and  which  did  duty  as  a  council-chamber,  and  contained 
the  portrait  of  the  young  Emperor  of  Austria,  Francis-Joseph. 
But  this  was  scarcely  noticed,  nor  did  the  early  withdrawal  of 
the  Prince- President  provoke  any  comment,  for  it  happened 
pretty  often.  Very  certain  is  it  that  at  twelve  o'clock  that 
night  the  Elysee  was  wrapt  in  darkness,  for  I  happened  to  pass 
there  at  that  hour.  Standing  at  the  door,  or  rather  inside 
it  was  the  captain  of  the  guard,  smoking  a  cigar.  I  believe  it 
was  Captain  Desondes  of  the  "  Guides,"  but  I  will  not  be  sure 
for  I  was  not  near  enough  to  distinguish  plainly.  The 
Faubourg  St.  Honore  was  pretty  well  deserted  save  for  a  few 
individuals  prowling  about ;  they  were  probably  detectives  in 
the  pay  of  the  Prince-President's  adversaries. 

Let  me  return  for  a  moment  to  London,  and  give  an  account 
of  what  happened  there  on  the  2d  of  December,  as  supplied  by 
the  writer  of  the  above-mentioned  letter,  in  an  epistle  which 
reached  Paris  only  on  the  7th. 

It  appears  that  on  the  day  of  the  Coup  d'Etat  London  woke 
up  amidst  a  dense  fog.  Virtually  the  news  of  what  had 
happened  in  Paris  early  that  morning  did  not  spread  until 
between  two   and  three  o'clock.     Our  informant  had  been  in- 


4 44  ^^'  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

vited  to  a  dinner-party  at  the  French  Embassy  that  night,  and 
though  in  no  way  actively  connected  with  politics,  he  was 
asking  himself  whether  he  should  go  or  stay  away,  when,  at 
five  o'clock,  he  received  a  note  from  the  Embassy,  saying  that 
the  dinner  would  not  take  place.  The  fact  was  that  at  the 
eleventh  hour  the  whole  of  the  corps  diplomatique  had  sent 
excuses.  Our  friend  went  to  his  club,  had  his  dinner,  and 
spent  part  of  the  evening  there.  At  about  eleven  a  crony  of 
his  came  in,  and  seeing  him  seated  in  the  smoking-room, 
exclaimed,  "  Why,  I  thought  you  were  going  to  Walewski's 
dinner  and  reception."  "  So  1  was,"  remarked  our  friend, 
"  but  it  was  countermanded  at  five."  "  Countermanded  t 
Why,  I  passed  the  Embassy  just  nov/,  and  it  was  blazing  with 
light.     Come  and  look." 

They  took  a  cab,  and  sure  enough  the  building  was  positively 
illuminated.  Our  friend  went  in,  and  the  salons  were  crammed 
to  suffocation.  Lord  Palmerston  was  talking  animatedly  to 
Count  Walewski ;  the  whole  corps  diplomatique  accredited  to 
the  court  of  St.  James  was  there.  The  fact  was  that  about 
nine  or  half-past  the  mostfavorable  news  from  Paris  had  reached 
London.  The  report  soon  spread  that  Lord  Palmerston  had 
officially  adhered  to  the  Coup  d'Etat,  and  that  he  had  tele- 
graphed in  that  sense  to  the  various  English  embassies  abroad 
without  even  consulting  his  fellow-ministers. 

I  believe  our  friend  was  correctly  informed,  for  it  is  well 
known  that  Palmerston  did  not  resign,  but  was  virtually 
dismissed  from  office.  He  never  went  to  Windsor  to  give  up 
the  seals  ;  Lord  John  Russell  had  to  do  it  for  him.  Persigny, 
therefore,  considered  that  he  had  fallen  in  the  cause  of  Louis- 
Napoleon,  and  as  such  he  became  little  short  of  an  idol.  The 
Prince-President  himself  was  not  far  from  sharing  in  that  wor- 
ship. Not  once,  but  a  hundred  times,  his  familiars  have  heard 
him  say,  "  Avec  Palmerston  on  pent  faire  des  grandes  choses." 
Nevertheless,  Palmerston  appealed  more  to  De  Persigny's 
imagination  than  to  Louis-Napoleon's.  After  all,  he  w^as  per- 
haps much  more  of  a  Richelieu  than  a  constitutional  country 
has  a  right  to  be  nowadays,  and  that  was  what  Persigny  admired 
above  all  things.  His  long  stay  in  England  had  by  no  means 
removed  his  inherent  dislike  to  parliamentary  government,  and, 
rightly  or  wrongly,  he  credited  Palmerston  with  a  similar 
sentiment. 

De  Persigny  was  amiable  and  obliging  enough,  provided  one 
knew  how  to  nianage  him,  and  with  those  whom  he  liked,  but 
exceedingly  thin-skinned  and  often  violent  with  those  whom  he 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  245 

disliked.  He  was,  moreover,  very  jealous  with  regard  to  Louis- 
Napoleon's  affection  for  him.  I  doubt  whether  he  really  minded 
the  influence  wielded  by  the  Empress,  De  Morny,  and  Walewski 
over  the  Emperor,  but  he  grudged  them  their  place  in  the 
Emperor's  heart.  This  was  essentially  the  case  with  regard  to 
the  former.  He  would  have  been  glad  to  see  his  old  friend 
and  his  Imperial  master  contract  a  loveless  marriage  with  some 
insignificant  German  or  Russian  princess,  who  would  have 
borne  her  husband  few  or  many  children,  in  order  to  secure 
the  safety  of  the  dynasty,  but  the  passion  that  prompted  the 
union  with  Eugenie  de  Montijo  he  considered  virtually  as  an 
injury  to  himself.  I  give  his  opinion  on  that  subject  in  English, 
because,  though  expressed  in  French,  it  had  certainly  been 
inspired  by  his  sojourn  in  England.  "  When  love  invades  a 
man's  heart,  there  is  scarcely  any  room  left  for  friendship. 
You  cannot  drive  love  for  a  woman  and  friendship  for  a  man  in 
double  harness,  you  are  obliged  to  drive  them  tandem  ;  and  what 
is  worse  in  a  case  like  that  of  the  Emperor,  friendship  becomes 
the  leader  and  love  the  wheeler.  Of  course,  to  the  outsider, 
friendship  has  the  place  of  honor  ;  in  reality,  love,  the  wheeler, 
is  in  closest  contact  with  the  driver  and  the  vehicle,  and  can, 
moreover,  have  a  sly  kick  at  friendship,  the  leader.  Person- 
ally, I  am  an  exception — I  may  say  a  phenomenal  exception — 
because  my  affection  for  the  Emperor  is  as  strong  as  my  love 
for  my  wife." 

Those  who  knew  both  the  Emperor  and  Madame  de  Per- 
signy  might  have  fitly  argued  that  this  equal  division  of  affec- 
tion was  a  virtual  injustice  to  the  sovereign,  who  was  decidedly 
more  amiable  than  the  spouse.  The  former  rarely  did  a  spite- 
ful thing  from  personal  motives  of  revenge  ;  I  only  know  of 
two.  He  never  invited  Lady  Jersey  to  the  Tuileries  during 
the  Empire,  because  she  had  shown  her  dislike  of  him  when 
he  was  in  London  ;  he  exiled  David  d' Angers  because  the 
sculptor  had  refused  to  finish  the  monument  of  Queen  Hor- 
tense  after  the  Coup  d'Etat.  David  d' Angers  was  one  of  the 
noblest  creatures  that  ever  lived,  and  I  mean  to  speak  of  him 
at  greater  length.  On  the  other  hand,  Madame  de  Persigny 
made  her  husband's  life,  notwithstanding  his  love  for  her,  a 
burden  by  her  whimsical  disposition,  her  vindictive  tempera- 
ment, and  her  cheeseparing  in  everything  except  her  own 
lavish  expenditure  on  dress.  She  was  what  the  French  call 
"  une  femme  qui  fait  des  scbnes ; "  she  almost  prided  herself 
upon  being  superior  in  birth  to  her  husband,  though  in  that 
respect  there  was  really  not  a  pin  to  choose  between  her 


2 46  AN-  ENGLISHMA N  IN  PA RIS. 

grandfather,  Michel  Ney,  the  stableboy,  who  had  risen  to  be 
a  duke  of  the  First  Empire,  and  her  husband,  the  sergeant- 
quartermaster  Fialin,  who  became  Due  de  Persigny  under  the 
Second.  She  was  always  advocating  retrenchment  in  the 
household.  *'  True,"  said  Persigny,  ''  she  cuts  down  her 
dresses  too,  but  the  more  she  cuts,  the  more  they  cost."  For 
in  his  angry  moments  he  would  now  and  then  tell  a  story 
against  his  wife.  «  Here  is  one.  Persigny,  as  I  have  already 
said,  was  hospitable  to  a  fault,  but  he  had  always  to  do  battle 
when  projecting  a  grand  entertainment.  "  There  was  so  much 
trouble  with  the  servants,  and  as  for  the  chef,  his  extravagance 
knew  no  bounds."  So  said  madame;  and  sick  at  last  of 
always  hearing  the  same  complaints,  he  decided  to  let  Chevet 
provide.  All  went  well  at  first,  because  he  himself  went  to 
the  Palais-Royal  to  give  his  orders,  merely  stating  the  number 
of  guests,  and  leaving  the  rest  to  the  famous  caterers,  than 
whom  there  are  no  more  obliging  or  conscientious  purveyors 
anywhere.  After  a  little  while  he  began  to  leave  the  arrange- 
ments to  madame  ;  she  herself  sent  out  the  invitations,  so 
there  could  be  no  mistake  with  regard  to  the  number.  He 
soon  perceived,  however,  that  the  dinners,  if  not  inferior  in 
quality  to  the  former  ones,  were  decidedly  inferior  in  quantity. 
At  last,  one  evening,  when  there  were  twenty-six  people  round 
the  board,  there  was  not  enough  for  twenty,  and  next  day  De 
Persigny  took  the  road  to  the  Palais-Royal  once  more  to  lodge 
his  complaint  personally.  "  Comment,  monsieur  le  comte," 
was  the  reply  of  one  of  the  principals,  "  vous  dites  qu'il  y  avait 
vingt-six  convives  et  qu'il  n'y  avait  pas  de  quoi  nourrir  vingt ; 
je  vous  crois  parfaitement ;  voila  la  commande  de  madame  la 
comtesse,  copiee  dans  notre  registre  :  '  Diner  chez  M.  de  Per- 
signy pour  seize  personnes.'  " 

Madame  had  simply  pocketed,  or  intended  to  pocket,  fifteen 
hundred  francs — for  Chevet  rarely  charged  less  than  a  hundred 
and  fifty  francs  per  head,  wines  included — and  had  endeavored 
to  make  the  food  for  sixteen  do  for  twenty-six.  Of  course 
there  was  a  scene.  Madame  promised  amendment,  and  the 
husband  was  only  too  willing  to  believe.  The  amendment 
was  worse  than  the  original  offence,  for  one  night  the  whole 
of  the  supper-table,  set  out  k  la  Frangaise,  /.  e.  with  everything 
on  it,  gave  way,  because,  her  own  dining-table  having  proved 
too  small,  she  had  declined  Chevet's  offer  of  providing  one  at 
a  cost  of  seven  or  eight  francs,  and  sent  for  a  jobbing  carpenter 
to  put  together  some  boards  and  trestles  at  the  cost  of  two 
francs.     Chevet  managed  to  provide  another  banquet  within 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  247 

three  quarters  of  an  hour,  which,  with  the  one  that  had  been 
spoiled,  was  put  in  the  bill.  Within  a  comparatively  short 
time  of  her  husband's  death,  early  in  the  seventies,  Madame 
de  Persigny  contracted  a  second  marriage,  in  direct  opposition 
to  the  will  of  her  family. 

Most  of  the  men  in  the  immediate  entourage  of  the  Emperor 
were  intoxicated  with  their  sudden  leap  into  power,  but  of 
course  the  intoxication  manifested  itself  in  different  ways.  A 
good  many  considered  themselves  the  composers  of  the  Na- 
poleonic Opera — for  it  was  really  such  in  the  way  it  held  the 
stage  of  France  for  eighteen  years,  the  usual  tragic  finale  not 
even  being  wanting.  With  the  exception  of  De  Persigny,  they 
were  in  reality  but  the  orchestral  performers,  and  he,  to  give 
him  his  utmost  due,  was  only  the  orchestrator  of  the  score  and 
part  author  of  the  libretto.  The  original  themes  had  been 
composed  by  the  exile  of  St.  Helena,  and  were  so  powerfully 
attractive  to,  and  so  constantly  haunting,  the  ears  of  the  ma- 
jority of  Frenchmen  as  to  have  required  no  outward  aid  to 
remembrance  for  thirty-five  years,  though  I  do  not  forget 
either  Thiers'  works,  Victor  Hugo's  poetry,  Louis-Philippe's 
generous  transfer  of  the  great  captain's  remains  to  France,  nor 
Louis-Napoleon's  own  attempts  at  Strasburg  and  Boulogne,  all 
of  which  contributed  to  that  effect.  Nevertheless,  all  the 
artisans  of  the  Coup  d'Etat  considered  themselves  nearly  as 
great  geniuses  as  the  intellectual  and  military  giant  who  con- 
ceived and  executed  the  19th  Brumaire,  and  pretended  to  im- 
pose their  policy  upon  Europe  by  imposing  their  will  upon  the 
Emperor,  though  not  one  could  hold  a  candle  to  him  in  state- 
craft. Napoleon  with  a  Moltke  by  his  side  would  have  been  a 
match  for  Bismarck,  and  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine  might 
have  been  French ;  Alsace-Lorraine  would  certainly  not  have 
been  German.  It  is  not  my  purpose,  however,  to  enter  upon 
politics.  I  repeat,  De  Persigny,  De  Morny,  and  to  a  certain 
extent  Walewski,  endeavored  to  exalt  themselves  into  political 
Napoleons  at  all  times  and  seasons ;  De  Saint- Arnaud  felt  con- 
vinced that  the  strategical  mantle  of  the  great  warrior  had 
fallen  upon  him ;  De  Maupas  fancied  himself  another  Fouche. 
The  only  one  who  was  really  free  from  pretensions  of  either 
kind  was  Colonel  (afterwards  General)  Fleury.  He  was  the 
only  modest  man  among  the  lot. 

The  greatest  offender  in  that  way  was,  no  doubt,  De  Persi- 
gny. During  his  journey  to  Rome  in  1866  he  did  not  hesitate 
to  tender  his  political  advice  to  such  past  masters  in  diplomacy 
as  Pius  IX.  and  Cardinal  Antonelli.     Both  pretended  to  profit 


248  A  AT  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

by  the  lesson,  but  Mgr.  de  Merode,*  who  was  not  quite  so 
patient,  had  many  an  animated  discussion  with  him,  in  which 
De  Persigny  frequently  got  the  worst.  One  evening  the  latter 
thought  fit  to  twit  him  with  his  pugnaciousness.  "  I  suppose, 
monsignor,"  he  said,  "it's  the  ancient  leaven  of  the  trooper 
getting  the  upper  hand  now  and  then."  "  True,"  replied  the 
prelate  ;  "  I  was  a  captain  in  the  foreign  legion,  and  fought  in 
Africa,  where  I  got  my  cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honor.  But 
you,  monsieur  le  due,  I  fancy  I  have  heard  that  you  were  more 
or  less  of  a  sergeant-quartermaster  in  a  cavalry  regiment." 

Mgr.  de  Merode  could  have  done  De  Persigny  no  greater 
injury  than  to  remind  him  of  his  humble  origin.  He  always 
winced  under  such  allusions  ;  his  constant  preoccupation  was 
to  make  people  forget  it,  and  he  often  exposed  himself  to  ridi- 
cule in  the  attempt.  He  knew  nothing  about  art,  and  yet  he 
would  speak  about  it,  not  as  if  he  had  studied  the  subject,  but 
as  if  he  had  been  brought  up  in  a  refined  society,  where  the 
atmosphere  had  been  impregnated  with  it.  As  a  matter  of 
course,  he  became  an  easy  victim  to  the  picture-dealers  and 
bric-a-brac  merchants.  I  remember  his  silver  being  taken  to 
the  mint  during  the  Siege.  He  had  paid  an  enormous  price 
for  it  on  the  dealer's  representation  that  it  was  antique  :  "  C'est 
du  Louis  XV.  tout  pur."  "  Tellement  pur  que  c'est  du  Vic- 
toria," said  a  connoisseur  ;  and  he  was  not  mistaken,  for  it  had 
been  manufactured  by  a  firm  of  London  silversmiths.  But  it 
was  a  compliment  for  all  that  to  the  Queen. 

With  all  his  faults,  De  Persigny  was  at  heart  a  better  man 
than  De  Morny,  who  affected  to  look  down  upon  him.  True, 
the  latter  had  none  of  his  glaring  defects,  neither  had  he  any 
of  his  sterling  virtues.  One  evening,  in  January,  1849,  when 
the  Prince-President  had  been  less  than  a  month  at  the  Elysee, 
a  closed  carriage  drove  into  the  courtyard  and  stopped  before 
the  flight  of  steps  leading  to  the  hall,  which,  like  the  rest  of  the 
building,  was  already  wrapt  in  semi-darkness.  A  gentleman 
alighted  who  was  evidently  expected,  for  the  officer  on  duty 

*  Fr^ddric  Xavier  de  Merode  was  the  descendant  of  an  ancient  Flemish  family,  and  be- 
came an  influential  member  of  the  Prelatura,  He  took  an  active  share  in  the  organization 
of  the  Papal  troofjs  which  fought  at  Mentana.  There  is  a  romantic  but  absolutely  true  stor\' 
connected  with  his  military  career.  He  was  from  his  very  youth  intended  for  the  priest- 
hood, but  one  day,  when  he  was  but  nineteen,  he  had  a  quarrel  with  a  fellow-student,  who 
gave  him  a  box  on  the  ears.  M.  de  Merode  was  too  conscientious  a  Catholic  to  fight  a  duel, 
and  still  his  pride  forbade  him  to  remain  under  the  imputation  of  being  a  coward.  So  he 
enlisted  first  in  a  Belgian,  subsequently  in  a  foreign  regiment,  and  proved  his  courage.  He 
was  very  hot-tempered,  and  had  frequent  disagreements  with  Generals  Lamoriciere  and  De 
Guyon,  and  even  with  Pius  IX.  himself,  who,  on  the  occasion  of  the  promulgation  of  the 
decree  of  infallibility,  positively  forbade  him  to  enter  the  Vatican  again.  But  he  soon  after- 
wards made  his  peace  with  the  Pontiff.  His  worst  enemies— and  he  had  many— never  ques- 
tioned his  sincerity  and  loyalty. — Editor. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  249 

conducted  him  almost  without  a  word  to  the  private  apartments 
of  the  President,  where  the  latter  was  walking  up  and  down, 
the  usual  cigarette  between  his  lips,  evidently  greatly  preoccu- 
pied and  visibly  impatient.  The  door  had  scarcely  opened 
when  the  prince's  face,  generally  so  difficult  to  read,  lighted  up 
as  if  by  magic.  Before  the  officer  had  time  to  announce  the 
visitor,  the  prince  stepped  forward,  held  out  his  hand,  and  with 
the  other  clasped  the  new-comer  to  his  breast.  The  officer 
knew  the  visitor.  It  was  the  Comte  Auguste  de  Morny.  As 
a  matter  of  course  he  retired,  and  saw  and  heard  no  more.  I 
had  the  above  account  from  his  own  lips,  and  he  felt  certain 
that  this  was  the  first  time  the  brothers  had  ever  met. 

The  Comte  de  Morny  was  close  upon  forty  then,  and  for  at 
least  half  of  that  time  had  been  emancipated  from  all  restraint ; 
he  was  a  well-known  figure  in  the  society  of  Louis-Philippe's 
reign  ;  he  had  been  a  deputy  for  one  ^of  the  constituencies  in 
Auvergne ;  at  the  period  of  his  first  meeting  with  Louis-Napo- 
leon he  was  at  the  head  of  an  important  industrial  establish- 
ment down  that  way,  and  one  fain  asks  one's  self  why  he  had 
waited  until  then  to  shake  his  brother's  hand.  The  answer  is 
not  difficult.  There  is  an  oft  repeated  story  about  De  Morny 
having  been  at  the  Opera-Comique  during  the  evening  of  the 
ist  of  December,  185 1.  Rumors  of  the  Coup  d'Etat  were  rife, 
and  a  lady  said,  "  II  parait  qu'on  va  donner  un  fameux  coup 
de  balai.  De  quel  cote  serez  vous,  M.  de  Morny  ?  "  "  Soyez 
sure,  madame,  que  je  serai  du  cote  du  manche."  Morny  al- 
ways averred  that  he  had  said  nothing  of  the  kind.  "  They 
invented  it  afterwards,  perhaps  because  they  credited  me  with 
the  instinctive  faculty  of  being  on  the  winning  side,  the  side  of 
the  handle,  in  any  and  every  emergency." 

I  think  one  may  safely  accept  that  version,  and  that  is  why 
he  refrained  from  claiming  his  brother's  friendship  and  acquain- 
tance until  he  felt  almost  certain  that  the  latter  was  fingering 
the  handle  of  the  broom  that  was  to  make  a  clean  sweep  of 
the  Second  Republic.  It  is  difficult  to  determine  how  much  or 
how  little  he  contributed  to  the  success  of  that  sweep,  but  I 
have  an  idea  that  it  was  very  little.  One  thing  is  very  certain, 
for  I  have  it  on  very  good — I  may  say,  the  best — authority.  He 
did  not  contribute  any  money  to  the  undertaking  ;  he  endeav- 
ored to  raise  funds  from  others,  but  he  himself  did  not  loosen 
his  purse-strings ;  when,  curiously  enough,  he  was  the  only  one 
among  the  immediate  entourage  of  Louis-Napoleon  whose  purse- 
strings  were  worth  loosening. 

Allowing  for  the  difference  of  sex,  better  breeding  and  better 


250  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

education,  De  Morny  often  reminded  one  of  Rachel.  Thej 
possessed  the  same  powers  of  fascination,  and  were,  I  am  afraid, 
equally  selfish  at  heart.  To  read  the  biographies  of  both — I 
do  not  mean  those  that  pretend  to  be  historical — one  would 
think  that  there  had  never  been  a  grande  dame  on  the  stage  of 
the  Comedie-Fran9aise  before  Rachel  or  contemporary  with 
her,  though  Augustine  Brohan  wfts  decidedly  more  grande  dame 
than  Rachel  in  every  respect.  It  is  the  same  with  regard  to 
De  Morny.  To  the  chroniqueur  during  the  Second  Empire  he 
was  the  only  grand  seigneur — the  rest  were  only  seigneurs  ;  but 
I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  chroniqueur  of  those  days  had 
seen  very  few  real  grand  seigneurs.  To  use  a  popular  locution, 
"  they  did  not  go  thirteen  to  the  dozen  "  at  the  court  of  Napo- 
leon III. ;  and  among  the  people  with  whom  De  Morny  came 
habitually  in  contact,  in  the  course  of  his  financial  and  in- 
dustrial schemes,  a  grand  seigneur  was  even  a  greater  rarity 
than  at  the  Tuileries.  If  a  kind  of  quiet  impertinence  to  some 
of  one's  fellow-creatures,  and  a  tacitly  expressed  contempt  for 
nearly  the  whole  of  the  rest,  constitute  the  grand  seigneur,  then 
certainly  De  Morny  could  have  claimed  the  title.  I  have  else- 
where noted  the  meeting  of  Taglioni  with  her  husband  at  De 
Morny's  dinner-party.  If  it  had  been  arranged  by  the  host 
with  the  view  of  affecting  a  reconciliation  between  the  couple, 
then  nothing  could  have  been  more  praiseworthy  ;  but  I  am 
not  at  all  sure  of  it.  If  it  were  not,  then  it  became  an  unpar- 
donable joke  at  the  woman's  expense,  and  in  the  worst  taste  ; 
but  the  chroniqueur  of  those  days  would  have  applauded  it  all 
the  same. 

Here  are  two  stories  which,  at  different  times,  were  told  by 
De  Morny's  familiars  and  sycophants  in  order  to  stamp  him 
the  grand  seigneur.  Late  in  the  fifties  he  was  an  assiduous 
frequenter  of  the  salons  of  a  banker,  whose  sisters-in-law  hap- 
pened to  be  very  handsome.  One  evening,  while  talking  to 
one  of  them,  they  came  to  ask  him  to  take  a  hand  at  lansque- 
net. He  had  evidently  no  intention  of  leaving  the  society  of 
the  lady  for  that  of  the  gaming-table,  and  said  so.  Of  course, 
his  host  was  in  the  wrong  in  pressing  the  thing,  nevertheless 
one  has  yet  to  learn  that  "two  wrongs  make  one  right." 

"  What  will  you  play  ?  "  they  asked,  when  they  had  as  good 
as  badgered  him  away  from  his  companion. 

"  The  simple  rouge  and  the  noir.     That's  the  quickest." 

"  How  much  for  ?  " 

"  Ten  thousand  francs." 

The  stake  seemed  somewhat  high,  and  no  one  cared  to  take 


k 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  2  5 1 

it  up.  But  the  host  himself  felt  bound  to  set  the  example, 
and  the  sum  was  made  up.  De  Morny  lost,  and  was  about  to 
rise  from  the  table,  when  they  said — 

"  Have  your  revenge." 

"  Very  well ;  ten  thousand  on  the  black." 

He  lost  again.  Most  grand  seigneurs  would  have  got  up 
without  saying  anything.  Twenty  thousand  francs  was,  after 
all,  not  an  important  sum  to  him,  and  I  feel,  moreover,  certain 
that  it  was  not  the  loss  of  the  money  that  vexed  him.  But  he 
felt  bound  to  emphasize  his  indifference. 

"  There,  that  will  do.     I  trust  I  shall  be  left  in  peace  now." 

My  informant  considered  this  exceedingly  talon  rouge;  I  did 
not. 

A  story  of  a  similar  kind,  when  he  was  a  simple  deputy.  A 
bigwig,  with  an  inordinate  ambition  to  become  a  minister,  in- 
vited him  to  dinner.  He  had  been  told  that  his  host  was  in 
the  habit  of  drinking  a  rare  Bordeaux  which  was  only  offered 
to  one  or  two  guests,  quietly  pointed  out  by  the  former  to  the 
servant.  At  the  question  of  the  latter  whether  he  (M.  de 
Morny)  would  take  Brane-Mouton  or  Ermitage,  he  pointed  to 
the  famous  bottle  that  had  been  hidden  away.  The  servant, 
as  badly  trained  as  the  master,  looked  embarrassed,  but  at  last 
filled  De  Morny's  glass  with  the  precious  nectar.  De  Morny 
simply  poured  it  into  a  tumbler  and  diluted  it  with  water. 

Ridiculous  as  it  may  seem,  De  Morny  often  spoke  and  acted 
as  if  he  had  royal  blood  in  his  veins,  and  in  that  respect 
scarcely  considered  himself  inferior  to  Colonna  Walewski,  of 
whose  origin  there  could  be  no  doubt.  A  glance  at  the  man's 
face  was  sufficient.  Both  frequently  spoke  and  acted  as  if 
Louis-Napoleon  occupied  the  Imperial  throne  by  their  good 
will,  and  that,  therefore,  he  was,  in  a  measure,  bound  to  dance 
to  their  fiddling.  Outwardly  these  two  were  fast  friends,  up 
to  a  certain  period  ;  I  fancy  that  their  common  hatred  of  De 
Persigny  was  the  strongest  link  of  that  bond.  In  reality  they 
were  as  jealous  of  one  another  and  of  their  influence  over  the 
Emperor  as  they  were  of  De  Persigny  and  his.  The  latter, 
who  was  well  aware  of  all  this,  frankly  averred  that  he  pre- 
ferred Walewski's  undisguised  and  outspoken  hostility  to  De 
Morny's  very  questionable  cordiality.  "  The  one  would  take 
my  head  like  Judith  took  Holofernes',  the  other  would  shave  it 
like  Delilah  shaved  Samson's,  provided  I  trusted  myself  to 
either,  which  I  am  not  likely  to  do." 

It  was  De  Persigny  who  told  me  the  substance  of  the  fol- 
lowing story,  and  I  believe  every  word  of  it,  because,  first,  I 


252  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

never  caught  De  Persigny  telling  a  deliberate  falsehood ; 
secondly,  because  I  heard  it  confirmed  many  years  afterwards 
in  substance  by  two  persons  who  were  more  or  less  directly 
concerned  in  it. 

In  the  latter  end  of  1863  one  of  the  sons  of  Baron  James  de 
Rothschild  died  ;  I  believe  it  was  the  youngest  of  the  four,  but 
I  am  not  certain.  The  old  baron,  who  was  generosity  itself 
when  it  came  to  endowing  charitable  institutions,  was  abso- 
lutely opposed  to  any  waste  of  money.  Amidst  the  terrible 
grief  at  his  loss,  he  was  still  the  careful  administrator,  and  sent 
to  M.  Emile  Perrin,  the  then  director  of  the  Grand  Opera,  and 
subsequently  the  director  of  the  Comedie-Fran9aise,  asking 
him  to  dispose  of  his  box  on  the  grand  tier,  under  the  express 
condition  that  it  should  revert  to  him  after  a  twelvemonth.  It 
was  the  very  thing  M.  Perrin  was  not  empowered  to  do. 
Though  nominally  the  director,  he  was  virtually  the  manager 
under  Comte  Bacciochi,  the  superintendent  of  the  Imperial 
theatres  ;  that  is,  the  theatres  which  received  a  subsidy  from 
the  Emperor's  civil  list.  The  subscriber  who  wished  to  relin- 
quish his  box  or  seat,  for  however  short  a  time — of  course 
without  continuing  to  pay  for  it — forfeited  all  subsequent  claim 
to  it.  In  this  instance,  though,  apart  from  the  position  of 
Baron  James,  the  cause  which  prompted  the  application  war- 
ranted an  exception  being  made  ;  still  M.  Perrin  did  not  wish 
to  act  upon  his  own  responsibility,  and  referred  the  matter  to 
Comte  Bacciochi,  telling  him  at  the  same  time  that  Comte 
Walewski  would  be  glad  to  take  the  box  during  the  interim. 
The  latter  had  but  recently  resigned  the  Ministry  of  State  by 
reason  of  an  unexpected  difficulty  in  the  "  Roman  Question ;  "* 
the  ministerial  box  went,  as  a  matter  of  course,  with  the  ap- 
pointment, and  Comte  Walewski  regretted  the  loss  of  the 
former,  which  was  one  of  the  best  in  the  house,  more  than  the 
loss  of  the  latter,  and  had  asked  his  protege — M.  Perrin  owed 
his  position  at  the  Opera  to  him — to  get  him  as  good  a  one  as 
soon  as  possible. 

It  so  happened  that  Comte  Bacciochi  had  a  grudge  against 
Walewski  for  having  questioned  certain  of  his  prerogatives 
connected  with  the  superintendence  of  the  Opera.  The  mo- 
ment he  heard  of  Walewski's  wish,  he  replied,  "  M.  de  Morny 
applied  to  me  several  months  since  for  a  better  box,  and  I  see 
no  reason  why  Comte  Walewski  should  have  it  over  his  head." 

*  If  Comte  Walewski  ruled  Napoleon  III.,  the  second  Comtesse-Walewska,  who  was  an 
Italian  by  birth  and'  very  handsome,  absolutely  ruled  her  husband.  The  first  Comtesse 
Walewska  was  Lord  Sandwich's  daughter. — Editor. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  253 

Vindictive  like  a  Corsican,  he  laid  the  matter  directly  before 
the  Emperor,  and  furthermore  did  his  best  to  exasperate  the 
two  postulants  against  one  another.  De  Morny  had  the  box  ; 
Bacciochi  had,  however,  succeeded  so  well  that  the  two  men 
were  for  a  considerable  time  not  on  speaking  terms. 

Meanwhile  the  Mexican  question  had  assumed  a  very  serious 
aspect.  In  spite  of  his  undoubted  interest  in  the  Jecker 
scheme,  or  probably  because  it  had  yielded  all  it  was  likely  to 
yield,  De  Morny  had  of  late  been  on  the  side  of  Walewski, 
who  strongly  counselled  the  withdrawal  of  the  French  troops. 
But  the  moment  the  incident  of  the  opera-box  cropped  up, 
there  was  a  change  of  front  on  his  part.  He  became  an  ar- 
dent partisan  for  continuing  the  campaign,  systematically 
siding  against  Walewski  in  everything,  and  tacitly  avoiding 
any  attempt  of  the  latter  to  draw  him  into  conversation. 
Walewski  felt  hurt,  and  gave  up  the  attempt  in  despair.  A 
little  before  this,  Don  Gutierrez  de  Estada  had  landed  in 
Europe  with  a  deputation  of  notable  Mexicans  to  offer  the 
crown  to  Maximilian.  The  latter  made  his  acceptance  condi- 
tional on  the  despatch  of  twenty  thousand  French  troops 
and  the  promise  of  a  grant  of  three  hundred  millions  of 
francs. 

In  a  council  held  at  the  Tuileries  these  conditions  were  un- 
hesitatingly declined.  "  That  was,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  on  a 
Saturday,"  said  De  Persigny  ;  "and  it  was  taken  for  granted 
that  everything  was  settled.  On  Monday  morning  the  council 
was  hurriedly  summoned  to  the  Tuileries,  and  having  to  come 
from  a  good  distance,  Walewski  arrived  when  it  had  been 
sitting  for  more  than  an  hour.  What  had  happened  mean- 
while ?  Simply  this.  Don  Gutierrez  had  been  informed  of  the 
decision  of  the  Emperor's  advisers,  and  Maximilian  had  been 
communicated  with  by  telegraph  to  the  same  effect.  On  the 
Sunday  morning  the  Archduke  telegraphed  to  the  Mexican 
envoy  that  unless  his  conditions  were  subscribed  to  in  toto  he 
should  decline  the  honor.  Don  Gutierrez,  determined  not  to 
return  without  a  king,  rushed  there  and  then  to  De  Morny's 
and  offered  him  the  crown.  The  latter  immediately  accepted, 
in  the  event  of  Maximilian  persisting  in  his  refusal.  The 
Emperor  was  simply  frantic  with  rage,  but  nothing  would  move 
De  Morny.  The  only  one  who  really  had  any  influence  over 
him  was  *  the  other  prince  of  the  blood,'  meaning  Walewski, 
for,  according  to  him,  the  real  and  legitimate  Bonapartes 
counted  for  nothing.  Walewski  was  telegraphed  for  as  I  told 
you,  early  in  the  morning.     When  he  came  he  found  the  coun- 


254  -4^'  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

cil  engaged  in  discussing  the  means  of  raising  a  loan.  The 
Empress  begged  him  to  dissuade  De  Morny  from  his  purpose, 
telUng  him  all  I  have  told  you.  Walewski  refused  to  be  first 
to  speak  to  De  Morny.  I  think  that  both  Walewski  and  De 
Morny  have  heaped  injury  and  insult  upon  me  more  than  upon 
any  man ;  I  would  have  obeyed  the  Empress  for  the  Emperor's 
sake,  but  *  the  two  princes  of  the  blood '  only  consulted  their 
own  dignity.  I  need  not  tell  you  what  effect  the  elevation  of 
De  Morny  to  the  throne  of  Mexico  would  have  produced  in 
Europe,  let  alone  in  France.  Rather  than  risk  such  a  thing, 
the  money  was  found  ;  Bazaine  was  sent,  and  that  poor  fellow, 
Maximilian,  went  to  his  death,  because  M.  Bacciochi  had  sown 
dissension  between  the  brother  and  the  cousin  of  the  Emperor 
about  an  opera-box.     Such  is  history,  my  friend." 

I  repeat,  De  Persigny  was  a  better  man  at  heart  than  De 
Morny,  or  perhaps  than  Walewski,  though  the  latter  had  only 
fads,  and  never  stooped  to  the  questionable  practices  of  his 
fellow  ''  prince  of  the  blood  "  in  the  race  for  wealth.  The 
erstwhile  sergeant-quartermaster  refrained  from  doing  so  out 
of  sheer  contempt  for  money-hunters,  and  from  an  inborn  feel- 
ing of  honesty.  The  son  of  Napoleon  I.,  though  illegitimate, 
felt  what  was  due  to  the  author  of  his  being,  and  absolutely 
refused  to  be  mixed  up  with  any  commercial  transactions.  He 
was  never  quietly  insolent  to  any  one,  like  the  natural  son  of 
Hortense ;  he  rarely  said  either  a  foolish  or  a  wise  thing,  but 
frequently  did  ill-considered  ones,  as,  for  instance,  when  he 
wrote  a  play.  "What  induced  you  to  do  this,  monsieur  le 
comte  1  "  said  Thiers,  on  the  first  night.  "  It  is  so  difficult  to 
write  a  play  in  five  acts,  and  it  is  so  easy  not  to  write  a  play  in 
five  acts."  Among  his  fads  was  the  objection  to  ladies  in  the 
stalls  of  a  theatre.  In  i86i  he  issued  an  order  forbidding 
their  admission  to  that  part  of  the  house,  and  could  only  be 
persuaded  with  difficulty,  and  at  the  eleventh  hour,  to  rescind 
it.  In  many  respects  he  was  like  Philip  II.  of  Spain  ;  he 
worried  about  trifles.  One  day  he  prevailed  upon  M.  de 
Boitelle,  the  prefect  of  police,  a  thoroughly  sensible  man,  to 
put  a  stop  to  the  flying  of  kites,  because  their  tails  might  get 
entangled  in  the  telegraph  wires,  and  cause  damage  to  the 
latter.  I  happened  to  meet  him  on  the  Boulevards  on  the  very 
day  the  edict  was  promulgated.  He  felt  evidently  very  proud 
of  the  conception,  and  asked  me  what  I  thought  of  it.  I  told 
him  the  story  of  "  the  cow  on  the  rails,"  according  to  Steplien- 
son.  Napoleon,  when  he  heard  of  Walewski 's  reform,  sent  for 
Boitelle.     "  Here   is   an  *  order  in   council '  I   want  you  to 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  255 

publish,"  he  said,  as  seriously  as  possible.  It  was  to  the  effect 
"  that  all  birds  found  perching  on  the  wires  would  be  fined,  and, 
in  default  of  payment,  imprisoned."  Curiously  enough,  though 
a  man  of  parts,  and  naturally  intelligent,  satire  of  that  kind 
was  lost  upon  him,  for  not  very  long  after  he  prevailed  upon 
M.  de  Boitelle  to  revive  an  obsolete  order  with  regard  to  the 
length  of  the  hackney-drivers'  whips  and  the  cracking  thereof. 
It  was  M.  Carlier,  the  predecessor  of  M.  de  Maupas,  who  had 
originally  attempted  a  similar  thing.  He  was  rewarded  with  a 
pictorial  skit  representing  him  on  the  point  of  drowning,  while 
cabby  was  trying  to  save  him  by  holding  out  his  whip,  which 
proved  too  short  for  the  purpose. 

Walewski  had  none  of  the  vivacity  of  most  of  the  Bonapartes. 
I  knew  him  a  good  many  years  before  and  after  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Second  Empire,  and  have  rarely  seen  him  out  of 
temper.  I  fancy  he  must  have  made  an  admirable  ambas- 
sador with  a  good  chief  at  his  back  ;  he,  himself,  I  think,  had 
little  spirit  of  initiative,  though,  like  a  good  many  of  us,  he 
was  fully  convinced  of  the  contrary.  He  was,  to  use  the  cor- 
rect word,  frequently  dull ;  nevertheless,  it  was  currently  as- 
serted and  believed  that  he  was  the  only  man  Rachel  ever  sin- 
cerely cared  for.  "  Je  comprends  cela,"  said  George  Sand 
one  day,  when  the  matter  was  discussed  in  her  presence ; 
"  son  commerce  doit  lui  reposer  I'esprit." 

It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  during  the  reign  which  succeeded 
that  of  Louis-Philippe,  the  man  who  wielded  the  greatest 
power  next  to  the  Emperor  was,  in  almost  every  respect  but 
one,  the  mental  and  moral  counterpart  of  "  the  citizen  king." 
I  am  alluding  to  M.  Eugene  Rouher,  sometimes  called  the 
vice-emperor."^  I  knew  Eugene  Rouher  some  years  before  he 
was  thought  of  as  a  deputy,  let  alone  as  a  minister — when,  in 
fact,  he  was  terminating  his  law  courses  in  the  Quartier- 
Latin ;  but  not  even  the  most  inveterate  Pumblechook  would 
have  dared  to  advance  afterwards  that  he  perceived  the  germs 
of  his  future  eminence  in  him  then.  He  was  a  good-looking 
young  fellow,  in  no  way  distinguished  from  the  rest.  He  was  a 
not  unworthy  ornament  of  "  La  Chaumiere,"  and  did  probably 
as  much  or  as  little  poring  over  books  as  his  companions. 
Still,  there  could  be  no  doubt  as  to  his  natural  intelligence, 
but  the  dunces  in  my  immediate  circle  were  very  few. 
He  was  not  very  well  off ;  but,    as  I    have   said  elsewhere, 

*  It  is  equally  curious  to  note,  perhaps,  that  M.  Gr^vy,  who  occupied  the  presidential 
chair  of  the  Third  Republic  for  a  longer  period  than  his  two  predecessors,  was  in  naany  re- 
spects like  Louis-Philippe,  notably  in  his  love  of  money. — Editor. 


256  Alsf  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

the  Croesuses  were  also  rare.  At  any  rate,  Eugene  Rouhei 
had  entirely  passed  out  of  my  recollection,  and  when,  eleven 
or  twelve  years  later,  I  saw  his  name  in  the  list  of  Odilon 
Barrot's  administration  as  Minister  of  Justice,  I  had  not 
the  remotest  idea  that  it  was  Eugene  Rouher  of  my  Quar- 
tier-Latin  days.  I  am  certain  that  a  great  many  of  our 
former  acquaintances  were  equally  ignorant,  because,  though  I 
met  several  of  them  from  time  to  time  on  the  "  fashionable  side  " 
of  the  Seine,  I  do  not  remember  a  single  one  having  drawn 
my  attention  to  him.  It  was  only  at  one  of  the  presidential 
receptions  at  the  Elysee,  in  1850,  that  I  became  aware  of  the 
fact.  He  came  up  to  me  and  held  out  his  hand.  ''  II  me 
semble,  monsieur,  que  nous  nous  sommes  deja  recontres  au 
Quartier-Latin,"  he  said.  Even  then  I  was  in  the  dark  with 
regard  to  the  position  he  was  fast  assuming  ;  but  the  Prince- 
President  himself  enlightened  me  to  a  great  extent  in  the 
course  of  the  evening.  "  It  appears  that  you  and  Rouher 
are  old  acquaintances,"  he  said  in  English ;  and  on  my  nod- 
ding in  the  affirmative,  he  added,  "  If  you  were  a  Frenchman, 
and  inclined  to  go  in  for  politics,  or  even  an  Enghshman  in 
need  of  patronage  or  influence,  I  would  advise  you  to  stick  to 
him,  for  he  is  a  very  remarkable  man,  and  I  fancy  we  shall 
hear  a  good  deal  of  him  within  the  next  few  years."  I  may, 
therefore,  say  without  exaggeration  that  I  was  one  of  the  first 
who  had  a  trustworthy  tip  with  regard  to  a  comparatively 
"  dark  political  horse,"  and  from  a  tipster  in  whom  by  that 
time  I  was  inclined  to  believe. 

Though  I  was  neither  "a  Frenchman  inclined  to  go  in  for 
politics,"  nor  "  even  an  Englishman  in  need  of  patronage  or 
influence,"  my  curiosity  had  been  aroused  ;  for,  I  repeat,  at 
the  time  of  our  first  acquaintance  I  had  considered  Eugene 
Rouher  a  fairly  intelligent  young  fellow  ;  but  his  intelligence 
had  not  struck  me  as  likely  to  make  a  mark,  at  any  rate  so 
soon,  seeing  that  he  was  considerably  below  forty  when  I  met 
him  at  the  Elysee.  It  is  idle  to  assert,  as  the  republicans  have 
done  since,  that  he  gained  his  position  by  abandoning  the  po- 
litical professions  to  which  he  owed  his  start  in  public  life. 
Among  the  nine  hundred  deputies  of  the  Second  Republic, 
there  were  at  least  a  hundred  intelligent  so-called  republicans 
ready  and  willing  to  do  the  same  with  the  prospect  of  a  far 
less  signal  reward  than  fell  eventually  to  Rouher's  lot. 

My  curiosity  was  doomed  to  remain  unsatisfied  until  two  or 
three  yearslater,  when  Rouher  had  already  become  a  fixture 
in  the  political  organization  of  the  Empire.     It  was  De  Morny 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  J,V  PARIS.  257 

himself  who  gave  me  the  particulars  of  Rouher's  beginnings, 
and  I  have  no  reason  to  suppose  that  he  painted  them  and  the 
man  in  deliberately  glowing  colors,  albeit  that  in  one  impor- 
tant crisis  they  acted  in  concert.  Clermont-Ferrand  w^as  only 
about  twelve  miles  from  Riom,  Rouher's  native  town.  I  have 
already  remarked  that  De  Morny,  at  the  time  he  met  with  his 
brother  for  the  first  time,  was  at  the  head  of  an  important  in- 
dustrial establishment.  It  was  at  the  former  place  ;  De  Morny 
therefore,  was  in  a  position  to  know. 

Eugene  Rouher,  it  appears,  like  a  good  many  men  who  have 
risen  to  political  eminence,  belonged  to  what,  for  want  of  a 
better  term,  I  may  call  the  rural  bourgeoisie — that  is,  the  frugal, 
thrifty,  hard-headed,  small  landowner,  tilling  his  own  land, 
honest  in  the  main,  ever  on  the  alert  to  increase  his  own  prop- 
erty by  a  timely  bargain,  with  an  intense  love  of  the  soil,  with 
a  kind  of  semi-Voltairean  contempt  for  the  clergy,  an  ingrained 
respect  largely  admixed  with  fear  for  "the  man  of  the  law,"  to 
which  profession  he  often  brings  up  his  son  in  order  to  have 
what  he  likes  most — litigation — for  nothing.  Rouher's  grand- 
father was  a  man  of  that  stamp ;  he  made  an  attorney  of  his 
son,  and  the  latter  established  himself  in  the  Rue  Desaix,  in  a 
small,  one-storied,  uninviting-looking  tenement,  where,  in  the 
year  18 14,  Eugene  Rouher  was  born.*  Rouher's  father  was 
not  very  prosperous,  yet  he  managed  to  send  both  his  sons  to 
Paris  to  study  law.  The  elder  son,  much  older  than  the  future 
minister,  had  succeeded  in  getting  a  very  good  practice  at  the 
Riom  bar,  but  he  died  a  short  time  before  Eugene  returned 
from  Paris,  leaving  a  widow  and  a  son,  who,  of  course,  was  too 
young  to  take  his  father's  place.  The  young  barrister,  there- 
fore, stepped  into  a  capital  ready-made  practice,  and  being  ex- 
ceedingly amiable,  bright,  hard-working,  and  essentially  honest, 
soon  made  a  host  of  friends. 

"  I  have  frequently  f(3und  myself  opposed  to  Rouher,"  said 
De  Morny ;  "  but  his  unswerving  loyalty  to  the  Empire  and 

*  Before  that  it  bore  the  name  of  the  Rue  des  Trois-Hautbois,  and  in  the  heyday  of  the 
Second  Empire  it  was  changed  into  the  Rue  Eugene-Rouher.  But  at  the  fall  of  Sedan  the 
indignation  against  the  Emperor's  powerful  minister  was  so  great  that  his  carriages  had  to  be 
removed  from  Riom  lest  they  should  be  burned  by  the  mob,  and  the  street  resumed  its  old 
appellation.  In  November,  1887,  three  years  after  Rouher's  death,  I  happened  to  be  at 
Clermont-Ferrand,  waiting  for  General  Boulanger  to  go  to  Paris.  I  went  over  to  Riom  and 
had  a  look,  at  the  house.  It  was  occupied  by  a  carpenter  or  joiner,  to  whose  father  it  had 
been  sold  years  previously  by  the  express  wish  of  one  of  Eugene  Rouher's  daughters.  I  got 
into  conversation  with  an  intelligent  inhabitant  of  the  town,  who  told  me  that  on  the  4th  of 
September,  1870,  the  feeling  against  Rouher  was  much  stronger  than  against  Louis-Napoleon 
himself,  yet  that  feeling  was  an  implied  compliment  to  Rouher.  "  He  was  the  cleverer  of 
the  two,"  the  people  snouted;  "he  ought  not  to  have  allowed  the  Emperor  to  engage  in 
this  war.  He  could  have  prevented  it  with  one  word."  Nevertheless,  in  a  little  while  it 
abated,  and  Rouher  was  elected  a  member  of  the  National  Assembly. — Editor, 

17 


258  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

the  Emperor  is  beyond  question.  I  should  not  wonder  but 
what  he  died  poor.* 

"  As  you  know,  Eugene  Rouher  was  really  very  handsome. 
Mdlle.  Conchon — that  is  Madame  Rouher's  maiden  name — 
thought  him  the  handsomest  man  in  the  world.  True,  her 
world  did  not  extend  beyond  a  few  miles  from  Clermont- 
Ferrand  ;  but  I  fancy  she  might  have  gone  further  and  fared 
worse.  You  know  old  Conchon,  and  the  pride  he  takes  in  his 
son-in-law.  Well,  he  would  not  hear  of  the  marriage  at  first. 
Conchon  was  a  character  in  those  days.  Though  he  had  but 
a  poor  practice  at  the  Clermont  bar,  he  was  clever  ;  and  if  he 
had  gone  to  Paris  as  a  journalist,  instead  of  vegetating  down 
there,  I  am  sure  he  would  have  made  his  way.  He  was  very 
fond  of  his  classics — of  Horace  and  Tibullus  above  all — and 
turned  out  some  pretty  Anacreontic  verses  for  the  local 
*  caveau  ; '  for  Clermont,  like  every  other  provincial  centre, 
prided  itself  on  its  '  caveau.'t 

"  A  time  came,  however,  when  Conchon's  fortunes  took  a 
turn  for  the  better.  You  can  form  no  idea  of  the  political 
ignorance  that  prevailed  in  the  provinces  even  as  late  as  the 
reign  of  Louis-Philippe.  Any  measure  advocated  or  promul- 
gated by  the  Government  was  sure  to  be  received  with  sus- 
picion by  the  populations  as  affecting  their  liberties,  and,  what 
was  of  still  greater  consequence  to  them,  their  property.  The 
First  Republic  had  given  them  licence  to  despoil  others  ;  any 
subsequent  measures  of  the  monarchs  was  looked  upon  by 
them  as  an  attempt  at  reprisal.  In  1842  a  general  census  was 
ordered.  You  may  remember  the  hostility  it  provoked  in  Paris  ; 
it  was  nothing  to  its  effect  in  the  agricultural  and  wine-grow- 
ing centres.  The  Republican  wire-pullers  spread  the  report 
that  the  census  meant  nothing  but  the  thin  end  of  the  wedge 
of  a  bill  for  the  duties  upon  wine  to  be  paid  by  the  grower. 
There  was  a  terrible  row  in  Clermont-'Ferrand  and  the  neigh- 
borhood ;  the  '  Marseillaise  '  had  to  make  way  for  the  stiil 
more  revolutionary  '  Ca-ira.'  Conchon  was  maire  of  Clermont- 
Ferrand,  and  he  who  was  as  innocent  of  all  this  as  a  new-born 
babe,  had  his  house  burned  over  his  head.     The  Government 

*  De  Moray's  prophecy  turaed  out  correct.  M.  Eugene  Rouher  died  a  poor  man.  There 
is  a  comic  story  connected  with  this  poverty.  At  the  beginning  of  the  Republic,  and  during 
the  presidency  of  Thiers,  Rouher's  house  was  constantly  watched  by  detectives.  The 
weather  was  abominably  bad;  it  rained  constantly.  Madame  Rouher  sent  them  some  cot- 
ton umbrellas,  excusing  herself  for  not  sending  silk  ones,  because  she  could  not  afford  it. — 
Editor. 

t  The  diminutive  of  "  cave  "  (cellar).  Really  a  gathering  of  poets  and  song-writers, 
which  reached  its  highest  reputation  in  Paris  during  the  early  part  of  the  present  century. 
The  Saturday  nights  at  the  Savage  Club  are  perliaps  the  nearest  approach  to  it  in  London. 
—Editor. 


1 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 


259 


argued  that  if  the  mob  had  burned  the  maire's  dwelling  in  pre- 
ference to  that  of  the  prefect,  it  was  because  the  former  was  a 
more  influential  personage  than  the  latter  ;  for  there  could  be 
no  other  reason  for  their  giving  him  the  '  Legion  of  Honor,' 
and  appointing  him  to  a  puisne  judgeship  on  the  bench  of 
Riom,  seeing  that  he  neither  made  an  heroic  defence  of  his 
property,  nor  endeavored  to  carry  out  the  provisions  of  the 
census  bill  by  armed  force.  In  fact,  the  latter  step  would 
have  been  an  impossibility  on  Conchon's  part.  You  and  I 
know  w^ell  enough  how  difficult  it  is  to  make  Frenchmen  hold 
their  tongues  by  means  of  troops  ;  to  endeavor  to  make 
them  speak — in  distinction  to  yelling — by  similar  means  is 
altogether  out  of  the  question.  You  cannot  take  every  head 
of  the  family,  even  in  a  comparatively  small  town  like  Cler- 
mont-Ferrand, and  put  him  between  two  gendarmes  to  make 
him  tell  you  his  name,  his  age,  and  those  of  his  family.  I 
fancy,  moreover,  that  Conchon  was  not  at  Clermont  at  all  when 
the  mob  made  a  bonfire  of  his  dwelling  ;  it  was  on  a  Sunday, 
and  he  had  probably  gone  into  the  country.  At  any  rate,  as  I 
told  you,  they  gave  him  the  cross  and  a  judgeship.  It  never 
rains  but  it  pours.  Contrary  to  the  ordinary  principles  of 
French  mobs  of  hating  a  man  in  proportion  to  his  standing 
well  with  the  Government,  they  started  a  subscription  to  in- 
demnify Conchon  for  the  loss  of  his  house,  which  subscription 
amounted  to  a  hundred  thousand  francs. 

"  Conchon  had  become  a  somebody,  and  refused  to  give  his 
daughter  to  a  mere  provincial  barrister  now  that  he  belonged 
to  '  la  magistrature  assise.'  *  The  young  people  were,  however, 
very  fond  of  one  another,  and  had  their  way.  They  were  a 
very  handsome  couple,  and  became  the  life  and  soul  of  the  best 
society  of  Clermont-Ferrand,  which,  exclusive  as  it  was,  ad- 
mitted the  widow  of  the  elder  brother.  The  younger  Madame 
Rouher  was  by  no  means  as  sprightly  or  as  clever  as  she  has 
become  since.  She  was  somewhat  of  a  spoilt  child,  but  her 
husband  was  a  very  brilliant  talker  indeed,  though,  unlike  many 
brilliant  talkers,  there  was  not  an  ounce  of  spite  in  his  clever- 
est remarks.  The  electors  might  have  done  worse  than  send 
him  to  Paris  the  first  time  he  invited  their  suffrages  in'46,  under 
the  auspices  of  Guizot.  Nevertheless,  he  was  beaten  by  a 
goodly  majority,  and  he  had  to  wait  until  after  the    revolution 

*  The  term  for  the  French  bench,  consisting  of  judges;  X\iQ parquet,  t.  e.  those  to  whom 
the  public  prosecution  is  confided,  are  called  "la  magistrature  debout."  As  a  rule,  the 
latter  have  a  great  deal  more  talent  than  the  former.  ^'  What  are  you  going  to  do  with 
your  son  ?  "  asked  a  gentleman  of  his  friend.  "  I  am  going  to  make  a  magistrate  of  him— 
*  debout,'  if  he  is  strong  enough  to  keep  oa  his  legs ;  *  assis,*  if  he  be  not." — Editor. 


2  6o  A  AT  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS, 

of  February,  when  he  was  returned  on  the  Republican  list." 
So  far  De  Morny.  Consulting  my  personal  recollections  of 
Eugene  Rouher,  whom  I  still  see  now  and  then,  I  find  nothing 
but  good  to  say  of  him.  I  am  not  prepared  to  judge  him  as  a 
politician,  that  kind  of  judgment  being  utterly  at  variance  with 
the  spirit  of  these  notes,  but  I  know  of  no  French  statesman 
whose  memory  will  be  entitled  to  greater  respect  than  Rouher's, 
with  the  exception,  perhaps,  of  Guizot's.  Both  men  committed 
grave  faults,  but  no  feeling  of  self-interest  actuated  them.  The 
world  is  apt  to  blame  great  ministers  for  clinging  to  power  after 
they  have  apparently  given  the  greatest  measure  of  their  genius. 
They  do  not  blame  Harvey  and  Jenner  for  having  continued 
to  study  and  to  practice  after  they  had  satisfactorily  demon- 
strated, the  one  the  theory  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  the 
other  the  possibility  of  inoculation  against  small-pox  ;  they  do 
not  blame  Milton  for  having  continued  to  write  after  he  had 
given  "  Paradise  Lost,"  Rubens  for  having  continued  to  paint 
after  he  had  given  "  The  Descent  from  the  Cross,"  Michael- 
Angelo  for  not  having  abandoned  the  sculptor's  chisel  after  he 
had  finished  the  frescoes  of  the  Sistine  Chapel.  The  bold 
stroke  of  policy  that  made  England  a  principal  shareholder  in 
the  Suez  Canal,  the  Menai  Bridge,  the  building  of  the  Great 
Western  Railway,  were  achievements  of  great  men  who  had 
apparently  given  all  there  was  in  them  to  give ;  why  should 
Rouher  have  retired  when  he  was  barely  fifty,  and  not  have 
endeavored  to  retrieve  the  mistake  he  evidently  made  when  he 
allowed  Bismarck  to  humiliate  Austria  at  Sadowa,  and  to  lay 
the  foundations  of  a  unified  Germany  .'*  Richelieu  made  mis- 
takes also,  but  he  retrieved  them  before  his  death. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  Rouher  was  both  in  public  and  private 
life  an  essentially  honorable  and  honest  man — as  honest  as 
Louis-Philippe  in  many  respects,  far  more  honest  in  others, 
and  absolutely  free  from  the  everlasting  preoccupation  about 
money  which  marred  that  monarch's  character.  He  was  as  dis- 
interested as  Guizot,  and  would  have  scorned  the  tergiversations 
and  hypocrisy  of  Theirs.  He  never  betrayed  his  master's 
cause  ;  he  never  consciously  sacrificed  his  country  to  his  pride. 
The  only  blame  that  can  be  laid  to  his  charge  is  that  he  allowed 
his  better  sense  to  be  overruled  by  a  woman  ;  but  that  woman 
was  the  wife  of  his  sovereign. 

He  was,  above  all,  a  staunch  friend  to  those  who  had  known 
him  in  his  early  days.  "  There  will  be  no  Auvergnats  left  in 
Clermont-Ferrand  ^and  Riom  if  this  goes  on,"  said  a  witty 
journalist,  seeing  Rouher  constantly  surrounded  by  the  natives 


AN-  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 


261 


of  that  particular  province,  to  the  exclusion  of  every  one  else. 
"  We'll  send  an  equal  quantity  of  Parisians  to  Auvergne  ;  it  will 
do  them  good,  and  teach  them  to  work,"  replied  Rouher,  when 
he  heard  the  remark.  "  And  in  another  generation  or  two 
Paris  will  see  what  it  has  never  seen  before,  namely,  frugal 
Parisians  doing  a  day's  labor  for  a  day's  wage,  for  we'll  have 
their  offspring  back  by  then."  For  Rouher  could  be  very 
witty  when  he  liked,  and  never  feared  to  hit  out  straight.  He 
was  a  delightful  talker,  and  next  to  Alexandre  Dumas,  the 
best  raconteur  I  have  ever  met.  It  was  because  he  had  a 
marvellous  memory  and  a  distinct  talent  for  mimicry.  Owing 
to  this  latter  gift,  he  was  unlike  any  other  parliamentary  orator 
I  have  ever  heard.  He  would  sit  perfectly  still  under  the  most 
terrible  onslaught  of  his  opponents,  whoever  they  were.  No 
sign  of  impatience  or  weariness,  not  an  attempt  to  take  a  note; 
his  eyes  remained  steadily  fixed  on  his  interlocutor,  his  arms 
folded  across  his  chest.  Then  he  would  rise  slowly  from  his 
seat  and  walk  to  the  tribune,  when  there  was  one,  take  up 
the  argument  of  his  adversary,  not  only  word  for  word,  but 
with  the  latter's  intonation  and  gestures,  almost  with  the  latter's 
voice — which  used  to  drive  Thiers  wild — and  answer  it  point  by 
point. 

He  used  to  call  that  "fair  debating  ;  "  in  reality,  it  was  the 
masterly  trick  of  a  great  actor,  who  mercilessly  wielded  his 
power  of  ridicule  ;  but  we  must  remember  that  he  had  originally 
been  a  lawyer,  and  that  the  scent  of  the  French  law-courts 
hung  over  him  to  the  very  end.  "  I  am  not  always  convinced 
of  the  honesty  of  my  cause,  but  I  hold  a  brief  for  the  Govern- 
ment, and  I  feel  convinced  that  it  would  not  be  honest  to  let 
the  other  party  get  the  victory,"  he  said. 

He  was,  and  remained,  very  simple  in  his  habits.  He  would 
not  have  minded  entertaining  his  familiars  every  night  of  the 
week,  but  he  did  not  care  for  the  grand  receptions  he  was  com- 
pelled to  give.  He  was  very  fond  of  the  game  of  piquet.  His 
father-in-law,  who  had  been  promoted  to  a  judgeship  in  one  of 
the  Paris  courts,  had  been  a  foeman  worthy  of  his  steel ;  "  but 
I  am  afraid,"  laughed  Rouher,  "  that  his  exaggerated  admira- 
tion for  me  affects  his  play." 

Rouher  was  right ;  M.  Conchon  was  inordinately  proud  of 
his  son-in-law.  He  lived,  as  it  were,  in  the  Minister  of  State's 
reflected  glory.  His  great  delight  was  to  go  shopping,  in  order 
to  have  the  satisfaction  of  saying  to  the  tradesmen,  "  You'll 
have  this  sent  to  my  son-in-law,  M.  Rouher."  The  stir  and 
bustle  of  the  Paris  streets  confused  him  to  the  last,  but  he  did 


^62  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

not  mind  it,  seeing  that  it  afforded  him  an  opportunity  of  in- 
quiring his  way.  "  I  want  to  get  back  to  the  Ministry  of  State 
— to  my  son-in-law,  M.  Rouher."  It  was  not  snobbishness  ; 
it  was  sheer  unadulterated  admiration  of  the  man  to  w^hom  he 
had  somewhat  reluctantly  given  his  daughter. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

I  WAS  a  frequent  visitor  to  Compiegne  throughout  the  Second 

Empire.     I  doubt  whether,  besides  Lord  H and  myself, 

there  was  a  single  English  guest  there  who  went  for  the  mere 
pleasure  of  going.  Lords  Palmerston,  Cowley,  and  Clarendon, 
and  a  good  many  others  whom  I  could  name,  had  either  politi- 
cal or  private  ends  to  serve.  They  all  looked  upon  Napoleon 
III.  as  an  adventurer,  but  an  adventurer  whom  they  might  use 
for  their  own  purpose.  I  am  afraid  that  the  same  charge 
might  be  preferred  against  persons  in  even  a  more  exalted 
station.  Prince  Albert  averred  that  Napoleon  III.  had  sold 
his  soul  to  the  devil ;  Lord  Cowley,  on  being  asked  by  a  lady 
whether  the  Emperor  talked  much,  replied,  "  No,  but  he  always 
lies."  Another  diplomatist  opined  "  that  Napoleon  lied  so  well, 
that  one  could  not  even  believe  the  contrary  of  what  he  said." 

Enough.  I  went  to  the  Compiegne  of  Napoleon  III.,  just 
as  I  had  gone  to  the  Compiegne  of  the  latter  years  of  Louis- 
Philippe — simply  to  enjoy  myself;  with  this  difference,  how- 
ever— that  I  enjoyed  myself  much  better  at  the  former  than  at 
the  latter.  Louis-Philippe's  hospitality  was  very  genuine, 
homely,  and  unpretending,  but  it  lacked  excitement — especially 
for  a  young  man  of  my  age.  The  entertainments  were  more 
in  harmony  with  the  tastes  of  the  Guizots,  Cousins,  and  Ville- 
mains,  who  went  down  en  redingote,  and  took  little  else  ; 
especially  the  eminent  professor  and  minister  of  public  edu- 
cation, whose  luggage  consisted  of  a  brown  paper  parcel, 
containing  a  razor,  a  clean  collar,  and  the  cordon  of  the 
Legion  of  Honor.  There  were  some  excellent  hunts,  organ- 
ized by  the  Grand  Veneur,  the  Comte  de  Girardin,  and  the 
Chief  Ranger,  the  Baron  de  Larminat ;  but  the  evenings, 
notwithstanding  the  new  theatre  built  by  Louis-Philippe,  were 
frightfully  dull,  and  barely  compensated  for  by  the  reviews  at 
the  camp  of  Compiegne,  to  which  the  king  conducted  his 
queen  and  the  princesses  in  a  tapissiere  and  four,  he  himself 
driving,  the  Due  and  Duchesse  de  Montpensier  occupying  the 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  263 

box  seat,  the  rest  of  the  family  ensconced  in  the  carriage,  "  ab- 
solument  en  bons  bourgeois."  With  the  advent  of  Louis-Napo- 
leon, even  before  he  assumed  the  imperial  purple,  a  spirit  of 
change  came  over  the  place.  Hortense's  second  son  would 
probably  have  made  a  better  poet  than  an  emperor.  His  whole 
life  has  been  a  miscarried  poem,  miscarried  by  the  inexorable 
demands  of  European  politics.  He  dreamt  of  being  L'Em- 
pereur-Soliel,  as  Louis  XIV.  had  been  Le  Roi-Soleil.  Visions 
of  a  nineteenth-century  La  Valliere  or  Montespan,  hanging 
fondly  on  his  arm,  and  dispelling  the  harassing  cares  of  State 
by  sweet  smiles  while  treading  the  cool  umbrageous  glades  of 
the  magnificent  park,  haunted  his  brain.  He  would  have  gone 
as  far  as  Louis  le  Bien-Aime,  and  built  another  nest  for  an- 
other Pompadour.  He  did  not  mean  to  make  a  Maintenon 
out  of  a  Veuve  Scarron,  and,  least  of  all,  an  empress  out  of  a 
Mademoiselle  Eugenie  de  Montijo.  Mdlle.  de  Montijo,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  determined  not  to  be  a  Mdme.  de  Maintenon, 
let  alone  a  La  Valliere  or  a  Pompadour.  At  any  rate,  so  she 
said,  and  the  man  most  interested  in  putting  her  assertion  to 
the  test  was  too  infatuated  to  do  so.  *'  Quand  on  ne  s'attend 
k  rien,  la  moindre  des  choses  surprend."  The  proverb  holds 
good,  more  especially  where  a  woman's  resistance  is  concerned. 
Mdlle.  de  Montijo  was  a  Spaniard,  or  at  least  half  a  one,  and 
that  half  contained  as  much  superstition  as  would  have  fitted 
out  a  score  of  her  countrywomen  of  unmixed  blood.  One  day 
in  Granada,  while  she  was  sitting  at  her  window,  a  gypsy,  whose 
hand  "  she  had  crossed  with  silver,"  is  said  to  have  foretold 
her  that  she  should  be  queen.  The  young  girl  probably  at- 
tached but  little  importance  to  the  words  at  that  time  ;  "  but," 
said  my  informant,  "  from  the  moment  Louis-Napoleon  breathed 
the  first  protestations  of  love  to  her,  the  prophecy  recurred  to 
her  in  all  its  vividness,  and  she  made  up  her  mind  that  the 
right  hand  and  not  the  left  of  Louis-Napoleon  should  set  the 
seal  upon  its  fulfilment."  My  informant  was  an  Englishman, 
very  highly  placed,  and  distinctly  au  courant  of  the  private 
history  of  the  Marquise  de  Montijo  y  Teba,  as  well  as  that  of 
her  mother.  Without  the  least  fear  of  being  contradicted,  I 
may  say  that  the  subsequent  visit  of  Queen  Victoria  and  Prince 
Albert  was  due  to  his  direct  influence.  I  will  not  go  as  far  as 
to  assert  that  Louis-Napoleon's  participation  in  the  Crimean 
war  could  not  have  been  had  at  that  moment  at  any  other  price, 
or  that  England  could  not  have  dispensed  with  that  co-opera- 
tion, but  he,  my  informant,  considered  then  that  the  alliance 
would  be  more  closely  cemented  by  that  visit.     Nor  am  I  called 


264  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

upon  to  anticipate  the  final  verdict  of  the  social  historian  with 
regard  to  "  that  act  of  courtesy"  on  the  part  of  the  Queen  of 
England,  not  the  least  justified  boast  of  whose  reign  it  is  that 
she  purified  the  morals  of  her  court  by  her  own  example.  Still, 
one  may  safely  assume,  in  this  instance,  that  the  virtue  of  Mdlle. 
de  Montijo  would  have  been  proof  against  the  "  blandishments 
of  the  future  Emperor,"  even  if  she  had  not  had  the  advice  and 
countenance  of  her  mother,  whose  Scotch  blood  would  not 
have  stood  trifling  with  her  daughter's  affections  and  reputa- 
tion. But  to  make  the  fortress  of  that  heart  doubly  impregna- 
ble, the  Comtesse  de  Montijo  scarcely  ever  left  her  second 
daughter's  side.  It  was  a  great  sacrifice  on  her  part,  because 
Mdlle.  Eugenie  de  Montijo  was  not  her  favorite  child ;  that  posi- 
tion was  occupied  by  her  elder,  the  Duchesse  d'Albe.  "  Mais, 
on  est  mere,  ou  on  ne  Test  pas  ?  "  says  Madame  Cardinal* 

Mdlle.  de  Montijo,  then,  became  the  guiding  spirit  of  the 
fetes  at  the  Elysee.  She  and  her  mother  had  travelled  a  great 
deal,  so  had  Louis-Napoleon  ;  the  latter  not  enough,  apparently, 
to  have  learnt  the  wisdom  of  the  French  proverb,  "  Gare  a  la 
femme  dont  le  berceau  a  ete  une  malle,  et  le  pensionnat  une 
table  d'hote." 

I  have  spoken  elsewhere  of  the  Coup  d'Etat  and  of  the  com- 
pany at  the  Elysee  immediately  previous  to  it  and  afterwards  ; 
early  in  1852 — 

"  The  little  done  did  vanish  to  the  mind, 

Which  forward  saw  how  much  remained  to  do." 

The  Prince-President  undertook  a  journey  to  the  southern 
parts  of  France,  which  he  was  pleased  to  call  "  an  interrogation 
to  the  country."  It  was  that  to  a  certain  extent,  only  the 
country  had  been  crammed  with  one  reply  to  it,  "  Vive  I'Em- 
pereur."  Calmly  reviewing  things  from  a  distance  of  a  quarter 
of  a  century,  it  was  the  best  reply  the  nation  could  have  made. 
"  Society  has  been  too  long  like  a  pyramid  turned  upside  down. 
I  replaced  it  on  its  base,"  said  Louis-Napoleon,  on  the  29th 
of  March,  1852,  when  he  opened  the  first  session  of  the  Cham- 
bers, and  inaugurated  the  new  constitution  which  was  his  own 
work.  "  He  is  right,"  remarked  one  of  his  female  critics,  "  and 
now  we  are  going  to  dance  on  the  top  of  it.  A  quand  les  in- 
vitations ?  " 

The  invitations  were  issued  almost  immediately  after  the 
journey  just  mentioned,  and  before  the  plebiscite  had  given  the 
Prince-President  the  Imperial  crown.     One  of  the  first  was  for 

*  The  author  alludes  to  the  Madame  Cardinal  of  Ludovic  Hal^vy,  who  sequestrates  her 
daughter  because  the  baro%  her  would-be  protector,  is  hanging  back  with  the  settlements.-^ 
Editor. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  2^5 

a  series  of  fetes  at  Compiegne.  The  chateau  was  got  ready  in 
hot  haste  ;  but,  of  course,  the  "  hunts"  were  not  half  so  splen- 
did as  they  became  afterwards. 

The  most  observed  of  all  the  guests  was  Mdlle.  de  Montijo, 
accompanied  by  her  mother,  but  no  one  suspected  for  a  single 
moment  that  the  handsome  Spanish  girl  who  was  galloping  by 
Louis-Napoleon's  side  would  be  in  a  few  months  Empress  of  the 
French.  Only  a  few  knowing  ones  offered  to  back  her  for  the 
Imperial  Stakes  at  any  odds ;  I  took  them,  and,  of  course,  lost 
heavily.  This  is  not  a  figure  of  speech,  but  a  literal  fact, 
There  were,  however,  no  quotations  "for  a  place,"  backers 
and  bookers  alike  being  agreed  that  she  would  be  first  or  no- 
where in  the  race. 

How  it  would  have  fared  with  the  favorite  had  there  been 
any  other  entries,  it  would  be  difficult  to  say,  but  there  were 
none;  the  various  European  sovereigns  declined  the  honor 
of  an  alliance  with  the  house  of  Bonaparte,  so  Mdlle.  Eugenie 
de  Montijo  simply  walked  over  the  course.  One  evening,  the 
rumor  spread  that  Louis-Napoleon  had  uttered  the  magic 
word  "  marriage,"  in  consequence  of  a  violent  fit  of  coughing 
which  had  choked  the  word  "  mistress  "  down  his  throat.  Not 
to  mince  matters,  the  affair  happened  in  this  way,  and  I  speak 
on  excellent  authority.  The  day  before,  there  had  been  a  hunt, 
and  between  the  return  from  the  forest  and  the  dinner-hour, 
Napoleon  had  presented  himself  unannounced  in  Mdlle.  de 
Montijo's  apartment.  Neither  I  nor  the  others  who  were  at 
the  chateau  at  the  time  could  satisfactorily  account  for  the 
prologue  to  this  visit,  but  that  there  was  such  a  prologue,  and 
that  it  was  conceived  and  enacted  by  at  least  two  out  of  the 
three  actors  in  the  best  spirit  of  the  "comedie  d'intrigue,"  so 
dear  to  the  heart  of  Scribe,  admits  of  no  doubt ;  because, 
though  the  first  dinner-bell  had  already  rung,  Mdlle.  de  Montijo 
was  still  in  her  riding-habit,  consequently  on  the  alert.  Nay, 
even  her  dainty  hunting-crop  was  within  her  reach,  as  the  in- 
truder found  to  his  cost ;  and  reports  were  rife  to  the  effect 
that,  if  the  one  had  failed,  the  mother,  who  was  in  the  next 
room,  would  have  come  to  the  rescue  of  her  injured  daughter. 

The  Comtesse  de  Montijo  was  spared  this  act  of  heroism  ; 
Lucrece  herself  sufficed  for  the  task  of  defending  her  own 
honor  :  nevertheless,  the  mother's  part  was  not  at  an  end,  even 
when  the  decisive  word  had  been  pronounced.  According  to 
her  daughter,  she  objected  to  the  union,  from  a  sincere  regard 
for  her  would-be  son-in-law,  from  an  all-absorbing  love  for  her 
own  darling.     The  social  gulf  between  the  two  was  too  wide 


266  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

ever  to  be  bridged,  etc.  "  And  though  it  will  break  my  heart 
to  have  to  obey  her,  I  have  no  alternative,"  added  Mdlle.  de 
Montijo,  if  not  in  these  selfsame  words,  at  least  in  words  to 
that  effect.     "  There  remains  but  one  hope.     Write  to  her." 

And  Louis-Napoleon  did-write.  The  letter  had  been  religi- 
ously preserved  by  the  Montijo  family.  In  less  than  three 
months  afterwards  France  was  officially  or  semi-officially  ap- 
prised of  the  Emperor's  intended  union ;  but  of  course  the 
news  had  spread  long  before  then,  and  a  very  varied  effect  it 
produced.  Candidly  speaking,  it  satisfied  no  one,  and  every 
one  delivered  judgment  in  two  separate,  if  not  different,  capaci- 
ties— as  private  citizens  and  as  patriotic  Frenchmen.  The 
lower  classes,  containing  the  ultra- democratic  element,  would 
have  perhaps  applauded  the  bold  departure  from  the  old  tra- 
ditions that  had  hitherto  presided  at  sovereign  unions,  if  the 
bride  had  been  French,  instead  of  being  a  foreigner.  They 
were  sensible  enough  not  to  expect  their  new  Emperor  to 
choose  from  the  bourgeoisie ;  but,  in  spite  of  their  prejudices 
against  the  old  noblesse,  they  would,  in  default  of  a  princess 
of  royal  blood,  have  liked  to  see  one  of  that  noblesse's  daugh- 
ters share  the  Imperial  throne.  They  were  not  deceived  by 
Napoleon's  specious  argument  that  France  had  better  assume 
openly  the  position  of  a  parvenu  rather  than  make  the  new 
principle  of  the  unrestricted  suffrage  of  a  great  nation  pass  for 
an  old  one  by  trying  to  introduce  herself  at  any  cost  into  a 
family  of  kings. 

The  bourgeoisie  itself  was  more  disgusted  still.  Incredible 
as  it  may  seem,  they  did  resent  Napoleon's  slight  of  their 
daughters.  "  A  ddfaut  d'une  princesse  de  sang  royal,  une  de 
nos  fiUes  eut  fait  aussi  bien  qu'une  etrangere,  dont  le  grand 
pbre,  apres  tout,  etait  negociant  comme  nous.  Le  premier 
empire  a  ete  fait  avec  le  sang  de  gar^ons  d'ecurie,  de  tonnel- 
liers ;  le  second  empire  aurait  pu  prendre  un  peu  de  ce  sang 
sans  se  mesallier."  The  bourgeois  Voltairien  was  more  biting 
in  his  sarcasm.  In  his  speech  to  the  grand  officers  of  State 
and  corporations.  Napoleon  had  alluded  to  Empress  Josephine  : 
"  France  has  not  forgotten  that  for  the  last  seventy  years  for- 
eign princesses  have  only  ascended  the  steps  of  the  throne  to 
see  their  race  scattered  and  proscribed,  either  by  war  or  revolu- 
tion. One  woman  alone  appears  to  have  brought  the  people 
better  luck,  and  to  have  left  a  more  lasting  impression  on  their 
memory,  and  that  woman,  the  modest  and  kindly  wife  of  Gen- 
eral Bonaparte,  was  not  descended  from  royal  blood."  Then, 
speaking  of  the  empress  that  was  to  be,  he  concluded,  "  A 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  267 

good  and  pious  Catholic,  she  will,  like  myself,  offer  up  the  same 
prayers  for  the  welfare  and  happiness  of  France  ;  I  cherish 
the  firm  hope  that,  gracious  and  kind  as  she  is,  she  will,  while 
occupying  a  similar  position,  revive  once  more  the  virtues  of 
Josephine."  All  of  which  references  to  the  undoubtedly  skit- 
tish widow  of  General  de  Beauharnais  made  the  satirically 
inclined  bourgeois,  who  knew  the  chronique  scandaleuse  of 
the  Directoire  quite  as  well  as  Louis-Napoleon,  sneer.  Said 
one,  "  It  is  a  strange  present  to  put  into  a  girl's  trousseau,  the 
virtues  of  Josephine ;  the  Nessus-shirt  given  to  Hercules  was 
nothing  to  it." 

The  Faubourg  St.  Germain  made  common  cause  for  once 
with  the  Orleanists'  salons,  which  were  avenging  the  confisca- 
tion of  the  princes'  property ;  and  both,  if  less  brutal  than  the 
speaker  just  quoted,  were  not  less  cruel.  The  daughter  had 
to  bear  the  brunt  of  the  mother's  reputation.  Public  securities 
went  down  two  francs  at  the  announcement  of  the  marriage. 
There  was  but  one  man  who  stood  steadfast  by  the  Emperor 
and  his  bride,  Dupin  the  elder ;  but  his  ironical  defence  of  the 
choice  was  nearly  as  bad  as  his  opposition  to  it  could  have 
been.  "  People  care  very  little  as  to  what  I  say  and  think, 
and  perhaps  they  are  right,"  he  remarked ;  "  but  still,  the  Em- 
peror acts  more  sensibly  by  marrying  the  woman  he  likes  than 
by  eating  humble-pie  and  bargaining  for  some  strait-laced, 
stuck-up  German  princess,  with  feet  as  large  as  mine.  At  any 
rate,  when  he  kisses  his  wife,  it  will  be  because  he  feels  in- 
clined, and  not  because  he  feels  compelled."  ^ 

Nevertheless,  amidst  all  this  flouting  and  jeering,  the  Em- 
peror and  his  future  consort  felt  very  uncomfortable,  but  they 
showed  a  brave  front.  He  inferred,  rather  than  said  to  one 
and  all  who  advanced  objections,  that  his  love  for  Mdlle.  de 
Montijo  was  not  the  sole  motive  for  his  contemplated  union. 
He  wished  to  induce  them  into  the  belief  that  political  motives 
were  not  foreign  to  it — that  he  was,  as  it  were,  flinging  the 
gauntlet  to  monarchical  Europe,  which,  not  content  with  refus- 
ing him  a  wife,  was  determined  to  throw  a  spoke  in  his  matri- 
monial wheel. 

Unfortunately,  he  and  his  bride  felt  that  they  could  not  alto- 
gether dispense  with  the  pomp  and  circumstance  of  courts. 
Like  his  uncle.  Napoleon  IH.  was  exceedingly  fond  of  grand 
ceremonial  display,  and  he  set  his  heart  upon  his  Empress 

*  Dupin's  feet  were  enormous,  and,  furthermore,  invariably  shod  in  thick,  hobnailed 
bluchers.  He  himself  was  always  jestingly  alluding  to  them ;  and  one  day,  on  the  occasion 
of  a  funeral  of  a  friend,  which  he  could  not  possibly  attend,  he  suggested  sending  his  boots 
instead.     "  People  send  their  empty  conveyance  :  Til  send  mine,"  he  said,— Editor. 


268  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

having  a  brilliant  escort  of  fair  and  illustrious  women  on  the 
day  of  her  nuptials.  To  seek  for  such  an  escort  among  the 
grandes  dames  of  the  old  noblesse  would,  he  knew,  be  so 
much  waste  of  time  ;  but  he  was  justified  in  the  hope  that  the 
descendants  of  those  who  owed  some  of  their  titles  and  most 
of  their  fortunes  to  his  uncle  would  prove  more  amenable.  In 
this  he  was  mistaken :  both  the  Duchesse  de  Vicence  and  the 
Duchesse  des  Lesparres,  besides  several  others  to  whom  the 
highest  positions  in  the  Empress's  household  were  offered,  de- 
clined the  honor.  The  Due  de  Bassano  did  worse.  Much  as 
the  De  Caulaincourts  and  the  De  Lesparres  owed  to  the  son 
of  the  Corsican  lawyer,  the  Marets  owed  him  infinitely  more. 
Yet  their  descendant,  but  a  few  days  before  the  marriage,  went 
about  repeating  everywhere  that  he  absolutely  objected  to  see 
his  wife  figure  in  the  suite  of  the  daughter  of  the  Comtesse  de 
Montijo,  "  who  "  (the  daughter)  "  was  a  little  too  much  of  a 
posthumous  child."  He  not  only  relented  with  regard  to  the 
duchesse  at  the  eleventh  hour,  but  accepted  the  ofiice  of  Grand 
Chambellan,  which  office  he  filled  to  the  end  of  his  life. 

In  fact,  honors  and  titles  went  absolutely  a-begging  in  those 
days.  Let  me  not  be  misunderstood.  There  were  plenty  of 
men  and  women  ready  to  accept  both,  and  to  deck  out  their 
besmirched,  though  very  authentic,  scutcheons  with  them  ;  but 
of  these  the  Empress,  at  any  rate,  would  have  none.  She 
would  have  willingly  thrown  overboard  the  whole  of  her  family 
with  its  doubtful  antecedents,  which  naturally  identified  it  with 
that  brilliant  and  cosmopolitan  society,  "  dans  laquelle  en  fait 
d'hommes,  il  n'y  a  que  des  declasses,  et  en  fait  de  femmes  que 
des  trop-bien  classics."  The  Bonapartes  themselves  had,  after 
all,  a  by  no  means  cleaner  bill  of  health,  but,  as  usual,  the 
woman  was  made  the  scapegoat ;  for  though  a  good  many  men 
of  ancient  lineage,  such  as  Prince  Charles  de  Beauveau,  the 
Due  de  Crillon,  the  Due  de  Beauveau-Craon,  the  Due  de 
Montmorency,  the  Marquis  de  Larochejaquelein,  the  Marquis 
de  Gallifet,  the  Due  de  Mouchy,  etc.,  rallied  to  the  new  regime, 
most  of  them  refused  at  first  to  bring  their  wives  and  daughters 
to  the  Tuileries,  albeit  that  they  went  themselves.  When  a  man 
neglects  to  introduce  his  womenkind  to  the  mistress  of  the 
house  at  which  he  visits,  one  generally  knows  the  opinion  he 
and  the  world  entertain — rightly  or  wrongly — of  the  status  of 
the  lady ;  and  the  rule  is  supposed  to  hold  good  everywhere 
throughout  civilized  society.     Yet  the  Emperor  tolerated   this. 

Knowing  what  I  do  of  Napoleon's  private  character  I  am 
inclined  to  think  that,  but  for  dynastic  and  political  reasons,  he 


AJV  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  269 

would  hjtve  willingly  dispensed  with  {he  rigidly  virtuous  woman 
at  the  Tuileries,  then  and  afterwards.  But  at  that  moment  he 
was  perforce  obliged  to  make  advances  to  her,  and  the  rebuffs 
received  in  consequence  were  taken  with  a  sang-froid  which 
made  those  who  administered  them  wince  more  than  once. 
At  each  renewed  refusal  he  was  ready  with  an  epigram  : 
"  Encore  une  dame  qui  n'est  pas  assez  sur  de  son  passe  pour 
braver  I'opinion  publique ; "  "  Celle-la,  c'est  la  femme  de 
Cesar,  hors  de  tout  soup9on,  comme  il  y  a  des  criminels   qui 

sont  hors  la  loi ;  "   "  Madame  de ;  il  n'y  a  pas  de  faux  pas 

dans  sa  vie,  il  n'y  a  qu'un  faux  papa,  le  pere  de  ses  enfants/' 

For  Louis-Napoleon  could  be  exceedingly  witty  when  he 
liked,  and  his  wit  lost  nothing  by  the  manner  in  which  he 
delivered  his  witticisms.  Not  a  muscle  of  his  face  moved — he 
merely  bHnked  his  eyes. 

"  Si  on  avait  voulu  me  donner  une  princesse  allemande,"  he 
said  to  his  most  intimate  friends,  "  Je  I'aurais  epousee  ;  si  je  ne 
I'avais  pas  autant  aimee  que  j'aime  Mademoiselle  de  Montijo, 
j'aurais  au  moins  ^te  plus  sur  de  sa  betise ;  avec  une 
Espagnole  on  n'est  jamais  sur." 

Whether  he  meant  the  remark  for  his  future  consort  or  not, 
I  am  unable  to  say,  but  Mademoiselle  de  Montijo  was  not 
witty.  There  was  a  kittenish  attempt  at  wit  now  and  then,  as 
when  she  said,  "  Ici,  il  n'y  a  que  moi  de  legitimiste :  "  but 
intellectually  she  was  in  no  way  distinguished  from  the  majority 
of  her  countrywomen.*  On  the  other  hand,  she  had  an  iron 
will,  and  was  very  handsome.  A  woman's  beauty  is  rarely 
capable  of  being  analyzed ;  he  who  undertakes  such  a  task  is 
surely  doomed  to  the  disappointment  of  the  boy  who  cut  the 
drum  to  find  out  where  the  noise  came  from. 

I  cannot  say  wherein  Mdlle.  de  Montijo's  beauty  lay,  but  she 
was  beautiful  indeed. 

Her  iron  will  ably  seconded  the  Emperor's  attempts  at 
gaining  aristocratic  recruits  round  his  standard,  and  when  the 
Due  de  Guiche  joined  their  ranks — the  Due  de  Guiche  whom 
the  Duchesse  d'Angouleme  had  left  close  upon  forty  thousand 
pounds  a  year — Mdlle.  de  Montijo  might  well  be  elated  with 
her  success.  Still,  at  the  celebration  of  her  nuptials,  the 
gathering  was  not  le  dessus  du  panier.  The  old  noblesse  had 
the  right  to  stay  away :  they  had  not  the  right  to  do  what  they 
did.  I  am  perfectly  certain  of  my  facts,  else  I  should  not  have 
committed  them  to  paper. 

*  M^rim^e,  the  author  of  "  Carmen,"  who  knew  something  of  Spanish  women,  and  of  the 
female  members  of  the  Montijo  family  in  particular,  said  that  God  had  given  them  the  choice 
between  love  and  wit,  and  tliat  they  had  cnosen  the  former. — Editor. 


270  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

As  usual,  on  the  day  of  the  ceremony,  portraits  of ^  the  new 
Empress  and  her  biography  were  hawked  about.  There  was 
nothing  offensive  in  either,  because  the  risk  of  printing  any- 
thing objectionable  would  have  been  too  great.  In  reality, 
the  account  of  her  life  was  rather  too  laudatory.  But  there 
was  one  picture,  better  executed  than  the  rest,  which  bore  the 
words,  "  The  portrait  and  the  virtues  of  the  Empress  ;  the  whole 
for  two  sous ;  "  and  that  was  decidedly  the  work  of  the 
Legitimists  and  Orleanists  combined.  I  have  ample  proof  of 
what  I  say.  I  heard  afterwards  that  the  lithograph  had  been 
executed  in  England, 

For  several  months  after  the  marriage  nothing  was  spoken  or 
thought  of  at  the  Tuileries  but  rules  of  precedence,  court  dresses, 
the  revival  of  certain  ceremonies,  functions  and  entertainments 
that  used  to  be  the  fashion  under  the  ancient  regime.  The 
Empress  was  especially  anxious  to  model  her  surroundings, 
her  code  of  life,  upon  those  of  Marie- Antoinette, — "  mon  type," 
as  she  familiarly  called  the  daughter  of  Marie-Therese.  If,  in 
fact,  after  a  little  while,  some  one  had  been  ill-advised  enough 
to  tell  her  that  she  had  not  been  born  in  the  Imperial  purple, 
she  would  have  scarcely  believed  it.  When  a  daughter  of  the 
House  of  Savoy  had  the  misfortune  to  marry  Napoleon's 
cousin,  the  Empress  thought  fit  to  give  the  young  princess 
some  hints  as  to  her  toilette  and  sundry  other  things.  "  You 
appear  to  forget,  madame,"  was  the  answer,  "  that  I  was  born 
at  a  court."  Empress  Eugenie  was  furious,  and  never  for- 
gave Princess  Clotilde.  Her  anger  reminds  me  of  that  of  a 
French  detective  who,  having  been  charged  with  a  very  impor- 
tant case,  took  up  his  quarters  with  a  colleague  in  one  of  the 
best  Paris  hotels,  exclusively  frequented  by  foreigners  of  dis- 
tinction. He  assumed  the  role  of  a  retired  ambassador,  his 
comrade  enacted  the  part  of  his  valet,  and  both  enacted  them 
to  perfection.  For  a  fortnight  or  more  they  did  not  make  a 
single  mistake  in  their  parts.  The  ambassador  was  kind  but 
distant  to  his  servant,  the  latter  never  omitted  to  address 
him  as  "  Your  Excellency."  When  their  mission  was  at  an  end, 
they  returned  to  their  ordinary  duties  ;  but  the  "  ambassador  " 
had  become  so  identified  with  his  part  that,  on  his  colleague 
addressing  him  in  the  usual  way,  he  turned  round  indignantly, 
and  exclaimed.  "  You  seem  to  forget  yourself.  What  do  you 
mean  by  such  familiarity  ?  " 

Of  all  the  entertainments  of  the  ancien  regime  lending  them- 
selves to  sumptuary  and  scenic  display,  "  la  chasse  "  was  un- 
doubtedly the  one  most  likely  to  appeal  to  the  Imperial  couple. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  2  7 1 

Louis-Napoleon  had,  at  any  rate,  the  good  sense  not  to  attempt 
to  rival  Le  Roi-Soleil  in  spectacular  ballet,  or  to  revive  the 
Eglinton  tournament  on  the  Place  du  Carrousel.     But — 

"  II  ne  fallait  au  fier  Romain 
Que  des  spectacles  et  du  pain  ; 
Mais  aux  Francais,  plus  que  Romain, 
Le  spectacle  suffit  sans  pain.' ' 

No  one  was  better  aware  of  this  tendency  of  the  Parisian  to 
be  dazzled  by  court  pageants  than  the  new  Emperor,  but  he 
was  also  aware  that,  except  at  the  risk  of  making  himself  and 
his  new  court  ridiculous,  some  sort  of  raison  d'etre  would  have 
to  be  found  for  such  open-air  displays  in  the  capital ;  pending 
the  invention  of  a  plausible  pretext,  "  les  grandes  chasses  "  at 
Compiegne  were  decided  upon.  They  were  to  be  different 
from  what  they  had  been  on  the  occasion  referred  to  above  : 
special  costumes  were  to  be  worn,  splendid  horses  purchased  ; 
the  most  experienced  kennel  and  huntsmen,  imbued  with  all 
the  grand  traditions  of  "  la  Venerie,"  recruited  from  the  for- 
mer establishments  of  the  Condes  and  Rohans  ; — in  short,  such 
eclat  was  to  be  given  to  them  as  to  make  them  not  only  the 
talk  of  the  whole  of  France,  but  of  Europe  besides.  The  ex- 
periment was  worth  trying.  Compiegne  was  less  than  a  hun- 
dred miles  from  Paris  ;  thousands  would  flock,  not  only  from 
the  neighboring  towns,  but  from  the  capital  also,  and  the  glow- 
ing accounts  they  would  be  sure  to  bring  back  would  produce 
their  effect.  There  would  be,  moreover,  less  risk  of  incurring 
the  remarks  of  an  irreverent  Paris  mob,  a  mob  which  instiiict- 
ively  finds  out  the  ridiculous  side  of  every  ceremonial  instituted 
by  the  court,  except  those  calculated  to  gratify  its  love  of  mili- 
tary pomp  and  splendor.  As  yet,  it  was  too  early  to  belie  the 
words,  "  L'empire,  c'est  la  paix  ;  "  we  had  not  got  beyond  the 
"  tame  eagle "  period,  albeit  that  those  behind  the  scenes, 
among  others  a  near  connection  of  mine,  who  was  more  than 
half  a  Frenchman  himself,  predicted  that  the  predatory  instincts 
would  soon  reveal  themselves,  against  the  Russian  bear  prob- 
ably, and  in  conjunction  with  the  British  lion, — if  not  in  con- 
junction with  the  latter,  perhaps  against  him. 

At  any  rate,  les  grandes  chasses  et  fetes  de  Compiegne 
formed  the  first  item  of  that  programme  of  "  La  France  qui 
s'amuse," — a  programme  and  play  which,  for  nearly  eighteen 
years,  drew  from  all  parts  of  the  civilized  world  would-be  critics 
and  spectators,  few  of  whom  perceived  that  the  theatre  was  un- 
dermined, the  piece  running  to  a  fatal  denoument,  and  the  bill  it- 
self tlie  most  fraudulent  concoction  that  had  ever  issued  from 


5  7  2  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS, 

the  sanctum  of  a  bogus  impressario.  But  had  not  Lamartine, 
only  a  few  years  previously,  suggested,  as  it  were,  the  tendency 
of  the  piece,  when,  in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  he  said, 
''  Messieurs,  j'ai  I'honneur  et  le  regret  de  vous  avertir  que  la 
France  s'ennuie  "  ?  Louis-Napoleon  was  determined  that  no 
such  reproach  should  be  made  during  his  reign.  He  probably 
did  not  mean  his  fireworks  to  end  in  the  conflagration  of 
Bazeilles,  and  to  read  the  criticism  on  his  own  drama  at  Wil- 
helmshohe,  but  he  should  have  held  a  tighter  hand  over  his 
stage-managers.  Some  of  these  were  now  getting  their  reward 
for  having  contributed  to  the  efficient  representation  of  the 
prologue,  which  one  might  entitle  "  the  Coup  d'Etat."  Gen- 
eral Magnan  was  appointed  grand  veneur— let  us  say,  master 
of  the  buclchounds  — with  a  stipend  of  a  hundred  thousand 
francs  ;  Comte  Edgar  Ney,  his  chief  coadjutor,  with  forty  thou- 
sand francs.  History  sees  the  last  of  the  latter  gentleman  on  a 
cold,  dull,  drizzly  September  morning,  of  the  year  1870.  He 
is  seated  in  an  open  char-a-bancs,  by  the  side  of  some  Prus- 
sian officers,  and  the  vehicle,  in  the  rear  of  that  of  his  imperial 
master,  is  on  its  way  to  the  Belgian  frontier,  en  route  for  Cas- 
sel.  He  is  pointing  to  some  artillery  which,  notwithstanding 
its  French  model,  is  being  driven  by  German  gunners.  "  A  qui 
ces  canons-Ik.^  "  "  lis  ne  sont  pas  des  notres,  monsieur,"  is 
the  courteous  and  guarded  reply.  Verily,  his  father's  exit, 
after  all  is  said  and  done,  was  a  more  dignified  one.  Michel 
Ney,  at  any  rate,  fell  pierced  by  bullets  ;  the  pity  was  that 
th^  were  not  the  enemy's.  In  addition  to  the  grand  veneur, 
and  premier  veneur,  there  were  three  lieutenants  de  venerie,  a 
capitaine  des  chasses  a  tir, — whom  we  will  call  a  sublimated 
head-gamekeeper  ; — and  all  these  dignitaries  had  other  emolu- 
ments and  charges  besides,  because  Louis-Napoleon,  to  his 
credit  be  it  said,  never  forgot  a  friend. 

The  whole  of  the  "  working  personnel  "  was,  as  I  have  already 
said,  recruited  from  the  former  establishments  of  the  Condes 
at  Chantilly,  of  the  late  Due  d'Orleans,  the  Dues  de  Nemours 
and  d'Aumale ;  and  such  men  as  La  Feuille,  whose  real  name 
was  Fergus,  and  La  Trace  could  not  have  failed  to  make  com- 
parisons between  their  old  masters  and  the  new,  not  always  to 
the  advantage  of  the  latter.  For  though  the  spectacle  was 
magnificent  enough,  there  was  little  or  no  hunting,  as  far  as 
the  majority  of  guests  were  concerned.  After  a  great  deal  of 
deliberation,  dark  green  cloth,  with  crimson  velvet  collars, 
cuffs,  and  facings,  and  gold  lace,  had  been  adopted.  In  Louis 
XV.'s  time,  and  in  that  of  the  latter  Bourbons,  the  color  had 


I 


AN  ENGLlSttMAN  IN  PAklS.  273 

been  blue  with  silver  lace  ;  but  for  this  difference  the  costume 
was  virtually  the  same,  even  to  the  buckskins,  jackboots,  and 
the  "lampion,"  also  edged  with  gold  instead  of  silver.*  The 
Emperor's  and  Empress's  had  a  trimming  of  white  ostrich- 
feathers.  The  dress  could  not  be  worn,  however,  by  any  but 
the  members  of  the  Imperial  household,  without  special  per- 
mission. The  latter,  of  course,  wore  it  by  right ;  but  even  men 
like  the  Due  de  Vicence,  the  Baron  d'Offremont,  the  Marquis 
de  Gallifet,  the  Marquis  de  Cadore,  women  like  the  Comtesse 
de  Pourtales,  the  Comtesse  de  Brigode,  the  Marquise  de  Con- 
tades,  who  held  no  special  charge  at  court,  had  to  receive  "  le 
bouton  "  before  they  could  don  it.f 

The  locale  of  these  gatherings  differed  according  to  the 
seasons.  Fontainebleau  was  chosen  for  the  spring  ones,  but 
throughout  the  reign  Compiegne  always  offered  the  most 
brilliant  spectacle,  especially  after  the  Crimean  war,  when 
Napoleon  III.  was  tacitly  admitted  to  the  family  circle  of  the 
crowned  heads  of  Europe.  The  shooting-parties  were  a  tribute 
offered  to  the  taste  of  the  English  visitors,  who,  after  that 
period,  became  more  numerous  every  succeeding  autumn,  and 
who,  accustomed  as  they  were  to  their  magnificent  meets  and 
lavish  hospitality  at  the  most  renowed  country  seats,  could  not 
help  expressing  their  surprise  at  the  utterly  reckless  expen- 
diture ;  and,  if  the  truth  must  be  told,  enjoyed  the  freedom  firom 
all  restraint,  though  it  was  cunningly  hidden  beneath  an  appa- 
rently very  formidable  code  of  courtly  etiquette.  As  one  of 
these  distinguished  Englishmen  said,  "  They  have  done  better 
than  banish  Mrs.  Grundy ;  they  have  given  her  a  special  invi- 
tation, and  drugged  her  the  moment  she  came  in." 

The  Court  invariably  arrived  on  the  first  of  November,  and 
generally  stayed  for  three  weeks  or  a  month,  according  to  the 
date  fixed  for  the  opening  of  the  Chambers.  From  that  mo- 
ment the  town,  a  very  sleepy  though  exceedingly  pretty  one, 
became  like  a  fair.  Unless  you  had  engaged  your  room  before- 
hand at  one  of  the  hotels,  the  chances  were  a  thousand  to  one 
in  favor  of  your  having  to  roam  the  streets  ;  for  there  were 
hundreds  and  hundreds  of  sightseers,  French  as  well  as  foreign, 
desirous  of  following  the  hounds,  which  every  one  was  free  to 
do.  In  addition  to  these,  many  functionaries,  not  sufficiently 
important  to  be  favored  with  an  invitation  to  the  Chateau,  but 

*  The  lampion  was  the  three-cornered  hat,  cocked  on  all  sides  alike  in  the  shape  of  a 
spout,  and  stiffened  with  wire. — Editor. 

t  "  Wearing  the  king's  button  "  is  a  very  old  French  sporting  term,  signifying  peiTnission 
to  wear  the  dress  or  the  buttons  or  both,  similar  to  those  of  the  monarch  when  following  the 
liounds. — Editor. 

18 


274  --^^"^  ENGLiSlIMAAr  IN  PA KIS. 

eager  for  an  opportunity  of  attracting  the  notice  of  the  sovereign 
— for  Napoleon  was  a  very  impulsive  monarch,  who  often  took 
sudden  fancies, — had  to  be  accommodated,  not  to  mention 
flying  columns  of  the  demi-monde,  "  pas  trop  bien  assurees  sur 
la  fidelite  de  leurs  protecteurs  en-titre  et  voulant  les  sauve- 
garder  contre  les  attaques  de  leurs  rivales  dans  I'entourage 
imperial."  What  with  these  and  others,  a  room,  on  the  top 
story,  was  often  quoted  at  sixty  or  seventy  francs  per  day.  I 
know  a  worthy  lieutenant  of  the  cavalry  of  the  Garde  who  made 
a  pretty  sum,  for  two  years  running,  by  engaging  three  apart- 
ments at  each  of  the  five  good  hotels,  for  the  whole  of  the 
Emperor's  stay.  His  regiment  was  quartered  at  Compiegne 
and,  as  a  matter  of  course,  his  friends  from  Paris  applied  to 
him. 

An  amusing  incident  happened  in  connection  with  this 
scarcity  of  accommodation.  The  French  railways  in  those 
days  got  a  great  many  of  their  rails  from  England.  The 
representative  of  one  of  these  English  makers  found  out,  how- 
ever, that  the  profits  on  his  contracts  were  pretty  well  being 
swallowed  up  by  the  baksheesh  he  had  to  distribute  among  the 
various  government  ofiicials  and  others.  In  his  perplexity,  he 
sought  advice  of  an  English  nobleman,  who  had  his  grandes  et 
petites  entrees  to  the  Tuileries,  and  the  latter  promised  to  get 
him  an  audience  of  the  Emperor.  It  so  happened  that  the 
Court  was  on  the  eve  of  its  departure,  but  Napoleon  wrote  that 
he  would  see  the  agent  at  Compiegne.  On  the  day  appointed, 
the  Englishman  came.  Having  made  up  his  mind  to  combine 
pleasure  with  business,  he  had  brought  his  portmanteau,  in 
order  to  stay  for  a  day  or  so.  Previous  to  the  interview,  he 
had  applied  at  every  hotel,  at  every  private  house  where  there 
was  a  chance  of  getting  a  -room,  but  without  success.  His 
luggage  was  in  a  cab  on  the  Place  du  Chateau.  Napoleon 
was,  as  usual,  very  kind,  promised  him  his  aid,  but  asked  him 
to  let  the  matter  rest  until  the  next  day,  when  he  would  have 
an  opportunity  of  consulting  a  high  authority  on  the  subject 
who  was  coming  down  that  very  afternoon.  "  Give  me  your 
address,  and  I  will  let  you  know,  the  first  thing  in  the  morning, 
when  I  can  see  you,"  said  the  Emperor  in  English. 

The  Englishman  looked  very  embarrassed.  "  I  have  no 
address,  sire.  I  have  been  unable  to  get  a  room  anywhere," 
he  replied. 

"  Oh,  I  dare  say  we  can  put  you  up  somewhere  here,"  laughed 
the  emperor^  and  called  to  one  of  his  aides-de-camp,  to  whom 
he  gave  instructions. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  275 

The  Englishman  and  the  officer  departed  together,  but  the 
Chateau  was  quite  as  full  as  the  rest  of  the  town. 

"  I'll  ask  Baptiste,"  said  the  officer  at  last,  having  tried  every 
possible  means.  . 

Baptiste  was  one  of  the  Empress'  principal  grooms,  and 
very  willing  to  help ;  but,  alas !  he  had  only  a  very  small  room 
himself,  and  that  was  shared  by  his  wife. 

"  If  monsieur  don't  mind,"  said  Baptiste,  "  I  will  make  him 
up  a  good  bed  in  one  of  the  fourgons" — one  of  the  luggage- 
vans. 

So  said,  so  done.  The  Englishman  slept  like  a  top,  being 
very  tired, — too  much  like  a  top,  for  he  never  stirred  until  he 
found  himself  rudely  awakened  by  a  heavy  bundle  of  rugs  and 
other  paraphernalia  being  flung  on  his  chest.  He  was  at  the 
station.  Baptiste  had  simply  forgotten  to  mention  the  fact  of 
his  having  transformed  the  fourgon  into  a  bedroom  ;  the  doors 
that  stood  ajar  during  the  night  had  been  closed  without  the 
servant  looking  inside  ;  and  when  the  occupant  was  discovered 
he  was,  as  Racine  says, — 

"  Dans  le  simple  appareil 
D'une  beaute  qu'on  vient  d'arracher  au  sommeil." 

When  he  told  the  Emperor,  the  latter  laughed,  "  as  he  had  never 
seen  him  laugh  before,"  said  the  aide-de-camp,  who  had  been 
the  innocent  cause  of  the  mischief  by  appealing  to  Baptiste. 

The  victim  of  the  misadventure  did  not  mind  it  much.  For 
many  years  afterwards,  he  averred  that  the  sight  of  Compiegne 
in  those  days  would  have  compensated  for  the  inconvenience  of 
sleeping  on  a  garden  seat.  What  was  more,  he  and  his  firm 
were  never  troubled  any  more  with  inexorable  demands  for 
baksheesh. 

He  was  right  ;  the  sight  of  Compiegne  in  those  days  was 
very  beautiful.  There  was  a  good  deal  of  the  histrionic  mixed 
up  with  it,  but  it  was  very  beauciful.  In  addition  to  the  bands 
of  the  garrison,  a  regimental  band  of  the  infantry  of  the  Garde 
played  in  the  courtyard  of  the  Chateau  :  the  streets  were  alive 
with  crowds  dressed  in  their  best  ;  almost  every  house  was 
gay  with  bunting,  the  only  exceptions  being  those  of  the  Legi- 
timists, who,  unlike  Achilles,  did  not  even  skulk  in  their  tents, 
but  shut  up  their  establishments  and  flitted  on  the  eve  of  the 
arrival  of  the  Court,  after  having  despatched  an  address  of 
unswerving  loyalty  to  the  Comte  de  Chambord.  After  a  little 
while,  Napoleon  did  not  trouble  about  these  expressions  of 
hostility  to  his  dynasty,  though  he  could  not  forbear  to  ask 


276  ^'i^V  ENGLISH  MAN  IN  PARIS. 

bitterly,  now  and  then,  whether  the  Comte  de  Chambord  orthe 
Comte  de  Paris  under  a  regency  could  h.ive  made  the  country 
more  prosperous  thanhehad  att-empted  to  do,  than  he  succeed- 
ed in  doing.  And  truth  compels  one  to  admit  that  France's 
material  prosperity  was  not  a  sham  in  those  days,  whatever 
else  may  have  been  ;  for  in  those  days,  as  1  have  already  re- 
marked, the  end  was  still  distant,  and  there  were  probably  not 
a  thou3and  men  in  the  whole  of  Europe  who  foresaw  the  nat- 
ure of  it,  albeit  that  a  thirtieth  or  a  fortieth  part  of  them  may 
have  been  in  Compiegne  at  the  very  time  when  the  Emperor, 
in  his  elegantly  appointed  break,  drove  from  the  Place  du 
Chateau  amidst  the  acclamations  of  the  serried  crowds  lining 
the  roads. 

On  the  day  of  the  arrival  of  the  Emperor — the  train  reached 
Compiegne  about  four — there  was  neither  dinner-party  nor  re- 
ception at  the  Chateau.  The  civil  and  military  authorities  of 
Compiegne  went  to  the  station  to  welcome  the  Imperial  couple, 
the  rangers  of  Compiegne  and  Laigue  forests  waited  upon  his 
Majesty  to  arrange  the  programme,  and  generally  joined  the 
Imperial  party  at  dinner  :  but  the  fetes  did  not  commence 
until  the  second  day  after  the  arrival,  /.  e.,  with  the  advent  of 
the  first  batch  of  guests,  who  reached  the  Chateau  exactly 
twenty-four  hours  after  their  hosts. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

The  guests  were  divided  into  five  series,  each  of  which 
stayed  four  days  exclusive  of  the  day  of  their  arrival  and 
that  of  their  departure.  Each  series  consisted  of  between 
eighty  and  ninety  guests. 

The  amusements  provided  were  invariably  the  same  for 
each  series  of  guests.  On  the  day  of  their  arrival  there  was 
the  dinner,  followed  by  charades,  and  a  carpet  dance  to  the 
accompaniment  of  the  piano — or,  to  speak  by  the  card,  of  the 
piano-organ.  It  was  an  instrument  similar  to  that  which  now- 
adays causes  so  much  delight  to  the  children  in  the  streets  of 
London,  and,  as  far  as  I  can  remember,  the  first  of  its  kind  I 
had  ever  seen.  The  male  guests,  and  not  always  the  youngest 
lelieved  one  another  in  turning  the  handle.  Mechanical  as 
was  the  task,  it  required  a  certain  ear  for  time,  and  they  were 
often  found  sadly  wanting  in  that  respect.  It  was  rather 
comical  to  see  a  grave  minister  of  State  solemnly  grinding  out 


AA^  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PA  klS.  277 

tunes,  and  being  called  to  task  every  now  and  again  for  his 
incapacity.  The  worst  offender,  the  most  hopeless  performer, 
was  undoubtedly  the  Emperor  himself.  The  Bonapartes  are 
one  and  all  devoid  of  the  slightest  taste  for  music.  I  think  it 
is  De  Bourrienne — but  I  will  not  be  certain — who  speaks  of 
the  founder  of  the  dynasty  humming  as  he  went  along  from 
one  apartment  to  another.  "  Et  Dieu  sait  comme  il  chantait 
faux,"  adds  the  chronicler  in  despair.  That  part  of  the  great 
man's  mantle  had  decidedly  fallen  upon  his  nephew.  I  re- 
member the  latter  trying  to  distinguish  himself  on  that  piano- 
organ  one  evening.  M.  de  Maupas,  who  was  the  prefect  of 
police  at  the  time  of  the  Coup  d'Etat,  and  minister  of  police 
afterwards,  was  among  the  guests.  The  ambulant  musician  in 
Paris  has  to  get  a  kind  of  licence  from  the  prefecture  of  police, 
the  outward  sign  of  which  is  a  brass  badge,  which  he  is  bound 
to  wear  suspended  from  his  button-hole.  While  the  Emperor 
was  trying  to  make  the  company  waltz,  one  of  the  ladies  sud- 
denly turned  round  to  M.  de  Maupas :  "  Si  jamais  I'empereur 
vous  demande  la  permission  de  jouer  dans  la  rue,  refusez  lui, 
monsieur;  refusez  lui,  pour  I'amour  du  ciel  et  de  la  musique," 
she  said  aloud  :  and  the  Emperor  himself  could  not  help  smil- 
ing at  the  well-deserved  rebuke.  "  Madame,"  he  replied,  "  if 
ever  I  am  reduced  to  such  a  strait,  I  will  take  you  into  part- 
nership :  I  will  make  you  sing,  and  I  will  collect  the  pence." 
In  spite  of  his  musical  deficiencies  the  Emperor  was  right ; 
the  lady  was  Madame  Conneau,  who  had  and  has  still  one  of 
the  most  beautiful  voices  ever  heard  on  the  professional  or 
amateur  stage. 

On  the  first  day  following  that  of  the  arrival  of  the  guests, 
there  was  a  shooting-party,  or  rather,  there  were  two — one  in 
the  home  park  for  the  Emperor  himself,  who  was  not  a  bad 
shot,  and  a  dozen  of  the  more  important  personages  ;  another 
in  the  forest.  Those  who  did  not  care  for  sport  were  at  liberty 
to  remain  with  the  ladies,  who  under  the  direction  of  the  Em- 
press, proceeded  to  the  lawn.  Croquet,  as  far  as  I  know,  had 
not  been  invented  then,  but  archery  lent  itself  to  posing  and 
flirtation  quite  as  well,  and  the  costumes  worn  on  such  occa- 
sions were  truly  a  sight  for  the  gods. 

On  the  evening  of  that  day,  there  was  a  performance  in  the 
theatre,  built  for  the  express  purpose  by  Louis-Philippe,  but 
which  had  been  considerably  embellished  since.  The  companies 
of  the  Comedie-FrauQaise,  the  Odeon,  the  Gymnase,  the 
Vaudeville,  and  the  Palais-Royal  took  it  in  turns.  Only  the 
members  of  the  Comedie-Fran^aise  had  the  privilege  of  pay- 


ayS  AiV  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARJS. 

ing  their  respects  in  the  Imperial  box.  It  was  during  one  of 
the  performances  of  the  Gymnase  company  that  the  following 
amusing  incident  occurred.  They  were  playing  *'  Le  Fils  de 
Famille  "  of  Bayard  and  De  Bieville,*  and  the  Emperor  was 
strolling  in  the  lobbies  before  the  performance,  when  he  noticed 
an  old  colonel  of  lancers,  whom  he  did  not  remember  to  have 
seen  among  the  guests  during  the  daytime,  but  who  seemed 
perfectly  at  home.  He  had  not  even  donned  his  full  regi- 
mentals. 

"  Voilk  un  vrai  beau  militaire,"  said  the  sovereign  to  one 
of  his   aides-de-camp  ;  "allezdemander  son  nom." 

The  aid-de-camp  returned  in  a  moment.  "  II  s'apelle 
Lafontaine,  sire ;  et  il  appartient  au  regiment  du  Gymnase." 

"Comment,  au  regiment  du  Gymnase  ?" 

"  Mais  oui,  sire  ;  c'est  Lafontaine,  le  comedien." 

In  fact,  the  assumption  was  so  thoroughly  realistic,  that 
even  a  better  judge  than  Louis-Napoleon  might  have  been 
deceived  by  it. 

Those  performances  were  really  most  brilliant  affairs,  and 
an  invitation  to  them  was  only  less  highly  prized  than  that  to 
the  ball  which  always  followed  the  play  on  November  15th, 
the  Empress's  fete-day.f  The  cost  of  each  performance  was 
estimated  at  between  twenty  and  thirty  thousand  francs,  ac- 
cording to  the  company  performing.  I  am  repeating  the 
official  statement,  though  inclined  to  think  it  somewhat  ex- 
aggerated. Except  the  Opera  or  Opera-Comique,  there  was  not 
then,  nor  is  there  now,  a  theatre  in  Paris  whose  nightly  re- 
ceipts, with  "  the  greatest  success,"  exceed  seven  or  eight 
thousand  francs.  Allowing  for  an  additional  three  thousand 
francs  for  railway  travelling  and  sundry  expenses,  I  fail  to  see 
how  the  remainder  of  the  sum  was  disbursed,  unless  it  was  in 
douceurs  to  the  performers.  There  is  less  doubt,  however, 
about  the  expenses  of  the  Chateau  during  this  annual  series  of 
fetes.  It  could  not  have  been  less  than  forty-five  thousand 
francs  per  diem,  and  must  have  often  risen  to  fifty  thousand 
francs,  exclusive  of  the  cost  of  the  theatrical  performances,  be- 
cause the  luxe  displayed  on  these  occasions  was  truly  astonish- 
ing— I  had  almost  said  appalling. 

The  theatre  was  built  on  the  old-fashioned  principle,  and 
what  we  call  stalls  were  not  known  in  those  days.  There  was 
something  analogous  to  them  at  the  Opera  and  the   Theatre- 

*  Known  on  the  English  stage  as  the  "  Queen's  Shillii^,"  by  Mr.  Godfrey. — Editor. 
t  The  Sainte- Eugenie,  according  to  the  Church  Cabndar.     In  France,  it  is  not  the  birth- 
day, but  the  day  of  the  patron-saint  whose  name  one  bears,  which  is  celebrated. — Editor. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  279 

Fran9ais,  but  they  were  exclusively  reserved  to  the  male  sex. 
Both  these  theatres  still  keep  up  the  same  traditions  in  that 
respect.  At  Compiegne  the  whole  of  the  ground  floor,  par- 
terre, or  pit,  as  we  have  misnamed  it — "  groundlings  "  is  a 
much  more  appropriate  word,  perhaps,  than  "  pittites  " — was 
occupied  by  the  officers  of  all  grades  of  the  regiments  quartered 
at  Compiegne  and  in  the  department.  The  chefs  de  corps  and 
the  chief  dignitaries  of  State  filled  the  amphitheatre,  which 
rose  in  a  gentle  slope  from  the  back  of  the  parterre  to  just  be- 
low the  first  tier  of  boxes,  or  rather  to  the  balcony  tier,  seeing 
that  the  only  box  on  it  was  the  Imperial  one.  The  latter,  how- 
ever, took  up  much  more  than  the  centre,  for  it  had  been 
constructed  to  seat  about  two  hundred  persons.  Only  a  slight 
partition,  elbow  high,  divided  it  from  the  rest  of  the  tier, 
whence  the  sterner  sex  was  absolutely  banished.  The  display 
of  bare  arms  and  shoulders  was  something  marvellous,  for  they 
were  by  no  means  equally  worthy  of  admiration,  and  the 
stranger,  ignorant  of  the  court  regulations,  must  have  often 
asked  himself  why  certain  ladies  should  have  been  so  reckless 
as  to  invite  comparison  with  their  more  favored  sisters.  It 
was  because  there  was  no  choice.  The  slightest  gauze  was 
rigorously  prohibited,  and  woe  to  the  lady  who  ventured  to 
disobey  these  regulations.  One  of  the  Chambellans  was  sure 
to  request  her  to  retire.  L'epaule  ou  I'epaulette"  was  the 
title  of  a  comic  song  of  those  days,  in  allusion  to  the  Empress's 
determination  to  suffer  none  but  resplendent  uniforms  and 
ball  dresses  within  sight  of  her.  If  I  remember  aright,  the 
chorus  went  like  this — 

"  Je  ne  porte  pas  I'epaulette 
Jene  puis  me  decoU'ter, 
Je  ne  suis  qu'un  vieux  bonhomme, 
Done,  je  ne  suis  pas  invite." 

For  even  the  guests  in  plain  evening  dress  were  mercilessly 
relegated  to  the  tier  above  that  of  the  Imperial  box,  and  even 
when  there,  were  not  permitted  to  occupy  the  first  rows. 
These  also  were  reserved  for  the  fairer  portion  of  humanity. 

This  fairer  portion  of  humanity,  thus  ostensibly  privileged, 
embittered  the  lives  of  the  poor  mayor  and  sub-prefect  of  Com- 
piegne. The  wives  of  the  local  notabilities  and  of  the  govern- 
ment officials,  in  addition  to  those  of  some  of  the  landed 
gentry  of  the  Empire,  were  not  only  anxious  to  be  present  at 
these  gatherings,  but  generally  insisted  on  having  the  front 
seats,  at  any  rate  hi  the  second  circle.  Their  applications, 
transmitted  by  these  dignitaries  to  the  Due  de  Bassano,  were 


28o  AJV  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

always  in  excess  of  the  room  at  his  disposal,  and  being  an 
utter  stranger  to  all  these  ladies,  he  had  virtually  to  choose  at 
random,  or  if  not  at  random,  to  be  guided  by  the  mayor 
and  sub-prefect,  who  were  consulted,  not  with  regard  to 
the  greater  or  lesser  degree  of  opulent  charms  and  come- 
liness of  features  of  these  fair  applicants,  but  with  re- 
gard to  their  social  status  and  fair  fame.  Now,  it  so  hap- 
pens that  in  France  "  L'amour  fait  des  siennes "  in  the 
provinces  as  well  as  in  the  capital;  he  only  disdains 
what  Mirabeau  used  to  call  "  les  fees  concombres."  The 
Empress,  provided  the  shoulders  and  arms  were  bare,  did  not 
trouble  much  about  either  their  color  or  "  moulded  outline ;  " 
the  Emperor,  on  the  contrary,  objected,  both  from  personal  as 
well  as  artistic  reasons,  to  have  the  curved  symmetry  of  the 
two  circles  marred  by  the  introduction  of  so  many  living 
problems  of  Euclid ;  and  it  really  seemed  as  if  the  devil 
wanted  to  have  all  the  good  shapes  to  himself,  for  the  reputedly 
virtuous  spinsters,  widows,  and  matrons  were  angular  enough 
to  have  satisfied  a  tutor  of  mathematics.  There  was  a  dilem- 
ma :  if  they  were  put  in  the  front  rows,  the  Emperor  scolded 
Bassano,  who  in  his  turn  scolded  the  mayor  and  the  sub- 
prefect.  If  the  less  virtuous  but  more  attractive  were  put  in 
tne  front  rows,  there  was  frequently  a  small  scandal ;  for  the 
Empress,  at  the  first  sight  of  them,  had  them  expelled,  after 
which  she  scolded  Bassano,  who  avenged  himself  for  his  hav- 
ing been  reprimanded  on  the  mayor  and  sub-prefect.  Fur- 
thermore, the  contingent  from  Paris,  some  of  whom  were  often 
provided  with  letters  of  introduction  from  influential  person- 
ages to  the  latter  gentlemen,  were  not  always  without  reproach 
though  ever  without  fear;  but  how  were  two  provincial  magis- 
trates to  know  this  ?  Those  sirens  could  almost  impose  upon 
them  with  impunity,  and  did ;  so,  upon  the  whole,  the  magis- 
trates did  not  have  a  pleasant  time  of  it,  for  in  the  case  of  the 
former  damsels  or  veuves  de  Malabar  both  the  Emperor  and 
the  Empress  were  equally  strict — though,  perhaps,  from  utterly 
different  motives. 

Nevertheless,  the  esclandres  were  comparatively  rare,  and 
the  house  itself  presented  a  sight  unparalleled  perhaps  through- 
out the  length  and  breadth  of  Europe.  At  nine  o'clock,  Comte 
Bacciochi,  the  first  chambellan,  in  his  court  dress,  descended 
the  few  steps  leading  from  the  foyer  to  the  Imperial  box,  and, 
advancing  to  the  front,  announced,  "  The  Emperor."  Every 
one  rose  and-  remained  standing  until  the  Emperor  and  Em- 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  28 1 

press,  who  entered  immediately  afterwards,  had  seated  them- 
selves in  the  crimson  velvet  and  gilt  arm-chairs  which  the 
gentlemen-in-waiting  (les  chambellans  de  service)  rolled  for- 
ward. 

I  have  spoken  elsewhere  of  the  immediate  entourage  of  the 
Imperial  hosts,  and  may  therefore  pass  them  over  in  silence 
here.  As  the  Napoleonic  dynasty  became  apparently  more 
consolidated  both  at  home  and  abroad,  this  entourage  grad- 
ually changed — though  no  truthful  observer  could  have  hon- 
estly averred  that  the  change  was  for  the  better.  The  decaves 
and  the  d^classees  of  the  first  period  disappeared  altogether, 
or  underwent  a  truly  marvellous  financial  and  social  metamor- 
phosis :  the  men,  by  means  of  speculations,  chiefly  connected 
with  the  "  Haussmannizing  "  of  Paris,  the  successful  carrying 
out  of  which  was  greatly  facilitated  by  their  position  at  court ; 
the  woman  by  marriages,  the  conditions  of  which  I  prefer  not 
to  discuss.  An  undoubtedly  genuine  leaven  of  names  to  be 
found  in  "  D'Hozier,"  *  came  to  swell  the  ranks  of  the  hitherto 
somewhat  shady  courtiers  of  both  sexes.  Unfortunately,  their 
blood  was  not  only  thicker  than  water,  and  consequently  more 
easily  heated,  but  they  presumed  upon  the  blueness  of  it  to  set 
public  opinion  at  defiance. 

"  Ce  qui,  chez  les  mortels,  est  une  effronterie 
Entre  nous  autres  demi-dieux 
N'est  qu'honnete  galanterie/' 

Thus  wrote  the  Duchesse  du  Mainef  to  her  brother,  of  whom 
she  was  perhaps  a  little  more  fond  than  even  their  blood- 
relationship  warranted.  This  privilege  of  stealing  the  horse, 
while  the  meaner-born  might  not  even  look  over  the  hedge, 
was  claimed  by  the  sons  and  the  daughters  of  the  old  noblesse, 
who  condescended  to  grace  the  court  of  Napoleon  III.,  with  a 
cynicism  worthy  of  the  most  libertine  traditions  of  the  ancien 
regime ;  and  neither  the  Empress  nor  the  Emperor  did  any- 
thing to  discountenance  the  claim.  The  former,  provided  that 
"toutse  passait  en  famille,"  closed  her  eyes  to  many  things 
she  ought  not  to  have  tolerated.  At  the  Tuileries,  a  cer- 
tain measure  of  decorum  was  preferred ;  at  Compiegne,  and 
Fontainebleau,  where  the  house  was  *'  packed  "  as  it  'were,  th^ 

*  "  D'Hozier,"  the  French  ''  Burke,"  so  named  after  its  founder,  Pierre  D'Hozier,  th* 
creator  of  the  science  of  French  genealog}'. — Editor. 

t  Aune  L6uis6  "Benedittede  Bourbon,  Priricesse' de  Cdnde,  whd  married  the  Due  du 
Maine,  the  illegitimate. 50a  of  X.puis  XIV.  and  Madame  de  Mon.tespan.  She  disliked  her 
husband,  whom  she  considered  socially  beneath  her,  and  who  was  very  ugly  besides.  The 
lines  c[uoted  above  are  probably  not  hers,  but  Malezieu's,  "  her  poet  in  ordinary,"  who  also 
prgan;zed  her  amateur  theatricals.— Editor. 


282  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

most  flagrant  eccentricities,  to  call  them  by  no  harsher  name 
were  not  only  permitted,  but  tacitly  encouraged  by  the  Empress. 
This  was  especially  the  case  when  the  first  series  of  guests 
was  gone.  It  generally  included  the  most  serious  portion  of 
the  visitors,  "  les-  ennuyeurs,  les  empecheurs  de  danser  en 
rond,"  *  as  they  were  called.  The  ladies  belonging  to,  or 
classed  in  that  category,  presented,  no  doubt,  a  striking  con- 
trast to  those  of  the  succeeding  series,  in  which  the  English 
element  was  not  always  conspicuous  by  its  absence.  The  cos- 
tumes of  the  latter  were  something  wonderful  to  behold.  The 
cloth  skirt,  which  had  then  been  recently  introduced  from  Eng- 
land, and  the  cloth  dress,  draped  elegantly  over  it,  enabled 
their  wearers  to  defy  all  kinds  of  weather.  And  as  they  went 
tramping  down  the  muddy  roads,  their  coquettish  little  hats 
daintily  poised  on  enormous  chignons,  their  walking  boots  dis- 
playing more  than  the  regulation  part  of  ankle,  the  less  sophis- 
ticated Compiegnois  stared  with  all  their  might  at  the  strange 
company  from  the  Chateau,  and  no  wonder.  Still,  the  sur- 
prise of  the  inhabitants  was  small  compared  to  that  of  the 
troopers  of  the  garrison  at  the  invasion  of  their  riding-school 
by  such  a  contingent,  which  indulged  in  ring-tilting,  not  unfre- 
quently  in  tent-pegging,  and  more  frequently  still,  "  in  taking 
a  header  into  space,"  to  the  great  amusement  of  their  com- 
panions. 

In  those  days,  Worth  was  not  quite  king  ;  the  cocodettes  of 
the  Imperial  circle  were  still  prophesying  on  their  own  account. 
The  "  arsenal  des  modes,"  as  Madame  Emile  de  Girardin  had 
boastingly  called  Paris  but  ten  years  previously,  had  as  yet 
not  been  boldly  taken  by  storm  by  a  native  of  bucolic  Lin- 
colnshire. But  in  a  very  short  time  he  became  the  absolute 
autocrat  in  matters  of  feminine  apparel.  It  was  not  even  an 
enlightened  despotism.  His  will  was  law.  Every  different 
entertainment  required  its  appropriate  costume,  and  the  cos- 
tume was  frequently  the  sole  pretext  for  the  entertainment. 
And  when  the  ingenuity  in  devising  both  was  in  danger  of 
becoming  exhausted,  the  supreme  resource  of  these  ladies  was 
to  turn  themselves  into  ballerinas ;  not  into  ballerinas  as 
King  Bomba,  or  the  Comte  Sosth^ne  de  la  Rochefoucauld,  or 
M.  Rouher  would  have  had  them,  but  into  ballerinas  with  the 
shortest  of  gauze  skirts  and  pink  silk  fleshings. 

One  year,  I  am  not  certain  of  the  exact  one, — I  know  that 
the  future  Emperor  of  Germany  was  there,^ — the  ladies  hit 
upon  the  idea  of  giving  a  surprise  to  the  Emperor  and  Empress 

*  Idioinatically,  "  the  bores,  the  spoil-sports,  or  wet-blankets." — Editoe. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  283 

on  the  occasion  of  the  latter's  fete.  A  ballet-master  was  sent 
for  in  hot  haste  from  Paris,  and  "  Le  Diable  k  Quatre  "  put  in 
rehearsal.  Unlike  Peter  the  Great,  who  had  a  soldier  hanged 
— he  said  shooting  was  too  good  for  him — for  having  repre- 
sented a  disreputable  character  on  the  stage,  the  Emperor  pro- 
fessed himself  exceedingly  pleased ;  and  the  ladies,  among 
whom  was  Princess  von  Metternich,  were  sent  for  from  the 
Imperial  box  to  be  complimented  by  the  sovereign.  At  the 
ball  which  followed  the  entertainment,  they  appeared  in  their 
theatrical  dresses.  Every  one  was  delighted.  "  Apres  tout," 
said  Napoleon,  blinking  his  eyes,  "  avec  cette  manie  des 
hommes  de  courir  apres  des  danseuses,  il  vaut  mieux  leur  en 
fournir  de  bonne  maison." 

The  philosophy  was  unassailable,  and,  to  a  certain  extent, 
acted  upon  by  its  professor.  Napoleon  only  admired  dancers 
on  the  stage.  He  thought,  with  Balzac,  that  the  extraordinary 
physical  strain  upon  the  lower  extremities  necessarily  inter- 
fered with  the  intellectual  development  "  at  the  other  end." 
"  L'esprit  de  la  danseuse  est  dans  ses  jambes,  et  je  n'aime  pas 
les  femmes  betes,"  he  remarked  ;  for  the  Emperor,  like  most 
of  the  members  of  his  family,  did  not  scruple  to  apply  the 
right  word  when  talking  to  his  familiars. 

Nevertheless,  until  he  was  assured  of  the  stupidity  of  a 
woman  by  more  intimate  acquaintance,  he  was  too  much 
inclined  to  be  attracted  by  the  first  handsome  face  he  saw,  or, 
to  speak  by  the  card,  by  the  first  handsome  face  he  picked 
out  for  himself.  The  moment  he  was  seated  by  the  side  of 
the  Empress  in  the  Imperial  box,  during  one  of  those  perform- 
ances I  mentioned  just  now,  he  swept  the  house  with  his 
opera-glass,  and  unerringly  the  glass  stopped  at  what  was 
really  the  handsomest  woman  in  the  house,  whether  she  was 
seated  on  the  tier  with  him  or  in  the  upper  one — of  course,  I 
mean  "  the  handsomest  woman  "  among  the  strangers,  because 
on  such  occasions  the  Emperor  paid  but  little  attention  to 
those  who  were  generally  around  him.  The  Empress  was  fain 
to  put  up  with  these  peccadilloes  :  she  could  not  be  always 
running  away  to  Schwalbach  or  to  Scotland  ;  besides,  she 
knew  that  she  would  have  to  come  back  again.  Some  months 
previous  to  the  performance  of  "  Le  Diable  k  Quatre,"  she 
went  to  the  former  place  to  hide  her  mortification.  William 
of  Prussia  was  at  Baden-Baden  at  the  time,  and  he  immediately 
left  the  delightful  society  and  the  magnificent  roulades  of 
Pauline  Lucca  to  offer  his  sympathies  to  the  Griselda  who  had 
fled  from  her  home  troubles,  forgetting  that  there  was  another 


284  A^"^  ENGLISHMA N  IN  PA  RIS. 

one  at  home,  who  would  have  even  been  more  glad  of  his 
company. 

On  the  day  after  the  shooting-party  and  the  theatrical  per- 
formance, there  was  generally  an  excursion  to  Pierrefonds,  and 
afterwards  to  the  magnificent  Roman  remains  at  Champlieu. 
In  the  evening  there  were  charades  and  carpet  dances  as 
usual. 

The  third  day  was  always  reserved  for  the  most  important 
part  of  the  programme — the  stag-hunt.  Candidly  speaking,  I 
doubt  whether  Napoleon,  though  a  very  excellent  horseman, 
cared  much  for  this  sport,  as  conducted  on  the  grand  tradi- 
tional lines  of  the  French  "code  of  venerie."  His  main 
object  personally  was  a  good  stiff  run  with  the  hounds,  such 
as  he  had  been  used  to  in  England,  troubling  himself  little 
whether  the  pack  kept  the  scent  or  not.  In  fact,  there  were 
generally  two  packs  out,  one  of  purely  English  breed,  which 
was  followed  by  the  Emperor  and  his  guests ;  the  other 
French,  followed  by  the  serious  lovers  of  sport,  who,  as  a  rule, 
caught  at  every  pretext  to  get  away  from  the  magnificently 
apparelled  crowd,  driving  or  riding  in  the  wake  of  the  sover- 
eign. Among  the  former  there  was  a  considerable  sprinkling 
of  the  landed  gentry  of  the  neighborhood,  monarchists,  and 
legitimists  to  a  man,  some  of  whom  did  not  even  condescend 
to  honor  the  Emperor  with  a  salute.  Compiegne,  Senart,  etc., 
were,  after  all,  public  property,  and  they  could  do  as  they 
liked,  though  I  have  got  an  idea  that  this  wilful  slight  was  an 
instance  of  singular  bad  taste  on  the  part  of  these  gentlemen. 

The  spot  fixed  for  the  meet  was  invariably  the  large  clearing 
known  as  the  Carrefour  du  Puits-du-Roi,  whence  radiated  eight 
immense  avenues',  stretching  as  far  as  the  uttermost  confines  of 
:he  forest  of  Compiegne.  The  spot,  apart  from  its  associations 
with  royalty,  from  the  days  of  Clovis  up  to  our  own,  was  admi- 
rably chosen,  the  mise-en-scene  worthy  of  the  greatest  stage- 
manager  on  record.  The  huge  centre  itself  was  kept  clear  by 
the  gendarmes  de  chasse — a  cross  between  a  mounted  con- 
stable and  a  ranger — from  any  but  the  officers  of  the  garrison 
on  horseback  and  other  persons  privileged  to  join  the  Emperor's 
suite.  Six  of  the  avenues  were  free  to  the  pedestrians,  who 
could  watch  every  movement  from  their  vantage  point ;  the 
seventh  was  set  apart  for  carriages  of  all  sorts,  from  the  hum- 
ble shandrydan  of  the  local  notary  and  doctor  to  .  the  magnifi- 
cent break  of  the  neighboring  landed  proprietor,  or  the  less 
correctly  but  more  showily  appointed  barouches  of  the  leaders 
of  provincial  society,  who  rajely  missed  an  opportunity  of  at- 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  285 

tending  these  gatherings,  where  there  were  so  many  chances  of 
coming  in  contact  with  the  Court.  Relegated  for  at  least  ten 
months  of  the  year — allowing  for  an  annual  visit  to  the  capital 
' — to  the  dull,  humdrum,  though  often  pretentious  round  of 
entertainments  of  her  own  circle,  the  Comtesse  d'Esbargnas,* 
whether  young  or  old,  handsome  or  the  reverse,  matron  or 
widow,  of  patrician  or  plebeian  origin,  sedulously  watched  the 
yearly  recurring  time  and  tide  that  might  lead  to  a  permanent 
footing  at  the  Tuileries.  What  has  happened  once  may  hap- 
pen again.  Agnes  Sorel,  Diane  de  Poitiers,  Gabrielle  d'Es- 
trees,  Louise  de  la  Valliere,  let  alone  Jeanne  Becu  and  Jeanne 
Poisson,t  had  by  no  means  exhausted  the  possibilities  of  sud- 
den elevations  to  within  a  step  of  the  throne.  These  new  as- 
pirants would  be  content  with  a  less  giddy  position.  And 
who  could  say  what  might  happen  ?  Had  not  Alfred  de  Mus- 
set,  the  daring  poet  of  "  les  grandes  passions,"  written  a  play 
entitled  *'  II  ne  faut  jurer  de  rien  "  ?  Assuredly  what  had  hap- 
pened once  might  happen  again.  Meanwhile  the  pleasure 
of  watching   all  this  splendor  was  worth  coming  for. 

The  latter  proposition  hardly  admitted  of  discussion.  The 
sight  was  truly  worth  coming  for.  Though  the  Imperial  suite 
never  made  its  appearance  before  one,  the  main  arteries  of  the 
forest  became  crowded  as  early  as  eleven.  Half  an  hour  later 
came  La  Trace  and  La  Feuille  with  their  equipage. $  The 
kennelmen  and  huntsmen  in  full  dress  gathered  round  a  roar- 
ing fire,  their  hounds  lying  at  their  feet.  The  stablemen  and 
grooms,  in  undress  livery  of  green  and  brown,  walking  the 
hunters  of  the  Emperor  and  his  suite  to  and  fro,  presented  a 
picture  full  of  color  and  animation. 

As  a  rule  the  Imperial  cortege  was  punctual  on  those  oc- 
casions, though  it  was  often  remiss  in  that  respect  at  gather 
iHgs  of  a  different  nature.  Among  the  familiars  at  the  Tuileries 
the  blame  for  this  general  unpunctuality  was  attributed  in  an 
equal  measure  to  both  the  Emperor  and  the  Empress.  The 
latter  dressed  very  slowly,  and  the  former  wanted  to  dress  too 
quickly.  The  result  of  this  difference  of  habit  was  always 
manifest  to  the  most  casual  observer.  The  Empress,  after  the 
most  fatiguing  day  or  soiree,  always  looked  as  if  she  had  just 
left  her  dressing-room,  the  Emperor  at  the  beginning  of  the 

*  A  character  of  one  of  Moli^re's  plays,  who  lends  her  name  to  the  play  itself,  and  who, 
with  her  provincial  clique,  apes  the  manners  of  the  court. 

t  Mesdames  Du  Barry  and  Pompadour. 

X  "  Equipage  "  is  the  right  word.  Applied  to  any  but  military  or  hunting  uses,  it  is  out 
of  place,  though  frequently  thus  used. — Editor. 


286  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

same  as  if  he  had  scarcely  been  in  it.  But  on  "grand  hunt- 
days,"  the  Empress  was  never  a  minute  late  ;  and  the  reason, 
apart  from  the  natural  wish  to  exercise  "  la  politesse  des  rois," 
exactitude,  was  a  curious  one,  but  for  the  truth  of  which  I  can 
vouch.  It  gets  dark  early  in  November,  and  the  Empress 
dreaded  to  be  overtaken  by  darkness  in  the  forest,  even 
amidst  a  crowd.  It  reminded  her  of  a  disagreeable  episode 
during  her  first  stay  at  Compiegne,  when  she  was  still  Mdlle. 
Eugenie  de  Montijo.  She  and  her  future  husband  had  got 
separated  from  the  rest  of  the  party.  It  was  never  accurately 
known  what  happened,  but  she  was  found  sitting  quietly  but 
sorely  distressed  on  her  horse  by  M.  de  Saint  Paul,  the  sub- 
ranger,  who  escorted  her  back  to  the  Chateau.  She  explained 
her  lonely  and  uncomfortable  position  by  the  fact  that  her 
companion's  horse  had  suddenly  taken  the  bit  between  its 
teeth.  The  explanation  was  a  lame  one,  seeing  that  the 
Prince-President,  on  his  return,  hours  before,  had  looked  per- 
fectly composed  and  not  as  much  as  mentioned  her  name. 
The  truth  leaked  out  afterwards.  Enraged  at  Mdlle.  de 
Montijo's  refusal  to  grant  him  a  clandestine  interview  for 
that  night,  her  princely  suitor  had  left  her  to  find  her  way  back 
as  best  she  could. 

Invariably,  then,  at  the  stroke  of  one,  the  Imperial  proces- 
sion was  signalled,  for  it  was  nothing  less  than  a  procession. 
At  its  head  rode  the  chief  ranger  of  Compiegne,  Baron  de 
Wimpffen,  in  a  magnificent  hunting-coat  of  green  and  gold,  the 
laced  tricornered  hat,  surmounted  by  a  bunch  of  black  plumes, 
jackboots,  and  white  doeskins.  Then  came  the  Imperial  break, 
drawn  by  six  horses,  mounted  by  postilions  in  powdered  wigs,  ■ 
the  Imperial  host  and  hostess  on  the  front  seat,  the  members 
of  the  family,  or  some  illustrious  guests,  behind ;  the  rest  of 
the  breaks  were  only  four-horsed,  and  the  procession  was  closed 
by  the  carriage  of  M.  Hyrvoix,  the  chief  of  the  secret  police. 
In  Paris  this  arrangement  was  reversed,  and  M.  Hyrvoix,  who 
had  the  rank  of  a  prefect,  and  took  his  place  as  such  at  all 
public  functions,  preceded  instead  of  following  the  Imperial 
carriage. 

I  am  inclined  to  think,  notwithstanding  the  frequent  outcries 
against  the  secret  police  during  the  second  empire,  that  M. 
Hyrvoix  was  a  thoroughly  upright  and  conscientious  servant. 
Unfortunately  for  himself  and  his  Imperial  masters,  his  posi- 
tion was  a  difficult  one  ;  for  though  professedly  employed  to 
gauge  public  opinion  with  regard  to  the  dynasty,  his  reports 
to  that  effect  were  not  always  received  with  the  consideration 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  287 

due  to  honest  truth,  at  any  rate  by  the  Empress.  Throughout 
these  pages,  I  have  endeavored  as  far  as  possible  to  jot  down 
my  recollections  in  a  kind  of  chronological  order,  rather  than 
in  the  order  they  occurred  to  me  ;  but  in  this,  as  in  many  other 
instances,  I  have  been  obliged  to  anticipate  the  course  of  events 
lest  they  should  slip  my  memory,  for  I  had  no  documents  to 
go  by,  and  also  to  avoid  unnecessary  repetitions.  This  par- 
ticular part  of  my  somewhat  disjointed  narrative  was  meant  to 
deal  with  the  festivities  at  Compiegne  and  the  company  there ; 
on  reading  it  over,  I  find  that  it  has  developed  into  a  fragment 
of  biography  of  the  Emperor  and  his  Consort.  As  such,  the 
following  stories  will  throw  a  valuable  side  light  on  their  differ- 
ent dispositions. 

When  the  news  of  Emperor  Maximilian's  death  reached 
Paris,  there  was  the  rumbling  of  a  storm  which  foreboded  no 
good.  For  days  before,  there  had  been  vague  rumors  of  the 
catastrophe.  It  had  been  whispered  at  the  annual  distribution 
of  prizes  at  the  College  de  France,  where  one  of  the  young 
Cavaignacs  had  refused  to  receive  his  reward  at  the  hands  of 
the  Prince  Imperial.  In  short,  indignation  was  rife  among  all 
classes.  The  Empress,  on  hearing  of  the  insult,  had  burst  into 
hysterical  tears,  and  been  obliged  to  leave  the  reception-rooms. 
In  short,  a  dark  cloud  hung  over  the  Tuileries.  I  have  spoken 
elsewhere  of  the  Mexican  expedition,  so  need  not  enlarge  upon 
it  here.  We  will  take  it  that  both  Napoleon  and  his  wife  were 
altogether  blameless  in  the  affair — which  was  by  no  means  the 
case, — but  a  moment's  reflection  ought  to  have  shown  them 
that  appearances  were  against  them,  and  that  the  discontent 
expressed  was  so  far  justified.  I  am  under  the  impression  that 
Napoleon  himself  looked  at  it  in  that  way :  he  bowed  to  the 
storm  ;  he  regretted,  but  did  not  resent  people  speaking  ill  of 
him.  Not  so  the  Empress  :  the  truth  was  only  welcome  to  her 
when  it  flattered  her ;  she  really  fancied  herself  an  autocrat  by 
the  Grace  of  God,  as  the  previous  Bourbons  interpreted  the 
term.  In  spite  of  all  that  has  been  said  about  her  amiability, 
about  her  charity,  Eugenie  was  in  reality  cruel  at  heart.  No 
woman,  not  cruel,  could  have  taken  the  principal  part  in  a 
scene  which  I  will,  describe  presently.  But  she  was  vindictive 
also,  and,  what  was  worse,  blindly  vindictive.  Though  firmly 
convinced  that  she  reigned  by  right  divine,  she  had  felt  more 
than  once  that  private  revenge  on  "  the  people  "  who  abused 
her  was  beyond  her  power.  She  not  only  fretted  accordingly, 
but  often  vented  her  wrath  on  the  first  victim  that  came  to 
hand,  albeit  that  the  latter  was  generally  the  mere  innocent 


288  AN  ENGLI^hSIAN  IN  PARIS. 

conveyance  through  which  the  voice  of  "  the  people  **  reached 
her.  M.  Hyrvoix,  in  virtue  of  his  functions,  often  found  him- 
self the  echo  of  that  voice.  He  was  generally  the  first  of  all 
the  officials  to  present  his  daily  report.  The  Emperor  gave 
him  his  cue  by  asking,  "  What  do  the  people  say  ? " 

On  that  particular  morning,  after  the  death  of  Maximilian 
had  become  known,  the  answer  came  not  as  readily  as  usual  ; 
for  the  chief  of  the  secret  police  was  not  in  the  habit  of  minc- 
ing matters.  This  time,  however,  M.  Hyrvoix  kept  silent  for 
a  while,  then  replied,  "  The  people  do  not  say  anything,  sire." 

Napoleon  must  have  noticed  the  hesitating  manner ;  for  he 
said  at  once,  "  You  are  not  telling  me  the  truth.  What  do  the 
people  say  ? " 

"  Well,  sire,  if  you  wish  to  know,  not  only  the  people,  but 
every  one  is  deeply  indignant  and  disgusted  with  the  conse- 
quences of  this  unfortunate  war.  It  is  commented  upon  every- 
where in  the  selfsame  spirit.     They  say  it  is  the  fault  of " 

"  The  fault  of  whom  ?  "  repeated  Napoleon. 

Whereupon  M.  Hyrvoix  kept  silent  once  more. 

"  The  fault  of  whom  .''  "  insisted  Napoleon. 

"  Sire,"  stammered  M.  Hyrvoix,  "  in  the  time  of  Louis  XVI. 
people  said,  '  It  is  the  fault  of  the  Austrian  woman.' " 

"  Yes,  go  on." 

"Under  Napoleon  III.  people  say,  'It  is  the  fault  of  the 
Spanish  woman.' " 

The  words  had  scarcely  left  M.  Hyrvoix'  lips,  when  a  door 
leading  to  the  inner  apartments  opened,  and  the  Empress  ap- 
peared on  the  threshold.  "  She  looked  like  a  beautiful  fury," 
said  M.  Hyrvoix  to  his  friend  from  whom  I  have  got  the  story. 
"  She  wore  a  white  dressing-gown,  her  hair  was  waving  on  her 
shoulders,  and  her  eyes  shot  flames.  She  hissed,  rather  than 
spoke,  as  she  bounded  towards  me ;  and,  ridiculous  as  it  may 
seem,  I  felt  afraid  for  the  moment.  '  You  will  please  repeat 
what  you  said  just  now,  M.  Hyrvoix/  she  gasped  in  a  voice 
hoarse  with  anger. 

"  '  Certainly,  madame,'  I  replied,  *  seeing  that  I  am  here  to 
speak  the  truth,  and,  as  such,  your  Majesty  will  pardon  me. 
I  told  the  Emperor  that  the  Parisians  spoke  of  '  the  Spanish 
woman,'  as  they  spoke  seventy-five  and  eighty  years  ago  of 
'  the  Austrian  woman.'  " 

"  *  The  Spanish  woman  !  the  Spanish  woman  ! '  she  jerked  out 
three  or  four  times — and  I  could  see  that  her  hands  were 
clenched  ; — '- 1  have  become  French,  but  I  will  show  my  ene- 
mies that  I  can  be  Spanish  when  occasion  demands  it.' 


AA'  EN(;LISiJMAX  JX  PARIS,  2S9 

"  With  this,  she  left  as  suddenly  as  she  had  cottie,  taking  no 
notice  of  the  Emperor's  uplifted  hand  to  detain  her.  When 
the  door  closed  upon  her,  1  said  to  the  Emperor,  '  I  am  more 
than  grieved,  sire,  that  I  spoke.' 

"  '  You  did  your  duty,'  he  said,  grasping  my  hand." 

As  a  matter  of  course,  the  threat  to  show  her  enemies  that 
she  could  be  Spanish  when  occasion  required  was,  in  this 
instance,  an  empty  one,  because  "  the  enemies  "  happened  to 
be  legion.  A  scapegoat  was  found,  however,  in  the  honest 
functionary  who  had,  in  the  exercise  of  his  duty,  frankly 
warned  the  Emperor  of  the  ugly  things  that  were  said  about 
her.  Next  morning,  M.  Hyrvoix  was  appointed  Receiver- 
General  for  one  of  the  departments — that  is,  exiled  to  the  pro- 
vinces. 

This  system  of  ostracism  was  indiscriminately  applied  to  all 
who  happened  to  offend  her.  Unfortunately,  the  slightest 
divergence  of  opinion  on  the  most  trifling  matter  was  construed 
into  an  offence  ;  hence  in  a  few  years  the  so-called  counsellors 
around  the  Emperor  were  simply  so  many  automata,  mowng  at 
her  will,  and  at  her  will  only.  Men  who  ventured  to  think 
for  themselves  were  removed,  or  else  voluntarily  retired  from 
the  precincts  of  the  court  sooner  than  submit  to  a  tyranny,  not 
based  like  that  of  Catherine  II.  or  Elizabeth  upon  great  intel- 
lectual gifts,  but  upon  the  w^ayward  impulses  of  a  woman  in  no 
way  distinguished  mentally  from  the  meanest  of  her  sex,  except 
by  an  overweening  ambition  and  an  equally  overweening  con- 
ceit. 

And  as  nothing  is  so  apt  to  breed  injustice  as  injustice,  men, 
who  might  have  proved  the  salvation  of  the  Second  Empire  in 
its  hour  of  direst  need,  were  absolutely  driven  into  opposition, 
and  so  blinded  by  resentment  as  to  be  unable  to  distinguish 
any  longer  between  France  and  those  who  impelled  her  to  her 
ruin. 

Lest  I  should  be  taxed  with  exaggeration,  a  few  instances 
among  the  many  will  suffice.  One  evening,  in  the  course  of 
those  charades  of  which  I  have  already  spoken,  some  of  the  per- 
formers, both  men  and  women,  had  thrown  all  decorum  to  the 
winds  in  their  improvised  dialogue.  A  young  colonel,  by  no 
means  strait-laced  or  a  hypocrite,  who  was  a  great  favorite  with 
the  Emperor  and  Empress,  professed  himself  shocked,  in  the 
hearing  of  the  latter,  at  so  much  licence  in  the  presence  of  the 
sovereigns.  In  reality,  it  was  an  honest  but  indirect  comment 
upon  the  Empress's  blamable  latitude  in  that  respect.  The 
Empress  took  up  the  cudgels  for  the  offenders.     "  Vous  n'etes 

19 


i^O  AjV  englishman  in  PARIS. 

pas  content,  colonel ;  he  bien  !  je  xvi&nfiche,  rejiche  et  confre- 
Jichey  ("  You  don't  like  it  colonel;  well,  I  don't  care  a  snap, 
nor  two  snaps,  nor  a  thousand  snaps."  *)  The  Emperor 
laughed,  and  applauded  his  Consort ;  the  colonel  took  the 
hint,  and  was  seen  at  court  no  more.  Shortly  afterwards  he 
went  to  Mexico,  where  all  who  saw  him  at  work  concurred  in  say- 
ing that  he  was  not  only  a  most  valuable  soldier,  but  probably 
the  only  one  in  the  French  army,  of  those  days,  capable  of 
handling  large  masses.  Nevertheless,  when  the  war  of  '70  broke 
out,  he  was  still  a  colonel,  and  no  attempt  at  offering  him  a 
command  was  made.  The  republicans,  for  once  in  a  way,  were 
wiser  in  their  generation :  at  this  hour  he  holds  a  high  position 
in  the  army,  and  is  destined  to  occupy  a  still  higher.  It  was 
he  who  counselled  Bazaine,  in  the  beginning  of  the  invest- 
ment of  Metz,  to  leave  twenty  or  thirty  thousand  men  behind 
to  defend  the  fortress,  and  to  break  through  with  the  rest. 
According  to  the  best  authorities  of  the  German  general  staff, 
the  advice,  had  it  been  followed,  would  have  materially  altered 
the  st^te  of  affairs.  It  is  not  my  intention  to  enlarge  upon  that 
soldier's  career  or  capabilities  ;  I  have  merely  mentioned  them 
to  show  that,  when  her  resentment  was  roused,  Eugenie  threw 
all  considerations  for  the  welfare  of  France  to  the  winds,  and 
systematically  ostracized  men,  whatever  their  merits ;  for  I  may 
add  that  the  young  colonel,  at  the  time  of  the  scene  described 
above,  was  known  to  be  one  of  the  ablest  of  strategists. 

We  have  heard  a  great  deal  of  the  Empress's  charity.  Truth 
to  tell,  that  charity  was  often  as  indiscriminate  as  her  anger; 
it  was  sporadic,  largely  admixed  with  the  histrionic  element, 
not  unfrequently  prompted  by  sentimentalism  rather  than  by 
sentiment ;  and  woe  to  him  or  to  her  who  ventured  to  hint 
that  it,  the  charity,  was  misplaced.  In  those  days  there  was  a 
prefect  of  police,  M.  Boitelle.  He  was  a  worthy  man,  endowed 
with  a  great  deal  of  common  sense,  and,  above  all,  honest  to  a 
degree.  Belonging  to  the  middle  classes,  he  was  free  from  the 
vulgar  greed  that  so  often  distinguishes  them  in  France  ;  and, 
after  leaving  the  army  as  a  non-commissioned  officer,  he  settled 
on  a  small  farm  left  to  him  by  his  parents.  Now,  it  so  hap- 
pened that  M.  de  Persigny,  whose  real  name  was  Fialin,  had 
been  a  sergeant  in  the  same  regiment,  and,  one  day,  after  the 
advent  of  the  Empire,  being  in  the  north,  went  to  pay  his 
former  comrade  a  visit.     I  am  perfectly  certain  that  M.  Boitelle, 

*  My  translation  by  no  means  renders  the  vulgarity  of  the  sentence.  The  French  have 
three  words  to  express  their  contempt  for  a  speaker's  opinion,  se  moquer,  sejicher,  and  si 
.     ,     ,     I  omit  the  latter,  but  even  the  second  is  rarely  used  in  decent  society. — Editor. 


A.V  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  29 1 

whom  I  know,  and  with  whose  son  I  have  continued  the  ami 
cable  relations  subsisting  between  his  father  and  myself,  did. 
not  solicit  any  honors  or  appointment  from  the  then  powerful 
friend  of  the  Emperor ;  nevertheless,  Persigny  appointed  his 
fellow-messmate  to  the  sub-prefectorship  of  St.  Quentin.  The 
emoluments,  even  in  those  days,  were  not  large,  but  M.  Boitelle 
was  only  a  small  farmer,  and  the  promise  of  quick  preferment 
may  have  induced  him  to  leave  his  peaceful  homestead  ;  in 
short,  M.  Boitelle  accepted,  and,  after  several  promotions, 
found  himself  at  last  at  the  Paris  Prefecture  of  Police.  In  this 
instance  the  choice  was  really  a  good  one.  I  have  known  a 
good  many  prefects  of  police,  among  others  M.  de  Maupas, 
who  officiated  on  the  night  of  the  Coup  d'Etat,  and  who  was 
also  a  personal  friend ;  but  I  never  knew  one  so  thoroughly 
fitted  for  the  arduous  post  as  M.  Boitelle.  Though  not  a  man 
of  vast  reading  or  brilliant  education,  he  was  essentially  a  man 
of  the  world  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word.  He  was  not  a 
martinet,  but  a  capable  disciplinarian,  and,  what  was  better 
still,  endowed  with  a  feeling  of  great  tolerance  for  the  foibles 
of  modern  society.  The  soldier  and  the  philosopher  were  so 
inextricably  mixed  up  in  him,  that  it  would  have  been  difficult 
to  say  where  the  one  ended  and  the  other  began.  M.  de 
Maupas  was  at  thnes  too  conscious  of  his  own  importance  ; 
there  was  too  much  of  the  French  official  in  him.  His  suc- 
cessful co-operation  in  the  Coup  d'Etat  had  imbued  him  with 
an  exaggerated  notion  of  his  own  capabilities  of  "  taking  people 
by  the  scruff  of  the  neck  and  running  them  in  "  (k  empoigner 
les  gens).  An  English  friend  of  mine,  to  whom  I  introduced 
him,  summed  him  up,  perhaps,  more  fitly.  "  He  is  like  the 
policeman  who  ran  in  a  woman  of  sixty  all  by  himself,  and 
boasted  that  he  could  have  done  it  if  she  had  been  eighty." 

But  M.  Boitelle,  though  kind-hearted,  had  no  sympathy 
whatsoever  with  mawkish  philanthropy.  The  Empress,  on  the 
other  hand,  had  absolute  paroxysms  of  it.  She  was  like  the 
Spanish  high-born  dame  who  insisted  upon  a  tombstone  for 
the  grave  of  a  bull,  the  killing  and  torturing  of  which  in  the 
ring  she  had  frantically  applauded.  One  day  she  expressed 
her  wish  to  M.  Boitelle  to  pay  a  visit  to  Saint-Lazare.  There 
is  nothing  analogous  to  that  institution  in  England.  The 
"  unfortunate  woman  "  who  prowls  about  the  streets  before  or 
after  nightfall  is — except  in  a  few  garrison  towns — tacitly 
ignored  by  our  legislators,  and  when  she  offends  against  the 
common  law,  treated  by  our  magistrates  like  any  other  member 
of  society.     We  have  no  establishments  where  the  moral  cancer 


292  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

eats  deeper  into  the  flesh  and  the  mind  by  the  very  attempt  to 
isolate  those  who  suffer  most  from  it ;  we  have  no  system  which 
virtually  bars  the  way  to  a  reformed  life  by  having  given  official 
authority  to  sin,  and  by  recording  for  evermore  the  names  of 
those  whom  want  alone  compelled  to  have  themselves  inscribed 
as  outcasts  on  those  hellish  registers.  We  have  no  Saint- 
Lazare,  and  Heaven  be  praised  for  it ! 

M.  Boitelle  knew  the  moral  and  mental  state  of  most  of  the 
inmates  of  Saint-Lazare  sufficiently  well  to  foster  no  illusions 
with  regard  to  the  benefit  to  be  derived  by  them  from  the  soli- 
tary visit  of  so  exalted  a  personage,  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
he  felt  perfectly  aware  that  it  was  morbid  curiosity,  however 
well  disguised,  that  prompted  the  step.  At  the  same  time,  the 
respect  due  to  his  sovereign  made  him  reluctant  to  expose  her, 
needlessly,  to  a  possible,  if  not  to  a  probable  insult ;  in  short, 
he  considered  the  projected  "  tour  of  inspection  "  an  ill-con- 
certed one.  He  also  knew  that  it  would  be  idle  to  bring 
his  fund  of  shrewd  philosophy  to  bear  upon  the  Empress,  to 
make  her  relinquish  her  design,  so  he  adopted  instead  the  out- 
spoken method  of  the  soldier.  "  Whatever  your  charitable 
feelings  may  be  for  those  who  suffer,  madame,"  he  said,  "  your 
place  is  not  among  them."  The  words  sound  a  shade  more 
abrupt  in  French,  but  a  moment's  reflection  would  have  shown 
the  most  fastidious  lady  that  no  offence  on  the  speaker's  part 
was  intended.  The  Empress,  however,  drew  herself  up  to  her 
full  height.  "  Charity  can  go  any  and  everywhere,  monsieur," 
she  replied.  "  You  will  please  take  me  to  Saint-Lazare  to- 
morrow." 

I  would  fain  say  as  little  as  possible  about  the  occupants  of 
that  gloomy  building  at  the  top  of  the  Faubourg  St.  Denis,  but 
am  compelled  to  state  in  common  fairness  that,  when  once 
they  are  incarcerated  and  behave  themselves — of  course,  ac- 
cording to  their  lights — they  are  not  treated  with  unnecessary 
harshness.  I  will  go  further,  and  say  that  they  are  treated 
more  leniently  than  female  prisoners  in  other  penal  establish- 
ments. The  milder  method  is  due  to  the  presence  in  greater 
numbers  than  elsewhere  of  that  admirable  angel  of  patience, 
the  Sister  of  Charity,  who  has  no  private  grievances  to  avenge 
upon  her  own  sex,  who  does  not  look  upon  the  fallen  woman 
as  an  erstwhile  and  unsuccessful  rival  for  the  favors  of  men, 
who  consequently  does  not  apply  the  vce  inctis,  either  by  sign, 
deed,  or  word.  During  my  long  stay  in  Paris,  I  have  been  al- 
lowed to  visit  Saint-Lazare  twice,  and  I  can  honestly  say  that, 
though  the'  laws  that  relegate  these  women  there  are  a  disgrace 


c  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  293 

to  nineteenth-century  civilization,  their  application  inside 
Saint-Lazare  is  not  at  all  brutal.  This  does  not  imply  that 
they  lie  upon  down-beds,  and  that  their  food  is  of  the  most 
delicate  description ;  but  they  are  well  cared  for,  bodily. 
The  Empress,  however,  in  a  gush  of  misplaced  charity,  thought 
fit  to  take  objection  to  their  daily  meals  not  being  concluded 
with  dessert.  Thereupon,  M.  Boitelle,  whose  sound  common 
sense  had  already  been  severely  tried  during  that  morning, 
could  not  help  smiling.  "  Really,  madame,"  he  said  ;  "  you 
allow  your  kindness  to  run  away  with  your  good  sense.  If  they 
are  to  have  a  dessert,  what  are  we  to  give  to  honest  women  ? " 

Next  day,  M.  Boitelle  was  appointed  a  senator;  that  is, 
removed  from  his  post  as  prefect  of  police,  which  he  had  so 
worthily  filled,  and  where  he  had  done  a  great  deal  of  unosten- 
tatious good.  The  next  time  M.  Boitelle  came  in  contact  with 
the  Empress  was  at  the  last  hour  of  the  Empire,  when  he  tried, 
but  in  vain,  to  overcome  her  resentment,  caused  by  his  unhappy 
speech  of  many  years  before. 

Yet,  the  woman  who  could  indulge  in  sentiment  about  the 
absence  of  dessert  in  the  Saint-Lazare  refectory,  would,  at  the 
end  of  the  hunt,  deliberately  jump  off  her  horse,  plunge  the 
gleaming  knife  in  the  throat  of  the  panting  stag,  and  revel  in 
the  sight  of  blood.  Many  who  saw  her  do  this  argued  that  in 
the  hour  of  danger  she  would  as  boldly  face  the  enemies  of  her- 
self and  her  dynasty.  I  need  not  say  that  they  were  utterly 
mistaken.  She  slunk  away  at  the  supreme  hour ;  while  the 
princess,  whom  she  had  presumed  to  teach  the  manners  of  a 
court,  left  like  a  princess  in  an  open  landau,  preceded  by  an 
outrider.     I  am  alluding  to  Princess  Clotilda. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

In  connection  with  the  treatment  of  "  fallen  women "  in 
Paris,  I  may  give  the  following  story,  which  become  interesting 
in  virtue  of  the  personality  of  one  of  the  actors.  In  1843  the 
sculptor  Cortot  died,  and  I  followed  his  funeral  on  foot,  as  was 
the  custom  in  those  days.  I  walked  by  the  side  of  one  of  the 
greatest  artists  France,  or,  for  that  matter,  the  world,  has  ever 
produced — David  d' Angers.  The  name  of  his  native  town  was 
adopted  to  distinguish  him  from  his  celebrated  namesake,  the 
painter.  I  had  become  acquainted  with  the  great  sculptor  a 
twelvemonth  previously,  in  Delacroix's  studio.     All  at  once, 


294  ^^^  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

as  the  procession  went  along  the  Quai  Malaquais,  I  saw  him 
start  violently,  and  break  through  what,  for  want  of  a  more  ap- 
propriate term,  I  must  call  the  ranks  of  mourners.  For  a 
moment  only ;  the  next,  he  was  back  by  my  side ;  but  1  noticed 
that  he  was  frightfully  agitated.  He  probably  saw  my  concern 
for  him  in  my  face,  for,  though  I  asked  him  no  questions,  he 
said  of  his  own  accord,  "  It  is  all  right.  I  just  caught  sight  of 
a  woman  who  saved  my  life,  and  by  the  looks  of  her,  she  is  in 
great  straits,  but,  by  the  time  I  got  out  of  the  crowd,  she  had 
disappeared.  I  have  an  idea  of  the  errand  she  was  bent  upon, 
and  will  inquire  to-morrow,  but  I  am  afraid  it  will  be  of  very 
little  use." 

I  kept  silent  for  a  moment  or  two,  but  my  curiosity  was 
aroused,  for,  I  repeat,  at  that  time,  the  artistic  world  was  ring- 
ing with  the  name  of  David  d' Angers. 

"I  did  not  know  you  had  been  in  such  great  danger,"  I  said 
at  last. 

"  Very  few  people  do  know  it,"  he  replied  sadly ;  "  besides, 
it  happened  a  good  many  years  ago,  when  you  were  very  young. 
The  next  time  we  meet  I  will  tell  you  all  about  it." 

A  week  or  so  afterwards,  as  I  was  leaving  the  Cafe  de  Paris 
one  evening,  and  going  to  the  tobacconist  at  the  corner  of  the 
Rue  Lafitte,  I  ran  against  the  celebrated  sculptor.  The  weather 
was  mild,  and  we  sat  outside  Tortoni's,  where  he  told  me  the 
story,  part  of  which  I  give  in  his  own  words,  as  far  as  I  can  re- 
member them  after  the  lapse  of  more  than  forty  years. 

"  If  there  were  any  need,"  he  began,  "  to  apologize  to  an 
Englishman  for  my  sympathy  with  the  Philhellenism  which 
shortened  the  life  of  Byron,  I  might  say  that  I  sucked  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  independence  of  nations  with  the  mother's  milk, 
for  I  was  born  in  1789.  Be  that  as  it  may,  when  Marcos  Bot- 
zaris  fell  at  Missolonghi  I  felt  determined  that  he  should  have 
a  monument  worthy  of  his  heroism  and  patriotism,  as  far  as 
my  talents  could  contribute  to  it.  I  was  sufficiently  young  to 
be  enthusiastic,  and,  at  the  same  time,  sufficiently  presumptu- 
ous to  imagine  that  I  could  do  sorhething  which  had  never  been 
done  before.  You  have  seen  the  engraving  of  the  monument ; 
you  may  judge  for  yourself  how  far  I  succeeded.  But  the  idea 
of  the  composition,  however  out  of  the  common,  was,  I  am 
bound  to  admit,  not  the  offspring  of  my  own  imagination.  I 
was,  perhaps,  clever  enough  to  see  the  poesy  of  it  when  pre- 
sented to  me,  and  to  appropriate  it ;  but  the  young,  fragile  girl 
lying  on  the.  tombstone  and  tracing  the  name  of  Marcos  Bot- 
zaris  was  suggested  to  me  by  a  scene  I  witnessed  one  day  at 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

Pere-la-Chaise.  I  saw  a  child  stooping  over  a  gravestone,  and 
trying  to  spell  out  the  words  carved  on  it.  It  was  all  I  wanted. 
1  own,  from  that  moment,  my  composition  took  shape  in  my 
mind.  I  was,  however,  still  at  a  loss  where  to  find  the  ideal 
child.  The  little  girl  of  whom  I  had  caught  a  glimpse  would 
not  have  done  at  all  for  my  purpose,  even  if  her  parents  would 
have  consented  to  let  her  sit,  which  was  not  at  all  likely — she 
was  the  prosperous-looking  demoiselle  of  a  probably  prosperous 
boiirgeoise  family,  well-fed,  plump,  and  not  above  seven  or 
eight.  I,  on  the  contrary,  wanted  a  girl  double  that  age  just 
budding  into  womanhood,  but  with  the  travail  of  the  transition 
expressed  in  every  feature,  in  every  limb.  She  was  to  repre- 
sent to  the  most  casual  observer  the  sufferings  engendered  by 
the  struggle  against  tutelage  for  freedom.  She  was  to  bend 
over  the  tomb  of  Botzaris  to  drag  the  secret  of  that  freedom 
from  him.     Dawning  life  was  to  drag  the  secret  from  the  dead. 

"  That  was  my  idea,  and  for  several  days  I  cudgelled  my 
brain  to  find  among  my  models  one  that  would,  physically  and 
morally,  represent  all  this.  In  vain ;  the  grisettes  of  the  Rue 
Fleurus  and  the  Quartier-Latin,  in  spite  of  all  that  has  been  said 
of  them  by  the  poets  and  novelists  of  that  time,  were  not  at  all 
the  visible  incarnations  of  lofty  sentiment ;  whatever  pain  and 
grief  an  unrequited  romantic  passion  might  entail,  they  left  no 
appreciable  traces  on  their  complexions  or  in  their  outline  ; 
they  were  saucy  madams,  and  looked  it.  I  had  communicated 
my  wants  to  some  of  my  friends,  and  one  of  them  sent  me  what 
he  thought  would  suit.  The  face  was  certainly  a  very  beauti- 
ful one,  as  an  absolutely  perfect  ensemble  of  classical  features 
I  have  never  seen  the  like-;  but  there  was  about  as  much  ex- 
pression in  it  as  in  my  hand,  and,  as  for  the  body,  it  was  sim- 
ply bursting  out  of  its  dress.  I  told  her  she  would  not  do,  and 
the  reason  why.  *  Monsieur  can't  expect  me  to  go  into  a  con- 
sumption for  two  francs  fifty  an  hour,'  she  remarked,  bouncing 
out  of  the  room. 

"  I  was  fast  becoming  a  nuisance  to  all  my  cronies,  when, 
one  day,  going  to  dine  with  Victor  Hugo  at  La  Mere  Saget's, 
which  was  at  the  Barriere  du  Maine,  I  came  unexpectedly,  in 
the  Rue  du  Montparnasse,  upon  the  very  girl  for  which  I  had 
been  looking  out  for  months.  Notwithstanding  her  rags,  she 
was  simply  charming.  She  was  not  above  fourteen  or  fifteen, 
and  although  very  tall  for  her  age,  she  had  scarcely  any  flesh 
on  her  bones.  I  only  knew  her  christian  name — Cle'mentine  : 
I  doubt  whether  she  had  any  other.  Next  morning  she  came 
with   her  mother,  an   old  hag,  dissipation   and   drunkenness 


296  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

written  in  every  line  of  her  face.  But  the  child  herself  was 
perfectly  innocent — at  any  rate,  as  innocent  as  she  could  be 
with  such  a  parent,  and  tractable  to  a  degree.  After  a  little 
while  the  old  woman,  tired  of  twirling  her  thumbs,  disgusted, 
perhaps,  at  my  want  of  hospitality  in  not  offering  her  refresh- 
ments, left  off  accompanying  her  :  Clementine  came  henceforth 
alone. 

"  My  studio  was  in  the  Rue  de  Fleurus  in  those  days,  and 
on  the  wall  hung  a  very  handsome  bronze  Christ  on  a  velvet 
panel  and  in  a  dark  satin  frame.  Curiously  enough,  I  often 
caught  the  mother  watching  it ;  it  seemed  to  have  an  irresist- 
ible fascination  for  her :  and,  one  day,  while  the  child  was 
dressing,  after  two  or  three  hours  of  hard  work,  she  suddenly 
exclaimed,  'That's  why  my  mother  will  not  come  here;  she 
says  she'd  commit  a  robbery.  She  never  leaves  off  talking 
about  it.  I  wonder  whether  you'd  like  to  part  with  it,  M. 
David  ?  A  Christ  like  that  would  be  beautiful  in  our  attic. 
It  would  comfort  and  cheer  me.  If  you  like,  I'll  buy  it  of 
you.  Of  course,  I  have  no  money,  but  you  can  deduct  it 
from  my  sittings.  You  can  have  as  many  as  you  like,  not  only 
for  this  statue,  but  for  any  other  you  may  want  later  on.' 

"  We  democrats,  professed  republicans,  and  more  than  sus- 
pected revolutionaries,  are  not  credited  by  the  majority  with, 
a  great  reverence  for  religious  dogma ;  we  are  generally 
branded  as  absolute  freethinkers,  not  to  say  atheists.  This  is 
frequently  a  mistake.*  I  have  no  occasion  to  recite  my  credo 
to  you,  but  a  great  many  of  the  republicans  of  '89  and  of  to- 
day were  and  are  believers.  At  any  rate,  I  fondly  imagined 
that  the  Christ  for  which  the  mother  and  child  were  longing 
might  exercise  some  salutary  influence  on  their  lives,  so  I 
simply  took  down  the  frame  and  its  contents  and  banded  them 
to  her.  She  staggered  under  the  weight.  '  You  want  that 
Christ,'  I  said ;  '  here  it  is  :  and  when  you  are  tempted  to  do 
evil  look  at  it,  and  think  of  me,  who  gave  it  you  as  a  present.' 

"  *  As  a  present  1 '  she  shrieked  for  joy  ;  and  hurried  away  as 
fast  as  her  legs  would  carry  her. 

"  In  about  six  months  from  that  day  the  statue  was  finished. 
I  had  no  further  need  of  Clementine's  services,  and  gradually 
all  thought  of  her  slipped  from  my  mind.  You  may  have 
heard  that,  some  time  after  my  work  was  despatched  to  Greece, 

*  It  is  a  mistake.  Not  to  mention  Camilla  Desmoulins,  who,  when  asked  his  age  by  his 
judge,  replied,  "  The  age  of  another  sansculotte,  Jesus,"  Esquiros  frequently  spoke  of 

that  good  patriot,  Christ;  "  Lammenais  began  the  draft  of  his  constitution  with,  '  In  the 
name  of  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  by  the  will  of  the  French  people."— 
Epitor. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  297 

I  was  assaulted  one  night  in  the  Rue  Childebert,  on  my  way 
to  Gerard  de  Nerval's.  My  skull  was  split  open  in  two  places. 
I  was  left  for  dead  in  the  street,  and  but  for  a  workman  who 
stumbled  over  me,  took  me  home,  and  sat  up  with  me  until 
morning,  I  might  not  have  lived  to  tell  the  tale.  From  the 
very  first  I  suspected  the  identity  of  my  assailant,  though  I 
have  never  breathed  his  name  to  any  one.  I  am  glad  to  say  I 
never  had  many  enemies,  nor  have  I  now,  as  far  as  I  am  aware  ; 
but  I  had  offended  the  man  by  withholding  my  vote  in  a  prize 
competition.  He  was,  however,  not  responsible  for  his  actions  ; 
for  even  at  that  time  he  must  have  been  mad.  A  few  years 
afterwards,  the  suspicion  both  of  his  madness  and  his  attempt 
upon  my  life  became  a  certainty,  for  he  repeated  the  latter. 
You  are  very  young,  and  youth  is  either  very  credulous  or  very 
sceptical.  We  should  be  neither.  If  what  I  am  going  to  tell 
you  now  were  to  be  represented  to  you  at  the  Ambigu  or  Porte 
Saint-Martin,  you,  as  an  educated  man,  would  shrug  your 
shoulders,  and  look  with  a  kind  of  good-natured  contempt  upon 
the  grisette  or  workman  or  bourgeois  who  would  sit  spellbound 
and  take  it  all  in  as  so  much  gospel.  Providence,  fate,  call  it 
what  you  will,  concocts  more  striking  dramatic  situations  and 
a  greater  number  of  them  than  M.  Scribe  and  all  his  compeers 
have  constructed  in  the  course  of  their  professional  careers. 
Listen,  and  you  shall  jndge  for  yourself. 

"  About  seven  years  after  the  attack  in  the  Rue  Childebert, 
I  received  a  letter  one  morning,  inviting  me  to  attend  a  meet- 
ing that  same  night  between  twelve  and  one,  at  a  house  in  the 
Faubourg  Saint-Jacques,  near  the  hospital  of  the  Val-de-Grace. 
The  letter  told  me  how  to  proceed.  There  being  no  concierge 
in  the  house,  I  was  to  provide  myself  with  a  '  dark  lantern,' 
and  to  go  up  four  flights  of  stairs,  where  I  should  find  a  door 
with  a  cross  chalked  upon  it.  It  would  be  opened  by  my 
giving  a  particular  knock.  My  previous  danger  notwithstand- 
ing, I  had  not  the  least  suspicion  of  this  being  a  trap.  I  did 
not  for  one  moment  connect  the  letter  with  the  other  event, 
the  recollection  of  which,  strange  as  it  may  seem  to  you,  did 
not  obtrude  itself  at  all  then.  But  there  was  another  reason 
for  the  absence  of  caution  on  my  part.  In  one  of  its  corners 
the  letter  bore  a  sign,  not  exactly  that  of  a  secret  society,  but 
agreed  upon  among  certain  patriots. 

"  In  short,  a  little  before  twelve  o'clock  that  night,  I  went 
to  the  place  appointed.  I  had  no  difficulty  in  finding  the 
house,  and  reached  the  fourth  story  without  meeting  a  soul. 
There  was  the  door  with  the  cross  chalked  on  it.     I  knocked 


298  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS, 

once,  twice,  without  receiving  an  answer.  Still,  the  thought  of 
evil  never  entered  my  head.  I  began  to  think  that  I  had  been 
the  victim  of  a  hoax,  of  some  youngsters  of  the  Ecole  des 
Beaux-Arts,  most  of  whom  were  aware  of  my  political  opinions. 
I  was  just  turning  round  to  go  down  again,  when  a  door  by  the 
side  of  that  indicated  was  slowly  opened,  and  a  young  girl  with 
a  lighted  candle  appeared  on  the  threshold.  Though  both  the 
candle  and  my  lantern  did  not  shed  much  light,  I  perceived 
that,  at  the  sight  of  me,  she  turned  very  pale,  but,  until  she 
spoke,  I  failed  to  recognize  her.  Then  I  saw  it  was  Clemen- 
tine, my  model.  She  scarcely  gave  me  time  to  speak.  *  It  is 
you,  M.  David,'  she  said,  in  a  voice  trembling  with  fear  and 
emotion.  *  You,'  she  repeated.  '  For  Heaven's  sake,  go — go 
as  quickly  as  you  can  !  If  you  stay  another  moment,  you  will 
be  a  corpse  ;  for  God's  sake,  go  !  And  let  me  beg  of  you  not 
to  breathe  a  word  of  this  to  any  one  ;  if  you  do,  my  mother 
and  I  will  pay  for  this  with  our  lives.  For  God's  sake,  go.  I 
did  not  know  that  you  were  the  person  expected.     Go — go  ! ' 

"  I  do  not  think  I  answered  a  single  word.  I  felt  instinc- 
tively that  this  was  no  hoax,  as  I  had  imagined,  but  terrible 
reality.  I  went  downstairs  as  fast  as  I  could,  but  it  was  not 
until  I  got  into  the  street  that  a  connection  between  the  two 
events  presented  itself  to  me.  Then  I  decided  to  wait  and 
watch.  I  hid  myself  in  the  doorway  of  a  house  a  few  steps 
away.  Scarcely  ten  minutes  had  elapsed  when  half  a  dozen 
individuals  arrived,  one  by  one,  and  disappeared  into  the 
house  that  sheltered  Clementine  and  her  mother.  One  of 
them,  I  feel  sure,  was  the  man  whom  I  suspected  of  having 
attempted  my  life  before.  A  few  years  more  went  by,  during 
which  I  often  thought  of  my  former  model ;  and  then,  one 
day,  I  felt  I  would  like  to  see  her  again.  In  plain  daylight  this 
time,  I  repaired  to  the  house  of  the  Faubourg  Saint-Jacques, 
clambered  up  the  stairs,  and  knocked  at  the  door  I  had 
such  good  cause  to  remember.  The  door  was  opened  by  a 
workman,  and  a  rapid  glance  at  the  inside  of  the  room  showed 
me  that  he  was  a  lastmaker.  'Mademoiselle  Clementine.?'  I 
asked.  The  man  stared  at  me,  and  said,  '  No  such  person 
lives  here.'  I  made  inquiries  on  all  the  lower  floors — nobody 
had  ever  heard  of  her.  Clementine  had  disappeared.  I  never 
saw  her  again  until  a  few  days  ago,  when  I  walked  by  your 
side  behind  the  body  of  Cortot.  I  should  not  have  recog- 
nized her  but  for  the  bronze  Christ  she  carried  under  her  arm, 
and  which  attracted  my  notice.  If  what  I  surmise  be  correct, 
she  must  have  reached  the  last  stage  of  misery ;  for  I  feel 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 


299 


convinced  that  nothing  but  absolute  want  would  make  her 
part  with  it.  I  have,  however,  failed  to  trace  it  in  any  of  the 
bric-k-brac  shops  on  the  quays,  and  I  believe  that  I  have  pretty 
well  inquired  at  every  one  ;  so  I  must  fain  be  content  until 
fate  throws  her  again  across  my  path.** 

So  far  the  story  as  told  by  the  great  sculptor  himself.  Dur- 
ing the  next  eight  years,  in  fact  up  to  the  Coup  d'Etat,  I  met 
him  frequently,  and,  curiously  enough,  rarely  failed  to  inquire 
whether  in  his  many  wanderings  through  Paris  he  had  caught 
a  glimpse  of  his  former  model.  I  felt  unaccountably  inter- 
ested in  the  fate  of  that  woman  whom  I  had  never  seen,  and, 
if  we  had  been  able  to  find  her,  would  have  endeavored  to 
find  a  decent  home  for  her.  But  for  about  three  years  my  in- 
quiries always  met  with  the  same  answer.  Then,  one  evening  in 
the  latter  end  of  '46,  or  beginning  of  '47,  David  told  me  that  he 
had  met  her  on  the  outer  boulevards,  arm  in  arm  with  one  of 
those  terrible  nondescripts  of  which  one  is  often  compelled  to 
speak  again  and  again,  and  which,  as  far  as  I  am  aware,  are  no- 
where to  be  found  as  a  class  except  in  the  French  metropolis 
and  great  provincial  centres.  Clementine  evidently  wished 
to  avoid  David.  A  little  while  after,  he  met  her  again,  and 
this  time  followed  her,  but,  though  by  no  means  a  coward, 
lacked  the  courage  to  enter  the  hovel  into  which  she  had  dis- 
appeared with  her  companion.  The  last  time  he  saw  her  was 
in  the  middle  of  '47,  in  the  Rue  des  Boucheries.  She  seemed 
to  have  returned  to  her  old  quarters,  and  she  was  by  herself. 
Until  she  spoke,  David  did  not  recognize  her.  Her  face  was 
positively  seamed  with  horrible  scars,  "  wounds  inflicted  by 
her  lovers" — Heaven  save  the  mark !  She  asked  him  to  help 
her,  and  he  did  ;  but  she  had  scarcely  gone  a  few  steps  when 
she  was  arrested  and  taken  to  the  prison  of  I'Abbaye  de  St. 
Germain,  hard  by,  whither  David  followed  to  intercede  for 
her.  He  was  told  to  come  back  next  morning,  and  that  same 
evening  communicated  the  affair  to  me.  I  decided  there  and 
then  to  accompany  him,  in  order  to  carry  out  my  plan  of  re- 
deeming that  human  soul  if  possible.  I  failed,  through  no  fault 
of  my  own,  but  my  attempt  brought  me  in  contact  with  a  per- 
sonage scarcely  less  interesting  in  his  own  way  than  David, 
namely,  M.  Canler,  the  future  head  of  the  Paris  detective 
force.  It  was  through  him  that  I  got  an  insight  into  some  of  the 
most  revolting  features  of  criminal  life  in  Paris.  But,  before 
dealing  with  that  subject,  I  wish  to  devote  a  few  more  lines  to 
David,  whom  I  had  the  honor  of  numbering  among  my  friends 
till  the  day  of  his  death,  albeit  that  the  last  few  years  of  his  life 


300  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

were  spent  away  from  France,  whither  he  returned,  however,  to 
die  in  '56.  After  the  Coup  d'Etat  he  was  exiled  by  Louis- 
Napoleon — ostensibly,  for  his  political  opinions  ;  in  reality, 
because  he  had  refused  to  finish  the  monument  for  Queen  Hor- 
tense's  tomb  after  her  son's  fiasco  at  Boulogne. 

Writing  about  France  and  Frenchmen,  I  feel  somewhat  re- 
luctant to  make  too  lavish  a  use  of  the  words  "  patriot  "  and 
"  patriotism,"  especially  with  the  patriots  and  the  patriotism 
of  the  Third  Republic  around  me.  But  I  have  no  hesitation 
in  saying  that,  to  David  d'Angers,  these  words  meant  some- 
thing almost  sacred.  Sprung  from  exceedingly  poor  parents, 
he  had  amassed,  by  honest  work,  a  fortune  which,  to  men  born 
in  a  higher  sphere  and  with  far  more  expensive  tastes,  might 
seem  sufficient.  Seeing  that  he  was  frugality  and  simplicity 
personified,  that  his  income  was  mainly  spent  in  alleviating 
distress,  and  that  his  daughter  was  even  more  simple-minded 
than  her  father,  he  had  nothing  to  gain  by  the  advent  of  a  re- 
public, nothing  to  lose  by  the  establishment  of  a  monarchy  or 
empire,  and  his  ardent  championship  of  republican  institutions 
— such  as  he  conceived  them — was  prompted  solely  by  his 
noble  nature.  That  Louis-Napoleon  should  have  exiled  such 
a  man  was  an  error  his  warmest  friends  could  scarcely  forgive 
him.  But  David  never  complained,  any  more  than  he  ever 
uttered  a  harsh  word  against  the  memory  of  Flaxman,  who,  in 
his  youth,  had  shut  his  doors  against  him  under  the  impression 
that  he  was  a  relation  of  Louis  David  who  had  voted  for  the 
death  of  Louis  XVL  On  the  contrary,  the  memory  of  the 
great  English  sculptor  was  held  in  deep  reverence. 

And  so  David  departed,  a  wanderer  on  the  face  of  the  earth 
with  his  daughter.  He  first  endeavored  to  settle  in  Brussels, 
but  the  irresistible  desire  to  behold  once  more  what  he  him- 
self considered  his  greatest  work,  the  monument  to  Marcos 
Botzaris,  attracted  him  to  Greece.  A  friend,  to  whom  he 
communicated  his  intention,  wrote  to  him,  "  Do  not  go."  He 
gave  him  no  further  reason  ;  he  even  withheld  from  him  the 
fact  that  he  had  been  at  Missolonghi  a  twelvemonth  previously. 
The  explanation  of  this  reticence  may  be  gathered  from 
David's  letter  to  him  a  few  days  after  his,  David's,  return.  I 
have  been  allowed  to  copy  it,  and  give  it  verbatim. 

"  Long  before  our  vessel  anchored  near  the  spot  were  Byron 
died,  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  tumulus  erected  at  the  foot  of 
the  bastion,  in  honor  of  Botzaris  and  his  fellow-heroes.  It 
made  a  small  dark  spot  on  the  horizon,  and  above  it  was  a 
speck,  much  smaller  and  perfectly  white.     I  knew  instinctively 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  3 o  i 

that  this  was  my  statue  of  the  'young  Greek  girl/  and  I 
watched  and  watched  with  bated  breath,  fancying  as  the  ship 
sped  along  that  the  speck  moved.  Of  course,  it  was  only  my 
imagination,  the  presumptuous  thought  that  the  marble  effigy 
would  start  into  life  at  the  approach  of  its  creator. 

"  Alas,  would  I  had  proceeded  no  further — that  I  had  been 
satisfied  with  the  mirage  instead  of  pushing,  on  in  hot  haste 
towards  the  reality  !  For  the  reality  was  heart-rending,  so 
heart-rending  that  I  wept  like  a  child,  and  clenched  my  fists 
like  a  giant  in  despair.  The  right  hand  of  the  statue,  the 
index  finger  of  which  pointed  to  the  name,  had  been  broken  ; 
the  ears  had  disappeared,  one  of  the  feet  was  broken  to  atoms, 
and  the  face  slashed  with  knives.  It  was  like  the  face  of  the 
girl  that  had  sat  for  me,  when  I  last  saw  it,  under  the  circum- 
stances which,  you  may  remember,  I  told  you.  The  whole  was 
riddled  with  bullets,  and  some  tourists,  British  ones  probably, 
had  cut  their  names  on  the  back  of  the  child.  And  so  ends 
the  most  glorious  chapter  of  my  artist's  career — the  model  itself 
fallen  beyond  redemption,  the  work  mutilated  beyond  repair, 
the  author  of  it  in  exile. 

"  I  felt  powerless  to  repair  the  mischief,  I  did  not  stay 
long.  Perhaps  I  ought  not  to  complain.  I  knew  that  Byron 
had  been  buried  near  the  fortifications  at  Missolonghi,  but  all 
my  efforts  to  find  the  spot  have  proved  useless.*  The  house 
where  he  breathed  his  last  had  been  pulled  down.  Why  should 
the  Greeks  have  more  reverence  for  Botzaris  or  Mavrocordato 
than  they  had  for  the  poet  ?  and  if  these  three  are  so  little  to 
them,  what  must  I  be,  whose  name  they  probably  never  heard  ? 
Still,  as  I  stood  at  the  stern  of  the  departing  vessel,  I  felt 
heart-broken.     I  have  no  illusions  left." 

I  firmly  believe  that  the  injury  done  to  the  statue  hastened 
David's  death.  His  work  has  since  been  restored  by  M. 
Armand  Toussaint,  his  favorite  pupil,  who  gave  his  promise  to 
that  effect  a  few  days  before  the  great  sculptor  breathed  his 
last.  The  monument  was,  however,  not  brought  to  Paris  until 
186 1,  and  when  M.  Toussaint  had  finished  his  task,  he  invited 
the  press  and  the  friends  of  his  famous  master  to  judge  of  the 
results.  It  was  at  the  door  of  his  studio  that  I  saw  the  woman, 
whose  adventures  I  have  told  in  the  preceding  notes,  for  the 
first  time.  A  fortnight  later,  she  died  at  the  hospital  of  La 
Charite,  at  peace,  I  trust,  with  her  Maker.  "  Fate,  Providence 
call  it  what  you  will,"  as  David  himself  would  have  said,  had 
brought  me  to  the  spot  just  in  time  to  alleviate  the  last  suffer- 

•  Of  course  David  meant  the  spot  where  the  remains  had  been  interred  at  first.— Editor, 


302  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS, 

ings  of  one  who,  though  not  altogether  irresponsible  for  her 
own  errors,  was  to  a  still  greater  extent  the  victim  of  a  system 
so  iniquitous  as  to  make  the  least  serious-minded — provided  he 
be  endowed  with  the  faintest  spark  of  humanity — shudder.  I 
allude  to  the  system  pursued  by  the  Paris  detective  force  in 
their  hunt  after  criminals — a  system  not  altogether  abandoned 
yet,  and  the  successful  carrying  out  of  which  is  paid  for  by 
the  excruciating  tortures  inflicted  upon  defenceless  though  fallen 
women — but  women  still — by  the  souteneur.  I  refrain  from 
Anglicizing  the  word  ;  it  will  suggest  itself  after  the  perusal  of 
the  following  facts,  albeit  that,  fortunately  with  us,  the  creature 
itself  does  not  exist  as  a  class,  and,  what  is  worse,  as  a  class 
recognized  by  those  whose  first  and  foremost  duty  it  should 
be  to  destroy  him  root  and  branch. 

The  morning  after  Clementine's  arrest,  David  and  I  repaired 
to  the  prison  of  I'Abbaye  Saint-Germain.  When  the  sculptor 
sent  in  his  name,  the  governor  himself  came  out  to  receive  us. 
But  the  woman  was  gone  ;  she  had  been  transferred,  the  pre- 
vious night,  to  the  de'pot  of  the  prefecture  de  police,  "  where," 
he  said,  "  if  you  make  haste,  you  will  still  find  her."  He  gave 
us  a  letter  of  introduction  for  the  official  charged  to  deal  with 
refractory  "  filles  soumises,"  or  offending  insoumises,  because, 
then  as  now,  these  unfortunates  were  not  tried  by  an  ordinary 
police  magistrate  in  open  court,  but  summarily  punished  by 
said  official,  the  sentences  being  subject,  however,  to  revision 
or  confirmation  by  his  superior,  the  chief  of  the  municipal 
police.  Nay,  the  decisions  were  not  even  communicated  to 
these  women  until  they  were  safely  lodged  in  Saint-Lazare, 
lest  there  should  be  a  disturbance  ;  for  they  were  not  examined 
one  by  one  ;  and,  as  may  be  imagined,  the  contagion  of  revolt 
spread  easily  among  those  hysterical  and  benighted  creatures. 

When  we  reached  the  prefecture  de  police  the  judging  was 
over,  but,  on  our  sending  in  our  letter,  we  were  admitted  at  once 
to  the  official's  room.  After  David's  description,  he  remembered 
the  woman,  and  told  us  at  once  that  she  had  not  been  sent  to 
Saint  Lazare,  but  liberated.  Some  one  had  interceded  for  her — 
no  less  a  personage  than  Canler,  who,  though  at  the  time  but  a 
superintendent,  was  already  fast  springing  into  notice  as  a  detec- 
tive of  no  mean  skill.  "  What  had  he  done  with  her  ?  "  was 
David's  question.  "  I  could  not  tell  you,"  was  the  courteous 
reply ;  "  but  I  will  give  you  his  address,  and  he  will  no  doubt 
give  you  all  -the  information  in  his  power  and  consistent  with 
his  dutv."     With  this  we  were  bowed  out  of  the  room. 


A.V  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  303 

We  did  not  succeed  in  seeing  Canler  until  two  days  after- 
wards, or  rather,  on  the  evening  of  the  second  day ;  for,  at  that 
period,  he  was  entrusted  with  the  surveillance  of  the  theatres 
on  the  Boulevard  du  Temple.  I  may  have  occasion  to  speak 
of  him  again,  so  I  need  not  give  his  portrait  here.  He  was 
about  fifty,  and,unlike  one  of  his  successors,  M.  Claude,  the  type 
of  the  old  soldier.  Of  his  honesty  there  never  was,  there  could 
have  never  been,  a  doubt,  nor  was  his  intelligence  ever  ques- 
tioned. And  yet,  this  very  honest,  intelligent  man,  in  his  all- 
absorbing  pursuit,  the  detection  and  chasing  of  criminals,  was 
sufficiently  dishonest  and  unintelligent  to  foster,  if  not  to  in- 
augurate, a  system  subversive  of  all  morality. 

David's  name  was  a  passport  everywhere,  and,  no  sooner 
had  it  been  sent  in,  than  Canler  came  out  to  him.  The  sculp- 
tor stated  his  business,  and  the  police  officer  made  a  wry  face. 
"  I  am  afraid,  M.  David,  I  cannot  help  you  in  the  instance.  To 
speak  plainly,  I  have  restored  her  to  her  souteneur."  We  both 
opened  our  eyes  very  wide.  "  Yes,"  came  the  remark,  "  I  know 
what  you  are  going  to  say.  I  can  sum  up  all  your  objections 
before  you  utter  them.  But  I  could  not  help  myself  ;  the  fel- 
low rendered  me  a  service,  and  this  was  the  price  of  it.  With- 
out his  aid,  one  of  the  most  desperate  burglars  in  Paris  would 
still  be  at  large.  As  it  is,  I  have  got  him  safe  under  lock  and 
key.  Very  shocking,  no  doubt ;  mais,  k  la  guerre  comme  k  la 
guerre."  Then,  seeing  that  we  did  not  answer,  he  continued  : 
"  As  a  rule,  I  do  not  explain  my  tactics  to  everybody ;  but  you, 
M.  David,  are  not  everybody,  and,  if  you  like  to  meet  me  when 
the  theatre  is  over,  I  shall  be  pleased  to  have  a  chat  with  you." 

At  half-past  twelve  that  night  we  were  seated  at  a  restaurant 
near  the  Porte  Saint-Martin,  and,  after  a  few  preliminary  re- 
marks, Canler  explained  : 

"  However  great  an  artist  you  may  be,  M.  David,  you  could 
not  produce  a  statue  without  the  outlay  for  the  marble,  or  for 
the  casting  of  it  in  bronze.  You,  moreover,  want  to  pay  your 
praticien  who  does  the  rough  work  for  you.  Our  pratkiens 
are  the  informers,  and  they  want  to  be  paid  like  the  most  honest 
workmen.  The  detection  of  crime  means,  no  doubt,  intelli- 
gence, but  it  means  also  money.  Now,  money  is  the  very  thing 
I  have  not  got,  and  yet,  when  I  accepted  the  functions  I  am  at 
present  fulfilling,  I  gave  my  promise  to  M.  Delessert  not  to 
neglect  the  detective  part  of  the  business.  I  wish  to  keep  my 
word,  first  of  all,  because  I  pledged  it ;  secondly,  because  detec- 
tion of  crime  is  food  and  drink  to  me ;  thirdly,  because  I  hope 
to  be  the  head  of  the  Paris  detective   force   one  day.      The 


3 o4  -^ -^V  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

Government  allows  a  ridiculously  small  sum  every  year  for  dis- 
tribution among  informers,  and  rewards  among  their  own  agents ; 
it  is  something  over  thirty  thousand  francs,  but  not  a  sou  of 
which  ever  reached  my  hands  when  I  accepted  my  present  ap- 
pointment, and  scarcely  a  sou  of  which  reaches  me  now,  I 
was,  therefore,  obliged  to  look  out  for  auxiliaries,  sufficiently 
disinterested  to  assist  me  gratuitously,  but,  knowing  that  abso- 
lute disinterestedness  is  very  rare  indeed,  I  looked  for  my  col- 
laborateurs  among  the  very  ones  I  was  charged  to  watch,  but 
who,  in  exchange  for  my  protection  in  the  event  of  their  offend- 
ing, were  ready  to  peach  upon  their  companions  in  crime  and 
in  vice.  I  need  not  trouble  you  by  enumerating  the  various 
categories  of  my  allies,  but  the  souteneur,  the  most  abject  of 
them  all,  is,  perhaps,  the  most  valuable. 

He  is  too  lazy  to  work,  and,  as  a  rule,  has  not  got  the  pluck 
of  a  mouse,  consequently  he  rarely  resorts  to  crime,  requiring 
the  smallest  amount  of  energy  or  daring.  He  furthermore 
loves  his  Paris,  where,  according  to  his  own  lights,  he  enjoys 
himself  and  lives  upon  the  fat  of  the  land  ;  all  these  reasons 
make  him  careful  not  to  commit  himself,  albeit  that  at  every 
minute  of  the  day  he  comes  in  contact  with  everything  that  is 
vile.  But  he  gets  hold  of  their  secrets,  though  the  word  is 
almost  a  misnomer,  seeing  that  few  of  these  desperadoes  can 
hold  their  tongue  about  their  own  business,  knowing  all  the 
while,  as  they  must  do,  that  their  want  of  reticence  virtually 
puts  their  heads  into  the  halter.  But  if  they  have  done  '  a  good 
stroke  of  business,' even  if  they  do  not  brag  about  it  in  so  many 
words,  they  must  show  their  success  by  their  sudden  show  of 
finery,  by  their  treating  of  everybody  all  round,  etc.  The 
souteneur  is,  as  it  were,  jealous  of  all  this  ;  for  though  he  lives 
in  comparative  comfort  from  what  his  mistress  gives  him,  he 
rarely  makes  a  big  haul.  His  mistress  gone,  the  pot  ceases  to 
boil ;  in  fact,  he  calls  her  his  marmite.  In  a  few  days  he  is  on 
his  beams'  ends,  unless  he  has  one  in  every  different  quarter, 
which  is  not  often  the  case,  though  it  happens  now  and  then. 
But,  at  any  rate,  the  incarceration  of  one  of  them  makes  a  dif- 
ference, and,  under  the  circumstance,  he  repairs,  as  far  as  he 
dares,  to  the  prefecture,  and  obtains  her  liberation  in  exchange 
for  the  address  of  a  burglar  or  even  a  murderer  who  is  wanted. 
I  have  known  one  who  had  perfected  his  system  of  obtaining 
information  to  such  a  degree  as  to  be  able  to  sell  his  secrets 
to  his  fellow-souteneurs  when  they  had  none  of  their  own 
wherewith  to  propitiate  the  detectives.  He  has  had  as  much 
as  three  or' four  hundred  francs  for  one  revelation  of  that  kind, 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  305 

which  means  twenty  or  thirty  times  the  sum  the  police  would 
have  awarded  him.  Of  course,  three  or  four  hundred  francs 
is  a  big  sum  for  the  souteneur  to  shell  out;  but,  when  the 
marmite  is  a  good  one,  he  sooner  does  that  than  be  deprived 
of  his  revenues  for  six  months  or  so.  I  have  diverted  some 
of  those  secrets  into  my  own  channel,  and  Clementine's  sou- 
teneur is  one  of  my  clients  :  that  is  why  I  gave  her  up.  Very 
shocking,  gentlemen,  but  a  la  guerre  comme  a  la  guerre." 

M.  Canler  furthermore  counselled  us  to  leave  Clementine 
alone.  He  positively  refused  to  give  us  any  information  as  to 
her  whereabouts  :  that  is  why  I  did  not  meet  with  her  until 
five  years  after  David's  death,  too  late  to  be  of  any  use  to  her 
in  this  world. 


CHAPTER  XVH. 

Magnificent  as  were  the  quasi-private  entertainments  at 
Compiegne,  and  the  more  public  ones  at  the  Tuileries,  they 
were  as  nothing  to  the  series  of  fetes  on  the  occasion  of  Queen 
Victoria's  visit  to  Paris,  in  1855.  For  nearly  three  months 
before,  the  capital  had  assumed  the  aspect  of  a  fair.  The  Ex- 
position Universelle  of  '55  virtually  inaugurated  the  era  of 
"  middle-class  excursions,"  which  since  then  have  assumed 
such  colossal  proportions,  especially  with  regard  to  the  Eng- 
lish. Previous  to  this  the  development  of  railways  had  natu- 
rally brought  many  of  our  countrymen  to  Paris,  but  they  were 
of  a  different  class  from  those  who  now  invaded  the  French 
metropolis.  They  were  either  men  of  business  bent  on  busi- 
ness, though  not  averse  to  enjoying  themselves  in  the  inter- 
vals, or  else  belonging  or  pretending  to  belong  to  "  the  upper 
ten,"  and  travelling  more  or  less  en  gra?id  seigneurs.  They 
came  singly,  and  left  their  cards  at  the  Embassy,  etc.  The 
new  visitors  came  in  groups,  though  not  necessarily  acquainted 
or  travelling  with  one  another  ;  they  knew  nothing  of  the 
Hotel  Meurice  and  the  Hotel  Bristol  or  their  traditions  ;  they 
crowded  the  Palais-Royal  and  its  cheap  restaurants,  and  had, 
so  to  speak,  no  French  at  their  command.  Notwithstanding 
the  exclamation  of  the  Frenchman  when  he  saw  the  statue  of 
Wellington  opposite  Apsley  House,  it  was  then,  and  then  only, 
that  the  revanche  of  Waterloo  began.  It  has  lasted  ever  since. 
It  was  '55  that  marked  the  appearance  in  the  shop-windows  of 
small    cards  bearing    the  words,   "  English    spoken    here." 

20 


3o6  AN  ENGLISHMAN-  IN  PAklS. 

Hitherto  the  English  visitor  to  Paris  was  commonly  supposed 
to  have  had  a  French  tutor  or  governess,  and  though  the 
French  he  or  she  did  speak  was  somewhat  trying  to  the  ear,  it 
was  heavenly  music  compared  to  the  English  the  Parisian 
shopkeeper  now  held  it  incumbent  upon  himself  to  "  trot  out  " 
for  the  benefit  of  his  customers,  or  that  of  the  guide  or  valet 
de  place,  legions  of  whom  infested  the  streets. 

The  Exhibition  was  opened  on  the  15th  of  May,  but  Queen 
Victoria  was  not  expected  until  the  middle  of  August.  Mean- 
while, the  Parisians  were  treated  to  a  sight  of  the  Lord  Mayor 
— Sir  F.  Moon,  I  believe — and  the  aldermen,  who  came  in  the 
beginning  of  June,  and  who  were  magnificently  entertained  by 
the  Paris  municipality,  a  deputation  of  which  went  as  far  as 
Boulogne  to  welcome  them.  Still,  it  was  very  evident  that 
neither  their  visit  nor  that  of  the  King  of  Portugal  and  his 
brother  was  to  tax  the  ingenuity  of  upholsterers,  carpenters, 
and  caterers,  or  of  the  Parisians  themselves  in  the  matter  of 
decoration  ;  the  watchword  had  apparently  been  given  from  the 
highest  quarters  to  reserve  their  greatest  efforts  for  what  Na- 
poleon up  till  then  considered  "  the  most  glorious  event  of  his 
reign."  The  Emperor,  though  he  had  gone  to  join  the  Em- 
press, who  was  by  this  time  known  to  be  enceinte,  at  Eaux- 
Bonnes  and  Biarritz,  returned  to  Paris  at  the  end  of  July,  and 
for  more  than  a  fortnight  occupied  himself  personally  and 
incessantly  with  the  smallest  details  of  the  Queen's  visit,  the 
whole  of  the  programme  of  which  was  settled  by  him. 

I  was  one  hi  the  few  privileged  persons  who  travelled  down 
to  Boulogne  with  Louis-Napoleon,  on  Friday,  the  17th  of 
August,  1855.  When  we  got  to  our  destination,  the  yacht  was 
not  in  sight,  but  we  were  already  informed  that,  owing  to  its 
heavy  tonnage,  it  would  not  be  able  to  enter  the  harbor  except 
at  high  tide,  which  would  not  be  until  i  p.m.,  on  Saturday. 
Shortly  after  that  hour  the  vessel,  accompanied  by  its  flotilla, 
appeared  in  the  offing ;  but  the  Queen  remained  on  board,  and 
we  had  to  enjoy  ourselves  as  best  we  could,  which  was  not 
difficult,  seeing  that  the  whole  of  the  town  was  absolutely  in 
the  streets,  and  that  the  latter  were  decidedly  preferable  to  the 
stuffy  attics  at  the  hotels,  for  which  we  were  charged  the  mod- 
erate sum  of  forty  francs  each.  Uneventful  as  my  life  has 
been,  it  is  only  worth  recording  by  reason  of  the  celebrity  of 
the  persons  with  whom  I  have  come  in  contact ;  nevertheless, 
I  have  travelled  a  good  deal,  and  been  present  at  a  great  many 
festive  gatherings  both  in  England  and  on  the  Continent. 
Commend  me  to  the   French  hotel-proprietor  for  fleecing  you 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  307 

in  cold  blood.  The  Swiss  and  the  Italians,  no  mean  masters 
of  the  art,  are  not  in  it  with  him  ;  and  as  for  the  Germans, 
they  are  mere  'prentices  compared  with  him.  The  Italian 
despoils  you,  like  his  countryman  of  operatic  fame,  Fra-Dia- 
volo ;  the  Swiss,  like  an  English  highwayman  of  the  good  old 
sort ;  the  German,  like  a  beggar  who  picks  your  pocket  while 
you  are  looking  in  your  purse  for  a  coin  to  give  him ;  the 
Frenchman,  like  the  money-lender  who  is  "  not  working  for 
himself,  but  for  a  hard-hearted,  relentless  principal." 

On  the  Saturday,  the  Emperor  was  astir  betimes,  and  went 
to  the  camp  occupied  by  the  troops  under  the  command  of 
Marshal  Baraguey-d'Hilliers.  Louis-Napoleon's  countenance 
was  at  all  times  difficult  to  read ;  I  repeat,  his  eyes,  like  those 
of  others,  may  have  been  "the  windows  of  his  soul,"  but  their 
blinds  were  down  most  of  the  time.  It  was  only  at  rare  inter- 
vals that  the  impenetrable  features  were  lighted  up  by  a  gleam 
from  within,  that  the  head,  which  generally  inclined  to  the 
right,  became  erect.  On  that  morning,  the  face  was  even  a 
greater  blank  than  usual.  And  yet  that  day,  even  to  the 
fatalist  he  was,  must  have  seemed  a  wonderful  one ;  for  the 
blind  goddess  of  fortune,  the  "  lucky  star  "  in  which  he  trusted, 
had  never  rewarded  a  mortal  as  she  had  rewarded  him.  A  few 
years  previously,  during  one  of  his  presidential  journeys,  he 
had  been  hailed  with  enthusiasm  at  Strasburg,  the  city  in 
which  the  scene  of  one  of  his  bitterest  fiascos  had  been  laid. 
The  contrast  between  those  two  days  was  startling  indeed ; 
on  the  one,  he  was  hurried  into  a  post-chaise  as  a  prisoner  to 
be  taken  to  Paris,  with  an  almost  certain  terrible  fate  over- 
hanging him  ;  on  the  other,  he  was  greeted  as  the  saviour  of 
France,  the  Imperial  Crown  was  within  his  grasp.  But,  start- 
ling as  was  this  contrast,  it  could  but  have  been  mild  compared 
to  that  which  must  have  presented  itself  to  his  mind  that  au- 
tumn morning  at  Boulogne,  when,  a  few  hours  later,  the  legions 
— his  legions — took  up  their  positions  from  Wimereux  on  the 
right  to  Porsel  on  the  left,  to  do  homage  to  the  sovereign  of  a 
country  which  had  been  the  most  irreconcilable  foe  of  the 
founder  of  his  house ;  on  the  very  heights  at  the  foot  of  which 
he  himself  had  failed  to  rouse  the  French  to  enthusiasm ;  on 
the  very  spot  where  he  had  become  the  laughing-stock  of  the 
world  by  his  performance  wdth  that  unfortunate  tame  eagle. 

And  yet,  I  repeat,  not  a  gleam  of  pride  or  joy  lighted  up  the 
Sphinx-like  mask.  To  see  this  man  standing  there  unmoved 
amidst  the  highest  honors  the  world  had  to  bestow,  one  could 
not  help  thinking  of  Voltaire's  condemnation  of  fatalism  as  the 


3o8  AM  ENCLISHMAM  IN  PARIS. 

guiding  principle  of  life  :  "  If  perchance  fatalism  be  the  true 
doctrine,  I  would  sooner  be  without  such  a  cruel  truth." 

A  regiment  of  lancers  and  one  of  dragoons  lined  the  route 
from  the  landing-stage  to  the  railway  station,  for  in  those  days 
the  trains  did  not  stop  alongside  the  boats  ;  while  on  the  bridge 
crossing  the  Liane,  three  hundred  sappers,  bearded  like  the 
Pard,  shouldering  their  axes,  wearing  their  white  leathern 
aprons,  stood  in  serried  ranks,  three  deep. 

The  Queen's  yacht  had  been  timed  to  enter  the  harbor  at 
one,  but  it  was  within  a  minute  or  so  of  two  before  it  was 
moored  amidst  the  salutes  from  the  forts.  The  Emperor,  who 
had  been  on  horseback  the  whole  of  the  morning — who,  in  fact, 
preferred  that  means  of  locomotion  on  all  important  occasions, 
as  it  showed  him  off  to  greater  advantage, — had  been  standing 
by  the  side  of  his  charger.  He  crossed  the  gangway,  beauti- 
fully upholstered  in  purple  velvet  and  carpet  to  match,  at  once, 
and,  after  having  kissed  her  hand,  offered  her  his  arm  to  assist 
her  in  landing,  Prince  Albert  and  the  royal  children  coming 
immediately  behind  the  Imperial  host  and  his  principal  guest. 
A  magnificent,  roomy  barouche,  capable  of  holding  six  persons 
and  lined  with  white  satin,  but  only  drawn  by  two  horses — 
such  horses  !  for  in  that  respect  Napoleon  had  spent  his  time 
to  advantage  in  England, — stood  waiting  to  convey  the  Royal 
family.  The  Emperor  himself,  though,  mounted  his  horse  once 
more,  and  took  his  place  by  the  right  of  the  carriage,  the  left 
being  taken  by  Marshal  Baraguey-d'Hilliers.  The  head  of  the 
procession  started  amidst  tremendous  cheers  from  the  crowd, 
but  we  who  came  on  behind  heard  some  curious  comments 
upon  this  popular  manifestation.  Knowing  that  there  would 
be  a  considerable  delay  in  getting  the  train  off,  I  walked  in- 
stead of  driving.     I  was  accompanied  by  Lord ,  who  was 

never  averse  to  having  his  little  joke.  "  He  bien,  mon  ami," 
he  said  to  an  old  weather-beaten  sailor,  who  was  short  of  his 
left  leg — "he  bien,  mon  ami,  nous  voila  reconcilies." 

"  Oui,  oui,  je  t'en  fiche,"  was  the  answer ;  "  mais  puisqu'il 
en  sont  a  se  faire  des  m'amours,  ils  devaient  bien  me  rendre 
ma  jambe  que  j'ai  perdue  dans  leurs  querelles." 

"  Imbecile,"  remarked  an  old  soldier-looking  man,  who, 
though  old,  was  evidently  younger  than  the  first  speaker,  and 
who  was  short  of  an  arm,  "  ta  jambe  ne  t'irait  pas  plus  que 
mon  bras;  c'etait  ta  jambe  de  gar^on." 

"C'est  vrai,"  nodded  the  other  philosophically;  "tout  de 
meme,  c'est  .drole  que  nous  nous  soyons  battus  comme  des 
chiens,"  pointing  across  the  Channel  in  the  direction  of  Eng- 


AJV  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  309 

land,  "  pour  en  arriver  k  cela.  Si  le  vieux  (Napoleon  I.) 
revenait,  il  serait  rudement  colore."  And  I  may  say  at  once 
that,  notwithstanding  the  friendly  attitude  throughout  of  the 
rural  as  well  as  of  the  Parisian  populations,  that  was  the  un- 
derlying sentiment.  ''Waterloo  est  arrange,  non  pas  venge," 
said  a  Parisian  ;  "  il  parait  qu'il  y  a  des  accommodements  avec 
les  rois,  aussi  bien  qu'avec  le  ciel." 

As  a  matter  of  course,  we  did  not  leave  Boulogne  much 
before  three — the  original  arrangement  had  been  for  half-past 
one, — and  when  we  reached  Paris  it  was  dark,  too  early  for  the 
illuminations  which  had  been  projected  along  the  line  of  boule- 
vards from  the  recently  opened  Boulevard  de  Strasbourg  to  the 
Madeleine,  not  so  much  as  a  feature  in  the  programme  of  re- 
ception, as  in  honor  of  the  Queen  generally.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  was  not  sufficient  daylight  for  the  crowds  to  distinguish 
the  sovereign's  features,  and  a  corresponding  disappointment 
was  the  result.  The  lighted  carriage  lamps  did  not  improve 
matters  much.  But  the  Parisians— to  their  credit  be  it  said 
— knowing  that  Queen  Victoria  had  expressed  her  wish  to  be 
conveyed  to  St.  Cloud  in  an  open  carriage,  instead  of  the  closed 
State  one  used  on  such  occasions,  took  note  of  the  intention, 
and  acknowledged  it  with  ringing  cheers.  Victor  Hugo  has 
said  that  the  Parisian  loves  to  show  his  teeth — he  must  either 
be  laughing  or  growling  ;  and  at  the  best  of  times  it  is  an  un- 
grateful task  to  analyze  too  thoroughly  such  manifestations  of 
enthusiasm.  There  are  always  as  many  reasons  why  nations 
should  hate  as  love  each  other.  The  sentiment,  as  expressed 
by  the  sailor  and  soldier  alluded  to  just  now,  did  exist — of  that 
I  feel  sure  ;  but  amidst  the  truly  fairy  spectacle  then  presented 
to  the  masses  that  crowded  the  streets,  it  may  have  been  for- 
gotten for  the  moment. 

For,  in  spite  of  the  gathering  darkness,  the  scene  was  almost 
unique.  I  have  only  seen  another  one  like  it,  namely,  when 
the  troops  returned  from  the  Franco- Austrian  War  ;  and  people 
much  older  than  I  declared  that  the  next  best  one  was  that  on 
the  occasion  of  the  return  of  the  Bourbons  in  18 14. 

Though  the  new  northern  station,  erected  on  the  site  of  the 
old,  had  been  virtually  finished  for  more  than  a  twelvemonth, 
the  approaches  to  it  were,  if  not  altogether  magnificent  pro- 
jects, little  more  than  magnificent  mazes,  stone  and  mortar 
Phoenixes,  in  the  act  of  rising,  not  risen,  from  Brobdingnagian 
dust-heaps,  and  altogether  unfit  for  any  kind  of  spectacular 
procession.  Consequently,  it  had  been  decided  to  connect  the 
northern  with  the  eastern  line  immediately  after  entering  the 


3 1 6  Ajv  englishman  in  parts. 

fortifications.  The  Strasbourg  Station  did  not  labor  under  the 
same  disadvantages  ;  the  Boulevard  of  that  name  stretched 
uninterruptedly  as  far  as  the  Boulevard  St.  Denis,  although,  as 
yet,  there  were  few  houses  on  it.  I  have  seen  a  good  many 
displays  of  bunting  in  my  time  ;  I  have  seen  Turin  and  Flor- 
ence and  Rome  beflagged  and  decorated  on  the  occasions  of 
popular  rejoicings  ;  I  have  seen  historical  processions  in  the 
university  towns  of  Utrecht  and  Leyden  ;  I  have  seen  triumphal 
entries  in  Brussels  ;  I  was  in  London  on  Thanksgiving  day,  but 
I  have  never  beheld  anything  to  compare  with  the  wedged 
masses  of  people  along  the  whole  of  the  route,  as  far  as  the 
Bois  de  Boulogne,  on  that  Saturday  afternoon.  The  whole  of 
the  suburban  population  had,  as  it  were,  flocked  into  Paris. 
The  regulars  lined  one  side  of  the  whole  length  of  the  Boule- 
vards, the  National  Guards  the  other.  And  there  was  not 
a  single  house  from  the  station  to  the  southernmost  corner 
of  the  Rue  Royale  that  had  not  its  emblems,  its  trophies, 
its  inscriptions  of  "  welcome."  With  that  inborn  taste  which 
distinguishes  the  Parisians,  the  decorator  had  ceased  trying 
to  gild  the  gold  and  to  paint  the  lily  at  that  point,  and  had 
left  the  magnificent  perspective  to  produce  its  own  effect — 
a  few  Venetian  masts  along  the  Avenue  des  Champs- Elysees 
and  nothing  more.  Among  the  notable  features  of  the  deco- 
rations in  the  main  artery  of  Paris  was  the  magnificent  triumphal 
arch,  erected  by  the  management  of  the  Opera  between  the 
Rue  de  Richelieu  and  what  is  now  the  Rue  Drouot.  It  rose  to 
the  fourth  stories  of  the  adjacent  houses,  and  looked,  not  a 
temporary  structure,  but  a  monument  intended  to  stand  the 
wear  and  tear  of  ages.  No  description  could  convey  an  idea 
of  its  grandeur.  The  inside  was  draped  throughout  with  bee- 
bespangled  purple,  the  top  was  decorated  with  immense  eagles, 
seemingly  in  full  flight,  and  holding  between  their  talons  pro- 
portionately large  scutcheons,  bearing  the  interlaced  monograms 
of  the  Imperial  hosts  and  the  Royal  guests.  In  front  of  the 
Passage  de  I'Op^ra  stood  an  allegorical  statue,  on  a  very  beautiful 
pedestal  draped  with  flags ;  and  further  on,  at  the  back  of  the 
Opera-Comique,  which  really  should  have  been  its  front,*  an 
obelisk,  the  base  of  which  was  a  correct  representation,  in 
miniature,  of  the  Palais  de  ITndustrie  (the  then  Exhibition 
Building).      By   the   Madeleine   a  battalion    of    the   National 

*  In  1782,  when  Heurtier,  the  architect,  submitted  his  plan  of  the  building  which  was  in- 
tended  for  the  Italian  singing-actors,  the  latter  offered  a  determined  opposition  to  the  idea 
of  the- theatre  facing  the  Boulevards,  lest  they  should  be  confounded  with  the  small  theatres 
on  the  Boulevard  du  .Temple  and  in  the  direction  of  the  present  Boulevard  des  Filles-du-Cal- 
vaire.  This  extraordinary  vanity  was  lampooned  on  all  sides,  and  especially  in  a  quatrain 
which  I  forbearto  quote,  even  ia  French. — Editor. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  JN  PARIS. 


311 


Guards  had  erected,  at  their  own  cost,  two  more  allegorical 
statues,  France  and  England.  A  deputation  from  the  National 
Guards  had  also  presented  her  Majesty  with  a  magnificent 
bouquet  on  alighting  from  the  train. 

By  a  very  delicate  attention,  the  private  apartments  of  the 
Queen  had,  in  many  ways,  been  made  to  look  as  much  as  pos- 
sible like  those  at  Windsor  Castle  ;  and  where  this  transfor- 
mation was  found  impossible  by  reason  of  their  style  of  deco- 
ration— such  as,  for  instance,  in  the  former  boudoir  of  Marie- 
Antoinette, — the  mural  paintings  and  those  of  the  ceiling  had 
been  restored  by  two  renowned  artists.  In  addition  to  this,  the 
most  valuable  pictures  had  been  borrowed  from  the  Louvre  to 
enhance  the  splendor  of  the  reception  and  dining-rooms,  while 
none  but  crack  regiments  in  full  dress  were  told  oif  for  duty. 

The  day  after  the  Queen's  arrival  being  Sunday,  the 
entertaiment  after  dinner  consisted  solely  of  a  private  concert ; 
on  the  Monday  the  Queen  visited  the  Fine  Arts'  Section  of 
the  Exhibition,  which  was  located  in  a  separate  building  at 
the  top  of  the  Avenue  Montaigne,  and  connected  with  the 
main  structure  by  beautifully  laid-out  gardens.  The  Queen 
spent  several  hours  among  the  modern  masterpieces  of  all 
nations,  and  two  French  artists  had  the  honor  of  being 
presented.  I  will  not  be  certain  of  the  names,  because  I  was 
not  there,  but,  as  far  as  I  can  remember,  they  were  Ingres 
and  Horace  Vernet. 

While  on  the  subject  of  art,  I  cannot  help  digressing  for  a 
moment.  I  may  take  it  that  in  1855  a  good  many  Englishmen 
of  the  better  middle  classes,  though  not  exactly  amateurs  or 
connoisseurs  of  pictures,  were  acquainted  with  the  names,  if 
not  with  the  works,  of  the  French  masters  of  the  modern 
school.  Well,  in  that  same  year,  the  English  school  burst 
upon  the  corresponding  classes  in  France  like  a  revelation — 
nay,  I  may  go  further  still,  and  unhesitatingly  affirm  that  not  a 
few  critics,  and  those  of  the  best,  shared  the  astonishment  of 
the  non-professional  multitude.  They  had  heard  of  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds  and  Gainsborough,  perhaps  of  Turner,  but  Con- 
stable and  Moreland,  Wilkie  and  Webster,  Mulready,  and  the 
rest  of  the  younger  school,  were  simply  so  many  names. 
But  when  the  critics  did  become  aware  of  their  existence, 
their  criticisms  were  simply  a  delightful  series  of  essays, 
guiding  the  most  ignorant  to  a  due  appreciation  of  those 
Englishmen's  talents,  not  stinting  praise,  but  by  no  means 
withholding  blame,  instinctively  focussing  merits  and  defects 
in  a  few  brilliant  paragraphs,  which   detected   the  painter's 


3 1 2  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS, 

intention  and  conception  as  well  as  his  execution  both  from  a 
technical,  as  well  as  dramatic,  graphic  and  pictorial  point  of  view ; 
which  showed,  not  only  the  influence  of  general  surroundings, 
but  dissected  the  result  of  individual  tendencies.  Many  a 
time  since,  when  wading  through  the  adipose  as  well  as  verbose 
columns  dealing  with  similar  subjects  in  English  newspapers, 
have  I  longed  for  the  literary  fleshpots  of  France,  which 
contained  and  contain  real  nourishing  substance,  not  the  fatty 
degeneration  of  an  ignoramus's  brain,  and  what  is  worse,  of 
an  ignoramus  who  speaks  in  numbers  from  a  less  valid  reason 
than  Pope's ;  for  the  most  repellent  peculiarity  of  these 
effusions  are  the  numbers.  It  would  seem  that  these  would-be 
critics,  having  no  more  than  the  ordinary  auctioneer's  intellect, 
endeavor  as  much  as  possible  to  assimilate  their  effusions  to 
a  catalogue.  They  are  an  abomination  to  the  man  who  can 
write,  though  he  may  know  nothing  about  painting,  and  to  the 
man  who  knows  about  painting  and  cannot  write.  The 
pictorial  art  of  England  must  indeed  be  a  hardy  plant  to  have 
survived  the  approval  and  the  disapproval  of  these  barbarians. 
To  come  back  to  the  Queen,  who,  after  leaving  the  Palais  de 
rindustrie,  drove  to  several  points  of  interest  in  Paris,  notably 
to  la  Sainte-Chapelle.  The  route  taken  was  by  the  Rue  de 
Rivoli  and  the  Pont-Neuf ;  the  return  journey  was  effected  by  the 
Pont-aux-Changes  and  the  eastern  end  of  the  same  street, 
which  had  only  been  opened  recently,  as  far  as  the  Place  de  la 
Bastille.  Then,  and  then  only,  her  Majesty  caught  sight  of  the 
Boulevards  in  the  whole  of  their  extent.  The  decorations  of 
the  previous  day  but  one  had  not  been  touched,  and  the  crowds 
were  simply  one  tightly  wedged-in  mass  of  humanity.  A 
journalistic  friend  had  procured  me  2.pcrmis  de  circuler — in 
other  words,  "  a  police  pass," — and  I  made  the  way  from  the 
Boulevard  Beaumarchais  to  Tortoni  on  foot.  It  may  be  in- 
teresting to  those  who  are  always  prating  about  the  friendship 
between  England  and  France  to  know  that  I  heard  not  a  single 
cry  of  "  Vive  r Angleterre  !  "  On  the  other  hand,  I  heard  a 
great  many  of  "  Vive  la  Reine ! "  Even  the  unthinking 
crowd,  though  yielding  to  the  excitement  of  the  moment,  seemed 
to  distinguish  between  the  country  and  her  ruler.  I  am  not 
commenting^  upon  this ;  I  am  merely  stating  a  fact.  Probably 
it  is  not  England's  fault  that  she  has  not  been  able  to  inspire 
the  French  nation  as  a  whole  with  anything  like  a  friendly 
feeling,  but  it  is  as  well  to  point  it  out.  During  the  whole  of 
the  Crimean'  War,  nine  out  of  every  ten  educated  Frenchmen 
openly  asserted  that   France  had  been   made  a  cat's-paw  by 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  313 

England,  that  the  alliance  was  one  forced  upon  the  nation  by 
Napoleon  from  dynastic  and  personal,  rather  than  from  patriotic 
and  national,  motives  ;  there  were  some  who,  at  the  moment 
of  the  Queen's  visit,  had  the  candor  to  say  that  this,  and  this 
only,  would  be  France's  reward  for  the  blood  and  money  spent 
in  the  struggle.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  but  fair  to  state  that 
these  very  men  spoke  both  with  admiration  and  respect  of 
England's  sovereign. 

At  three  o'clock  there  was  a  brilliant  reception  at  the  Elysee 
when  the  members  of  the  corps  diplomatique  accredited  to  the 
Tuileries  were  presented  to  the  Queen.  Shortly  after  five  her 
Majesty  returned  to  Saint-Cloud,  where,  in  the  evening,  the 
actors  of  the  Comedie-Fran^aise  gave,  at  the  Queen's  special 
request,  a  performance  of  "  Les  Demoiselles  de  Saint-Cyr." 
She  had  seen  the  piece  in  London,  and  been  so  pleased  with  it 
that  she  wished  to  see  it  again.  Though  I  was  on  very  inti- 
mate terms  with  Dumas,  we  had  not  met  for  several  weeks, 
which  was  not  wonderful,  seeing  that  I  was  frequently  appealed 
to  by  the  son  himself  for  news  of  his  father.  "  What  has  be- 
come of  him  ?  He  might  be  at  the  antipodes  for  all  I  see  of 
him,"  said  Alexandre  II.  about  a  dozen  times  a  year.  How- 
ever, two  or  three  days  after  the  performance  at  Saint-Cloud,  I 
ran  against  him  intheChaussee  d'Antin.  "  Well,  you  ought  to 
be  pleased,"  I  said  ;  "  it  appears  that  not  only  has  the  Queen 
asked  to  see  your  piece,  which  she  had  already  seen  in  London, 
but  that  she  enjoyed  it  even  much  better  the  second  than  'he 
first  time." 

"  C'est  comme  son  auteur,"  he  replied  :  "  plus  on  le  connait, 
plus  on  I'aime.  Je  sais  pourtant  bien  ce  qui  I'aurait  amusee 
meme  d'avantage  que  de  voir  ma  piece,  c'eut  ete  de  me  voir 
moi-meme,  et  franchement,  ga  m'aurait  amuse  aussi." 

"  Then  why  did  you  not  ask  for  an  audience  1  I  am  certain 
it  would  have  been  granted,"  I  remarked,  because  I  felt  con- 
vinced that  her  Majesty  would  have  been  only  too  pleased  to 
confer  an  honor  upon  such  a  man. 

"  En  effet,  j'y  ai  pensd,"  came  the  reply;  "  une  femme  aussi 
remarquable  et  qui  deviendra  probablement  la  plus  grande 
femme  du  si^cle  aurait  du  se  rencontrer  avec  le  plus  grand 
homme  en  France,  mais  j'ai  eu  peur  qu'on  ne  me  traite  comme 
Madame  de  Stael  traitat  Saint-Simon.  C'est  dommage,  parce- 
qu'elle  s'en  ira  sans  avoir  vu  ce  qu'il  y  a  de  mieux  dans  notre 
pays,  Alexandre,  Roi  du  Monde  rbmanesque,  Dumas  I'igno- 
rant."     Then  he  roared  with  laughter  and  went  away.* 

*  Alexandre  Dumas  referred  to  a  story  in  connection  with  the  Comte  de  Saint-Simon  and 


3 1 4  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

On  Tuesday,  the  21st,  the  Queen  went  to  Versailles  to  in- 
spect the  picture-galleries  established  there  by  I.ouis-Philippe, 
and  in  the  evening  she  was  present  at  a  gala-performance  at 
the  Opera.  Next  day  she  paid  a  second  visit  to  the  Palais 
de  rindustrie,  but  to  the  industrial  section  only.  In  the  even- 
ing, there  was  a  performance  of  "  Le  Fils  de  Famille  "  ("  The 
Queen's  ShiUing  '^).  On  the  23d,  she  spent  several  hours  at  the 
Louvre  ;  after  which,  at  night,  she  attended  the  ball  given  in 
her  honor  by  the  Municipality  of  Paris.  I  shall  not  attempt  to 
describe  that  entertainment,  the  decorations  and  flowers  of 
which  alone  cost  three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  francs.  The 
whole  had  been  arranged  under  the  superintendence  of  Ballard, 
the  architect  of  the  Halles  Centrales.  But  I  remember  one 
little  incident  which  caused  a  flutter  of  surprise  among  the 
court  ladies,  who,  even  at  that  time,  had  already  left  off  danc- 
ing in  the  pretty  old-fashioned  way,  and  merely  walked  through 
their  quadrilles.  The  royal  matron  of  thirty-five,  with  a  goodly 
family  growing  up  around  her,  executed  every  step  as  her  danc- 
ing master  had  taught  her,  and  with  none  of  the  listlessness 
that  was  supposed  to  be  the  "  correct  thing."  I  was  standing 
close  to  Canrobert  who  had  been  recalled  to  resume  his  func- 
tions near  the  Emperor.  After  watching  the  Queen  for  a  min- 
ute or  so,  he  turned  round  to  the  lady  on  his  arm.  "  Pardi, 
elle  danse  comme  ses  soldats  se  battent,  ^  en  veux-tu,  en  voilk  1' 
et  correct  jusqu'a  la  fin."  There  never  was  a  greater  admirer 
of  the  English  soldier  than  Canrobert.  The  splendor  of  that 
fete  at  the  H6tel-de-Ville  has  only  been  surpassed  once,  in 
1867,  when  the  civic  fathers  entertained  a  whole  batch  of  sov- 
ereigns. 

On  the  24th,  there  was  a  third  visit  to  the  Exhibition,  and  I 
remember  eight  magnificent  carriages  passing  down  the  Avenue 
des  Champs- Elysees.  They  were,  however,  only  drawn  by  two 
horses  each.  I  was  making  my  way  to  the  Champ  de  Mars, 
where  a  review  was  to  be  held  in  honor  of  her  Majesty,  and 
had  told  the  cab  to  wait  in  the  Rue  Beaujon,  while  I  stepped 
into  the  main  road  to  have  a  look  at  the  beautiful  scene.  The 
moment  the  carriages  were  past  I  returned  to  the  Rue  Beaujon, 
and  ran  up  against  Beranger,  who  was  living  there.     The  old 

Madame  de  Stael  which  is  not  very  generally  known.  One  day  the  head  of  the  new  sect 
went  to  see  the  authoress  of"Corinne. "  "Madame,"  he  said,  "  vous  etes  la  femme  la 
plus  remarquable  en  France  ;  moi,  je  suis  I'liomme  le  plus  remarquable.  .  Si  nous  nous  ar- 
rangions'i  vivre  quelques  mois  ensemble,  nous  aurions  paut-etre  I'enfant  le  plus  remarquable 
sur  la  t&rre."  Madame  de  Stael  politely  declined  the  honor.  As  for  the  epithet  of  "  I'igno- 
rant  "  which  Dumas,  was  fond  of  applying  to  himself,  it  arose  from  the  fact  of  Dumas,  the 
celebrated  professor  of  chemistry,  being  spoken  of  as  "  Duhias  le  savaflt "  "  Do'nc," 
laughed  the  novelist,  "je  suis  Dumas  I'igiaorant." — Editor.       


AN  ENGLISHMA N  IN  PA  RIS.  3 1 5 

man  seemed  in  a  great  hurry,  which  was  rather  surprising,  be- 
cause he  was  essentially  phlegmatic,  and  rarely  put  himself  out 
for  anything.  So  I  asked  him  the  reason  of  his  haste.  ''  1 
want  to  see  your  Queen,"  he  replied.  A  year  or  two  before  he 
had  refused  to  go  to  the  Tuileries  to  see  the  Empress,  who  had 
sent  for  him  ;  and  the  latter,  who  could  be  most  charming  when 
she  liked,  had  paid  him  a  visit  instead. 

"  I  thought  you  did  not  trouble  yourself  much  about  royalty," 
I  remarked.  "  You  refused  to  go  and  see  the  Empress,  and 
you  rush  along  to  see  the  Queen  ?  " 

"  Non  ;  je  vais  voir  la  femme :  s'il  y  avait  beaucoup  de 
femmes  comme  elle,  je  leur  pardonnerais  d'etre  reines." 

Her  Majesty  has  never  heard  of  this.  It  was  the  most  mag- 
nificent and,  at  the  same  time,  most  witty  tribute  to  her  private 
virtues.  All  this  happened  many,  many  years  ago.  Since 
then  I  have  often  wondered  why  Prince  Albert,  who  1  feel  cer- 
tain, knew  the  worth  of  all  these  men  as  well  as  he  knew  the 
merit  of  the  litterateurs  of  his  own  country,  did  not  suggest  to 
his  august  consort  a  reception  such  as  she  gave  to  the  corps 
diplomatique.  It  would  have  been  a  most  original  thing  to  do  \ 
the  recollection  of  it  would  have  been  more  delightful  even 
than  the  most  vivid  recollections  of  that  very  wonderful  week. 

In  those  days,  France  was  still  looked  upon  as  the  first 
military  power  in  Europe.  Her  soldiers  were  probably  not 
superior  to  those  who  fell  in  the  Franco-German  war,  but  their 
prestige  had  not  been  questioned.  They  were  also  more  sightly 
than  the  ill-clad  legions  of  the  Third  Republic,  so  the  review 
was  a  very  splendid  affair.  At  its  termination,  her  Majesty  re- 
paired to  the  Invalides,  to  the  tomb  of  Napoleon,  which,  though 
it  had  been  begun,  as  I  have  incidentally  stated,  under  the 
premiership  of.  M.  Guizot  in  1846-47,  was  not  finished  then, 
and  only  officially  inaugurated  nearly  six  years  afterwards. 

My  ticket  for  the  review  had  been  given  to  me  by  Marshal 
Vaillant,  the  minister  for  war,  and  the  only  Marshal  of  the 
Second  Empire  with  whom  I  was,  at  that  time,  intimately  ac- 
quainted ;  though  I  became  on  very  friendly  terms  with  Mar- 
shals MacMahon  and  Lebrun  subsequently. 

I  will  devote,  by-and-by,  a  few  notes  to  this  most  original 
soldier-figure — he  was  only  a  type  in  some  respects  ;  mean- 
while, I  may  mention  here  an  anecdote,  in  connection  with 
this  visit  of  the  Queen,  characteristic  of  the  man.  The  gover- 
nor of  the  Invalides  was  the  late  King  of  Westphalia,  Jerome 
Bonaparte.  It  was  but  natural  that  he  should  have.been  chosen 
as  the  custodian   of  his   brother's   last   resting-place.     It  was 


3i6  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

equally  natural  that  he  should  feel  reluctant  to  meet  at  that 
tomb  the  sovereign  of  a  country  which,  he  considered,  had  tor- 
tured that  brother  to  death.  Consequently  the  last  survivor  of 
the  elder  Bonapartes,  the  one  who  had  also  fought  at  Water- 
loo, foreseeing,  as  it  were,  this  pilgrimage  on  the  part  of  her 
Majesty,  had,  a  fortnight  or  so  before  the  date  of  her  intended 
visit,  gone  to  Havre,  whither  he  had  been  ordered  by  his 
doctor  on  account  of  his  health,  and  whence  he  only  returned 
when  the  Queen  of  England  had  left  France. 

The  deputy-governor  of  the  Invalides  was,  perhaps,  not  con- 
sidered sufficiently  important  to  do  the  honors  to  so  illustrious 
a  visitor,  and  Marshal  Vaillant  was  sounded  whether  he  would 
undertake  the  functions.  He  declined.  "  Je  n'ai  pas  I'hon- 
neur,  sire,"  he  said,  "  d'appartenir  a  votre  illustre  famille  et 
personne  sauf  la  famille  d'un  grand  homme  a  le  droit  d'oublier 
les  souffrances  que  ses  ennemis  lui  ont.  infligees."  He  was  an 
honest,  upright  soldier,  abrupt  and  self-willed,  but  kindly  with- 
al, and  plainly  perceived  the  faults  of  Louis-Napoleon's  policy 
and  of  his  frequently  misplaced  generosity — above  all,  of  his 
system  of  conciliating  the  sovereigns  of  Europe  by  fetes  and 
entertainments.  "  Quand  I'autre  leur  donnait  des  fetes  et  des 
representations  de  theatre,  c'etait  chez  eux,  et  pas  chez  nous, 
ils  en  payaient  les  frais."     More  of  him  in  a  little  while. 

At  the  Queen's  first  visit  to  Versailles — the  second  took 
place  on  the  Saturday  before  she  left — she  had  been  deeply 
moved  at  the  sight  of  the  picture  representing  her  welcome  at 
Eu  by  Louis-Philippe,  to  which  ceremony  I  alluded  in  one  of 
my  former  notes.  But  even  before  this  she  had  expressed  a 
wish  to  see  the  ruins  of  the  Chateau  de  Neuilly,  and  the  com- 
memorative chapel  erected  on  the  spot  where  the  Due  d'Orleans 
met  with  his  fatal  accident.  "  La  femme  qui  est  si  fidele  a  ses 
vieilles  amities  au  milieu  des  nouvelles,  surtout  quand  il  s'agit 
de  dynasties  rivales,  comme  en  ce  moment,  et  quand  cette 
femme  est  unreine,  cette  femme  est  une  amie  bien  precieuse," 
said  Jerome's  son.  Both  the  Emperor  and  the  Empress  found 
that  their  cousin  had  spoken  truly. 

Saturday,  the  25th,  had  been  fixed  for  the  fete  at  Versailles. 
In  the  morning,  the  Queen  went  to  the  palace  of  Saint-Ger- 
main, which  no  English  sovereign  had  visited  since  James  H. 
lived  there.  She  returned  to  Saint-Cloud,  and  thence  to  the 
magnificent  abode  of  Louis  XIV.,  which  she  reached  after  dark 
— the  Place  d'Armes  and  the  whole  of  the  erstwhile  royal  resi- 
dence being  brilliantly  illuminated. 

The  Imperial  and  Royal  party  entered  by  the  Marble  Court, 


A.V  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  3 1 7 

in  the  centre  of  which  the  pedestal  to  the  statue  of  Louis  XIV. 
had  been  decorated  with  the  rarest  flowers.  The  magnificent 
marble  staircase  had,  however,  been  laid  with  thick  purple 
carpets,  and  the  balustrades  almost  disappeared  beneath 
masses  of  exotics  ;  it  was  the  first  time,  if  I  remember  rightly, 
that  I  had  seen  mosses  and  ferns  and  foliage  in  such  profusion. 
The  Cent  Gardes  and  the  Guides  de  ITmperatrice  were  on  duty, 
the  former  on  the  staircase  itself,  the  latter  below,  in  the  ves- 
tibule. At  the  top,  to  the  right  and  left,  the  private  apartments 
of  the  Empress  had  been  arranged,  the  Queen  occupied  those 
formerly  belonging  to  Marie- Antoinette.  I  was  enabled  to  see 
these  a  few  days  later ;  they  were  the  most  perfect  specimens 
of  the  decorative  art  that  flourished  under  Louis  XVI.  I  have 
ever  beheld.  The  boudoir  was  upholstered  in  light  blue,  fes- 
toons of  roses  running  along  the  walls,  and  priceless  Dresden 
groups  distributed  everywhere ;  the  dressing-rooms  were  hung 
with  pale  green,  with  garlands  upon  garlands  of  violets.  The 
toilet  service  was  of  Sevres,  with  medallions  after  Lancret  and 
Watteau.  The  historical  Salle  de  I'CEil-de-Boeuf,  which  pre- 
ceded her  Majesty's  apartments,  had  been  transformed  into  a 
splendid  reception-room  for  the  use  of  the  Imperial  hosts  and 
all  their  Royal  guests,  for  there  were  one  or  two  foreign  princes 
besides,  notably  Prince  Adalbert  of  Bavaria. 

The  ball  was  to  take  place  in  the  famous  Galeriedes  Glaces  ; 
the  Empress  herself  had  presided  at  its  transformation,  which 
had  been  inspired  by  a  well-known  print  of  "  Une  Fete  sous 
Louis  Quinze."  More  garlands  of  roses,  but  this  time  droop- 
ing from  the  ceiling  and  connecting  the  forty  splendid  lustres, 
which,  together  with  the  candelabra  on  the  walls,  could  not 
have  contained  less  than  three  thousand  wax  candles.  At 
each  of  the  four  angles  of  the  vast  apartment  a  small  orchestra 
had  been  erected,  but  very  high  up,  and  surrounded  by  a  net- 
work of  gilt  wire. 

At  the  stroke  of  ten  those  wonderful  gardens  became  all  of 
a  sudden  ablaze  with  rockets  and  Chinese  candles  ;  it  was  the 
beginning  of  the  fireworks,  the  principal  piece  of  which  repre- 
sented Windsor  Castle.  After  this,  the  ball  was  opened  by 
the  Queen  and  the  Emperor,  the  Empress  and  Prince  Albert ; 
but  though  the  example  had  been  given,  there  was  very  little 
dancing.  I  was  a  comparatively  young  man  then,  but  I  was 
too  busy  feasting  my  eyes  with  the  marvellous  toilettes  to  pay 
much  heed  to  the  seductive  strains,  which  at  other  times  would 
have  set  me  tripping.  I  fancy  this  was  the  case  with  most  of 
the  guests. 

On  the  Monday  the  Queen  left  for  home. 


3l8  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS, 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

About  two  or  three  days  after  the  ball  at  Versailles,  I  went 
to  see  Marshal  Vaillant  at  the  War  Office,  to  thank  him  for 
his  kindness  in  sending  me  the  ticket  for  the  review.  Our  ac- 
quaintance was  already  then  of  a  couple  of  years'  standing. 
It  had  begun  at  Dr.  Veron's,  who  lived,  at  the  tirne,  at  the 
corner  of  the  Rue  de  Rivoli  and  the  Rue  de  Castiglione.  The 
old  soldier — he  was  over  sixty  then — had  a  very  good  memory, 
and  used  to  tell  me  garrison  stories,  love-adventures  of  the 
handsome  swashbucklers  of  the  First  Empire  and  of  the  beaux 
of  the  Restauration.  The  language  was  frequently  that  of 
Rabelais  or  Moliere,  vigorous,  to  the  point,  calling  a  spade  a 
spade,  and,  as  such,  not  particularly  adapted  to  these  notes, 
but  the  narrator  himself  was  neither  a  swashbuckler  nor  a 
beau ;  he  hated  the  carpet-knight  only  one  degree  more  than 
the  sabreur,  and  when  both  were  combined  in  the  same  man — 
not  an  unusual  thing  during  the  Second  Empire,  especially 
after  the  Crimean  and  Franco-Austrian  wars — he  simply 
loathed  him.  He  fostered  not  the  slightest  illusions  about  the 
efficiency  of  the  French  army,  albeit  that,  to  an  alien  like  my- 
self and  notwithstanding  his  friendship  for  me,  he  would  veil 
his  strictures.  At  the  same  time,  he  frankly  acknowledged 
himself  unable  to  effect  the  desired  reforms.  "  It  wants,  first 
of  all,  a  younger  and  abler  man  than  I  am  ;  secondly,  he  must 
become  a  fixture.  No  change  of  ministry,  no  political  vicis- 
situdes ought  to  affect  him.  I  do  not  play  a  political  role,  and 
never  mean  to  play  one ;  and  if  I  could  find  a  man  who  would 
carry  out  the  reforms  at  the  War  Office,  or,  rather,  reorganize 
the  whole  as  it  should  be  reorganized,  I  would  make  room  for 
him  to-morrow.  I  know  what  you  are  going  to  say.  I  derive 
a  very  comfortable  income  from  my  various  offices,  and  I  am 
a  pluralist.  If  I  did  not  take  the  money,  some  one  else  would 
who  has  not  got  a  scrap  more  talent  than  I  have.  There  is 
not  a  single  man  who  dare  tell  the  nation  that  its  army  is 
rotten  to  the  core,  that  there  is  not- a  general  who  knows  as 
much  as  a  mere  captain  in  the  Austrian  and  Prussian  armies ; 
and  if  he  had  the  courage  to  tell  the  nation,,  he.  would  be 
hounded  out  of  the  country,  his  life  would  be  made  a-  burden 
to  him.     That  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  I  am  staying,  because 


AN  Englishman  in  paris,  319 

1  can  do  no  good  by  going;  on  the  contrary,  I  might  do  a 
good  deal  of  harm.  Because,  as  you  see  it,  the  three  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  francs  of  my  different  appointments,  I  save 
them  by  looking  after  the  money  of  the  State.  Not  that  I  can 
do  much,  but  I  do  what  1  can." 

That  was  very  true :  he  was  very  careful  of  the  public 
moneys,  and  of  the  resources  of  the  Emperor  also,  entrusted 
to  him  by  virtue  of  his  position  as  Grand-Marechal  du  Palais ; 
it  was  equally  true  that  he  could  not  do  much.  Napoleon 
was,  by  nature,  lavish  and  soft-hearted ;  as  a  consequence,  he 
became  the  butt  of  every  impostor  who  could  get  a  letter  con- 
veyed to  him.  His  civil  list  of  over  a  million  and  a  half  ster- 
ling was  never  sufficient.  He  himself  was  simple  enough  in 
his  tastes,  but  he  knew  that  pomp  and  state  were  dear  to  the 
heart  of  Frenchmen,  and  he  indulged  them  accordingly.  But 
his  charity  was  a  personal  matter.  He  could  have  no  more 
done  without  it  than  without  his  eternal  cigarette.  He  called 
the  latter  "the  safety-valve  of  the  brain,"  the  former  "  the  safety- 
valve  of  pride."  I  remember  an  anecdote  which  was  told  to 
me  by  some  one  who  was  in  his  immediate  entourage  when  he 
was  only  President.  It  was  on  the  eve  of  a  journey  to  some 
provincial  town,  and  at  the  termination  of  a  cabinet  council. 
While  talking  to  some  of  his  ministers,  he  took  a  couple  of 
five-franc  pieces  from  his  waistcoat,  and  spun  them  English 
fashion.  "  C'est  tout  ce  qui  me  reste  pour  mon  voyage  de 
demain,  messieurs,"  he  said,  smiling.  One  of  them,  M.  Fer- 
dinand Barrot,  saw  that  he  was  in  earnest,  and  borrowed  ten 
thousand  francs,  which  the  President  found  on  his  dressing- 
table  when  retiring  for  the  night.  Four  and  twenty  hours 
after.  Napoleon  had  not  even  his  two  five-franc  pieces ;  they 
and  M.  Barrot's  loan  had  disappeared  in  subscriptions  to  local 
charities.  Among  the  papers  found  at  the  Tuileries  after  the 
Emperor's  flight,  there  were  over  two  thousand  begging  letters, 
all  dated  within  a  twelvemonth,  and  all  marked  with  their 
answer  in  the  corner — that  is,  with  the  amount  sent  in  reply. 
That  sum  amounted  to  not  less  than  sixty  thousand  francs. 
And  be  it  remembered  that  these  were  the  petitions  the  Em- 
peror had  not  entrusted  to  his  secretaries  or  ministers  as  com- 
ing within  their  domain.  The  words  of  Marshal  Vaillant, 
spoken  many  years  before,  "  I  cannot  do  much,  but  I  do  what 
I  can,"  are  sufficiently  explained. 

On  the  day  alluded  to  above,  the  marshal  was  seriously  com- 
plaining of  the  emperor's  extravagance.  He  did  not  hold  with 
entertaining  so  many  sovereigns.     "  I  do  not   say  this,"  he 


32d  AA'  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PAklS. 

added,  "  with  regard  to  yours,  for  her  hospitality  deserved 
such  return  as  the  Emperor  gave  her  ;  but  with  regard  to  the 
others  who  will  come,  you  may  be  sure,  if  we  last  long  enough. 
Well,  we'll  see  \  perhaps  you'll  remember  my  words." 

In  fact,  the  old  soldier  was  never  much  dazzled  by  the 
grandeur  of  those  entertainments,  nor  did  he  foster  many 
illusions  with  regard  to  their  true  value  in  cementing  inter- 
national friendships.  The  marshal  was  not  dazzled  by  any- 
thing ;  and  though  deferential  enough  to  the  members  of  the 
Emperor's  family,  he  never  scrupled  to  tell  them  his  mind. 
The  Emperor's  cousin  (Plon-Plon)  could  tell  some  curious 
stories  to  that  effect.  The  marshal  had  a  hatred  of  long- 
winded  people,  and  especially  of  what  Carlyle  calls  wind-bags. 
Another  of  Louis  Napoleon's  cousins  came  decidedly  under 
the  latter  description :  I  allude  to  the  Prince  de  Canino.  Ir 
order  to  get  rid  as  much  as  possible  of  wordy  visitors,  Vaillant 
had  hit  upon  the  method  of  granting  them  their  interviews  at 
a  very^  very  early  hour  in  the  morning  ;  in  the  summer  at  6.30 
in  the  morning,  in  the  winter  at  7.15.  "  People  do  not  like 
getting  out  of  bed  at  that  time,  unless  they  have  something 
serious  to  communicate,"  he  said  ;  and  would  not  relax  his 
rule,  even  for  the  softer  sex.  The  old  warrior,  who  had  prob- 
ably been  an  early  riser  all  his  life,  found  the  arrangement 
work  so  well,  that  he  determined  at  last  not  to  make  any 
exceptions.  "  I  get  the  day  to  myself,"  he  laughed.  Now,  it 
so  happened  that  the  Prince  de  Canino  asked  him  for  an 
interview  ;  and,  as  a  matter  of  course,  Vaillant  appointed  the 
usual  hour.  Next  morning,  to  Vaillant's  great  surprise,  instead 
of  the  Prince,  came  two  of  his  friends.  The  latter  came  to 
ask  satisfaction  of  Vaillant  for  having  dared  to  disturb  a  per- 
sonage of  the  prince's  importance  at  so  early  an  hour.  "  Mais 
je  ne  I'ai  pas  derange  du  tout :  il  n'avait  qu'a  ne  pas  venir,  ce 
que  du  reste,  il  a  fait,"  said  Vaillant ;  then  he  added,  "  Mais 
meme,  si  je  consentais  k  donner  raison  au  prince  de  mon 
offense  imaginaire,  je  ne  me  battrai  pas  k  quatre  heures  de 
I'apres-midi ;  done,  il  aurait  k  se  deranger  ;  il  vaut  mieux  qu'il 
reste  dans  son  lit.  Je  vous  salue,  messieurs."  With  which  he 
bowed  them  out.  When  the  Emperor  heard  of  it,  he  laughed 
till  the  tears  ran  down  his  cheeks,  and  Napoleon  did  not  laugh 
outright  very  often  or  easily. 

There  are  a  great  many  stories  about  this  objection  of  Mar- 
shal Vaillant  to  be  troubled  for  nothing ;  and,  as  usual,  they 
overshoot,  the  mark.  He  is  supposed  to  have  acted  very  cava- 
lierly with  highly  placed  personages,  and  even  with  ladies  in 


A  A'  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  32 1 

very  high  society.  Of  course,  I  was  never  present  at  inter- 
views of  that  kind,  but,  during  my  long  acquaintance  with  him, 
I  was  often  seated  at  his  side  when  less  exalted  visitors  were 
admitted.  At  the  best  of  times  his  manner  was  abrupt,  though 
rarely  rude,  unless  there  was  a  reason  for  it,  albeit  that  the 
outsider  might  fail  to  fathom  it  at  the  first  blush.  I  remember 
being  with  him  in  his  private  room,  somewhere  about  the 
sixties,  when  his  attendant  brought  him  a  card. 

"  Show  the  gentleman  in,"  said  Vaillant,  after  having  looked 
at  it. 

Enter ^  a  tall,  well-dressed  individual,  the  rosette  of  the 
Legion  of  Honor  in  his  button-hole,  evidently  a  retired  officer. 

"  What  is  it  you  want  with  me  ? "  asked  the  marshal,  who 
had  remained  seated  with  his  back  towards  the  visitor. 

"  Being  in  Paris  for  the  Christmas  and  New  Year's  hoHdays, 
your  excellency,  I  thought  it  my  duty  to  pay  my  respects  to 
you." 

"  Is  that  all  you  want  with  me  ? "  asked  the  marshal. 

"  That  is  all,  your  excellency,"  stammered  the  visitor. 

"  Very  well  :  then  I'll  wish  you  good-morning." 

I  suppose  I  must  have  looked  somewhat  shocked  at  this  very 
unceremonious  proceeding,  for,  when  the  door  was  closed,  the 
marshal  explained. 

"  You  need  not  think  that  I  have  done  him  an  injustice. 
When  fellows  like  this  present  their  respects  it  always  means 
that  they  want  me  to  present  them  with  something  else  ;  that 
is  why  I  cut  them  short." 

Sometimes  these  interviews  took  a  comical  turn,  for  the 
marshal  could  be  very  witty  when  he  liked.  In  the  land  of 
"  equality,"  everybody  is  always  on  the  look-out  for  greater 
privileges  than  his  fellows,  and  in  no  case  were  and  are  favors 
more  indiscriminately  requested  than  with  the  view  of  avoiding 
military  service.  A  thousand  various  pretexts,  most  of  them 
utterly  ridiculous,  were  brought  forward  by  the  parents  to  pre- 
serve their  precious  sons  from  the  hated  barrack  life.  In 
many  instances,  a  few  years  of  soldiering  would  have  done 
those  young  hopefuls  a  great  deal  of  good,  because  those  who 
clamored  loudest  for  exemption  were  only  spending  their  time 
in  idleness  and  mischief.  In  the  provinces  there  was  a  chance 
of  influencing  the  conseil  de  revision  by  means  of  the  prefet,  if 
the  parents  were  known  to  be  favorable  to  the  government ;  by 
means  of  the  bishops,  if  they  still  had  a  hankering  after  the 
former  dynasties  ;  and,  not  to  mince  matters,  if  they  were 
simply  rich,   by  means  of  bribery.     In  Paris  the  matter  was 


3^2  ^  A^  engL  ishmA  n  in  pa  rjs. 

somewhat  more  difficult ;  the  members  of  the  council  were  fre- 
quently changed  at  the  last  moment,  and  at  all  times  the 
recruits  to  be  examined  were  too  numerous  for  a  parent  to 
trust  to  the  memory  of  those  members.  The  military  author- 
ities had  introduced  a  new  rule,  to  the  effect  that  the  names  of 
the  recruits  to  be  examined  should  not  be  called  out  until  their 
examination  was  finished  ;  and,  with  the  best  will  in  the  world, 
it  is  often  difficult  to  distinguish  between  un  fils  de  famille  and 
a  downright  plebeian  if  both  happen  to  come  before  you  "  as 
God  made  them."  Consequently,  not  withstanding  the  con 
siderable  ingenuity  of  the  parties  interested  to  let  the  examining 
surgeon-major  know  "  who  was  who,"  mistakes  frequently  oc- 
curred ;  the  young  artisan,  who  had  no  more  the  matter  with 
him  than  the  young  wealthy  bourgeois,  was  dismissed  as  unfit 
for  the  service,  while  the  latter  was  pronounced  apt  in  every 
respect. 

Apropos  of  this,  I  know  a  good  story,  for  the  truth  of  which 
I  can  vouch,  because  it  happened  to  a  member  of  the  family 
with  which  I  became  connected  by  marriage  afterwards.  He 
had  a  son  who  was  of  the  same  age  as  his  coachman's.  Both 
the  lads  went  to  draw  at  the  same  time,  both  drew  low  numbers. 
The  substitute  system  was  still  in  force,  but,  just  at  that  mo- 
ment, there  was  a  war-scare — not  without  foundation — and 
substitutes  reached  high  prices.  It  would  not  have  mattered 
much  to  the  rich  man.  Unfortunately,  he  was  tight-fisted,  and 
the  mother  pleaded  in  vain.  The  wife  was  just  as  extravagant 
as  the  husband  was  mean ;  she  had  no  savmgs,  and  she  cud- 
gelled her  brain  to  find  the  means  of  preserving  her  darling 
from  the  vile  contact  of  his  social  inferiors  without  putting  her 
hand  in  her  pocket — which,  moreover,  was  empty.  She  went 
a  great  deal  into  society,  was  very  handsome,  clever,  and  fas- 
cinating. By  dint  of  ferreting,  she  got  to  know  the  probable 
composition  of  the  conseil  de  revision — barring  accidents. 
History  does  not  say  how,  but  she  wheedled  the  surgeon-major 
into  giving  her  a  distinct  promise  to  do  his  best  for  her  dear 
son.  Of  course,  in  order  to  do  some  good,  the  surgeon  had  to 
see  the  young  fellow  first ;  and  there  was  the  difficulty,  because 
madame  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  officer  under  pecul- 
iar circumstances,  and  could  not  very  well  introduce  him  to 
her  home :  besides,  just  on  account  of  the  war-scare,  the  author- 
ities had  become  very  strict,  the  practices  of  many  officers 
were  suspected,  and  it  would  never  have  done  for  the  gentle- 
man to  give,  his  superiors  as  much  as  a  loophole  for  their  sus- 
picion by  visiting   the   lady.     Time   was   getting   short ;  the 


AA^  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  323 

acquaintance  had  ripened  into  friendship  very  quickly,  because, 
three  days  before  the  time  appointed  for  the  sitting  of  the 
council,  madame  had  never  seen  the  surgeon,  and  on  the  eve 
of  that  sitting  the  final  arrangement  had  been  concluded.  It 
was  to  this  effect :  that  madame's  son  would  pretend  to  have 
hurt  his  hand,  and  appear  with  a  black  silk  bandage  round  his 
wrist.  The  thing  is  scarcely  credible,  but  the  coachman's  son, 
an  engine-fitter,  had  hurt  his  wrist,  and  put  a  strip  of  black 
ribbon  round  it.  The  coachman's  family-name  began  with  a 
B,  the  lady's  name  with  a  C.  The  coachman's  son  was  taken 
for  the  other,  and  declared  unfit  for  military  service  by  reason 
of  his  chest,  to  his  great  surprise  and  joy,  as  may  be  imagined. 
But  the  surprise,  though  not  the  joy,  of  the  examining  officer 
was  greater  still  when,  in  the  next  batch,  another  young  fellow 
appeared  with  a  strip  of  black  ribbon  round  his  wrist.  To  ask 
his  name  was  an  impossibility.  The  surgeon  was  afraid  that 
he  had  been  betrayed,  or  that  his  secret  had  leaked  out,  and 
without  a  moment's  hesitation,  declared  the  real  Simon  Pure 
sound  in  lungs  and  limb. 

I  am  afraid  I  have  drifted  a  little  bit  from  Marshal  Vaillant's 
comical  interviews,  but  am  coming  back  to  them  in  a  round- 
about way.  The  common,  or  garden  trick  to  get  those  young 
fellows  exempted,  where  bribery  was  impossible  or  private  in- 
fluence out  of  the  question,  was  to  make  them  sham  short-sight- 
edness, or  deafness,  or  impediment  in  the  speech.  We  have 
heard  before  now  of  professors  who  cure  people  of  stammering : 
it  is  a  well-known  fact  that  in  those  days  there  was  a  professor 
who  taught  people  to  stammer ;  while,  personally,  I  know  an 
optician  on  the  Boulevard  des  Italiens  whose  father  made  a 
not  inconsiderable  fortune  by  spoiling  young  fellows'  sights — 
that  is,  by  training  them,  for  a  twelvemonth  before  the  drawing 
of  lots,  to  wear  very  powerful  lenses.  Of  course,  this  had  to 
be  done  gradually,  and  his  fee  was  a  thousand  francs.  I  have 
known  him  to  have  as  many  as  twenty  or  thirty  pupils  at  a 
time.  No  doubt  the  authorities  were  perfectly  aware  of  this, 
but  they  had  no  power  to  interfere.  The  process  for  "  teaching 
deafness  "  was  even  a  more  complicated  one,  but  it  did  succeed 
for  a  time  in  imposing  upon  the  experts,  until,  by  a  ministerial 
decree,  it  was  resolved  to  draft  all  these  clever  stammerers, 
and  even  those  who  were  really  suffering  from  the  complaints 
the  others  simulated,  into  the  transport  and  medical  services. 

It  was  then  that  Marshal  Vaillant  was  overwhelmed  with 
visits  from  anxious  matrons  who  wanted  to  save  their  sons,  and 
that  the  comical  interviews  took  place. 


324  '  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

"  But,  excellency,  my  son  is  really  as  deaf  as  a  post,"  one 
would  ^xclaim.. 

"  All  the  better,  madame  :  he  won't  be  frightened  at  the 
first  sound  of  serious  firing.  Nearly  all  young  recruits  are  ter- 
ror-stricken at  the  first  whizzing  of  the  bullets  around  them. 
I  was,  myself,  I  assure  you.  He'll  make  an  admirable  sol- 
dier." 

"  But  he  won't  be  able  to  hear  the  word  of  command." 

'*  Not  necessary,  madame  :  he'll  only  have  to  watch  the 
others,  and  do  as  they  do.  Besides,  we'll  draft  him  into  the 
cavalry  :  it  is  really  the  charger  that  obeys  the  signals,  not  the 
trooper.  It  will  be  an  advantage  to  him  to  be  deaf  in  the 
barrack-room,  for  there  are  many  things  said  there  that  would 
bring  a  blush  to  his  nice,  innocent  cheeks  ;  and  upon  the  whole 
it  is  best  he  should  not  hear  them.  I  have  the  honor  to  wash 
you  good-morning,  madame." 

And  though  the  woman  knew  that  the  old  soldier  was  mer- 
cilessly chaffing  her  and  her  milksop  son,  the  thing  was  done 
so  politely  and  so  apparently  seriously  on  the  marshal's  part, 
that  she  was  fain  to  take  no  for  an  answer. 

On  one  occasion,  it  appears — for  the  marshal  liked  to  tell 
these  tales,  and  he  was  not  a  bad  mimic — he  had  just  dis- 
missed a  lady  similarly  afflicted  with  a  deaf  son,  when  another 
entered  whose  offspring  suffered  from  an  impediment  in  his 
speech.  "  Madame,"  the  marshal  said,  without  moving  a 
muscle,  "  your  son  will  realize  the  type  of  the  soldier  immor- 
talized by  M.  Scribe  in  *  Les  Huguenots.'  You  know  what 
Marcel  sings."     And,  striking  a  theatrical  attitude,  he  trolled — 

"  *  Un  vieux  soldat  salt  souffrir  et  se  taire 
Sans  murmurer.' 

With  this  additional  advantage,"  he  went  on,  "that  your  son 
will  be  a  young  one.  I  can,  however,  promise  you  another 
comfort.  A  lady  has  just  left  me  whose  son  is  as  deaf  as  a 
post.  I'll  not  only  see  that  your  son  is  drafted  into  the  same 
company,  but  I'll  make  it  my  special  business  to  have  their 
beds  placed  side  by  side.  The  young  fellow  can  go  on  stam- 
mering as  long  as  he  likes,  it  won't  offend  his  comrade's  hear- 

"  But  my  son  is  very  short-sighted,  as  blind  as  a  bat,  your 
excellency  ;  he  w^on't  be  able  to  distinguish  the  friend  from  the 
foe,"  expostulated  a  third  lady. 

"  Don't    let  that  trouble  you,  madame,"  was  the  answer  ; 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 


3^5 


"we'll  put  him  in  the  infantry  :  he  has  only  got  to  blaze  away^ 
he  is  sure  to  hit  some  one  or  something."  ^ 

These  were  the  scenes  when  the  marshal  was  in  an  amiajbl^' 
mood  ;  when  he  was  not,  he  would  scarcely  suffer  the  slightest 
remark  ;  but,  if  the  remark  was  ventured  upon,  it  had,  to  be 
effectual,  to  be  couched  in  language  as  abrupt  as  his.  "  Soft-saw- 
der "  he  hated  above  all  things  ;  and  even  when  he  was  Wrong, 
he  would  not  admit  it  to  any  one  who  whined  or  spoke  prettily. 
On  the  other  hand,  when  the  visitor  or  petitioner  became  as 
violent  as  he  was  himself,  he  often  reversed  his  decision.  One 
day,  while  waiting  for  the  marshal,  I  met  in  the  anteroom  an 
individual  who,  by  his  surly  looks,  was  far  from  pleased.  Af- 
ter striding  up  and  down  for  a  while,  he  began  to  bang  on  the 
table,  and  to  shout  at  the  top  of  his  voice,  calling  the  old  sol- 
dier all  kinds  of  names.  Out  came  the  marshal  in  his  shirt- 
sleeves— the  moment  the  lady-visitors  were  gone  he  always 
took  off  his  coat.  "  Come  back,  monsieur,"  he  said  to  the  in- 
dividual. In  a  few  moments  the  latter  came  out  of  the  mar- 
shal's private  room,  his  face  beaming  with  joy.  Then  I  went  in, 
and  found  the  marshal  rubbing  his  hands  with  glee.  "A 
capital  fellow,  after  all,  a  capital  fellow,"  he  kept  on  saying. 

"  He  may  be  a  capital  fellow,"  I  remarked,  "but  he  is  not 
very  choice  in  his  language." 

"That's  only  his  way  ;  he  does  not  like  to  be  refused  things, 
but  he  is  a  capital  fellow  for  all  that,  and  that's  why  I  granted 
his  request.  If  he  had  whined  about  it,  I  should  not  have 
done  so,  though  I  think  he  is  entitled  to  what  he  came  for." 

Strategical  skill,  in  the  sense  the  Germans  have  taught  us 
since  to  attach  to  the  word,  Marshal  Vaillant  had  little  or  none. 
Most  of  his  contemporaries,  even  the  younger  generals,  were 
scarcely  better  endowed  than  their  official  chief.  They  were 
all  good  soldiers  when  it  came  to  straightforward  fighting,  as 
they  had  been  obliged  to  do  in  Africa,  but  there  was  not  a 
great  leader,  scarcely  an  ordinary  tactician,  among  them.  As 
I  have  already  shown,  among  the  men  most  painfully  aware  of 
this  was  the  marshal  himself  ;  nevertheless,  when  he  once 
made  up  his  mind  to  a  course  of  action,  it  was  almost  impos- 
sible to  dissuade  him  from  it.  He  had  set  his  heart  upon 
Marshal  Niel  occupying  the  Aland  island  during  the  win- 
ter of  '54-55,  in  the  event  of  Bomarsund  falling  into 
French  hands.  He  did  not  for  a  moment  consider  that  the 
fourteen  thousand  troops  were  too  few  to  hold  it,  if  the  Rus- 
sians cared  to  contest  its  possession, — too  many,  if  they  merely 
confined  themselves  to  intercepting  the  supplies,  which  they 


326  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS, 

could  have  done  without  much  difficulty.  A  clever  young  di- 
plomatist, who 'knew  more  about  those  parts  than  the  whole  of 
the  intelligence  department  at  the  Ministry  for  War,  at  last 
made  him  abandon  his  decision.  I  came  in  as  he  went  out ; 
the  marshal  was  as  surly  as  a  bear  with  a  sore  head.  "  Clever 
fellow  this,"  he  growled,  "  very  clever  fellow."  And  then,  in 
short  jerky  sentences,  he  told  me  the  whole  of  the  story,  asking 
my  opinion  as  to  who  was  right  and  who  was  wrong.  I  told 
him  frankly  that  I  thought  the  young  diplomatist  was 
right.  "  That's  what  I  think,"  he  spluttered ;  "  but  you'll  admit 
that  it  is  d d  annoying  to  be  wrong." 

It  would  be  wrong  to  infer  that  the  marshal,  though  deficient 
as  a  strategist,  was  the  rough-and-ready  soldier,  indifferent  to 
more  cultured  pursuits,  as  so  many  of  his  fellow-officers  were. 
He  was  very  fond  of  certain  branches  of  science,  and  rarely 
missed  a  meeting  of  the  scientific  section  of  the  Academic,  of 
which  he  was  a  member.  What  attracted  him  most,  however, 
was  astronomy  ;  next  to  that  came  entomology  and  botany. 
Still,  though  an  enthusiast,  and  often  risking  a  cold  to  ob- 
serve an  astral  phenomenon,  he  objected  to  wasting  thousands 
of  pounds  for  a  similar  purpose  ;  in  fact,  when  it  came  to  dis- 
bursing government  money  for  a  scientific  or  other  vaguely 
defined  purpose,  his  economic  tendencies  got  the  better  of 
him.  "  I  am  a  very  interesting  scientific  phenomenon  myself," 
he  used  to  say,  "  or,  at  any  rate,  I  was  ;  and  yet  no  one  spent 
any  money  to  come  and  see  me." 

He  was  alluding  to  a  fact  which  he  often  told  me  himself, 
and  afterwards  narrated  in  his  "  memoirs." 

"  For  a  long  while,  especially  from  18 18  to  1830,  when  the 
weather  happened  to  be  very  dry  and  cold,  and  when  I  re- 
turned to  my  grateless,  humble  room,  after  having  spent  the 
day  in  heated  apartments,  I  was  both  the  spectator  and  the 
medium  of  strange  electrical  phenomena. 

"  The  moment  I  had  undressed  and  stood  in  my  shirt,  the 
latter  began  to  crackle  and  became  absolutely  luminous,  emit- 
ting a  lot  of  sparks;  the  tails  stuck  together,  and  remained 
like  that  for  some  time." 

I  asked  him  on  one  occasion,  whether  he  had  ever  com 
municated  all  this  to  scientific  authorities.  His  answer, 
though  not  a  direct  one  to  my  question,  was  not  only  very 
characteristic  of  the  mental  and  moral  attitude  of  the  soldiers 
of  the  Empire  towards  the  Bourbons,  but  to  a  great  extent  of 
the  attitude  of  the  Bourbons  themselves  towards  everybody 
and  everything  that  was  not  absolutely  in  accordance  with  the 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  327 

policy,  sociology,  and  religious  tenets  of  their  adherents,  whether 
laymen  or  priests. 

"  You  must  remember,  my  dear  fellow,"  he  replied,  "  the 
regime  under  which  we  lived  when  I  was  subject  to  those  elec- 
trical manifestations ;  you  must  further  remember  that  I  had 
fought  at  Ligny  and  at  Waterloo,  and,  though  not  absolutely 
put  on  the  retired  list  in  18 15,  I  and  the  rest  of  the  Emperor's 
soldiers  were  watched,  and  our  most  innocent  acts  construed 
into  so  many  small  attempts  at  conspiracy.  You  have  not 
the  slightest  idea  what  the  police  were  like  under  the  Restau- 
ration,  let  alone  the  priesthood.  If  I  couple  these  two,  I  am 
not  speaking  at  random.  If  I  had  communicated  the  things 
I  told  you  of,  to  no  matter  what  savant,  he  would  necessa- 
rily have  published  the  result  of  his  observations  and  experi- 
ments, and  do  you  know  what  would  have  happened  ?  I 
should  have  been  tried,  and  perhaps  condemned,  for  witch- 
craft— yes,  for  witchcraft, — or  else  I  should  have  been  taken 
hold  of  by  the  priests,  not  as  a  scientific  phenomenon,  but  as 
a  religious  one,  a  kind  of  stigmatise.  They  would  have  made 
it  out  to  their  satisfaction  that  I  was  either  half  a  saint,  or  a 
whole  devil,  and  in  either  case  my  life  would  have  become  a 
burden  to  me.  Only  those  who  have  lived  under  the  Bourbons 
can  form  an  idea  of  the  terrorizing  to  which  they  lent  them- 
selves. People  may  tell  you  that  they  were  kind  and  charit- 
able, and  this,  that,  and  the  other.  There  never  were  greater 
tyrants  than  they  were  at  heart ;  and  if  the  Due  d'Angouleme 
or  the  Comte  de  Chambord  had  come  to  the  throne,  France 
would  have  sunk  to  the  intellectual  level  of  Spain.  I  would 
sooner  see  the  most  godless  republic  than  a  return  to  that 
state  of  things,  and  I  need  not  tell  you  that  I  firmly  believe 
that  not  a  sparrow  falls  to  the  earth  without  God's  will.  No, 
I  held  my  tongue  about  my  electrical  sensations ;  if  I  had  not, 
you  would  not  now  be  talking  to  Marshal  Vaillant — I  should 
have  become  a  jabbering  idiot,  if  I  had  lived  long  enough." 
It  is  the  longest  speech  I  have  ever  heard  the  marshal  make. 

The  marshal's  own  rooms  were  simply  crammed  with  cases 
full  of  beetles,  butterflies,  etc.  The  space  not  taken  up  by 
these  was  devoted  to  herbariums  ;  and  in  the  midst  of  the 
most  interesting  conversation — interesting  to  the  listener  es- 
pecially, for  the  old  soldier  was  an  inexhaustible  mine  of  anec- 
dote— he,  the  listener,  would  be  invited  to  look  at  a  bit  of 
withered  grass  or  a  wriggling  caterpillar. 

After  the  Franco- Austrian  war,  there  was  an  addition  to  the 
jnarshal's  household — I  might  say  family,  for  the  old  man  be- 


328  .       AN  ENGLISHMAN-  IN  PARIS. 

came  as  fond  of  Brusca  as  if  she  had  been  a  human  being. 
The  story  went  that  she  had  been  bequeathed  to  him  at  Sol- 
ferino  by  her  former  master,  an  Austrian  general ;  and  the 
marshal  did  not  deny  it.  At  any  rate,  he  found  Brusca  sitting 
by  the  dying  man,  and  licking  the  blood  oozing  from  his 
wounds. 

Brusca  was  not  much  to  look  at,  and  you  might  safely  have 
defied  a  committee  of  the  most  eminent  authorities  on  canine 
breeds  to  determine  hers,  but  she  was  very  intelligent,  and  of 
a  most  affectionate  disposition.  Nevertheless,  she  was  always 
more  or  less  distant  with  civilians  :  it  took  me  many  years  to 
worm  myself  into  her  good  graces,  and  I  am  almost  certain 
that  I  was  the  on\y pekin  thus  favored.  The  very  word  made 
her  prick  up  her  ears,  show  her  teeth,  and  straighten  her  tail 
as  far  as  she  could.  For  the  appendage  did  not  lend  itself 
readily  to  the  effort ;  it  was  in  texture  like  that  of  a  colley  or 
Pomeranian,  and  twisted  like  that  of  a  pug.  Curiously  enough, 
her  objection  to  civilians  did  not  extend  to  the  female  portion, 
but  the  sight  of  a  blouse  drove  her  frantic  with  rage.  On  such 
occasions,  she  had  to  be  chained  up.  As  a  rule,  however, 
Brusca's  manifestations,  whether  of  pleasure  or  the  reverse, 
were  uttered  in  a  minor  key  and  unaccompanied  by  any  change 
of  position  on  her  part.  She  mostly  lay  at  the  marshal's  feet, 
if  she  was  not  perched  on  the  back  of  his  chair,  for  Brusca 
was  not  a  large  dog.  She  accompanied  the  marshal  in  his 
walks  and  drives,  she  sat  by  his  side  at  table,  she  slept  on  a 
rug  at  the  foot  of  his  bed.  Now  and  then  she  took  a  gentle 
stroll  through  the  apartment,  carefully  examining  the  dried 
plants  and  beetles.  But  one  day,  or  rather  one  evening,  there 
was  a  complete  change  in  her  behavior  :  it  was  at  one  of  the 
marshal's  receptions,  on  the  occasion  of  Emperor  Francis- 
Joseph's  visit  to  Paris.  Some  of  the  officers  of  his  Majesty's 
suite  had  been  invited,  and  at  the  sight  of  the,  to  her,  once 
familiar  uniforms  her  delight  knew  no  bounds.  She  was  stand- 
ing at  the  top  of  the  landing  when  she  caught  sight  of  them, 
and  all  those  present  thought  for  a  moment  that  the  creature 
was  going  mad.  As  a  matter  of  course,  Brusca  was  not  allowed 
to  com.e  into  the  reception-rooms,  but  on  that  night  there  was 
no  keeping  her  out.  Locked  up  in  the  marshal's  bedroom, 
she  made  the  place  ring  with  her  barks  and  yells,  and  they  had 
to  let  her  out.  With  one  bound  she  was  in  the  drawing-rooms, 
and  for  three  hours  she  did  not  leave  the  side  of  the  Austrian 
oflficers.  When  they  took  their  departure,  Brusca  was  perfectly 
ready,  nay  eager,  to  abandon  her  home  and  her  fond  master 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  I.V  PARIS.  329 

for  their  sake,  and  had  to  be  forcibly  prevented  from  doing  so. 
The  marshal  did  not  know  whether  to  cry  or  to  laugh,  but  in 
the  end  he  felt  ready  to  forgive  Brusca  for  her  contemplated 
desertion  of  him  in  favor  of  her  countrymen.  Some  one  who 
objected  to  the  term  got  the  snub  direct.  "Je  maintiens  ce 
que  j'ai  dit,  compatriotes  ;  et  je  serais  rudement  fier  d'avoir 
une  compatriote  comme  elle." 

If  possible,  Brusca  from  that  moment  rose  in  the  marshal's 
estimation  ;  she  was  a  perfect  paragon.  "  Cette  chienne  n'a 
pas  seulement  toutes  les  qualites  de  son  genre,  elle  n'a  meme 
pas  les  vices  de  son  sexe.  Elle  m'aime  tellement  bien  qu'elle 
ne  veut  etre  distraite  par  aucun  autre  amour.  Elle  vit  dans  le 
plus  rigoureux  celibat.  La  malheureuse,"  he  said  every  now 
and  then,  "  elle  a  failli  se  compromettre." 

In  spite  of  the  marshal's  boast  aboutBrusca's  morals,  he  was 
one  day  compelled  to  admit  a  faux  pas  on  her  part,  and  for 
some  weeks  the  "  vet  "  had  an  anxious  time  of  it.  "  Elle  a 
mal  tourne,  mais  que  voulez-vous,  je  ne  vais  pas  I'abandonner." 
And  when  the  crisis  was  over :  "Son  incartade  ne  lui  a  pas 
porte  bonheur.     Esperons  que  la  legon  lui  profitera." 

Brusca  had  her  portrait  painted  by  the  '*  Michael-Angelo  of 
dogs,"  Jadin,  and  when  it  was  finished  the  visitors  were  given 
an  opportunity  of  admiring  it  in  the  drawing-room,  where  it 
was  on  view  for  several  consecutive  Tuesdays.  After  that,  a 
great  many  of  the  marshal's  familiars,  supposed  to  be  capable 
of  doing  justice  to  Brusca's  character  in  verse,  were  appealed 
to,  to  write  her  panegyric,  but  though  several  Academicians 
tried  their  hands,  their  lucubrations  were  not  deemed  worthy 
to  be  inscribed  on  the  frame  of  Brusca's  portrait,  albeit  that 
one  or  two — the  first  in  Greek — were  engrossed  on  vellum,  and 
adorned  the  drawing-room  table.  The  effusion  that  did  event- 
ually adorn  the  frame  was  by  an  anonymous  author — it  was 
shrewdly  suspected  that  it  was  by  the  marshal  himself,  and 
ran  as  follows  : — 

"  Si  je  suis  pres  de  lui,  c'est  que  je  le  merite. 
Revez  mon  sort  brilliant ;  revez,  ambitieux ! 
Du  bien  de  mon  maitre  en  ami  je  profite, 
J'aimerais  son  pain  noir  s'il  etait  malheureux." 

Another  peculiarity  of  Marshal  Vaillant  was  never  to  accept 
a  letter  not  prepaid  or  insufficiently  paid.  The  rule  was  so 
strictly  enforced,  both  in  his  private  and  official  capacity,  that 
many  a  valuable  report  was  ruthlessly  refused,  and  had  to  be 
traced  afterwards  through  the  various  post-ofhces  of  Europe. 


33 o  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

Seven  times  out  of  ten  the  marshal,  when  travelling  by  him- 
self, missed  his  train.  This  would  lead  one  to  infer  that  he 
was  unpunctual ;  on  the  contrary,  he  was  the  spirit  of  punctu- 
ality. Unfortunately,  he  over-did  the  thing.  He  generally 
reached  the  station  half  an  hour  or  three-quarters  before  the 
time,  seated  himself  down  in  a  corner,  dozed  off,  and  did  not 
wake  up  until  it  was  too  late.  The  marshal  was  a  native  of 
Dyon;  and  at  Nuits,  situated  between  the  former  town  and 
Beaune,  there  lived  a  middle-aged  spinster  cousin  whom  he 
often  went  to  visit.  He  nearly  always  returned  by  the  last 
train  to  Dyon,  where  he  had  his  quarters  at  the  Hotel  de  la 
Cloche ;  and  although  often  in  the  midst  of  a  pleasant  family 
party,  insisted  upon  leaving  long  before  it  was  necessary.  As 
a  matter  of  course,  the  station  was  in  semi-darkness — for  Nuits 
is  not  a  large  place — and  the  booking-office  was  not  open. 
One  night,  it  being  very  warm,  he  stretched  himself  leisurely 
on  a  grass  plot,  instead  of  on  the  hard  seat,  and  there  he  was 
found  at  six  in  the  morning :  several  trains  had  come  and  gone, 
but  no  one  had  dared  to  wake  him.  "  Mais,  monsieur  le  mare- 
chal,  on  aurait  cru  vous  manquer  de  respect  en  vous  eveillant. 
Apres  tout,  vous  n'etes  pas  tout  le  monde,  il  y  a  des  distinc- 
tions," said  the  stationmaster  apologetically.  "  La  mort  et  le 
sommeil,  monsieur,"  was  the  answer,  "  font  table  rase  de  toute 
distinction."  It  was  a  French  version  of  our  "  Death  levels 
all :  "  the  marshal  was  fond  of  paraphrasing  quotations,  espe- 
cially from  the  English,  of  which  he  had  a  very  fair  knowledge, 
having  translated  some  military  works  many  years  before. 
However,  from  that  day  forth,  instructions  were  given  to  take 
no  heed  of  his  rank,  and  to  awaken  him  like  any  other  mortal, 
rather  than  have  him  miss  his  train. 

In  fact  the  marshal  did  not  like  to  be  constantly  reminded  of 
his  rank ;  if  anything,  he  was  rather  proud  of  his  very  humble 
origin,  and,  instead  of  hiding  his  pedigree  like  a  good  many 
parvenus,  he  took  delight  in  publishing  it.  I  have  seen  a  let- 
ter of  his  to  some  one  who  inquired  on  the  subject,  not  from 
sheer  curiosity.  "  My  grandfather  was  a  silkmercer  in  a  small 
way  on  the  place  St.  Vincent,  at  Dyon.  His  father  had  been 
a  coppersmith.  I  am  unable  to  trace  back  further  than  that ; 
my  quarters  of  nobility  stop  there.  Let  me  add,  at  the  same 
time,  that  there  is  no  more  silly  proverb  than  the  one  '  Like 
father  like  son.'  My  father  died  poor,  and  respected  by  every- 
one. I  do  not  believe  that  he  had  a  single  enemy.  His 
friends  called  him  Christ,  he  was  so  good  and  kind  to  every- 
body.    I  am  riot  the  least  like  him,.     He  was  short  and  slim, 


AiV  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  33 1 

I  am  rather  tall  and  stout ;  he  was  gentle,  and  people  say  that  I 
am  abrupt  and  harsh.  In  short,  he  had  as  many  virtues  as 
I  am  supposed  to  have  faults,  and  I  am  afraid  the  world  is  not 
at  all  mistaken  in  that  respect." 

I,  who  knew  him  as  well  as  most  people,  am  afraid  that  the 
world  was  very  much  mistaken.  As  a  matter  of  course,  the 
old  soldier  had  many  faults,  but  his  good  qualities  far  out- 
weighed the  latter.  He  was  modest  to  a  degree,  and  the  flat- 
teries to  which  men  in  his  position  are  naturally  exposed  pro- 
duced not  the  slightest  effect  upon  him.  When  in  an  amiable 
mood,  he  used  to  cut  them  short  with  a  "  Oui,  oui ;  le  marechal 
Vaillant  est  un  grand  homme,  il  n'y  a  pas  de  doute  ;  tout  le 
monde  est  d'accord  sur  ce  chapitre  Ik,  done,  n'en  parlous  plus." 
When  not  in  an  amiable  mood,  he  showed  them  the  door,  say- 
ing, "  Monsieur,  si  je  suis  aussi  grand  homme  que  vous  le 
dites,  je  suis  trop  grand  pour  m'occuper  de  vos  petites  affaires. 
J'ai  I'honneur  de  vous  saluer." 

He  was  fond  of  his  native  town,  one  of  whose  streets  bore 
or  still  bears  his  name,  though,  according  to  all  authorities,  it 
never  smelt  sweet  by  whatsoever  appellation  it  went.  But  he 
objected  to  being  lionized,  so  he  never  stayed  with  the  prefect, 
the  maire,  or  the  general  commanding  the  district,  and  simply 
took  up  his  quarters  at  the  hotel,  insisting  on  being  treated 
like  any  other  visitor.  The  maire  respected  his  wishes ;  the 
population  did  not,  which  was  a  sore  point  with  the  marshal. 
Nevertheless,  when,  in  1858,  during  their  Exhibition,  they  wanted 
him  to  distribute  the  prizes,  he  consented  to  do  so,  on  condition 
that  his  reception  should  be  of  the  simplest.  The  Dyonnais 
promised,  and  to  a  certain  extent  kept  their  word.  Next 
morning  the  prefect,  accompanied  by  the  authorities,  fetched 
him  in  his  carriage.  The  ceremony  was  to  take  place  in  the 
park  itself,  and  at  the  entrance  was  posted  General  Picard,  ac- 
companied by  his  staff,  and  at  the  head  of  several  battalions. 
The  moment  the  marshal  set  foot  to  the  ground,  the  general 
saluted,  the  drums  rolled,  and  the  bands  played.  The  mar- 
shal felt  wroth,  and  at  the  conclusion  of  the  distribution  sent 
for  the  general,  whom,  not  to  mince  matters,  he  roundly  bul- 
lied. 

General  Picard  did  not  interrupt  him.  *'  Have  you  finished, 
monsieur  le  marechal  ? "  he  asked  at  last. 

"  Of  course,  I  have  finished." 

"  Very  well ;  the  next  time  you  come  out  as  a  simple  bour- 
geois, you  had  better  leave  the  grand  cordon  of  the  Legion  of 
Honor  at  home.     If  I  had  not  saluted  you  as  I  did,  I  should 


332 


AxY  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 


have  had  the  reprimand  of  the  minister  of  war,  and  of  the 
chancellor  of  the  Legion  of  Honor.     After  all  I  prefer  yours." 

"  But  I  am  the  minister  for  war." 

"  I  know  nothing  about  that.  I  only  saw  an  old  gentleman 
with  the  grand  cordon.  If  you  are  the  minister  for  war,  perhaps 
you  will  be  good  enough  to  tell  Marechal  Vaillant^  when  you 
see  him,  that  he  must  not  tempt  old  soldiers  like  myself  to  for- 
get their  duty." 

"  You  are  right,  general.  But  what  a  hot  fiery  lot  these 
Dyonnais  are,  aren't  they  ?  "  Picard  was  a  native  of  Dyon 
also. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

After  the  lapse  of  thirteen  years,  it  is  difficult  to  put  the 
exact  hour  and  date  to  each  exciting  incident  of  a  period  which 
was  absolutely  phenomenal  throughout.  I  kept  no  diary,  only 
a  few  rough  notes,  because  at  that  time  I  never  thought  of  com- 
mitting my  recollections  to  paper,  and  have,  therefore,  to  trust 
almost  wholly  to  my  memory  ;  nevertheless  I  am  positive  as  to 
main  facts,  whether  witnessed  by  myself  or  communicated  to 
me  by  friends  and  acquaintances.  I  remember,  for  instance, 
that,  immediately  after  the  declaration  of  war,  I  was  warned  by 
my  friends  not  to  go  abroad  more  than  I  could  help,  to  keep 
away  as  much  as  possible  from  crowds.  "  You  are  a  for- 
eigner," said  one,  "  and  that  will  be  sufficient  for  any  ragamuffin 
who  wants  to  do  you  a  bad  turn,  to  draw  attention  to  you. 
By  the  time  you  have  satisfactorily  proved  your  nationality 
you  will  be  beaten  black  and  blue,  if  not  worse." 

The  advice  was  given  on  Friday,  the  15  th  of  July,  about  six 
in  the  afternoon  ;  that  is,  a  few  hours  after  the  news  of  the 
scenes  in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  and  the  Senate  had  spread, 
and  when  the  centre  of  Paris  was  getting  gradually  congested 
with  the  inhabitants  of  the  faubourgs.  My  friends  were  men 
of  culture  and  education,  and  not  at  all  likely  to  be  carried 
away  by  the  delirium  which,  on  that  same  night  and  for  the 
next  week,  converted  Paris  into  one  vast  lunatic  asylum,  whose 
inmates  had  managed  to  throw  off  the  control  of  their  keepers ; 
yet  there  was  not  a  single  civilian  among  them  who  had  a 
doubt  about  the  eventual  ^victory  of  France,  about  her  ability 
"  to  chastise  the  arrogance  of  the  King  of  Prussia,"  to  put 
the  matter  in  their  own  words. 

"  To  try  to  be  wise  after  the  event,"  is  a  thing  I  particularly 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 


zzz 


detest,  but  I  can  honestly  affirm  that  I  did  not  share  their 
confidence,  although  I  did  not  suspect  for  a  moment  that  the 
defeat  would  be  so  crushing  as  it  was.  I  remembered  many 
incidents  that  had  happened  during  the  previous  four  years  of 
which  they  seemed  conveniently  oblivious  ;  I  was  also  aware, 
perhaps,  of  certain  matters  of  which  they  were  either  pro- 
foundly ignorant,  or  professed  to  be ;  but,  above  all,  I  took  to 
heart  the  advice,  tendered  in  the  shape  of,  "  You  are  a  for- 
eigner:" and  though  I  feared  no  violence  or  even  verbal 
recrimination  on  their  part,  I  chose  to  hold  my  tongue. 

I  hold  no  brief  for  the  late  Emperor,  but  I  sincerely  believe 
that  he  was  utterly  averse  to  the  war.  I,  moreover,  think  that 
if  he  had  consented  to  remain  in  Paris  or  at  St.  Cloud,  the 
disaster  would  have  happened  all  the  same.  He  had  no  illu- 
sions about  the  efficiency  of  his  armies,  though  he  may  not 
have  been  cognizant  of  the  thorough  rottenness  of  the  whole. 
But  to  have  said  so  at  any  time,  especially  during  the  last  four 
years,  would  have  been  simply  to  sign  the  death-warrant  of 
his  dynasty.  He  endeavored  to  remedy  the  defects  in  a 
roundabout  way  as  early  as  October,  .'66,  by  appointing  a  com- 
mission to  draw  up  a  plan  for  the  reorganization  of  the  army. 
Apparently,  Napoleon  wanted  larger  contingents  ;  in  reality,  he 
hoped  that  the  inquiry  would  lay  bare  such  evidence  of  corrup- 
tion as  would  justify  him  in  dismissing  several  of  the  men 
surrounding  him  from  their  high  commands.  But  both  those 
who  only  saw  the  apparent  drift  as  well  as  those  who  guessed 
at  the  real  one  were  equally  determined  in  their  opposition. 
It  was  the  majority  in  the  Legislature  which  first  uttered  the 
cry,  immediately  taken  up  by  the  adversaries  of  the  regime. 
"  If  this  bill  becomes  law  there  will  be  an  end  of  favorable 
numbers."  In  fact,  the  bill  meant  compulsory  service  for  every 
one,  and  the  consent  of  the  deputies  to  it  would  at  once  have 
forfeited  their  position  with  their  electors,  especially  with  the 
peasantry,  to  whom  to  apply  the  word  "  patriotism  "  at  any 
time  is  tantamount  to  the  vilest  prostitution  of  it. 

Of  the  makeshift  for  that  law  I  need  say  little  or  nothing. 
Without  a  single  spy  in  France,  without  a  single  attache  in  the 
Rue  de  Lille,  Bismarck  was  enabled  by  that  only  to  determine 
beforehand  the  effects  of  one  serious  military  defeat  on  the 
dynasty  of  the  Emperor  ;  he  was  enabled  to  calculate  the  exact 
strength  of  the  chain  of  defence  which  would  be  offered  sub- 
sequently.    The  French  army  was  like  the  Scotch  lad's  por^ 

ridge,    "  sour,  burnt,  gritty,   cold,  and, it,  there   was   not 

enough  of  it."     It  is  not  underrating  Bismarck's  genius  to  say 


334  ^^  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

that  a  man  of  far  inferior  abilities  than  he  would  have  plainly 
seen  the  course  to  pursue. 

Was  Napoleon  III.  steeped  in  such  crass  ignorance  as  not 
to  have  had  an  inkling  of  all  this  ?  Certainly  not ;  but  he  was 
weary,  body  and  soul,  and,  but  for  his  wife  and  son,  he  would, 
perhaps  willingly,  have  abdicated.  He  had  been  suffering  for 
years  from  one  of  the  most  excruciating  diseases,  and  a  fort- 
night before  the  declaration  of  war  the  symptoms  had  become 
so  alarming  that  a  great  consultation  was  held  between  MM. 
Nelaton,  Ricord,  Fauvel,  G.  See,  and  Corvisart.  The  result 
was  the  unanimous  conclusion  of  those  eminent  medical  men 
that  an  immediate  operation  was  absolutely  necessary.  Curi- 
ously enough,  however,  the  report  embodying  this  decision  was 
only  signed  by  one,  and  not  communicated  to  the  Empress  at 
all.  It  may  be  taken  for  granted  that,  had  she  known  of  her 
husband's  condition,  she  would  not  have  agitated  in  favor  of 
the  war,  as  she  undoubtedly  did. 

It  was  only  after  the  Emperor's  death  at  Chislehurst  that 
the  document  in  question  was  found,  but  I  happened  to  know 
Dr.  Ricord  intimately,  and  most  of  the  facts,  besides  those 
stated  above,  were  known  to  me  on  that  memorable  Friday, 
the  15th  of  July,  1870.  As  I  have  said  already,  I  thought  it 
wiser  to  hold  my  tongue. 

But  though  determined  not  to  speak — knowing  that  it  would 
do  no  earthly  good — I  was  equally  determined  to  see  and  to 
hear ;  so,  at  about  eight,  I  sallied  forth.  The  heat  was  posi- 
tively stifling,  and  it  was  still  daylight,  but,  in  their  eagerness 
to  show  their  joy,  the  Parisians  would  not  wait  for  darkness  to 
set  in,  and,  as  I  went  along,  I  saw  several  matrons  of  the 
better  classes,  aided  by  their  maids,  make  preparations  on  the 
balcony  for  illuminating  the  moment  the  last  rays  of  the  sun 
should  set  behind  the  horizon.  I  distinctly  say  matrons  of 
the  better  classes,  because  my  way  lay  through  the  Chausse'e 
d'Antin,  where  the  tenancy  of  an  apartment  on  the  first,  second, 
or  third  floor  implied  a  more  than  average  income.  I  was, 
and  am,  aware  that  neither  refinement  nor  good  sense  should 
be  measured  by  the  money  at  one's  command,  but  under  sim- 
ilar circumstances  it  is  impossible  to  apply  any  other  valid 
test.  In  the  streets  there  was  one  closely  wedged-in,  seething 
mass,  and  the  noise  was  deafening  ;  nevertheless,  at  the  sight 
of  one  of  those  matrons  thus  engaged  there  was  a  momentary 
lull,  followed  immediately  by  vociferous  applause  and  the  cry 
•  of  "  Les  meres  die  la  patrie."  From  a  cursory  glance  upward,  I 
game  to  the  conclusion  that  the  progeny  of  these  ladies,  if  they 


AjV  englishman  in  PARIS.  335 

were  blessed  with  any,  could  as  yet  contribute  but  very  little  to 
the  glory  of  the  nation  ;  still,  I  reflected,  at  the  same  time,  that 
they  had  probably  brothers  and  husbands  who,  within  a  few 
hours,  might  be  called  to  the  front,  "  nevermore  to  return ;  " 
that,  therefore,  the  outburst  of  patriotism  could  not  be  called 
an  altogether  cheap  one.  In  fact,  none  but  the  thoroughly 
irreclaimable  sceptic  could  fail  to  be  struck  with  the  genuine 
outburst  of  national  resentment  against  a  whole  nation  on  the 
part  of  another  nation,  which,  as  I  take  it,  means  something 
different  from  unalloyed  patriotism.  It  was  a  mixture  of  hatred 
and  chauvinism,  rather  than  the  latter  and  more  elevated  senti- 
ment. The  "  sacred  soil  of  France  " — though  why  more  sacred 
than  any  other  soil,  I  have  never  been  able  to  make  out — was 
not  threatened  in  this  instance  by  Prussia ;  carefully  considered, 
it  was  not  even  a  question  of  national  honor  offended,  for  which 
Paris  professed  itself  ready  as  one  man  to  draw  the  sword, 
and  yet  the  thousands  in  the  street  that  night  behaved  as  if 
each  of  them  had  a  personal  quarrel  to  settle,  not  with  one  or 
two  Germans,  but  with  every  son  and  daughter  of  the  Father- 
land. 

It  was,  perhaps,  a  quarter  after  eight  when  I  found  myself 
in  the  Chaussee  d' Antin,  and  the  distance  to  the  Boulevard  des 
Italiens  was  certainly  not  more  than  two  hundred  and  fifty 
yards ;  nevertheless,  it  took  me  more  than  half  an  hour  to  get 
over  it,  for  immediately  on  my  emerging  into  the  main  thorough- 
fare I  looked  at  a  clock  which  pointed  to  nine.  Two  things 
stand  out  vividly  in  my  memory ;  the  first,  the  preparations  of 
several  business  houses  to  illuminate  on  a  grand  scale,  there 
and  then  ;  i.e.,  the  putting  up  of  the  elaborate  crystal  devices 
used  by  them  on  the  15th  of  August,  the  Emperor's  fete-day. 
It  was  exactly  a  month  before  that  date,  and  a  neighbor  of  an 
enthusiastic  tradesman  remarked  upon  the  fact.  "  I  know," 
was  the  answer  ;  ''  I'll  leave  it  there  till  the  14th  of  next  month, 
and  then  I'll  add  two  bigger  ones  to  it."  On  the  day  proposed, 
not  only  were  there  none  added,  but  the  original  one  had  also 
disappeared,  for  by  that  time  the  Second  Empire  was  virtually 
in  the  throes  of  death.  The  second  thing  I  remember  was  the 
enormous  strip  of  calico  outside  a  bookseller's  shop,  with  the 
announcement,  "  Dictionnaire  Fran^ais-Allemand  a  I'usage  des 
Fran9ais  a  Berlin."  In  less  than  two  months  I  read  the  fol- 
lowing; it  was  an  extract  from  the  interview  between  Bismarck 
and  Moltke  on  the  one  side  and  General  de  Wimpffen  on  the 
other,  on  the  eve  of  the  capitulation  of  Sedan  :  "  You  do  not 
know  the  topography  of  the  environs  of  Sedan,"  replied  Gen- 


^^6  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

eral  von  Moltke  ;  "  and,  seeing  that  we  are  on  the  subject,  let 
me  give  you  a  small  instance  which  thoroughly  shows  the  pre- 
sumption, the  want  of  method,  of  your  nation.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  the  campaign,  you  provided  your  officers  with  maps  of 
Germany,  when  they  utterly  lacked  the  means  of  studying 
the  geography  of  their  own  country,  seeing  that  you  had  no 
maps  of  your  own  territory."  I  could  not  help  thinking  of  the 
bookseller,  and  wondering  how  many  dictionaries  he  sold  during 
those  first  few  days. 

I  did  not  get  very  far  that  night,  only  as  far  as  the  Maison 
d'Or,  where  I  was  perforce  obliged  to  stop  and  look  on.  I 
stood  for  nearly  an  hour  and  a  half,  for  there  was  no  possi- 
bility of  getting  a  seat,  and  during  that  time  I  only  heard  one 
opinion  adverse  to  the  war.  It  was  that  of  a  justly  celebrated 
dramatist,  who  is  by  no  means  hostile  to  either  the  Emperor 
or  the  Empire,  albeit  that  he  had  declined  several  years  ago 
to  be  presented  to  Napoleon  when  Princess  Mathilde  offered 
him  to  do  so.  He  positively  hates  the  Germans,  but  his  hatred 
did  not  blind  him  to  their  great  intellectual  qualities  and  to 
their  powers  of  organization.  "  It  is  all  very  fine  to  shout  'A 
Berlin ! ' "  he  said  ;  "  and  it  is  very  probable  that  some  of 
these  bellowers  (braillards)  will  get  there,  though  not  In  the 
order  of  procession  they  expect ;  they  will  be  in  front,  and  the 
Germans  at  their  backs."  He  spoke  very  low,  and  begged  me 
not  to  repeat  what  he  had  said.  "  If  I  am  mistaken  I  do  not 
want  to  be  twitted  with  having  thrown  cold  water  on  the  martial 
ardor  of  my  countrymen  ;  if  I  am  right,  I  will  willingly  forego 
the  honor  of  having  prophesied  the  humiliation  of  my  country- 
men." That  is  why  I  suppress  his  name  here,  but  I  have  often 
thought  of  his  words  since  ;  and  when  people.  Englishmen 
especially,  have  accused  him  of  having  contributed  to  the  cor- 
ruption of  the  Second  Empire  by  his  stage  works,  I  have  smiled 
to  myself.  With  the  exception  of  one,  he  has  never  written  a 
play  that  did  not  teach  a  valuable  moral  lesson  ;  but  he  is  an 
excellent  husband,  father,  and  son,  though  he  is  perhaps  not 
over  generous  with  his  money. 

I  am  bound  to  say  that,  though  the  noise  on  the  Boulevards 
was  terrific,  and  the  crowds  the  densest  I  have  ever  seen  in 
Paris  or  anywhere,  they  refrained  from  that  horse-play  so  objec- 
tionable in  England  under  similar  circumstances.  Of  course 
there  were  exceptions ;  such  as,  for  instance,  the  demonstra- 
tion at  the  Prussian  Embassy:  but,  in  the  main,  the  behavior 
was  orderly  throughout.  I  do  not  know  what  might  have  been 
the  result  of '  any  foreigners — German  or  otherwise — showing 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  337 

themselves  conspicuously,  but  they  were  either  altogether  absent, 
or  else  concealed  their  nationality  as  much  as  possible  by 
keeping  commendably  silent. 

Nevertheless,  the  Parisian  shopkeeper,  who  is  the  most  ar- 
rant coward  on  the  face  of  the  earth  where  a  crowd  is  concerned, 
put  up  his  shutters  during  the  whole  of  Saturday  and  Sunday, 
except  those  who  professed  to  cater  for  the  inner  man.  I 
doubt  whether,  on  the  first-named  day,  there  was  a  single 
stroke  of  work  done  by  the  three  or  four  hundred  thousand  of 
Parisian  artisans.  I  exclude  cabmen,  railway  porters,  and  the 
like.  They  had  their  hands  full,  because  the  exodus  began 
before  the  war  news  was  four  and  twenty  hours  old.  Our  own 
countrymen  seemed  in  the  greatest  hurry  to  put  the  Channel 
between  themselves  and  France.  If  the  enemy  had  been  al- 
ready at  the  gates  of  Paris  their  retreat  could  have  been 
scarcely  more  sudden.  The  words  "bouches  inutiles  "  had  as 
yet  not  been  pronounced  or  invented  officially ;  but  I  have  a 
notion  that  a  cabman  suggested  them  first,  in  a  conversation 
with  a  brother  Jehu.  "  Voil^  des  bouches  utiles  qui  s'en  vont, 
mon  vieux,"  he  said,  while  waiting  on  the  Place  Vendome  to 
take  passengers  to  the  railway.  Until  then  I  had  never  heard 
the  word  used  in  that  sense. 

Apropos  of  cabmen,  I  heard  a  story  that  day  for  the  truth 
of  which  I  will,  however,  not  vouch.  There  was  a  cab-stand 
near  the  Prussian  Embassy,  and  most  of  the  drivers  knew 
every  one  of  the  attaches,  the  latter  being  frequent  customers. 
On  the  Saturday  morning,  a  cab  was  called  from  the  rank  to 
take  a  young  attache  to  the  eastern  railway  station.  He  was 
going  to  join  his  regiment.  On  alighting  from  the  cab,  the 
attach^  was  about  to  pay  his  fare ;  the  driver  refused  the 
money.  "  A  man  does  not  pay  for  his  own  funeral,  monsieur  ; 
and  you  may  take  it  that  I  have  performed  that  office  for  you. 
Adieu,  monsieur,"  With  that  he  drove  off.  True  or  not,  the 
mere  invention  of  the  tale  would  prove  that,  at  any  rate,  the 
lower  middle  classes  were  cocksure  of  the  utter  annihilation  of 
the  Germans. 

I  happened  to  have  occasion  to  go  to  the  northern  station  on 
the  Sunday,  to  see  some  one  off  by  the  mail.  That  large, 
cold,  bare  hall,  which  does  duty  as  a  waiting-room,  was  crowded, 
and  a  number  of  young  Germans  were  among  the  passengers  ; 
respectable,  stalwart  fellows  who,  to  judge  by  their  dress,  had 
occupied  good  commercial  positions  in  the  French  capital. 
Most  of  them  were  accompanied  by  friends  or  relations. 
They  seemed  by  no  means  elated  at  the  prospect  before  them, 

22 


338  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

and  scarcely  spoke  to  one  another.  As  a  matter  ot  coursCt 
they  were  scattered  all  over  the  place,  in  groups  of  three  and 
four.  I  noticed  that  there  was  an  exceedingly  strong  contin- 
gent of  sergents  de  ville,  and  several  couples  of  officiers  de  paix 
— what  in  England  we  should  call  superintendents  of  police. 
The  latter  had  evidently  received  particular  instructions,  for 
they  had  posted,  as  much  as  possible,  a  sergent  de  ville  close 
to  every  group.  At  first  I  mistook  the  drift  of  the  supervision, 
but  it  was  soon  explained  to  me  when  one  of  the  officiers  de 
paix  came  up  to  a  group  somewhat  larger  than  the  others. 
"  Messieurs,"  he  said  very  politely,  "  vous  etes  Allemands,  et 
je  vous  prierai  de  vous  mettre  ensemble,  afin  de  pouvoir  vous 
proteger,  s'il  y  a  besoin."  I  heard  afterwards  that,  amidst  all 
his  weighty  occupations,  the  Emperor  himself  had  given  orders 
to  have  the  Germans  especially  protected,  as  he  feared  some 
violence  on  the  part  of  the  Parisians. 

During  the  next  week  the  excitement  did  not  abate,  but,  save 
for  some  minor  incidents,  it  was  the  sam.e  thing  over  and  over 
again  :  impromptu  processions  along  the  main  thoroughfares 
to  the  singing  of  the  "  Marseillaise  "  and  the  "  Chant  du  De- 
part," until  the  crowds  had  got  by  heart  Alfred  de  Musset's 
"  Rhin  Allemand,"  of  which,  until  then,  not  one  in  a  thousand 
had  ever  heard. 

Meanwhile  the  news  had  spread  of  the  suicide  of  Prevost- 
Paradol,  the  newly-appointed  French  ambassador  at  Washing- 
ton, and  the  republicans  were  trying  to  make  capital  out  of  it. 
According  to  them,  it  was  political  shame  and  remorse  at  hav- 
ing deserted  his  colors,  despair  at  the  turn  events  were  tak- 
ing, that  prompted  the  step.  These  falsehoods  have  been 
repeated  until  they  became  legends  connected  with  the  fall  of 
the  Second  Empire.  To  the  majority  of  Englishmen,  Prevost- 
Paradol  is  not  even  a  name ;  talented  as  he  was.  Frenchmen 
would  have  scarcely  known  more  about  him  if  some  politicians, 
for  purposes  of  their  own,  had  not  chosen  to  convert  him  into 
a  self-immolated  martyr  to  the  Imperialist  cause — or,  rather,  to 
that  part  of  the  cause  which  aimed  at  the  recovery  of  the  left 
banks  of  the  Rhine.  I  knew  Prevost-Paradol,  and  he  was  only 
distinguished  from  hundreds  of  thousands  of  Frenchmen  in 
that  his  "  France  Nouvelle  "  was  a  magnificent  attempt  to 
spur  his  countrymen's  ambition  in  that  direction  ;  but  this 
very  fact  is  an  additional  argument  against  the  alleged  cause 
of  his  self-destruction.  He  shot  himself  during  the  night  of 
the  loth  and  nth  of  July,  when  not  the  most  pessimistically 
inclined  could  foresee  the  certainty  of  a  war,  and,  least  of  all, 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  339 

the  disastrous  result  of  it  to  France.  Those  who  would  know 
the  real  cause  of  Prevost-ParadoPs  suicide  had  better  read  a 
short  tale  that  appeared  anonymously  in  the  Reime  des  Deux 
Mondes  of  February,  i860.  The  hero  of  "  Madame  de  Mar- 
gay  "  is  none  other  than  the  brilliant  journalist  himself,  and 
the  germs  of  suicidal  mania  were  so  plainly  discernible  in  him, 
as  to  make  those  who  knew  the  writer  wonder  that  he  had  not 
killed  himself  long  before  he  did. 

I  have  already  said  that  the  excitement  did  not  abate,  but 
the  more  serious-minded  began  to  look  critical,  and,  among  the 
latter,  curiously  enough,  there  were  a  good  many  superior  offi- 
cers in  the  army.  They  were  too  loyal  to  express  openly 
their  want  of  confidence  in  their  leaders,  but  it  was  evident 
enough  to  the  careful  listener  that  that  want  of  con- 
fidence did  exist.  I  had  a  conversation  during  that  week 
with  one  of  the  former,  whose  name,  for  obvious  reasons, 
I  must  suppress ;  and  this  is,  as  far  as  I  can  remember, 
what  he  said,  knowing  that  he  could  trust  me.  "  There  is  not 
a  single  properly  drawn  ordnance  map  of  France  at  the  War 
Office  ;  and  if  there  were,  there  is  not  a  single  man  in  power 
there  who  would  know  how  to  use  it.  I  doubt  whether  there 
is  a  settled  plan  of  campaign  ;  they'll  endeavor  to  conduct  this 
war  as  they  conducted  the  Crimean,  Italian,  and  Mexican 
wars — that  is,  on  the  principle  which  stood  them  in  such  good 
stead  in  Algeria,  though  they  ought  to  know  by  this  time  how 
very  risky  those  experiments  turned  out,  especially  in  '59 ; 
and  I  have  no  need  to  tell  you  that  we  are  going  to  confront  a 
different  army  from  that  of  the  Austrians  or  the  Russians, 
Todleben  notwithstanding.  The  African  school  of  warfare 
ought  to  be  played  out  by  now,  but  it  is  not.  To  a  certain 
extent,  the  Emperor  is  to  blame  for  this.  You  remember  what 
his  uncle  said :  '  There  is  not  a  single  general  of  whose 
draught  I  am  not  aware.  Some  will  go  up  to  their  waists  ; 
others  up  to  their  necks  ;  others,  again,  to  over  their  heads ; 
but  the  latter  number  is  infinitely  small,  I  assure  you.'  The 
Emperor  is  not  in  the  same  position  with  regard  to  the  capacity 
of  his  generals,  let  alone  of  his  officers." 

"  But  he  ought  to  be,"  I  objected ;  "  he  interviews  a  great 
many  of  them  on  Sunday  mornings."  I  was  alluding  to  the 
informal  levee  held  at  the  Tuileries  every  week,  to  which  the 
generals  and  the  general  officers  by  sea  and  by  land  were 
admitted. 

"  You  are  right — he  ought  to  be,"  was  the  answer  ;  "  and  if 
a  great  deal  of  conscientious  trouble  on  his  part  could  have  put 


340  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

him  in  possession  of  such  knowledge,  he  would  have  had  it 
by:  this  time.  Of  course,  you  have  never  been  present  at  such 
a  reception;  for  all  civilians,  with  the  exception  of  a  few 
ministers,  are  rigorously  excluded.  I  repeat,  the  intention  is  a 
good  one,  but  it  is  not  carried  out  properly.  The  very  fact 
that  at  the  outset  it  met  with  the  most  strenuous  opposition 
from  nearly  all  the  ministers  and  high  dignitaries  of  the 
Imperial  household  ought  to  have  shown  his  Majesty  the 
necessity  of  interviewing  these  officers  alone,  without  as  much 
as  a  chambellan  in  waiting.  As  it  is,  do  you  know  what 
happens  ?  I  will  tell  you.  The  Emperor  passes  before  these 
officers  as  they  are  standing  around  the  room,  stops  before 
nearly  every  one  to  ask  a  question,  inviting  him,  at  the  same 
time,  to  lodge  a  protest  if  necessary  against  any  standing  abuse 
or  to  suggest  a  measure  of  reform.  But  the  chambellan  is 
close  at  his  heels  ;  the  minister  for  war,  the  marshal  command- 
ing the  Imperial  Guard,  the  military  governor  of  Paris,  are 
standing  but  a  few  steps  away.  The  officer  to  whom  the  ques- 
tion is  addressed  feels  himself  tongue-tied ;  he  knows  that  all 
these  can  hear  every  word  he  says,  and,  rather  than  be  marked 
by  his  superiors  as  a  tiresome  meddler,  he  prefers  to  hold  his 
tongue  altogether — that  is,  if  he  be  comparatively  honest. 
Call  it  cowardice  if  you  like,  but  most  men  will  tell  you  that 
such  cowardice  exists  in  all  administrations  whether  civil  or 
military.  Consequently,  the  Emperor,  though  he  may  know  a 
good  many  officers  by  name  and  by  sight,  in  reality  knows  noth- 
ing of  their  capacities.  I  may  safely  say  that,  for  the  last 
fifteen  or  sixteen  years,  there  have  not  been  a  dozen  important 
promotions,  either  in  the  army  or  the  navy,  justified  by  the 
'record  of  service'  of  the  officer  promoted.  Divisions — nay, 
whole  army  corps — have  been  confided  to  men  who,  in  the 
hour  of  need,  will,  no  doubt,  prove  very  dashing  and  ve«y^ 
plucky,  but  who  have  no  more  notion  of  handling  large  masses 
of  men  than  an  ordinary  drill-sergeant.  To  use  a  more  strik- 
ing metaphor — they  have  selected  the  most  desperate  punters 
at  baccarat  to  work  out  complicated  chess  problems.  What 
the  result  will  be  with  such  a  champion  as  Von  Moltke, 
Heaven  alone  knows.  There  are  men  at  the  head  of  our 
cavalry  forces  who  can  scarcely  hold  themselves  on  horse- 
back; there  are  others  commanding  divisions  and  even  corps- 
d'armee  who  know  all  about  bridges,  pontoons,,  artillery,  and 
so  forth,  but  who  could  no  more  execute  a  regularly  organized 
retreat  or  advance  than  a  child.  The  theory  is  that  their  dash 
and    courage,  their   reckless,  happy-go-lucky,  but    frequently 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  341 

successful  African  system,  will  make  up  for  their  ignorance  of 
tactics  and  strategy.  Naturally  this  is  an  implied  rather  than 
an  expressed  opinion,  for  many  of  those  favorites  believe  them- 
selves to  be  the  equals  in  these  latter  sciences  of  Jomini  and 
Napoleon,  perhaps  of  Moltke  also.  Do  not  misunderstand 
me ;  there  are  a  number  of  officers  in  the  French  army  who 
have  made  a  careful  study  of  the  science  of  war,  and  who,  in 
that  respect,  would  favorably  compare  with  an  equal  number 
of  the  best  instructed  German  officers,  but  they  have  by  this 
time  resigned  themselves  to  keep  in  the  background,  because 
any  attempt  on  their  part  to  raise  the  standard  of  military 
knowledge  has  for  years  been  systematically  discountenanced 
by  those  nearest  to  the  throne.  On  the  other  hand,  the  men 
thus  kept  at  arm's  length  have  not  been  altogether  satisfied  to 
suffer  in  silence.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  they  have  given 
vent  to  their  grievances  openly ;  they  have  done  worse,  per- 
haps, from  the  point  of  view  of  maintaining  the  discipline  of 
the  army.  They  have  adopted  a  semi-critical,  semi-hostile 
attitude  towards  their  superiors.  The  officers'  mess,  such  as 
it  exists  in  England,  is  virtually  unknown  on  the  Continent, 
the  least  of  all  in  France.  The  unmarried  officer  takes  his 
meals  at  the  table  d'hote  of  an  hotel,  and  he  does  talk  '  shop ' 
now  and  then  in  the  presence  of  civilians.  The  criticisms  he 
utters  do  find  their  way  to  the  barrack-room,  so  that  by  now 
the  private  has  become  sceptical  with  regard  to  the  capabilities 
of  the  generals  and  marshals.  The  soldier  who  begins  to 
question  the  fitness  of  his  chiefs  is  like  the  priest  who  begins 
to  question  the  infallibility  of  the  pop»- ;  he  is  a  danger  to  the 
institution  to  which  he  belongs." 

In  reality,  my  informant  told  me  little  that  was  new,  though 
he  perhaps  did  not  suspect  that  I  was  so  well  informed.  I 
had  heard  most  of  all  this,  and  a  great  deal  besides,  from  a 
connection  of  mine  by  marriage,  whose  strictures  in  the  same 
direction  came  with  additional  force,  seeing  that  he  was  a 
frequent  and  welcome  guest  at  the  Tuileries.  He  was  a 
general  officer,  but,  with  a  frankness  that  bordered  on  the 
cynical,  maintained  that  but  for  his  capital  voice  and  skill  at 
leading  "  the  cotillon  "  he  would  probably  have  never  risen 
beyond  the  rank  of  captain  ;  "  for  there  are  a  thousand  cap- 
tains that  know  a  greal  more  than  I  do,  a  couple  of  thousand 
that  know  as  much  as  I  do,  and  very  few  who  know  less,  none 
of  whom  have  ever  been  promoted,  and  never  will  be,  unless 
they  earn  their  promotion  at  the  point  of  the  sword."  Accord- 
ing to  him,  the  '-  records  of  service  "  were  not  as  much  as 


34^  AA^  englishman  in  PARIS. 

looked  into  at  the  periods  of  general  promotions.  "  A  clever 
answer  to  one  of  the  Emperor's  questions,  a  handsome  face 
and  pleasing  manners,  are  sufficient  to  establish  a  reputation 
at  the  Chateau.  The  ministers  for  war  take  particular  care 
not  to  rectify  those  impulsive  judgments  of  the  Emperor  and 
Empress,  because  they  rightly  think  that  careful  inquiries  into 
the  candidates'  merits  would  hurt  their  own  proteges,  and  those 
of  their  fellow-ministers.  This  happy-go-lucky  system — for  a 
system  it  has  become — founded,  upon  the  most  barefaced 
nepotism,  is  condoned  by  those  who  ought  to  have  opposed  it 
with  all  their  might  and  main  at  the  very  outset,  on  the  theory 
that  Frenchmen's  courage  is  sure  to  make  up  in  the  end  for 
all  shortcomings,  which  theory  in  itself  is  a  piece  of  im- 
pertinence, or  at  any  rate  of  overweening  conceit,  seeing  that 
it  implies  that  absence  of  such  courage  in  the  officers  of  other 
nations.  But  there  is  something  else.  All  these  favorites 
are  jealous  of  one  another,  and,  mark  my  words,  this  jealousy 
will  in  this  instance  lead  to  disastrous  results,  because  the 
Emperor  will  find  it  as  difficult  to  comply  with  as  to  refuse 
their  individual  extravagant  demands.  The  time  is  gone  by 
for  radical  reforms.  '  You  cannot  swop  horses  while  crossing  a 
stream,'  said  Abraham  Lincoln  ;  and  we  are  crossing  a  dan- 
gerous stream.  The  Emperor  has,  besides,  a  horror  of  new 
faces  around  him,  and  to  extirpate  the  evil  radically  he  would 
have  to  make  a  clean  sweep  of  his  military  household." 

I  must  preface  the  following  notes  by  a  personal  remark. 
For  private  reasons,  which  I  cannot  and  must  not  mention,  I 
have  decided  not  to  put  my  name  to  these  jottings,  whether 
they  are  published  before  or  after  my  death.  I  am  aware  that 
by  doing  this  I  diminish  their  value;  because,  although  I 
never  played  a  political  or  even  a  social  part  in  France,  I  am 
sufficiently  well  known  to  inspire  the  reader  with  confidence. 
As  it  is,  he  must  take  it  for  granted  that  I  was  probably  the 
only  foreigner  whom  Frenchmen  had  agreed  not  to  consider 
an  enemy  in  disguise. 

While  my  relative  wa?  giving  me  the  above  resume,  I  was 
already  awaie  that  there  existed  in  the  French  War  Office  a 
scheme  of  mobilization  and  a  plan  of  campaign  elaborated  by 
Marshal  Niel,  the  immediate  predecessor  of  Marshal  Leboeuf. 
I  knew  moreover,  that  this  plan  provided  for  the  formation  of 
three  armies,  under  the  respective  commands  of  Marshals  Mac- 
Mahon,  Bazaine,  and  Canrobert,  and  that  the  disposition  of 
these  three  armies  had  been  the  basis  of  negotiations  for  a 
Franco-Austrian  alliance  which  had  been  started   six   weeks 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  343 

previous  to  the  declaration  of  war  by  General  Lebrun  in  Vienna. 
Up  till  the  2 2d  or  23d  of  July  the  preparations  were  carried 
out  in  accordance  with  that  original  project ;  the  respective 
staffs  that  had  been  appointed,  the  various  regiments  and  bri- 
gades distributed  long  ago,  were  already  hurrying  to  the  front, 
when  all  of  a  sudden  the  whole  of  this  plan  was  modified ;  the 
three  armies  were  to  be  fused  into  one,  to  be  called  "  Tarme'e 
du  Rhin,"  under  the  sole  and  exclusive  command  of  the  Em- 
peror. 

Whence  this  sudden  change?  The  historians,  with  their 
usual  contempt  for  small  causes,  have  endeavored  to  explain 
it  in  various  ways.  According  to  some,  the  change  was  decided 
upon  in  order  to  afford  the  Emperor  the  opportunity  of  distin- 
guishing himself ;  the  "  armee  du  Rhin"  was  to  revive  the  glories 
of  the  "  grande  armee  ;"  there  was  to  be  a  second  edition  of 
the  Napoleonic  epic.  After  the  first  startling  successes,  the 
Emperor  was  to  return  to  the  capital,  and  Marshal  Niel's  plan 
was,  if  practicable,  to  be  taken  up  once  more, — that  is,  the 
French  troops,  having  established  a  foothold  in  the  enemy's 
country,  were  to  be  divided  again  under  so  many  Klebers, 
Soults,  and  Neys. 

According  to  others,  the  Emperor,  who  until  then  had  been 
living  in  a  fool's  paradise  with  regard  to  the  quantity,  if  not 
with  regard  to  the  quality,  of  the  forces  at  his  disposal,  sud- 
denly had  his  eyes  opened  to  the  real  state  of  affairs.  The  six 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  troops  supposed  to  be  at  his  dis- 
posal had  their  existence  mainly  on  paper :  the  available  reality 
did  not  amount  to  more  than  a  third ;  i.e.,  to  about  two  hundred 
and  fifteen  thousand  troops  of  all  arms. 

The  facts  advanced  by  these  historians  are  true,  but  they 
did  not  determine  the  change  referred  to — at  any  rate,  not  so 
far  as  the  assumption  of  the  supreme  command  by  the  Emperor 
himself  was  concerned.  Anxious  as  the  latter  may  have  been, 
in  the  interest  of  his  dynasty,  to  reap  the  glory  of  one  or  two 
successful  battles  fought  under  his  immediate  supervision,  he 
was  fully  aware  of  his  unfitness  for  such  a  task,  especially  in 
his  actual  state  of  health.  Louis-Napoleon  believed  in  his  ^tar, 
but  he  was  not  an  idiot  who  counted  upon  luck  to  decide  the 
fate  of  battles.  If  he  had  ever  fostered  such  illusions,  the 
campaign  of  1859  must  have  given  a  rude  shock  to  them,  for 
there  he  was,  more  than  once,  within  an  ace  of  defeat ;  and  no 
one  knew  this  better  than  he  did.  The  fusing  of  three  armies 
into  one  was  due,  first,  to  the  difficulty,  if  not  impossibility,  of 
constituting  three  armies  with  considerably  less  than  three  hun- 


344  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

dred  thousand  troops ;  secondly  to  the  inveterate  jealousy  of 
his  marshals  of  one  another.  Napoleon  feared,  and  justly, 
that  if  those  three  armies  went  forth  under  three  separate  com- 
mands, there  would  be  a  repetition  of  the  quarrels  that  had  oc- 
curred during  the  Austro-Franco  war,  when  Niel  accused  Can- 
robert  of  not  having  properly  supported  him  at  the  right  time, 
and  so  forth.  It  will  be  remembered  that  the  Emperor  himself 
had -to  intervene  to  heal  those  quarrels.  Under  those  circum- 
stances, the  Emperor  thought  it  better  to  risk  it  and  to  take 
the  whole  responsibility  upon  himself. 

The  Emperor  left  St.  Cloud  on  the  28th  of  July.  It  is  very 
certain  that,  even  before  his  departure,  his  confidence  in  the 
late  Marshal  Niel  as  an  organizer  must  have  been  considerably 
shaken,  and  that  the  words  of  Leboeuf,  "  We  are  ready,  more 
than  ready,"  sounded  already  a  hollow  mockery  to  his  ear. 
Here  are  some  of  the  telegrams  which,  after  the  4th  of  Sep- 
tember, were  found  among  the  papers  at  the  Tuileries.  They 
were  probably  copies  of  the  originals,  though  I  am  by  no 
means  certain  that  they  w^ere  forwarded  to  St.  Cloud  at  the 
time  of  their  reception.  It  would  have  been  better,  perhaps, 
if  they  had  been. 

"  Metz,  20  July,  1870,  9.50  a.m.  From  Chief  of  Commis- 
sariat Department  to  General  Blondeau,  War  Office,  Paris. 
There  is  at  Metz  neither  sugar,  coffee,  rice,  brandy,  nor  salt. 
W^e  have  but  little  bacon  and  biscuit.  Despatch,  at  least,  a 
million  rations  to  Thionville." 

"  General  Ducrot  to  War  Office,  Paris.  Strasburg,  20  July, 
1870,  8.30  p.m.  By  to-morrow  there  will  be  scarcely  fifty  men 
left  to  guard  Neuf-Brisach  ;  Fort-Mortier,  Schlestadt,  la  Petite- 
Pierre,  and  Lichtenberg  are  equally  deserted.  It  is  the  result 
of  the  orders  we  are  carrying  out.  The  Garde  Mobile  and 
local  National  Guards  might  easily  be  made  available  for  gar- 
rison duty,  but  I  am  reluctant  to  adopt  such  measures,  seeing 
that  your  excellency  has  granted  me  no  power  to  that  effect. 
It  appears  certain  that  the  Prussians  are  already  masters  of  all 
the  passes  of  the  Black  Forest." 

"F'rom  the  General  commanding  the  2d  Army  Corps  to 
War  Office,  Paris.  Saint- Avoid,  21  July,  1870,  8.55  a.m.  The 
depot  sends  enormous  parcels  of  maps,  which  are  absolutely 
useless  for  the  moment.  We  have  not  a  single  map  of  the 
French  frontier.  It  would  be  better  to  send  greater  quan- 
tities of  what  would  be  more  useful,  and  which  are  absolutely 
wanting  at  this  moment." 

"  From  General  Michael  to  War  Office,  Paris.     Belfort,  21 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 


345 


July,  1870,  7.30  a.m.  Have  arrived  at  Belfort ;  did  not  find 
my  brigade,  did  not  find  a  general  of  division.  What  am  I  to 
do  ?     Do  not  know  where  are  my  regiments." 

"  From  General  commanding  4th  Army  Corps  to  Major- 
General,  Paris.  Thionville,  21  July,  9.12  a.m.  The  4th  Corps 
has  as  yet  neither  canteens,  ambulances,  nor  baggage-wagons, 
either  for  the  troops  or  the  staff.  There  is  an  utter  lack  of 
everything." 

I  need  quote  no  further ;  there  were  about  two  hundred  mis- 
sives in  all,  all  dated  within  the  week  following  the  official 
declaration  of  war.  It  would  be  difficult  to  determine  how 
many  of  these  the  Emperor  was  permitted  to  see,  but  there 
is  no  doubt  that  he  had  a  pretty  correct  idea  of  the  state  of 
affairs,  for  here  is  a  fact  which  I  have  not  seen  stated  any- 
where, but  for  the  truth  of  which  I  can  vouch.  For  full  two 
years  before  the  outbreak  of  hostilities,  the  Legislature  seemed 
bent  upon  advocating  all  kind  of  retrenchment  in  the  war 
budget.  During  the  first  six  months  of  1870,  the  thing  had 
almost  become  a  mania  with  them,  and  the  Emperor  appealed 
to  M.  Thiers,  through  the  intermediary  of  Marshal  Leboeuf 
himself,  to  help  him  stem  the  tide  of  this  pseudo-economy. 
Thiers  promised  his  support,  and  faithfully  kept  his  word ;  but 
his  aid  came  too  late.  The  Emperor,  however,  felt  grateful  to 
him,  and,  only  thirty-six  hours  before  his  departure  for  the  seat 
of  war,  he  offered  him  the  portfolio  of  war,  again  through  the 
intermediary  of  Marshal  Leboeuf.  The  offer  was  respectfully 
declined,  but  what  must  have  been  the  state  of  mind  of  Louis- 
Napoleon  with  regard  to  his  officers,  to  prefer  to  them  a  civilian 
at  such  a  critical  moment  ?  I  may  state  here  that  it  was  always 
the  height  of  M.  Thiers'  ambition  to  be  considered  a  great 
strategist  and  tactician,  and  also  a  military  engineer.  "  Jomini 
was  a  civilian,"  he  frequently  exclaimed.  Those  who  were 
competent  to  judge,  have  often  declared  that  Thiers'  preten- 
sions in  that  direction  were,  to  a  certain  extent,  justified  by  his 
talents.  Curiously  enough,  M.  de  Freycinet  is  affected  by  a 
similar  mania.  ... 

Here  is  a  certain  correlative  to  the  above-mentioned  fact. 
When,  a  few  months  after  the  Commune,  things  were  getting 
ship-shape  in  Paris,,  a . large  bundle . of  printed  matter  was 
unearthed  in  the  erstwhile  Imperial  (th«n  National)  Printing 
Works.  It  contained,  amongst  others,  : a  circular  drawn  up 
by  the  Emperor  himself,  entitled  "  A  Bad  Piece,  of  Economy  ;" 
it  was  addressed  to  the  deputies,  and  dated  May,  1870;  it 
showed  the  presumptive  strength  of  the  army  of  the  North- 


346  AJV  ENGLISHMA N  IN'  PA R/S. 

German  Confederation  as  compared  with  that  of  France,  and 
wound  up  with  the  following  sentence  :  "  If  we  compare  the 
military  condition  of  North-Germany  with  ours,  we  shall  be 
able  to  judge  how  far  those  who  would  still  further  reduce 
our  national  forces  are  sufficiently  enlightened  as  to  our  real 
interests." 

It  has  always  been  a  mystery  to  me,  and  to  those  who  were 
aware  of  its  existence,  why  this  circular  was  not  distributed 
at  the  proper  time ;  though,  by  the  light  of  subsequent  events, 
one  fails  to  see  what  good  it  could  have  done  then.  Were 
these  events  foreseen  at  the  Tuileries  as  early  as  May  ?  I 
think  not.  The  majority  of  the  Emperor's  entourage  were 
confident  that  war  with  Germany  was  only  a  matter  of  time ; 
very  few  considered  it  to  be  so  imminent.  One  cannot  for 
a  moment  imagine  that  the  suppression  of  this  circular  was 
due  to  accidental  or  premeditated  neglect ;  for  the  sovereign, 
though  ailing  and  low-spirited,  was  still  too  mindful  of  his 
prerogatives  not  to  have  visited  such  neglect  of  his  wishes, 
whether  intentional  or  not,  with  severe  displeasure.  Nor  can 
one  for  a  moment  admit  that  the  Emperor  was  hoodwinked 
into  the  belief  that  the  circular  had  been  distributed.  His 
so-called  advisers  probably  prevailed  upon  him  to  forego  the 
distribution  of  the  document,  lest  it  should  open  the  eyes  of 
the  nation  to  the  inferiority  of  France's  armaments.  The  only 
man  who  had  dared  to  point  out  that  inferiority,  three  years 
previously,  was  General  Trochu,  and  his  book,  "  I'Armee  Fran- 
caise,"  had  the  effect  of  ostracizing  him  from  the  Tuileries.  The 
smart  and  swaggering  colonels  who  surrounded  the  Empress 
did  not  scruple  to  spread  the  most  ridiculous  slanders  with  re- 
gard to  its  author  ;  but  the  Emperor,  though  aware  that  Trochu 
was  systematically  opposed  to  his  dynasty,  also  knew  that  he  was 
an  able,  perhaps  the  ablest  soldier  in  the  country.  The  subse- 
quent failure  of  Trochu  does  not  invalidate  that  judgment.  "  I 
know  what  Trochu  could  and  would  do  if  he  were  unhampered  ; 
but  I  need  not  concern  myself  with  that,  seeing  that  he  will 
be  hampered,"  said  Von  Moltke  at  the  beginning  of  the  siege. 
Colonel  Stoffel,  the  French  military  attache  at  Berlin,  was 
severely  reprimanded  by  Marshal  Niel  and  by  LeTDceuf  after- 
wards for  his  constant  endeavors  to  acquaint  the  Emperor 
with  the  rnagnificent  state  of  efficiency  of  the  Prussian  army 
and  its  auxiliaries.  Ostensibly,  it  was  because  he  had  been 
guilty  of  a  breach  of  diplomatic  and  military  etiquette ;  in 
reality,  because  the  minister  for  war  and  his  ''  festive  "  coadju- 
tors objected  to  being  constantly  harassed  in  their  pleasures 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  347 

by  the  sovereign's  suspicions  of  their  mental  nakedness.  *'  Nous 
I'avons  eu,  votre  Rhin  allemand.  .  .  .  Ou  le  pbre  a  passe, 
passera  bien  Tenfant,"  was  their  credo  ;  and  they  continued  to 
dance,  and  to  flirt,  and  to  intrigue  for  places,  which,  in  their 
hands,  became  fat  sinecures.  They  would  have  laughed  to 
scorn  the  dictum  of  the  first  Napoleon,  that  "  there  are  no  bad 
regiments,  only  bad  colonels ;  "  in  their  opinion,  there  were  no 
bad  colonels,  except  those  perhaps  who  did  not  constantly 
jingle  their  spurs  on  the  carpeted  floors  of  the  Empress's  bou- 
doir, and  the  parqueted  arena  of  the  Empress's  ball  room. 
The  Emperor  was  too  much  of  a  dreamer  and  a  philosopher 
for  them  ;  he  could  not  emancipate  himself  from  his  German 
education.  The  best  thing  to  do  was  to  let  him  write  and 
print  whatever  he  liked,  and  then  prevail  upon  him  at  the  last 
moment  not  to  publish,  lest  it  might  offend  national  vanity, 
Contemptuous  as  they  were  of  the  German  spirit  of  plodding, 
they  had,  nevertheless,  taken  a  leaf  from  an  eminent  German's 
book.  "  Let  them  say  and  write  what  they  like,  as  long  as 
they  let  me  do  what  I  like,"  exclaimed  Frederick  the  Great, 
on  one  occasion.  They  slightly  reversed  the  sentence.  "  Let 
the  Emperor  say  and  write  what  he  likes,  as  long  as  he  lets  us 
do  what  we  like  ;  and  one  thing  we  will  take  care  to  do,  name- 
ly, not  to  let  him  publish  his  writings."  They  had  forgotten, 
if  ever  they  knew  them — for  their  ignorance  was  as  startling 
as  their  conceit — the  magnificent  lines  of  the  founder  of  the 
dynasty  which  they  had  systematically  undermined  for  years 
by  their  dissipation,  frivolity,  and  corruption  :  "  The  General 
is  the  head,  the  all  in  all  of  the  army.  It  was  not  the  Roman 
army  that  conquered  Gaul,  but  Caesar  ;  it  was  not  the  Cartha- 
ginian army  that  made  the  republican  army  tremble  at  the  very 
gates  of  Rome,  but  Hannibal ;  it  was  not  the  Macedonian 
army  that  penetrated  to  the  Indus,  but  Alexander  ;  it  was  not 
the  French  army  which  carried  the  war  as  far  as  the  Weser 
and  the  Inn,  but  Turenne ;  it  was  not  the  Prussian  army  which 
defended,  during  seven  years,  Prussia  against  the  three  greatest 
powers  in  Europe,  but  Frederick  the  Great." 

And  she  who  aspired  to  play  the  role  of  a  Maria-Theresa, 
when  she  was  not  even  a  Marie-Antoinette,  and  far  more 
harmful  than  even  a  Marie-Louise,  applauded  the  vaporings 
of  those  misguided  men.  "  Le  courage  fait  tout,"  had  been 
the  motto  for  nearly  a  score  of  years  at  the  Tuileries.  It  did  a 
good  deal  in  the  comedies  a  la  Marivaux,  in  the  Boccaceian 
charades  that  had  been  enacted  there  during  that  time ;  she 
had  yet  to  learn  that  it  would  avail  little  or  nothing  in  the 
Homeric  struggle  which  was  impending. 


348  A  A'  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

Even  before  the  Emperor  started  for  the  seat  of  war  it  was 
very  evident,  to  those  who  kept  their  eyes  open,  that  a  reac- 
tion had  set  in  among  the  better  classes.  They  were  no  longer 
confident  about  France's  ability  to  chastise  the  arrogance  of 
the  King  of  Prussia.  The  publication  of  the  famous  "  draft 
treaty,"  had  convinced  them  "que  Bismarck  avait  roule'  I'em- 
pereur," — angUce,  "  that  the  Emperor  had  been  done  ;  "  and, 
notVr'ithstanding  their  repeated  assertions  of  being  able  to  dis- 
pense with  the  moral  support  of  Europe,  they  felt  not  altogether 
resigned  about  the  animosity  which  the  revelation  of  that  docu- 
ment had  provoked.  Honestly  speaking,  I  do  not  think  that 
they  regretted  the  duplicity  of  Louis-Napoleon  in  having  tried 
to  steal  a  march  upon  the  co-signatories  of  the  treaty  guaran- 
teeing the  protection  of  Belgium ;  but  it  wounded  their  pride 
that  he  should  have  been  found  out  to  no  ptirpose.  The  word 
"  imbecile,"  began  to  circulate  freely ;  and  when  it  became 
known  that  he  had  conferred  the  regency  upon  the  Empress, 
the  expression  of  contempt  and  disapproval  became  stronger 
still.  In  spite  of  everything  that  has  been  said  to  the  contrary, 
the  Parisians  did  not  like  the  Empress.  I  have  already  noted 
elsewhere  that  those  frankly  hostile  to  her  did  not  scruple  to 
apply  the  word  ''  I'Espagnole,"  in  a  depreciating  sense  ;  those 
whose  animosity  did  not  go  so  far  merely  considered  her  "  une 
femme  k  la  mode,"  and  by  no  means  fitted  to  take  the  reins  of 
government,  especially  under  circumstances  so  grave  as  the 
present  ones.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Empress  always  showed 
herself  exceedingly  anxious  to  exercise  the  functions  of  regent. 
The  flatterers  and  courtiers  around  her  had  imbued  her  with 
the  idea  that  she  was  a  kind  of  Elizabeth  and  a  Catherine  in 
one,  and  the  clerical  element  in  her  entourage  was  not  the 
least  blamable  in  that  respect. 

During  the  Crimean  war,  Lord  Clarsndon  had  already  been 
compelled  to  combat  the  project,  though  he  could  not  do  so 
openly.-  Napoleon  IH.  had  several  times  expressed  his  inten- 
tion of  taking  the  command  of  the  army.  His  ministers,  and 
especially  MM.  Troplong  and  Baroche,  begged  of  him  not  to 
do  so.     Even  Queen  Victoria,  to  whom  the  idea  was  broached 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  349 

while  on  her  visit  to  Paris,  threw  cold  water  upon  it  as  far  as 
was  possible.  But  the  Empress  encouraged  it  to  her  utmost. 
"  I  fail  to  see,"  she  said  to  our  sovereign,  "that  he  would  be 
exposed  to  greater  dangers  there  than  elsewhere."  It  was  the 
prospect  of  the  regency,  not  of  the  glory  that  might  possibly 
accrue  to  her  consort,  that  appealed  to  the  Empress ;  for  in 
reality  she  had  not  the  least  sympathy  with  the  object  of  that 
war,  any  more  than  with  that  of  1859.  Russia  was  ostensibly 
fighting  for  the  custody  of  the  Holy  Sepulchve  ;  and  the  defeat 
of  Austria,  she  had  been  told  by  the  priests,  would  entail  the 
ruin  of  the  temporal  power  of  the  pope.  And  Empress  Eu- 
genie never  attained  to  anything  more  than  parrot  knowledge 
in  the  way  of  politics. 

However,  in  1859  she  had  her  wish,  and,  before  the  opening 
of  the  campaign,  she  declared  to  the  Corps  L^gislatif  that  "  she 
had  perfect  faith  in  the  moderation  of  the  Emperor  when  the 
right  moment  for  peace  should  have  arrived."  Her  ladies-in- 
waiting  and  the  male  butterflies  around  her  openly  discounted 
the  political  effects  of  every  engagement  on  the  field  of  battle. 
The  Emperor,  according  to  them,  would  make  peace  with  Aus- 
tria with  very  few  sacrifices  on  the  latter's  part,  for  it  was  a 
Conservative  and  Catholic  power,  which  could  not  be  hu- 
miliated to  the  bitter  end,  while  Italy  was,  after  all,  but  a 
hot-bed  of  conspiracy,  revolutionary,  anti-Catholic,  and  so  forth. 

And  I  know,  for  a  positive  fact,  that  the  Emperor  was,  as  it 
were,  compelled  to  suspend  operations  after  Solferino,  because 
the  Minister  for  War  had  ceased  to  send  troops  and  ammuni- 
tions "  by  order  of  the  regent."  The  Minister  for  Foreign  Afl'airs 
endeavored  by  all  means  in  his  power  to  alarm  his  sovereign. 

Nevertheless,  in  1865,  when  he  went  to  Algeria  to  seek  some 
relief  from  his  acute  physical  sufferings.  Napoleon  III.  was 
badgered  into  confiding  the  regency  once  more  to  his  wife. 
There  is  no  other  word,  because  there  was  no  necessity  for  such 
a  measure,  seeing  that  he  did  not  leave  French  territory.  We 
have  an  inveterate  habit  of  laughing  at  the  "  henpecked  hus- 
band," and  no  essayist  has  been  bold  enough  as  yet  to  devote 
a  chapter  to  him  from  a  purely  historical  point  of  view.  The 
materials  are  not  only  at  hand  in  France,  but  in  England,  Ger- 
many, and  Russia  also ;  above  all,  in  the  latter  country.  He, 
the  essayist,  might  safely  leave  Catherine  de  Medici  out  of  the 
question.  He  need  not  go  back  as  far.  He  might  begin  with 
Marie  de  Medici  and  her  daughter,  Henrietta-Maria.  Some- 
times the  "  henpecking  "  turns  out  t6  be  for  the  world's  benefit, 
as  when  Sophie-Dorothea  worries  her  spouse  to  let  her  first  boy 


350  AJV  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

wear  a  heavy  christening  dress  and  crown,  which  eventually  kill 
the  infant,  who  makes  room  for  Frederick  the  Great.  But  one 
could  have  very  well  spared  the  servant-wench  who  henpecked 
Peter  the  Great,  and  Scarron's  widow  who  henpecked  Louis 
XIV.,  and  Marie-Antoinette  and  the  rest. 

The  regency  of  '65,  though  perhaps  not  disastrous  in  itself, 
was  fraught  with  the  most  disastrous  consequences  for  the 
future.  It  gave  the  Empress  the  political  importance  which  she 
had  been  coveting  for  years  ;  henceforth  she  made  it  a  habit  to 
be  present  at  the  councils  of  ministers,  who  in  their  turn  in- 
formed her  personally  of  events  which  ought  to  have  remained 
strictly  between  them  and  the  chief  of  the  State.  This  went 
on  until  M.  Emile  Ollivier  came  into  power,  January  2,  1870. 
The  Italian  and  Austrian  ambassadors,  however,  continued  to 
flatter  her  vanity  by  constantly  appealing  to  her;  the  part  they 
played  on  the  4th  of  September  shows  plainly  enough  how  they 
profited  in  the  interest  of  their  governments  by  these  seemingly 
diplomatic  indiscretions  on  their  own  part. 

As  for  Bismarck,  as  some  one  who  was  very  much  behind 
in  the  political  scenes  in  Berlin  once  said,  "  His  policy  consisted 
in  paying  milliners'  and  dressmakers'  bills  in  Paris  for  ladies 
to  whose  personal  adornment  and  appearance  he  was  profoundly 
indifferent."  I  am  bound  to  say  that  Lord  Lyons  courteously 
but  steadfastly  refused  to  be  drawn  out  "  diplomatically "  by 
the  Empress.  While  paying  due  homage  to  the  woman  and  to 
the  sovereign,  he  tacitly  declined  to  consider  her  a  pawn  in  the 
political  game,  and.  though  always  extremely  guarded  in  his 
language,  could  scarcely  refrain  from  showing  his  contempt  for 
those  who  did.  I  do  not  know  whether  Lord  Lyons  will  leave 
behind  any  "  memoirs  ;  "  if  he  do,  we  shall  probably  get  not 
only  nothing  but  the  truth,  but  the  whole  truth,  with  regard  to 
the  share  of  the  Empress  in  determining  the  war ;  and  we  shall 
find  that  that  war  was  not  decided  upon  between  the  Imperial 
couple  between  the  14th  and  15th  of  July,  '70,  but  between  the 
5th  and  6th  of  July.  Meanwhile,  without  presuming  to  antici- 
pate such  revelations  on  the  part  of  our  ambassador,  I  may  note 
here  my  own  recollections  on  the  subject. 

On  Tuesday,  the  5th  of  July,  about  2.30  p.m.,  I  was  walking 
along  the  Faubourg  Saint-Honore,  when,  just  in  front  of  the 
Embassy,  I  was  brought  to  a  standstill  by  Lord  Lyons'  car- 
riage turning  into  the  courtyard  from  the  street.  His  lord- 
ship was  inside.  We  were  on  very  good  terms,  I  may  say  on 
very  friendly  terms,  and  he  beckoned  me  to  come  in.  I  was 
at  the  short  flight  of  steps  leading  to  the  hall  almost  as  soon 


AjV  englishman  in  PARIS.  35 1 

as  the  carriage,  and  we  went  inside  together.  I  do  not  sup- 
pose I  was  in  his  private  room  for  more  than  ten  minutes,  but 
I  brought  away  the  impression  that  although  the  Due  de  Gra- 
mont  and  M.  Emile  Ollivier  might  think  it  necessary  to  adopt 
a  bellicose  tone  in  face  of  the  Hohenzollern  candidature,  there 
was  little  or  no  fear  of  war,  because  the  Emperor  was  decidedly 
inclined  to  peace.  I  remember  this  the  more  distinctly,  see- 
ing that  Lord  Lyons  told  me  that  he  had  just  returned  from  an 
interview  with  the  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs.  I  am  not  certain 
of  the  exact  words  used  by  his  lordship,  but  positive  as  to  the 
drift  of  one  of  his  remarks  ;  namely,  that  the  Due  de  Gramont 
was  the  last  person  who  ought  to  conduct  the  negotiations. 
"  There  is  too  much  personal  animosity  between  him  and  Bis- 
marck, owing  mainly  to  the  latter  having  laughed  his  preten- 
sions to  scorn  as  a  diplomatist  while  the  duke  was  at  Vienna." 
I  am  certain  the  words  were  to  that  effect.  Then  he  added, 
"  I  can  understand  though  I  fail  to  approve  De  Gramont's  per- 
sonal irritation,  but  cannot  account  for  OUivier's,  and  he  seems 
as  pugnacious  as  the  other.  Nevertheless,  I  repeat,  the  whole 
of  this  will  blow  over  :  William  is  too  wise  a  man  to  go  to  war 
on  such  a  pretext,  and  the  Emperor  is  too  ill  not  to  want 
peace.  I  wish  the  Empress  would  leave  him  alone.  I  am 
going  to  OUivier's  to-night,  and  Til  know  more  about  it  by 
to-morrow  morning." 

It  is  very  evident  from  this  that  the  historians  were  subse- 
quently wrongly  informed  as  to  M.  Emile  OUivier's  attitude  at 
that  moment,  which  they  have  described  as  exactly  the  reverse 
from  what  Lord  Lyons  found  it.  I  knew  little  or  nothing  of 
M.  Ollivier,  still  he  did  not  give  me  the  impression  of  being 
likely  to  adopt  a  hectoring  tone  just  in  order  to  please  the  gal- 
lery, the  gallery  being  in  this  instance  the  clientele  of  the 
opposition,  whom  the  Emperor  feared  more  than  any  one  else. 
From  all  I  have  been  able  to  gather  since,  Louis-Napoleon 
seemed  racked  with  anxiety,  but,  as  one  of  my  informants, 
who  was  scarcely  away  from  his  side  at  the  time,  said  after- 
wards, he  was  not  pondering  over  the  consequences  of  war 
which  he  fancied  he  was  able  to  prevent,  he  was  pondering 
the  consequences  of  peace.  Translated  into  plain  language, 
it  meant  that  the  republican  minority,  with  its  recent  acces- 
sion of  representatives  in  the  chambers  and  its  still  more  un- 
scrupulous adherents  outside,  were  striving  with  might  and 
main,  not  to  goad  the  Emperor  into  a  war,  but  to  make  him 
keep  a  peace  which,  if  they  had  had  the  chance,  they  would 
have  denounced  as  humiUating  to  France. 


352  ^  A^  ENGL ISHMA  X  IN  PA  RIS. 

Unfortunately  for  France,  they  found  an  unexpected  ally  in 
the  Empress.  The  latter  urged  on  the  war  with  Prussia,  in 
order  to  secure  to  her  son  the  imperial  crown  which  was  shak- 
ing on  the  head  of  her  husband  ;  the  former  were  playing  the 
game  known  colloquially  as  "  Heads,  I  win ;  tails,  you  lose." 
Peace  preserved  by  means  of  diplomatic  negotiations  would 
give  them  the  opportunity  of  holding  up  the  Empire  to  scorn 
as  being  too  weak  to  safeguard  the  national  honor  ;  war  would 
give  them  the  opportunity  of  airing  their  platitudes  about  the 
iniquity  of  standing  armies  and  the  sacrifice  of  human  life,  etc. 
I  go  further  still,  and  unhesitatingly  affirm  that,  if  any  party 
was  aware  of  the  corruption  in  the  army,  it  was  the  republican 
one.  The  plebiscite  of  May,  with  its  thousands  of  votes 
adverse  to  the  Imperial  regime — among  which  votes  there 
were  those  of  a  great  many  officers — had  not  only  given  them 
a  chance  of  counting  their  numbers,  but  of  obtaining  informa- 
tion, not  available  to  their  adversaries  in  power.  This  is  tan- 
tamount to  an  indictment  of  having  deliberately  contributed 
to  the  temporary  ruin  of  their  country  for  political  purposes, 
and  such  I  intend  it  to  be.  I  am  not  speaking  without  good 
grounds. 

On  the  day  I  met  Lord  Lyons,  two  ministerial  councils 
were  held  at  Saint-Cloud,  both  presided  over  by  the  Emperor. 
Between  the  first  and  the  second,  the  peaceful  sentiments  of 
the  chief  of  the  State  underwent  no  change.  So  little  did  the 
Emperor  foresee  or  desire  war,  that  on  the  evening  of  that 
same  day,  while  the  second  council  of  ministers  was  being  held, 
he  sent  one  of  his  aides-de-camp  to  my  house  for  the  exact 
address  of  Mr.  Prescott-Hewett,  the  eminent  English  surgeon. 
I  was  not  at  home,  and  on  my  return,  an  hour  later,  sent  the 
address  by  telegraph  to  Saint-Cloud.  I  have  since  learnt  that, 
on  the  same  night,  a  telegram  was  despatched  to  London,  in- 
quiring of  Mr.  Hewett  when  it  would  be  convenient  for  him  to 
hold  a  consultation  in  Paris.  An  appointment  was  made,  but 
Mr.  Hewett  eventually  went  in  August  to  the  seat  of  war,  to 
see  his  illustrious  patient.  I  believe,  but  am  not  certain,  that 
he  saw  him  at  Chalons. 

On  the  6th  of  July  there  was  a  third  council  of  ministers  at 
Saint-Cloud,  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning,  in  order  to  draw  up 
the  answer  to  M.  Cochery's  interpellation  on  the  HohenzoUern 
candidature.  The  latter  was  supposed  to  have  been  inspired 
by  M.  Thiers,  but  I  will  only  state  what  I  know  positively  with 
regard  to  the  Emperor.  At  a  little  after  two  that  afternoon  I 
happened  to  be  at  the  Cafd  de  la  Paix,  when  my  old  friend, 


•  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  353 

Joseph  Ferrari,  came  up  to  me.*  He  was  a  great  friend  of 
Adolphe  and  Elysde,  the  brothers  of  Emile  Ollivier.  He  looked 
positively  crestfallen,  and,  knowing  him  to  be  a  sincere  advocate 
of  peace,  I  had  no  need  to  ask  him  for  the  nature  of  the  news 
he  brought.  I  could  see  at  a  glance  that  it  was  bad.  He, 
however,  left  me  no  time  to  put  a  question. 

"  It's  all  over,"  he  said  at  once,  "and,  unless  a  miracle 
happens,  we'll  have  war  in  less  than  a  fortnight."  He 
immediately  went  on.  "  Wait  for  another  hour,  and  then  you'll 
see  the  effect  of  De  Gramont's  answer  to  Cochery's  interpella- 
tion in  the  Chamber.  Not  only  the  Prussians,  but  the  smallest 
nation  in    Europe  would  not  stand  it." 

"  But,"  I  remarked,  "  about  this  time  yesterday  I  was  posi- 
tively assured,  and  on  the  best  authority,  that  the  Emperor  was 
absolutely  opposed  to  any  but  a  pacific  remonstrance." 

"  Your  informant  was  perfectly  correct,"  was  the  answer ; 
"  and  as  late  as  ten  o'clock  last  night,  at  the  termination  of 
the  second  council  of  ministers,  his  sentiments  underwent  no 
change.  Immediately  after  that,  the  Empress  had  a  conversa- 
tion with  the  Emperor,  which  I  know  for  certain  lasted  till  one 
o'clock  in  the  morning.  The  result  of  this  conversation  is  the 
answer,  the  text  of  which  you  will  see  directly,  and  which  is 
tantamount  to  a  challenge  to  Prussia.  Mark  my  words,  the 
Empress  will  not  cease  from  troubling  until  she  has  driven 
France  into  war  with  the  only  great  Protestant  power  on  the 
Continent.  That  power  defeated,  she  will  endeavor  to  destroy 
the  rising  unity  of  Italy.  She  little  knows  that  Victor- Emanuel 
will  not  wait  until  then,  and  that,  at  the  first  success  of  the 
French  on  the  Rhine,  he  will  cross  the  Alps  at  a  sign  of  Prussia  ; 
that  at  the  first  success  of  Prussia,  the  Italian  troops  will  start 
on  their  march  to  Rome.  Nay,  I  repeat,  it  is  the  Empress  who 
will  prove  the  ruin  of  France." 

That  playful  cry  of  the  Empress,  which  she  was  so  fond  of 
uttering  in  the  beginning  of  her  married  life,  "  As  for  myself,  I 
am  a  Legitimist,"  without  understanding,  or  endeavoring  to 
understand  its  import,  had  gradually  grafted  itself  on  her  mind, 
although  it  had  ceased  to  be  on  her  lips.  Impatient  of  con- 
tradiction, self-willed  and  tyrannical,  both  by  nature  and  train- 
ing, her  sudden  and  marvellous  elevation  to  one  of  the  proud- 
est positions  in  Europe  could  not  fail  to  strengthen  those  defects 
of  character.  Superstitious,  like  most  Spaniards,  she  was 
firmly  convinced  that  the  gypsy  who  foretold  her  future  greatness 

*  Joseph  Ferrari  was  an  Italian  by  birth,  but  spent  a  great  part  of  his  time  in  France^ 
He  is  best  known  by  his  "  Philosophes  Salaries,"  and  died  in  Rome,  1876. — Editor. 

23 


354  ^^  ENGLISHMAN  JN  PARIS. 

was  a  Divine  messenger,  and  from  that  to  the  conviction  that 
she  occupied  the  throne  by  a  right  as  Divine  as  that  claimed 
by  the  Bourbons  there  was  but  one  short  step.  A  corollary  to 
Divine  right  meant,  to  her,  personal  and  irresponsible  govern- 
ment. That  was  her  idea  of  legitimism.  Though  by  no  means 
endowed  with  high  intellectual  gifts,  she  perceived  well  enough, 
in  the  beginning,  that  the  Second  Empire  was  not  a  very  stable 
edifice,  either  with  regard  to  its  foundations  or  superstructure, 
and,  until  England  propped  it  up  by  an  alliance,  and  a  state 
visit  from  our  sovereign,  she  kept  commendably  coy.  But 
from  that  moment  she  aspired  to  be  something  more  than  the 
arbiter  of  fashion.  As  I  have  already  said,  she  failed  in  pre- 
vailing upon  the  Emperor  to  go  the  Crimea.  In  '59  she  was 
more  successful,  in  '65  she  was  more  successful  still.  In 
the  former  year,  she  laid  the  foundation  of  what  was  called  the 
Empress's  party  ;  in  the  latter,  the  scaifolding  was  removed 
from  the  structure,  henceforth  the  work  was  done  inside.  She, 
no  more  than  her  surroundings,  had  the  remotest  idea  that 
France  was  gradually  undergoing  a  political  change,  that  she 
was  recovering  her  constitutional  rights.  Her  party  was 
like  the  hare  in  the  fable  that  used  the  wrong  end  of  the  opera- 
glass,  and  lived  in  a  fool's  paradise  with  regard  to  the  distance 
that  divided  them  from  the  sportsman,  until  he  was  fairly  upon 
them,  in  the  shape  of  the  liberal  ministry  of  the  2d  of  January, 
1870. 

M.  Emile  Ollivier,  to  his  credit  be  it  said,  refused  to  be 
^ided  by  his  predecessors.  He  studiously  avoided  informing 
the  Empress  of  the  affairs  of  State,  let  alone  discussing  them 
with  her.  Apart  from  the  small  fry  of  the  Imperial  party,  he 
made  two  powerful  enemies — the  Empress  herself,  and  Rouher, 
who  saw  in  this  refusal  to  follow  precedent  an  implied  censure 
upon  himself.  Rouher,  I  repeat  once  more,  was  honest  to  the 
backbone,  but  fond  of  personal  power.  The  Empire  to  him 
meant  nothing  but  the  Emperor,  the  Empress,  and  the  heir  to 
the  throne  ;  just  as  Germany  meant  nothing  to  Bismarck  but  the 
Hohenzollern  dynasty.  He  was  one  of  the  first  to  proclaim, 
loudly  and  openly,  that  the  plebiscite  of  the  8th  of  May  meant 
an  overwhelming  manifestation,  not  in  favor  of  the  liberal 
Empire,  but  in  favor  of  the  Emperor  ;  and  when  the  latter,  to 
do  him  justice,  declined  to  look  at  it  in  that  light,  he  deserted 
him  for  the  side  of  his  wife.  It  is  an  open  secret  that  the 
first  use  the  Empress  meant  to  make  of  her  power  as  regent, 
after  the  first  signal  victory  of  French  arms,  was  to  sweep  away 
the  cabinet  of  the  2d  of  January.     The  Imperial  decree  con- 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 


355 


ferring .  the  regency  upon  her,  "  during  the  absence  of  the 
Emperor  at  the  head  of  his  army,"  and  dated  the  2 2d  of  July, 
invested  her  with  very  limited  power. 

Meanwhile,  pending  the  departure  of  the  Emperor,  Paris 
was  in  a  ferment,  but,  to  the  careful  observer,  it  was  no  longer 
the  unalloyed  enthusiasm  of  the  first  few  days.  There  were 
just  as  many  people  in  the  streets  ;  the  shouts  of  "  A  BerHn  !  " 
though,  perhaps,  not  so  sustained,  were  just  as  loud  every  now 
and  then  ;  the  troops  leaving  for  the  front  received  tremendous 
ovations,  and  more  substantial  proofs  of  the  people's  goodwill ; 
the  man  who  dared  to  pronounce  the  word  "  peace  "  ran  a 
great  risk  of  being  rent  to  pieces  by  the  crowds — a  thing  which 
almost  happened  one  night  in  front  of  the  Cafe  de  Madrid,  on 
the  Boulevard  Montmartre  :  still,  the  enthusiasm  was  not  the 
same.  "  There  seems  to  be  a  great  deal  of  prologue  to  '  The 
Taming  of  that  German  Shrew,'  "  said  a  French  friend,  who 
was  pretty  familiar  with  Shakespeare  ;  and  he  was  not  far 
wrong,  for  the  Christophers  Sly  abounded.  The  bivouacs  of 
the  troops  about  to  take  their  departure  reminded  one  some- 
what more  forcibly  of  operatic  scenes  and  equestrian  dramas 
of  the  circus  type  than  of  the  preparations  for  the  stern  neces- 
sities of  war — with  this  difference,  that  the  contents  of  the 
goblet  were  real,  and  the  viands  not  made  of  card-board. 
"  They  are  like  badly  made  cannons,  these  soldiers,"  said 
some  one  else  :  "  they  are  crammed  up  to  the  muzzle,  and  they 
do  not  go  off."  In  short,  the  more  sensible  of  the  Paris  popu- 
lation began  to  conclude  that  a  little  less  intoning  of  patriotic 
strophes  and  a  good  deal  more  of  juxtaposition  with  the  Ger- 
man troops  was  becoming  advisable.  The  reports  of  the  few 
preliminary  skirmishes  that  had  taken  place  were  no  doubt 
favorable  to  the  French  ;  at  the  same  time,  there  was  no 
denying  the  fact  that  they  had  taken  place  on  French  and 
not  on  German  territory,  which  was  not  quite  in  accordance 
with  the  spirit  of  the  oft-repeated  cry  of  "  A  Berlin  ! "  In  ac- 
cordance with  the  programme  of  which  that  cry  was  the  initial 
quotation,  the  French  ought,  by  this  time,  to  have  been  already 
half  on  their  way  to  the  Prussian  capital.  That  is  what  sensible 
nay,  clever  people  expressed  openly.  Nevertheless,  the  cry 
continued,  nor  was  there  any  escape  from  the  "  Marseillaise," 
either  by  day  or  night.  Every  now  and  then,  a  more  than 
usually  dense  group  might  be  seen  at  a  street  corner.  The 
centre  of  the  group  was  composed  of  a  woman,  with  a  baby  in 
her  arms ;  the  little  one  could  scarcely  speak,  but  its  tiny 
voice  reproduced  more  or  less  accurately  the  air  of  the  "  Mar- 


356  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

seillaise  : "  a  deep  silence  prevailed  during  the  performance 
in  order  to  give  the  infant  a  fair  chance  ;  deafening  applause 
greeted  the  termination  of  the  solo,  and  a  shower  of  coppers 
fell  into  the  real  or  pseudo  mother's  lap.  On  the  i8th  of  July 
the  day  of  the  official  declaration  of  war  in  Paris,  the  Comedie- 
Fran^aise  performed  "  Le  Lion  Amoureux  "  of  Ponsard.*  At 
the  end  of  the  second  act,  the  public  clamored  for  the  "  Mar- 
seillaise." There  was  not  a  single  member  of  the  company  capable 
of  complying  with  the  request,  so  the  "  stage  manager  for  the 
week  "  had  to  come  forward  and  ask  for  a  two-days'  adjourn- 
ment, during  which  some  one  might  study  it.  Of  course,  the 
honor  of  singing  the  revolutionary  hymn  was  to  devolve  upon 
a  woman,  according  to  the  precedent  established  in  '48,  when 
Rachel  had  intoned  it.  From  what  I  learnt  a  few  days  after- 
wards, the  candidates  for  the  distinguished  task  were  not  many, 
in  spite  of  the  tacit  consent  of  the  Government.  The  ladies 
of  the  company,  most  of  whom,  like  their  fellow-actors,  had 
been  always  very  cordially  treated  by  the  Emperor  on  the  oc- 
casion of  their  professional  visits  to  Saint-Cloud,  Compiegne, 
and  Fontainebleau,  instinctively  guessed  the  pain  the  conces- 
sion must  have  caused  the  chief  of  the  State,  and  under  some 
pretext  declined.  Mdlle.  Agar  accepted,  and  sang  the  "  Mar- 
seillaise," in  all  forty-four  times,  from  the  20th  of  July  to  the 
17th  of  September,  the  day  of  the  final  investment  of  the 
capital  by  the  German  armies. 

It  must  not  be  supposed,  though,  that  the  Government  had 
waited  until  the  day  of  the  official  declaration  of  war  to  sanc- 
tion the  performance  of  the  "  Marseillaise  "  in  places  of  public 
resort.  I  remember  crossing  the  Gardens  of  the  Tuileries  in 
the  afternoon  of  Sunday,  the  17th  of  July.  One  of  the  military 
bands  was  performing  a  selection  of  music.  The  custom  of 
doing  so  during  the  summer  months  has  prevailed  for  many 
years,  both  in  the  capital  and  in  the  principal  garrison  towns  of 
the  provinces.  All  at  once  they  struck  up  the  "  Marseillaise." 
I  looked  in  surprise  at  my  companion,  a  member  of  the  Em- 
peror's household.     He  caught  the  drift  of  my  look. 

"  It  is  by  the  Emperor's  express  command,"  he  said.  "  It  is 
the  national  war-song.  In  fact,  it  is  that  much  more  than  a 
revolutionary  hymn." 

"  But  war  has  not  been  declared,"  I  objected. 

"  It  will  be  to-morrow,"  was  the  answer. 

The  pubhc,  which  in  this  instance  was  mainly  composed  of 

*  I  believe  there  exists  an  English  version  of  the  play,  entitled  "  A  Son  of  the  vSoil."     I  am 
not  certain  of  the  title.— Editor. 


AN  ENGLlSIIMAisr  liST  PARIS.  357 

the  better  classes,  apparently  refused  to  consider  the  "  Marseil- 
laise "  a  national  war-song,  and  applause  at  its  termination 
was  but  very  lukewarm. 

I  have  already  spoken  of  the  scene  I  witnessed  in  connec- 
tion with  the  departure  of  the  Germans  on  that  same  Sunday 
early  in  the  morning,  and  have  also  noted  the  demonstration 
in  front  of  the  German  Embassy  on  the  previous  Friday  night. 
I  will  not  be  equally  positive  with  regard  to  the  exact  dates  of 
the  succeeding  exhibitions  of  bad  taste  on  the  part  of  the  Pa- 
risians, but  I  remember  a  very  striking  one  which  happened 
between  the  official  declaration  of  war  and  the  end  of  July.  It 
was  brought  under  my  notice,  not  by  a  foreigner,  but  by  a 
Frenchman,  who  was  absolutely  disgusted  with  it.  We  were 
sitting  one  evening  outside  the  Cafe  de  la  Paix,  which,  being 
the  resort  of  some  noted  Imperialists,  I  had  begun  to  visit  more 
frequently  than  I  had  done  hitherto.  There  was  a  terrible  din 
on  the  Boulevards  :  the  evening  papers  had  just  published  a 
very  circumstantial  account  of  that  insignificant  skirmish  which 
cost  Lieutenant  Winslow  his  life,  and  in  which  the  French  had 
taken  a  couple  of  prisoners.  "  They  "  (the  prisoners),  sug- 
gested an  able  editor,  "  ought  to  be  brought  to  Paris  and  pub- 
licly exhibited  as  an  example."  "  And,  what  is  more,"  said 
my  friend  who  had  read  the  paragraph  to  me,  "  he  means  what 
he  says.  These  are  the  descendants  of  a  nation  who  prides 
herself  on  having  said  at  Fontenoy,  *  Messieurs  les  Anglais  tire2 
les  premiers,'  which,  by-the-by,  they  did  not  say.*  If  you  care 
to  come  with  me,  I'll  show  you  what  would  be  the  probable 
fate  of  such  prisoners  if  the  writer  of  that  paragraph  had  his 
will." 

So  said  ;  so  done.  In  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour  we  were 
seated  at  the  Cafe  de  I'Horloge,  in  the  Champs  Elysees,  and 
my  friend  was  holding  out  five  francs  fifty  centimes  in  payment 
for  two  small  glasses  of  so-called  "  Fine  Champagne," ////^  the 
waiter's  tip.  The  admission  was  gratis ;  and  the  difference 
between  those  who  went  in  and  those  who  remained  outside 
was  that  the  latter  could  hear  the   whole  of  the  performance 

*  It  was,  in  fact,  an  English  officer  who  shouted,  "  Messieurs  des gardes  frangaises,  tirez;' 
to  which  the  French  replied.  "Messieurs,  nous  ne  tirons  jamais  les  premiers ;  tirez  vous- 
memes."  But  it  was  not  politeness  that  dictated  the  reply;  it.  was  the  expression  of  the 
acknowledged  and  constantly  inculcated  doctrine  that  all  infantry  troops  which  fired  the  first 
were  indubitably  beaten.  We  fiid  the  doctrine  clearly  stated  in  the  infantry  instructions  of 
1672,  and  subsequently  in  the  following  order  of  Louis  XIV.  to  his  troops;  "  The  soldier 
shall  be  taught  not  to  fire  the  first,  and  to  stand  the  fire  of  the  enemy,  seeing  that  an  enemy 
who  has  fired  is  assuredly  beaten  when  his  adversary  has  his  powder  left."  At  the  battle  of 
Dettingen,  consequently,  two  years  before  F'ontenoy,  the  theory  had  been  carried  beyondi\\& 
absurd^  by  expressly  forbidding  the  Gardes  to  fire,  though  they  were  raked  down  by  the 
enemy's  bullets.  Maurice  de  Saxe  makes  it  a  point  to  praise  the  wisdom  of  a  colonel  who, 
in  order  to  prevent  his  troops  from  firing,  consUntly  made  them  shoulder  their  muskets.— 
Editor. 


358  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

without. seeing  it,  and  without  disbursing  a  farthing  ;  while  the 
former  could  see  the  whole  of  the  performance  without  hearing 
a  note,  for  the  din  there  was  also  infernal.  Shortly  after  our 
arrival,  the  band  struck  up  the  inevitable  "  Marseillaise,"  but 
the  audience  neither  listened  nor  applauded. 

This  was,  after  all,  but  the  ov^erture  to  the  entertainment  to 
which  my  friend  had  invited  me,  and  which  consisted  of  a 
spectacular  pantomime  representing  an  engagement  between  a 
regiment  or  a  battalion  of  Zouaves  and  Germans.  As  a  matter 
of  course,  the  latter  had  the  worst  of  it ;  and,  at  the  termina- 
tion, a  couple  of  them  were  brought  in  and  compelled  to  sue 
for  mercy  on  their  knees.  I  am  bound  to  say  that  the  thing 
hung  fire  altogether,  and  that,  but  for  the  remarkable  selection 
of  handsome  legs  of  the  Zouaves,  not  even  the  harebrained 
young  fellows  with  which  the  audience  was  largely  besprinkled 
would  have  paid  any  attention. 

In  the  whole  of  Paris  there  was  no  surer  centre  of  informa- 
tion of  the  state  of  affairs  at  the  front  than  the  Cafe  de  la  Paix. 
It  was  the  principal  resort  of  the  Bonapartists.  There  were 
Pietri,  the  Prefect  of  Police,  Sampierro,  Abatucci,  and  a  score 
or  two  of  others  ;  all  cultivating  excellent  relations  with  the 
Chateau.  There  was  also  the  General  Beaufort  d'PIautpoul, 
to  whom  Bismarck  subsequently,  through  the  pen  of  Dr. 
Moritz  Busch,  did  the  greatest  injury  a  man  can  do  to  a 
soldier,  in  accusing  him  of  drunkenness  when  he  came  to 
settle  some  of  the  military  conditions  of  the  armistice  at  Ver- 
sailles. He  was,  as  far  as  I  remember,  one  of  the  two 
superior  French  officers  who  estimated  at  its  true  value  the 
strategic  genius  of  Von  Moltke.  The  other  was  Colonel 
Stoffel.  But  General  d'Hautpoul  was  even  l^etter  enabled  to 
judge  ;  he  had  seen  Moltke  at  work  in  Syria  more  than  thirty 
years  before.  He  was  in  reality  the  Solomon  Eagle  of  the 
campaign,  before  a  single  shot  had  been  fired.  "  I  know  our 
army,  and  I  know  Helmuth  von  Moltke,"  he  said,  shaking  his 
head  despondingly.  "  If  every  one  of  our  officers  were  his 
equal  in  strategy,  the  chance  would  then  only  be  equal. 
Moltke  has  the  gift  of  the  great  billiard-player  ;  he  knows  be- 
forehand the  exact  result  of  a  shock  between  two  bodies  at  a 
certain  angle.     We  are  a  doomed  nation." 

As  a  matter  of  course,  his  friends  were  very  wroth  at  what 

they  called  "  his  unpatriotic  language,"  and  when  the  news  of 

the  engagement  at  Saarbruck  arrived  they  crowed  over  him  ; 

but  he  stuck  to  his  text.     "  It  is  simply  a  feint  on  Moltke's 

^  part,  and  proves  nothing  at  all.     In   two   or  three  days    we'll 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  359 

get  the  news  of  a  battle  that  will  decide,  not  only  the  fate  of 
the  whole  campaign,  but  the  fate  of  the  Empire  also." 

Two  days  afterwards,  I  met  him  near  the  Rue  Saint-Floren- 
tin ;  he  looked  absolutely  crestfallen.  "  We  have  suffered  a 
terrible  defeat  near  Wissembourg,  but  do  not  breathe  a  word 
of  it  to  any  one.  The  Government  is  waiting  for  a  victory  on 
some  other  point,  and  then  it  will  publish  the  two  accounts 
together." 

The  Government  was  reckoning  without  the  newspapers, 
French  and  foreign.  The  latter  might  be  confiscated,  and  in 
fact  were,  such  as  the  Times  and  V Independance  Beige ;  but  the 
French,  notwithstanding  the  temporary  law  of  M.  Emile  Olli- 
vier,  were  more  difficult  to  deal  with.  I  am  inclined  to  think 
that  if  they  had  foreseen  the  terrible  fate  that  was  to  befall  the 
French  armies  they  would  have  been  more  amenable,  but  in 
the  beginning  they  anticipated  nothing  but  startling  victories, 
and,  as  such,  looked  upon  the  campaign  in  the  light  of  a  series 
of  brilliant  spectacular  performances,  glowing  accounts  of 
which  were  essentially  calculated  to  increase  their  circulation. 
When  MM.  Cardon  and  Chabrillat,  respectively  of  the  Gau- 
lois  and  Figaro,  were  released  by  the  Prussians,  they  told 
many  amusing  stories  to  that  effect,  unconsciously  confirming 
the  opinion  I  have  already  expressed ;  but  the  following, 
which  I  had  from  the  lips  of  Edmond  About  himself,  is  better 
than  any  I  can  remember. 

A  correspondent  of  one  of  the  best  Paris  newspapers,  on 
his  arrival  at  the  headquarters  of  "  the  army  of  the  Rhine," 
applied  to  the  aide-major-general  for  permission  to  follow  the 
operations.  He  had  a  good  many  credentials  of  more  or  le^s 
weight ;  nevertheless  the  aide-major-general,  in  view  of  the 
formal  orders  of  the  Emperor  and  Marshal  Leboeuf,  felt  bound 
to  refuse  the  request.  The  journalist,  on  the  other  hand,  de- 
clined to  take  "  no  "  for  an  answer.  "  I  have  come  with  the 
decided  intention  to  do  justice,  and  more  than  justice  perhaps, 
to  your  talent  and  courage,  and  it  would  be  a  pity  indeed  if  I 
were  not  given  the  opportunity,"  he  said. 

"lam  very  sorry,"  was  the  reply;  "but  I  cannot  depart 
from  the  rules  for  any  one." 

"  But  our  paper  has  a  very  large  circulation." 

"  All  the  more  reason  to  refuse  you  the  authorization  to  fol- 
low the  staff." 

The  journalist  would  not  look  at  matters  in  that  light.  He 
felt  that  he  was  conferring  a  favor,  just  as  he  would  have  felt 
in  offering  the  advantage  of  a  cleverly  written  puff  of  a  pre- 


360  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

miere  to  a  theatrical  manager.  Seeing  that  his  arguments 
were  of  no  avail,  he  delivered  his  parting  shot. 

"  This,  then,  general,  is  your  final  decision.  I  am  afraid 
you'll  have  cause  to  regret  this,  for  we,  on  our  side,  are  deter-* 
mined  not  to  give  this  war  the  benefit  of  publicity  in  our 
columns." 

M.  Emile  OUivier's  original  decision  was  the  right  one,  but, 
instead  of  embodying  it  in  a  temporary  and  exceptional  order, 
he  ought  to  have  made  it  a  permanent  law  in  times  of  peace 
as  well  as  war.  On  Saturday,  the  i6th  of  July,  Count  Eulen- 
burg,  the  Prussian  Minister  of  the  Interior,  addressed  a  circu- 
lar to  the  German  papers,  recommending  them  to  abstain  from 
giving  any  news,  however  insignificant,  with  regard  to  the 
movements  of  the  troops.  As  far  as  I  remember,  the  German 
editors  neither  protested,  nor  endeavored  to  shirk  the  order ; 
they  raised  no  outcry  against  "the  muzzling  of  the  press." 
Five  days  later,  the  French  minister  was  attacked  by  nearly 
every  paper  in  France  for  attempting  to  do  a  similar  thing, 
and,  rather  than  weather  that  storm  in  a  teacup,  he  consented 
to  a  compromise,  and  condescended  to  ask  where  he  might 
have  commanded.  In  addition  to  this,  he  undertook  that  the 
Government  itself  should  be  the  purveyor  of  war-news  to  the 
papers.  Every  editor  of  standing  in  Paris  knew  that  this 
meant  garbled,  if  not  altogether  mythical,  accounts  of  events, 
and  that  even  these  would  be  held  back  until  they  could  be 
held  back  no  longer.  In  a  few  days  their  worst  apprehensions 
in  that  respect  were  confirmed.  While  Paris  was  still  igno- 
rant of  the  terrible  disaster  at  Wissembourg,  the  whole  of 
Europe  rang  with  the  tidings.  Then  came  the  false  report  of 
a  brilliant  victory  from  the  Government  agency.  It  made  the 
Parisians  frantic  with  joy,  but  the  frenzy  changed  into  one  of 
anger  when  the  truth  became  known  through  the  maudlin  and 
lachrymose  despatches  from  the  Imperial  headquarters,  albeit 
that  they  by  no  means  revealed  the  whole  extent  of  the  defeats 
suffered  at  Woerth  and  Spicheren. 

Nevertheless,  the  agency  continued  the  even — or  rather  un- 
even— tenor  of  its  way  up  to  the  last.  The  Republicans  sub- 
sequently adopted  the  tactics  of  the  Imperial  Government,  the 
Communists  adhered  to  the  system  of  those  they  had  tempo- 
rarily ousted.  In  the  present  note,  I  will  deal  only  with  events 
up  to  the  4th  of  September.  Patent  as  it  must  have  been  to 
the  merest  civilian,  that  the  commanders  were  simply  com- 
mitting blunder  after  blunder,  the  movements  of  Bazaine  were 
represented  by  the  agency  as  the  result  of  a  masterly  and  pro- 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  36 1 

found  calculation.  Even  such  a  pessimist  as  General  Beaufort 
d'Hautpoul  was  taken  in  by  those  representations.  He  con- 
sidered the  "masterly  inactivity  "  of  Bazaine  as  an  inspiration 
of  genius.  "  He  is  keeping  two  hundred  thousand  German 
troops  round  Metz,"  he  said  several  times,  "  These  two 
hundred  thousand  men  are  rendered  absolutely  useless  while 
we  are  recruiting  our  armies  and  reorganizing  our  forces."  He 
seemed  altogether  oblivious  of  the  fact  that  these  two  hundred 
thousand  Germans  were  virtually  the  jailers  of  France's  best 
army. 

I  am  unable  to  say  whether  General  d'Hautpoul  was  in  direct 
or  indirect  communication  with  the  agency,  or  whether  some 
ingenious  scribe  belonging  to  it  had  overheard  his  expressions 
of  admiration  and  willfully  adopted  them  ;  certain  is  it  that 
the  agency  was  the  first  to  inspire  the  reporters  of  those  papers 
who  took  their  cue  from  it  with  the  flattering  epithet  of 
"  glorious  Bazaine." 

It  was  the  same  with  regard  to  Palikao.  His  sententious 
commonplaces  were  reported  as  so  many  oracular  revelations 
dragged  reluctantly  from  him.  Had  they  been  more  familiar 
with  Shakespeare  than  they  were,  or  are,  the  scribes  would 
have  made  Palikao  exclaim  with  Macbeth,  "  The  greatest  is 
behind."  And  all  the  while  the  troops  were  marching  and 
countermarching  at  haphazard,  without  a  preconceived  plan, 
jeering  at  their  leaders  and  openly  insulting  the  "  phantom  " 
Emperor,  as  they  did  at  Chalons,  for  he  was  already  no  more 
than  that.  The  fall  of  the  Empire  does  not  date  from  Sedan, 
but  from  Woerth  and  Spicheren  ;  and  those  most  pertinently 
aware  of  it  were  not  the  men  who  dealt  it  the  final  blow  less 
than  a  month  later,  but  the  immediate  entourage  of  the  Em- 
press at  the  Tuileries. 

For  from  that  moment  (the  6th  or  7th  of  August)  the  entour- 
age of  the  Empress  began  to  think  of  saving  the  Empire  by 
sacrificing,  if  needs  be,  the  Emperor.  "There  is  only  one 
thing  that  can  avert  the  ruin  of  the  dynasty,"  said  a  lady-in- 
waiting  on  the  Empress,  to  a  near  relative  of  mine ;  "  and  that 
is  the  death  of  the  Emperor  at  the  head  of  his  troops.  That 
death  would  be  considered  an  heroic  one,  and  would  benefit 
the  Prince  Imperial." 

I  do  not  pretend  to  determine  how  far  the  Empress  shared 
that  opinion,  but  here  are  some  facts  not  generally  known, 
even  to  this  day,  and  for  the  truth  of  which  I  can  unhesitat- 
ingly vouch. 

The   Empress  did  not  know  of  the  consultation  that  had 


362  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

taken  place  on  the  ist  of  July  and  to  which  I  have  already 
referred.  But  she  did  know  that  the  Emperor  was  suffering 
from  a  very  serious  complaint,  and  that  the  disease  had  been 
aggravated  since  his  departure  through  his  constantly  being  on 
horseback.  M.  Franceschini  Pietri,  the  private  secretary  of 
the  Emperor,  had  informed  her  to  that  effect  on  the  7th  of 
August,  when  Forbach  and  Woerth  had  been  fought.  He  also 
told  her  that  the  Emperor  was  not  unwilling  to  return  to  Paris, 
and  to  leave  the  command-in-chief  to  Bazaine,  but  that  his 
conscience  and  his  pride  forbade  him  to  do  so,  unless  some 
pressure  were  brought  to  bear  upon  him.  I  repeat,  I  can 
vouch  for  this,  because  I  had  it  from  the  Hps  of  M.  Pietri,  who 
was  prefect  of  police  until  the  4th  of  September. 

Meanwhile,  others,  besides  M.  Franceschini  Pietri,  had 
noticed  the  evident  moral  and  mental  depression  of  the  Em- 
peror, increased,  no  doubt,  by.  his  acute  physical  sufferings, 
which  were  patent  to  almost  every  one  with  whom  he  came  in 
immediate  contact ;  for  an  eye-witness  wrote  to  me  on  the  4th 
of  August :  "  The  Emperor  is  in  a  very  bad  state  ;  after  Saar- 
bruck,  Lebrun  and  Leboeuf  had  virtually  to  lift  him  off  his 
horse.  The  young  prince,  who,  as  you  have  probably  heard 
already,  was  by  his  side  all  the  time,  looked  very  distressed, 
for  his  father  had  scarcely  spoken  to  him  during  the  engage- 
ment. But  after  they  got  into  the  carriage,  which  was  waiting 
about  a  dozen  yards  away,  the  Emperor  put  his  arm  round  his 
neck  and  kissed  him  on  the  cheeks,  while  two  large  tears 
rolled  down  his  own.  I  noticed  that  the  Emperor  had  scarcely 
strength  to  walk  that  dozen  yards." 

Leboeuf,  who,  like  a  great  many  more,  has  suffered  to  a  cer- 
tain extent  for  the  faults  of  Marshal  Niel,  perceived  well  enough 
that  something  had  to  be  done  to  cheer  the  Emperor  in  his 
misfortunes.  It  was  he  who  proposed  that  the  latter  should 
return  to  Paris,  accompanied  by  him,  while  the  corps  d'armee 
of  Frossard,  which  had  effected  its  retreat  in  good  order,  and 
several  other  divisions  that  had  not  been  under  fire  as  yet, 
should  endeavor  to  retrieve  matters  by  attacking  the  armies 
of  Von  Steinmetz  and  Frederick-Charles,  which  at  that  identical 
moment  were  only  in  "  course  of  formation."  But  Louis- 
Napoleon,  while  admitting  the  wisdom  of  the  plan,  sadly  shook 
his  head,  and  declared  that  he  could  not  relinquish  the  chief 
command  in  view  of  the  double  defeat  the  army  had  suffered 
under  his  leadership. 

What  had.  happened,  then,  during  the  twenty-four  hours  im- 
mediately following  the  telegram  of  M,  Franceschini  Pietri  ? 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  t^^t^ 

Simply  this  :  not  only  had  the  Empress  refused  to  exercise  the 
pressure  which  would  have  afforded  her  husband  an  excuse  for 
his  return,  but  she  had  thrown  cold  water  on  the  idea  of  that 
return  by  a  despatch  virtually  discountenancing  that  return. 
The  cabinet  had  not  been  consulted  in  this  instance. 

Nay,  more  ;  the  cabinet  on  the  7th  of  August  despatched,  in 
secret,  M.  Maurice  Richard,  Minister  of  Arts,  which  at  that 
time  was  distinct  from  the  Ministry  of  Public  Instruction,  to 
inquire  into  the  state  of  health  of  the  Emperor  and  the  degree 
of  confidence  with  which  he  inspired  the  troops.  That  was  on 
the  7th  of  August.  He  went  by  special  train  to  Metz.  Two 
hours  after  he  was  gone,  Adolphe  Ollivier  told  me  and  Ferrari 
at  the  Cafe  de  la  Paix.  A  few  hours  after  his  return  next  day, 
he  told  us  the  result  of  those  inquiries.  M.  Richard  had 
Vrought  back  the  worst  possible  news. 

At  a  council  of  ministers,  held  early  on  the  9th,  M.  Emile 
Ollivier,  in  view  of  the  communication  made  to  him  by  his 
colleague,  proposed  the  immediate  return  of  the  Emperor, 
fully  expecting  M.  Richard  to  support  him.  The  Empress 
energetically  opposed  the  plan,  and  when  M.  Ollivier  turned, 
as  it  were,  to  M.  Richard,  the  latter  kept  ominously  silent. 
Not  to  mince  matters,  he  had  been  tampered  with.  M.  Ollivier 
found  himself  absolutely  powerless. 

A  day  or  so  before  that — I  will  not  be  positive  as  to  the  date 
— M. .  Ollivier  telegraphed  officially  to  the  headquarters  at 
Metz,  to  request  the  return  of  the  Prince  Imperial,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  generally  expressed  wish  of  the  Paris  papers. 
M.  Pietri  told  me  that  same  day  that  the  minister's  telegram 
had  been  followed  by  one  in  the  Empress's  private  cipher,  ex- 
pressing her  wish  that  the  Prince  Imperial  should  remain  with 
the  army.  She  did  not  explain  why.  She  merely  recom- 
mended the  Emperor  to  make  the  promise  required,  and  then 
to  pay  no  further  heed  to  it. 

The  Regent  had  no  power  to  summon  parliament,  neverthe- 
less she  did  so,  mainly  in  order  to  overthrow  the  Ollivier  min- 
istry. I  am  perfectly  certain  that  the  Emperor  never  forgave 
her  for  it.  If  those  who  were  at  Chislehurst  are  alive  when 
these  notes  appear,  they  will  probably  bear  me  out. 

What,  in  fact,  could  a  parliament  summoned  under  such  cir- 
cumstances be  but  a  council  of  war,  every  one  of  whose  de- 
cisions was  canvassed  in  public  and  made  the  enemy  still  wiser 
than  he  was  before  ?  Of  course,  the  Empress  felt  certain  that 
she  would  be  able  to  dismiss  it  as  easily  as  it  had  been  sum- 
moned ;  she  evidently  did  not  remember  the  fable  of  the  horse 


364  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

which  had  invited  the  man  to  get  on  its  back  in  order  to  fight 
the  stag.  There  is  not  the  sHghtest  doubt  that,  as  I  have  al- 
ready remarked,  the  Empress's  main  purpcr.e  was  the  over- 
throw of  the  OUivier  administration  :  if  proof  were  wanted,  the 
evidence  of  the  men  who  overthrew  the  Empire  would  be  suffi- 
cient to  establish  the  fact,  and  not  one,  but  half  a  dozen,  have 
openly  stated  that  the  defeat  of  the  Ollivier  ministry  was  ac- 
complished with  the  tacit  approval  of  the  court  party :  read, 
"  the  party  of  the  Empress,"  to  which  I  have  referred  before. 

The  list  of  the  Empress's  blunders,  involuntary  or  the  re- 
verse, is  too  long  to  be  transcribed  in  detail  here ;  I  return  to 
my  impressions  of  men  and  things  after  my  meeting  with  Gen- 
eral Beaufort  d'Hautpoul  in  the  Rue  de  Rivoli. 

I  do  not  suppose  that  in  the  whole  of  Paris  there  were  a 
dozen  sensible  men  who  still  cherished  any  illusions  with  re- 
gard to  the  possibility  of  retrieving  the  disasters  by  a  dash  into 
the  enemy's  country.  The  cry  of  "  A  Berlin  !  "  had  been  fin- 
ally abandoned  even  by  the  most  chauvinistic.  But  the  hope 
still  remained  that  the  Prussians  would  be  thrust  back  from 
the  "sacred  soil  of  France"  by  some  brilliant  coup  de  main, 
although  I  am  positive  that  the  Empire  would  have  been 
doomed  just  the  same  if  that  hope  had  been  realized.  Among 
those  who  had  faith  in  the  coup  de  main  were  M.  Paul  de 
Cassagnac  and,  curiously  enough.  General  Beaufort  d'Haut- 
poul. He  had  suddenly  conceived  great  hopes  with  regard  to 
Bazaine.  M.  de  Cassagnac  seriously  contemplated  enlisting 
in  the  Zouaves.  Strange  to  relate,  M.  Paul  de  Cassagnac,  in 
spite  of  his  well-known  attachment  to  the  Imperialist  cause, 
was  looked  upon,  by  the  most  determined  opponents  of  that 
cause  among  the  masses,  as  a  man  to  be  trusted  and  consulted 
in  a  non-official  way.  I  remember  being  on  the  Boulevard 
one  evening  after  the  affair  at  Beaumont,  when  the  rage  of  tlie 
population  was  even  stronger  than  after  the  defeats  at  Woerth 
and  Forbach.  All  of  a  sudden  we  perceived  a  dense  group 
swaying  towards  us — we  were  between  the  Rues  Lafitte  and 
Le  Peletier — and  in  the  centre  towered  the  tall  figure  of  M. 
de  Cassagnac.  For  a  moment  we  were  afraid  that  some  mis- 
chief was  being  contemplated,  the  more  that  we  had  noticed 
several  leaders  of  the  revolutionary  party — or,  to  speak  by  the 
card,  of  the  Blanqui  party — hovering  near  the  Cafe  Riche. 
But  the  demonstration  was  not  a  hostile  one  ;  on  the  contrary, 
it  had  a  friendly  tendency,  and  showed  a  tacit  acknowledg- 
ment that,  whosoever  else  might  hide  the  truth  from  them, 
M,  de  Cassagnac  would  not  do  so,     '■■'  What  about  rifles,  M. 


AJV  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  365 

Paul  ?  "  was  the  cry  ;  "  are  there  sufficient  for  us  all  ?  "  It 
must  be  remembered  that  the  levke  en  masse  had  been  decreed. 
M.  de  Cassagnac  could  not  tell  the  truth,  and  would  not  tell  a 
lie.  He  frankly  said,  "  I  don't  know."  We  noticed  also  that 
at  his  approach  the  Blanquists  slunk  away.  The  Empire  had 
been  tottering  on  its  base  until  then  ;  after  Beaumont  it  was 
virtually  doomed. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

Only  those  who  were  at  a  distance  from  Paris  on  the  4th 
of  September,  1870,  can  be  deluded  into  the  belief  that  the 
scenes  enacted  there  on  that  day  partook  of  a  dramatic  char- 
acter. Carefully  and  scrupulously  dovetailed,  they  constitute 
one  vast  burlesque  of  a  revolution.  It  is  not  because  the 
overthrow  of  the  Second  Empire  was  accomplished  without 
bloodshed  that  I  say  this.  Bloodshed  would  have  only  made 
the  burlesque  more  gruesome,  but  it  could  have  never  con- 
verted it  into  a  tragedy,  the  recollection  of  which  would  have 
made  men  think  and  shudder  even  after  the  lapse  of  many 
years.  As  it  is,  the  recollection  of  the  4th  of  September  can 
only  make  the  independent  witness  smile.  On  the  one  hand, 
a  burlesque  Harold  driven  off  to  Wilhelmshohe  in  a  landau, 
surrounded  by  a  troop  of  Uhlans  ;  and  a  burlesque  Boadicea 
slinking  off  in  a  hackney  cab,  minus  the  necessary  handker- 
chiefs for  the  cold  in  her  head, — "  fleeing  when  no  one  pursu- 
eth,"  instead  of  poisoning  herself :  on  the  other:  "  ceux  qui 
prennent  la  parole  pour  autrui,"  /.  e.,  the  lawyers,  "  prenant  le 
pouvoirpour  eux-memes."  Really,  the  only  chronicler  capable 
of  dealing  with  the  situation  in  the  right  spirit  is  our  old  and 
valued  friend,  Mr.  Punch.  Personally,  from  the  Saturday 
afternoon  until  the  early  hours  on  Monday,  I  saw  scarcely  one 
incident  worthy  of  being  treated  seriously  ;  nor  did  the  ac- 
counts supplied  to  me  by  others  tend  to  modify  my  impres- 
sions. 

Though  the  defeat  at  Sedan  was  virtually  complete  on  Thurs- 
day the  ist  at  nine  p.  m.,  not  the  faintest  rumor  of  it  reached 
Paris  before  Friday  evening  at  an  advanced  hour,  and  the  real 
truth  was  not  known  generally  until  the  Saturday  at  the  hour 
just  named.  There  was  grief  and  consternation  on  many  faces, 
but  no  expression  of  fury  or  anger.  That  sentiment,  at  any 
rate  in  its  outward  manifestations,  had  to  be  supplied  from  the 
heights  of  Belleville  and  Mortmartre,  Montrouge  and  Mont- 


366  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

parnasse,  when,  later  on,  a  good  many  of  the  inhabitants  of 
those  delightful  regions  came  down  like  an  avalanche  on  the 
heart  of  the  city.  They  were  the  lambs  of  Blanqui,  Delescluze, 
Felix  Pyat,  and  Milliere.  They,  were  dispersed  on  reaching 
the  Boulevard  Montmartre,  and  we  saw  nothing  of  them  from 
where  we  were  seated  at  the  Cafe  de  la  Paix.  By  the  time 
they  rallied  in  the  side  streets  and  had  marched  to  the  Palais- 
Bourbon,  they  found  their  competitors,  Favre,  Gambetta,  & 
Co.,  trying  to  oust  the  ministers  of  the  Empire.  But  for  that 
unfortunate  delay  we  might  have  had  the  Commune  on  the 
4th  of  September  instead  of  on  the  i8th  of  March  following. 
Blanqui,  Pyat,  &  Co.  never  forgave  Favre,  Gambetta,  &  Co. 
for  having  forestalled  them,  and,  above  all,  for  not  having 
shared  the  proceeds  of  the  spoil.  This  is  so  true  that,  even 
after  many  years  of  lording  it,  the  successors  of,  and  co-found- 
ers with,  the  firm  of  Favre,  Gambetta,  &  Co.  have  been 
obliged,  not  only  to  grant  an  amnesty  to  those  whom  they 
cheated  at  the  beginning,  but  to  admit  them  to  some  of  the 
benefits  of  the  undertaking ;  Mdline  Tirard,  Ranc,  Alphonse 
Humbert,  Camille  Barrere,  and  a  hundred  others  more  or  less 
implicated  in  the  Commune,  are  all  occupying  fat  posts  at  the 
hour  I  write. 

A  friend  of  ours,  whose  impartiality  was  beyond  suspicion, 
and  who  had  more  strength  and  inclination  to  battle  with 
crowds  than  any  of  us,  offered  to  go  and  see  how  the  land  lay 
at  the  Palais-Bourbon.  He  returned  in  about  an  hour,  and 
told  us  that  Gambetta,  perched  on  a  chair,  had  been  address- 
ing the  crowd  from  behind  the  railings,  exhorting  them  to  pa- 
tience and  moderation.  "  Clever  trick  that,"  said  our  inform- 
ant ;  *'  it's  the  confidence-trick  of  housebreakers  when  two 
separate  gangs  have  designs  upon  the  same  '  crib  ; '  while  the 
first  arrivals  '  crack'  it,  they  send  one  endowed  with  the  *  gift 
of  the  gab '  to  pacify  the  others." 

One  thing  is  certain — Gambetta  and  his  crew  did  not  want 
to  pursue  the  war,  they  wanted  a  Constituent  Assembly  which 
would  have  left  them  to  enjoy  in  peace  the  fruits  of  their 
usurpation,  for  theirs  was  as  much  usurpation  as  was  the  Coup 
d'Etat.  Their  subsequent  "  Not  an  inch  of  our  territory,  not 
a  stone  of  our  fortresses,"  was  an  afterthought,  when  they 
found  that  Bismarck  would  not  grant  them  as  good  a  peace  as 
he  would  have  granted  Napoleon  at  Donchery  the  morning 
after  Sedan. 

At  about  .ten  on  Saturday  night  everybody  knew  that  there 
would  be  a  night  sitting,  and  I  doubt  whether  one-fourth  of  the 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  367 

adult  male  population  of  Paris  went  to  bed  at  all,  even  if  they 
retired  to  their  own  homes. 

Our  friend  returned  to  the  Palais-Bourbon,  but  failed  to  get 
a  trustworthy  account  of  what  had  happened  during  the  twenty- 
five  minutes  the  deputies  had  been  assembled.  AH  he  knew 
was  that  nominally  the  Empire  was  still  standing,  though  vir- 
tually it  had  ceased  to  exist ;  a  bill  for  its  deposition  having 
been  laid  on  the  table.  On  his  way  back  to  the  Boulevards  he 
saw  the  carriage  of  Thiers  surrounded,  and  an  attempt  to  take 
out  the  horses.  He  called  Thiers  "  le  rec^leur  des  vols  com- 
mis  au  prejudice  des  monarchies."* 

Let  me  look  for  a  moment  at  that  second-rate  Talleyrand, 
who  has  been  grandiloquently  termed  the  "  liberator  of  the 
soil "  because  he  happened  to  do  what  any  intelligent  bank 
manager  could  have  done  as  well ;  let  me  endeavor  to  establish 
his  share  in  the  4th  of  September.  I  am  speaking  on  the  au- 
thority of  men  who  were  behind  the  political  scenes  for  many 
years,  and  whose  contempt  for  nearly  all  the  actors  was  equally 
great.  Thiers  refused  his  aid  and  counsel  to  the  Empress, 
who  solicited  it  through  the  intermediary  of  Prince  Metternich  , 
and  M.  Prosper  M^rimee,  but  he  also  refused  to  accept  the 
power  offered  to  him  by  Gambetta,  Favre,  Jules  Simon,  etc., 
in  the  afternoon  of  the  4th  of  September.  Nevertheless,  he 
was  here,  there,  and  everywhere  ;  offering  advice,  but  careful 
not  to  take  any  responsibility.  Afterwards  he  took  a  journey 
to  the  various  courts  of  Europe.  I  only  know  the  particulars 
of  one  interview — that  with  Lord  Granville — but  I  can  vouch 
for  their  truth.  After  having  held  forth  for  two  hours  without 
giving  his  lordship  a  chance  of  edging  in  a  word  sideways,  he 
stopped ;  and  five  minutes  later,  while  Lord  Granville  was 
enumerating  the  reasons  why  the  cabinet  of  St.  James's  could 
not  interfere,  he  (Thiers)  was  fast  asleep.  When  the  condi- 
tions of  peace  were  being  discussed,  Thiers  was  in  favor  of 
giving  up  Belfort  rather  than  pay  another  milliard  of  francs. 
"  A  city  you  may  recover,  a  milliard  of  francs  you  never  get 
back,"  he  said.  Nevertheless,  historians  will  tell  one  that 
Thiers  made  superhuman  efforts  to  save  Belfort.  I  did  not 
like  M.  Thiers,  and,  being  conscious  of  my  dislike,  I  have 
throughout  these  notes  endeavored  to  say  as  little  as  possible 
of  him. 

The  sun  rose  radiantly  over  Paris  on  the  4th  of  September, 
and  I  was  up  betimes,  though  I  had  not  gone  to  bed  until  3  a.m. 
There  was  a  dense  crowd  all   along  the  Rue   Royale   and  the 

*  "  The  receiver  of  the  goods  stolen  from  monarchies."  Editor. 


368  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

Place  de  la  Concorde,  and  several  hours  before  the  Chambei 
had  begun  to  discuss  the  deposition  of  the  Bonapartes  (which 
was  never  formally  voted),  volunteer-workmen  were  destroying 
or  hauling  down  the  Imperial  eagles.  The  mob  cheered  them 
vociferously,  and  when  one  of  these  workmen  hurt  himself 
severely,  they  carried  him  away  in  triumph.  Nevertheless, 
there  was  a  good  deal  of  hooting  as  several  well-known  mem- 
bers of  the  Chamber  elbowed  their  way  through  the  serried 
masses.  Though  they  were  well  known,  I  argued  myself  un- 
known in  not  knowing  them.  I  was  under  the  impression  that 
they  were  Imperialists,  they  turned  out  to  be  Republicans. 
The  marks  of  disapproval  proceeded  from  compact  groups  of 
what  were  apparently  workmen.  As  I  knew  that  no  workmen 
devoted  to  the  Empire  would  have  dared  to  gather  in  that  way, 
even  if  their  numbers  had  been  sufficient,  and  as  I  felt  reluc- 
tant to  inquire,  I  came  to  the  natural  conclusion  that  the 
hooters  were  the  supporters  of  Blanqui,  Pyat,  &  Co.  The 
Commune  was  foreshadowed  on  the  Place  de  la  Concorde  on 
that  day. 

My  experience  of  the  24th  of  February,  1848,  told  me  that 
the  Chamber  would  be  invaded  before  long.  In  1848  there 
was  no  more  danger  for  a  foreigner  to  mix  with  the  rabble  than 
for  a  Frenchman.  I  felt  not  quite  so  sure  about  my  safety  on 
the  4th  of  September.  My  adventure  in  the  Avenue  de  Clichy, 
which  I  will  relate  anon,  had  not  happened  then,  and  I  was  not 
as  careful  as  I  became  afterwards,  still  I  remembered  in  time 
the  advice  of  the  prudent  Frenchman — "  When  in  doubt,  ab- 
stain ;  "  and  I  prepared  to  retrace  my  steps  to  the  Boulevards, 
where,  I  knew,  there  would  be  no  mistake  about  my  identity. 
At  the  same  time,  I  am  bound  to  say  that  no  such  accident  as 
I  dreaded  occurred  during  that  day,  as  far  as  I  am  aware. 
There  may  or  may  not  have  been  at  that  hour  half  a  hundred 
spies  of  Bismarck  in  the  city,  but  no  one  was  molested.  The 
Parisians  were  so  evidently  overjoyed  at  getting  rid  of  the  Em- 
pire, that  for  four  and  twenty  hours,  at  any  rate,  they  forgot 
all  about  the  hated  Germans  and  their  march  upon  the  capital. 
They  were  shaking  hands  with,  and  congratulating  one  an- 
other, as  if  some  great  piece  of  good  fortune  had  befallen  them. 
Years  before  that,  I  had  seen  my  wife  behave  in  a  similarly 
joyous  manner  after  having  dismissed  at  a  moment's  notice  a 
cook  who  had  shamefully  robbed  us  :  my  wife  knew  very  well 
that,  on  the  morrow,  the  tradesmen,  the  amount  of  whose  bills 
the  dishonest  servant  had  pocketed  for  months,  would  be  send- 
ing in  their  claims  upon   us.     "  Perhaps  they  will  take  into 


AX  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  369 

Consideration  that  we  dismissed  her,"  she  said,  "  and  not  hold 
us  responsible."  The  Latin  race,  and  especially  the  French, 
are  the  females  of  the  human  race. 

I  noticed  that  the  gates  of  the  Tuileries  gardens  on  the  Place 
de  la  Concorde  were  still  open,  and  that  the  gardens  them- 
selves were  black  with  people.  It  must  have  been  about  half- 
past  ten  or  eleven.  I  did  not  go  back  by  the  Rue  Royale,  but 
by  the  Rue  de  Rivoli.  The  people  were  absolutely  streaming 
down  the  street.  There  was  not  a  single  threatening  gesture 
on  their  part ;  they  merely  looked  at  the  flag  still  floating  over 
the  Tuileries,  and  passed  on.  When  I  got  back  to  the  Boule- 
vards, I  sat  down  outside  the  Cafe  de  la  Paix,  determined  not 
to  stir  if  possible.  I  knew  that  whatever  happened  the  news 
of  it  would  soon  be  brought  thither.      I  was  not  mistaken. 

The  first  news  we  had  was  that  the  National  Guards  had 
replaced  the  regulars  inside  and  round  the  Palais-Bourbons, 
which  was  either  a  sign  that  the  latter  could  be  no  longer  de- 
pended upon,  or  that  the  Republicans  in  the  Chamber  had 
carried  that  measure  in  their  own  interest.  I  am  bound  to 
admit  that  I  would  always  sooner  take  the  word  of  a  French 
officer  than  that  of  a  deputy,  of  no  matter  what  shade ;  and  I 
heard  afterwards  that  the  troops  at  the  Napoleon  barracks  and 
elsewhere  had  begun  to  fraternize  with  the  people  as  early  as 
eight  in  the  morning,  by  shouting,  from  the  windows  of  their 
rooms,  "  Vive  la  Republique  ! "  The  Chamber  was  invaded, 
nevertheless  ;  it  is  as  well  to  state  that  this  invasion  gave  Jules 
Favre  &  Co.  a  chance  of  repairing  in  hot  haste  to  the  Hotel  de 
Ville,  where  the  Government  of  the  National  Defence  was 
proclaimed. 

To  return  to  my  vantage-post  at  the  Cafe  de  la  Paix.  The 
crowds  on  the  Place  de  la  Concorde,  apparently  stationed  there 
since  early  morning,  did  not  seem  to  me  to  have  been  brought 
thither  at  the  instance  of  a  leader  or  in  obedience  to  a  watch- 
word. I  except,  of  course,  the  groups  of  which  I  have  already 
spoken,  and  which  jeered  at  the  republican  deputies.  The 
streams  of  people  I  met  on  my  return  in  the  Rue  de  Rivoli 
seemed  impelled  by  their  own  curiosity  to  the  Chamber  of  Dep- 
uties. Not  so  the  procession  which  hove  in  sight  almost  the 
moment  I  had  sat  down  at  the  Cafe.  It  wheeled  to  the  left 
when  reaching  the  Rue  de  la  Paix.  It  was  composed  of 
National  Guards  with  and  without  their  muskets,  each  company 
preceded  by  its  own  officers, — the  armed  ones  infinitely  more 
numerous  than  the  unarmed,  but  all  marching  in  good  order 
and  in  utter  silence  ;  in  fact,  so  silently  as  to  bode  mischief. 

24 


370  AN  ENGL  ISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

Behind  and  before  there  strode  large  contingents  of  ordinary 
citizens,  and  I  noticed  two  things :  that  few  of  them  wore 
blouses,  and  that  a  good  many  wore  kepis,  apparently  quite 
new.  The  wearers,  though  equally  undemonstrative,  gave  one 
the  impression  of  being  the  leaders.  Most  of  those  around  me 
shook  their  heads  ominously  as  they  passed ;  their  silence  did 
not  impose  upon  them.  I  am  free  to  confess  that  I  did  not 
shar€  their  opinion.  To  me,  the  whole  looked  like  stern  de- 
termined manifestors  :  not  like  turbulent  revolutionaries.  I 
had  seen  nothing  like  them  in  '48.  Nevertheless,  it  was  I  who 
was  mistaken,  for,  according  to  M.  Sampierro  Gavini,  who, 
unlike  his  brother  Denis,  belonged  to  the  opposition  during 
the  Empire,  it  was  they  who  invaded  the  Chamber.  I  may 
add  that  M.  Sampierro  Gavini  though  in  the  opposition,  had 
little  or  no  sympathy  with  those  who  overthrew  the  Empire  or 
established  the  Commune.  He  had  an  almost  idealistic  faith 
in  constitutional  means,  and  a  somewhat  exaggerated  reverence 
for  the  name  of  Bonaparte.     He  was  a  Corsican. 

For  several  hours  nothing  occurred  worthy  of  record.  The 
accounts  brought  to  us  by  eye-witnesses  of  events  going  on 
simultaneously  at  the  Tuileries  and  the  Palais-Bourbon  showed 
plainly  that  there  was  no  intention  on  the  mob's  part  to  exalt 
the  Empress  into  a  Marie-Antoinette.  Our  friend  who  had 
given  us  the  news  of  the  Chamber  on  the  previous  night,  and 
who  was  a  relative  of  the  celebrated  Dr.  Yvan,  an  habitue  of 
the  Cafe  de  la  Paix,  had  made  up  his  mind  in  the  morning  that 
"  it  would  be  more  interesting  to  watch  the "  last  heroic 
struggles  of  an  Empress  against  iron  fortune  than  the  "  crown- 
less  coronation  of  a  half-score  of  '  rois  Petauds.'  "  *  As  such, 
he  had  taken  up  his  station  in  the  gardens  of  the  Tuileries, 
close  to  the  gate  dividing  the  private  from  the  public  gardens. 
It  was  he  who  gave  us  the  particulars  of  the  scenes  preceding 
and  succeeding  the  Empress's  flight,  the  exact  moment  of 
which  no  one  seemed  to  know.  The  account  of  these  scenes 
was  so  exceedingly  graphic,  that  I  have  no  difficulty  whatso- 
ever in  remembering  them.  Moreover,  I  put  down  at  the  time 
several  of  his  own  expressions.     I  do  not  know  what  has  be- 

*  In  olden  times,  every  community,  corporation,  and  guild  in  France  elected  annually  a 
king— even  the  mendicants,  whose  ruler  took  the  title  of  King  Pdtaud,  from  the  haiin/efo, 
I  ask.  The  latter's  court,  as  a  matter  of  course,  was  a  perfect  bear-garden,  in  which  every 
one  did  as  he  liked,  in  which  every  one  was  as  much  sovereign  as  the  titular  one.  The  ex- 
pression, ' '  the  Court  of  King  P^taud,"  became  a  synonym  for  everything  that  was  disorderly, 
ridiculous,  and  disgusting. 

**  Oui,  je  sors  de  chez  vous  fort  mal  ^difi^e  ; 
Dans  toutes  mes  legons  j'y  suis  contrari^e  ; 
On  n'y  respecte  rien,  chacun  y  parle  haut, 
Et  c'est  tout  justement  la  cour  du  roi  P^taud." 
(Moliere,  "  Tartuffe,"  Act  i.  Sc.  i)— Editor, 


A  A'  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  37  f 

come  of  him.  He  went  to  New-Zealand  on  account  of  some 
unhappy  love-affair,  and  was  never  heard  of  any  more.  Though 
scarcely  thirty  then,  he  was  a  promising  young  doctor.  His 
name  was  Ramail,  but  I  do  not  know  in  what  relation  he  stood 
to  Dr.  Yvan  ;  who,  however,  always  called  him  cousin. 

Young  Ramail  had  been  in  the  Tuileries  gardens  since  noon. 
The  crowd  was  already  very  large  at  that  hour,  but  it  seemed 
altogether  engrossed  in  the  doings  of  an  individual  who  was 
knocking  down  a  gilded  eagle  on  the  top  of  the  gate.  "  Mind," 
said  Ramail,  "  that  was  at  twelve  o'clock,  or  somewhere  there- 
abouts ;  and  I  do  not  think  that  the  sitting  at  the  Chamber 
began  until  at  least  an  hour  later.  If  the  Republicans  say,  in 
days  to  come,  that  the  Empire  was  virtually  condemned  before 
they  voted  its  overthrow,  they  will,  at  any  rate,  have  the 
semblance  of  truth  on  their  side,  because  there  were  at  least 
two  thousand  persons  looking  on  without  trying  to  prevent  the 
destruction  of  the  eagles  by  word  or  deed  ;  and  two  thousand 
persons,  if  they  happen  to  agree  with  them,  are  to  the  Repub- 
licans the  whole  of  France  ;  while  two  millions,  if  they  happen 
to  differ  from  them,  are  only  a  corrupt  and  unintelligent  ma 
jority. 

"  But  I  was  wondering,"  he  went  on,  "  at  the  utter  ingrati- 
tude of  the  lower  and  lower-middle  classes.  I  feel  certain 
that  among  those  who  stood  staring  there,  half  owed  their 
prosperous  condition  to  the  eighteen  years  of  Imperialism ; 
yet  I  heard  not  a  single  expression  of  regret  at  the  brutal 
sweeping  away  of  it. 

"  I  may  have  stood  there  for  about  an  hour,  a  score  of  steps 
av/ay  from  the  gate  before  the  swingbridge,  when,  all  at  once, 
I  felt  myself  carried  forward  with  the  crowd ;  and  before  I 
had  time  to  look  round,  I  found  myself  inside  that  other  gate. 
There  were  about  five  hundred  persons  who  had  entered  with 
me,  but  in  what  manner  the  gate  gave  way  or  was  opened  I 
have  not  the  vaguest  idea.  We  went  no  further  ;  we  stopped 
as  suddenly  as  we  had  advanced.  I  turned  round  with  diffi- 
culty, and  looked  over  the  heads  of  those  behind  me  •  sure 
enough,  the  gates  were  wide  open  and  the  crowd  at  the  rear 
was  much  denser  than  it  had  been  ten  minutes  before.  Still 
they  stood  perfectly  still,  without  bringing  any  pressure  to 
bear  upon  us.  Then  I  turned  round  again,  and  saw  the  cause 
of  their  reluctance  to  move.  The  Imperial  Guard  was  being 
massed  in  front  of  the  principal  door  leading  from  the  private 
gardens  into  the  palace.  *  My  dear  Ramail,'  I  said  to  myself, 
*  you  stand  a  very  good  chance  of  having  a  bullet  through 


372  AA^  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

your  head  before  you  are  ten  minutes  older ;  because,  at  the 
slightest  move  of  the  crowd  among  which  you  now  stand,  the 
guard  will  fire.'  I  own  that  I  was  scarcely  prepared  to  face 
death  for  such  a  trivial  cause  as  this  ;  and  I  was  quietly  edg- 
ing my  way  out  of  the  crowd,  which  was  beginning  to  utter 
low  ominous  growls,  when  a, voice,  ringing  clear  upon  the  air, 
shouted,  '  Citoyens  ! '  I  stopped,  turned  round  once  more,  and 
stood  on  tiptoe. 

"  The  speaker  was  a  tall,  handsome  fellow,  young  to  all  ap- 
pearance, and  with  a  voice  like  a  bell.  He  looked  a  gentle- 
man, but  I  have  never  seen  him  before  to  my  knowledge. 
His  companion  I  knew  at  once  ;  it  was  Victorien  Sardou. 
There  is  no  mistaking  that  face.  I  have  heard  some  people 
say  that  it  is  not  a  bit  like  that  of  the  great  Napoleon,  while 
others  maintain  that,  placing  the  living  man  and  the  portrait 
of  the  dead  one  side  by  side,  one  could  not  tell  the  difference. 
I'll  undertake  to  say  this,  that  if  M.  Sardou  had  donned  a 
uniform,  such  as  the  lieutenant  of  artillery  wore  at  Areola,  for 
instance,  he  might  have  taken  the  Empress  by  the  hand  and 
led  her  out  safely  among  the  people,  who  would  have  believed 
in  some  miraculous  resurrection. 

"  To  come  back  to  my  story.  '  Citoyens,'  repeated  M.  Sar- 
dou's  companion,  '  I  do  not  wonder  at  your  surprise  that  the 
garden  should  not  be  open  to  you  and  its  ingress  forbidden  by 
soldiers.  The  Tuileries  belong  to  the  people,  now  that  the 
Empire  is  gone  ;  for  gone  it  is  by  this  time,  in  spite  of  the 
Imperial  Guard  massed  before  yonder  door.  Consequently, 
my  friend  and  I  propose  to  go  and  ask  for  the  withdrawal  of 
these  soldiers.  But,  in  order  to  do  this,  you  must  give  us 
your  promise  not  to  budge  ;  for  the  slightest  attempt  on  your 
part  to  do  so  before  our  retujrn  may  lead  to  bloodshed,  and  I 
am  convinced  that  you  are  as  anxious  as  we  are  to  avoid  such 
a  calamity.' 

*'  If  that  young  fellow  is  not  an  actor,  he  ought  to  be. 
Every  word  he  said  could  be  heard  distinctly  and  produced  its 
effect.*  The  crowd  cheered  him  and  promised  unanimously  to 
wait.  Then  we  saw  him  and  M.  Sardou  take  out  their  hand- 
kerchiefs and  tie  them  to  the  end  of  their  sticks.  Perhaps  it 
was  well  they  did,  for  as  I  saw  them  boldly  walk  up  the  central 
avenue,  I  was  not  at  all  convinced  that  their  lives  were  not  in 
danger.  My  sight  is  excellent,  and  I  noticed  a  decidedly 
hostile  movement  on  the  part  of  the  troops  ranged  in  front  of 
the  principal  door,  and  an  officer  of  Mobiles  was  evidently  of 
my  opinion,  for,  though  he  followed  them  at  a  distance,  he 


AJ\r  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  373 

kept  prudently  behind  the  trees,  sheltering  himself  as  much  as 
possible.  I  do  not  pretend  to  be  wiser  than  most  of  my  fellow- 
men,  but  I  doubt  whether  many  among  those  who  watched  M. 
Sardou  and  his  companion  suspected  the  true  drift  of  their 
self-imposed  mission.  They  merely  wished  to  save  the  Tuil- 
eries  from  being  pillaged  and  burnt  down.  I  do  not  wish  to 
libel  the  Imperial  Guard  or  their  officers,  but  I  should  feel 
much  surprised  if  that  noble  idea  ever  entered  their  heads. 
What  was  the  magnificent  pile  to  them,  now  that  one  of  their 
idols  had  left  it,  probably  forever,  and  the  other  was  about  to 
do  the  same }  At  any  rate,  the  suspicious  movement  was 
there.  I  have  forgotten  to  tell  you  that  the  inner  gate  was 
closed,  and  I  saw  M.  Sardou  parley  through  its  bars  with  one 
of  the  guardians.  Then  a  superior  officer,  accompanied  by  a 
civilian,  came  out ;  but  by  this  time,  the  crowd,  which  had 
kept  back,  was  beginning  to  move  also,  I  among  them.  All  of 
a  sudden,  the  general,  who  turned  out  to  be  General  Mellinet, 
gets  on  a  chair,  while  his  companion,  who  turns  out  to  be  M. 
de  Lesseps,  stands  by  him.  The  Imperial  Guard  disappears, 
seeing  which,  the  crowd,  no  longer  apprehensive  of  being  shot 
down,  advances  rapidly  to  within  a  few  steps  of  the  gate. 
Then  there  is  a  cheer,  for  the  Imperial  flag  is  hauled  down 
from  the  roof.  ^  Gentlemen,'  says  the  general,  *  the  Tuileries 
are  empty,  the  Empress  is  gone.  But  it  is  my  duty  to  guard 
the  palace,  and  I  count  upon  you  to  help  me.'  He  says  a 
great  deal  more,  but  the  crowd  are  pressing  forward  all  the 
same.  I  feel  that  the  crucial  moment  has  arrived,  and  that 
the  palace  will  'be  invaded,  in  spite  of  the  general's  speechify- 
ing, when  lo,  the  Gardes  Mobiles  issue  from  the  front  door, 
and  range  themselves  in  two  rows.  The  gates  are  opened, 
the  crowd  rushes  in,  but  the  Mobiles  are  there  to  prevent  them 
making  any  excursions,  either  upstairs  or  into  the  apartments, 
and  in  a  few  minutes  we  find  ourselves  in  the  Place  du 
Carrousel.  The  palace  has  been  virtually  saved  by  M.  Sardou." 
Half  an  hour  later,  we  receive  the  news  that  the  Government 
of  the  National  Defence  has  been  proclaimed  at  the  Hotel  de 
Ville,  and  that  night  Paris  is  illuminated  as  after  a  victory. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

In  spite  of  the  frequent  reports  from  the  provinces  that  the 
Germans  were  marching  on  Paris,  there  were  thousands  of  peo- 


374  '^^  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

pie  in  the  capital  who  seriously  maintained  that  they,  the  Ger- 
mans, would  not  dare  to  invest,  let  alone,  shell  it.  But  it  must 
not  be  inferred,  as  many  English  writers  have  done,  that  this 
confidence  was  due  to  a  mistaken  view  of  the  Germans'  pluck, 
or  their  reluctance  to  beard  the  "  lion  "  in  his  den.  Not  at  all. 
The  Parisians  simply  credited  their  foes  with  the  superstitious 
love  and  reverence  for  "  the  centre  of  light  and  civilization  " 
which  they  themselves  felt.  They  did  not  take  their  cue  from 
Victor  Hugo's  "  highfalutin'  "  remonstrance  to  King  William  ; 
on  the  contrary,  it  was  the  poet  who  translated  their  sentiments. 
It  was  not  a  case  of  "  one  fool  making  many  ;  "  but  of  many 
mute  inglorious  visionaries  inspiring  a  still  greater  one,  who 
had  the  gift  of  eloquence,  which  eloquence,  in  this  instance, 
bordered  very  closely  on  sublimated  drivel. 

Nevertheless,  the  whole  of  Paris  became  suddenly  trans- 
formed into  one  vast  drill-ground,  and  the  clang  of  arms  re- 
sounded through  the  city  day  and  night.  For  the  time  being, 
the  crowds  left  oif  singing,  albeit  that  they  listened  now  and 
then  devoutly  and  reverently  to  itinerant  performers,  male  and 
female,  who  had  paraphrased  the  patriotic  airs  of  certain  operas 
for  the  occasion.  The  "  Pars  beau  mousquetaire,"  etc.,  of 
Halevy,  became  "  Pars  beau  volontaire  ; "  the  "  Guerre  aux 
tyrans,"  of  the  same  composer,  "  Guerre  aux  all'mands,"  *  and 
so  forth. 

All  the  theatres  had  closed  their  doors  by  this  time,  the 
Comedie-Fran9aise  being  last,  I  believe  ;  though  almost  imme- 
diately afterwards  it  threw  open  its  portals  once  more  for  at 
least  two  performances  a  week,  and  often  a  third  time,  in  aid 
of  the  victims  of  the  siege.  Meanwhile,  several  rooms  were 
being  got  ready  for  the  reception  of  the  wounded ;  the  new 
opera-house,  still  unfinished,  was  made  into  a  commissariat  and 
partly  into  a  barracks,  for  the  provincial  Gardes  Mobiles  were 
flocking  by  thousands  to  the  capital,  and  the  camps  could  not 
hold  them  all.  For  once  in  a  way  the  Parisian  forgot  to  chaff 
the  provincial  who  came  to  pay  him  a  visit ;  and  considering 
that,  even  under  such  circumstances,  all  drill  and  no  play  would 
make  Jacques  a  dull  boy,  he  not  only  received  him  very  cordi- 
ally, but  showed  him  some  of  the  lions  of  the  capital,  at  which 
the  long-haired  gaunt  and  stolid  Breton  stared  without  moving 
a  muscle,  only  muttering  an  unintelligible  gibberish,  which 
might  be  an  invocation  to  his  ancient  pagan  gods,  or  a  tribute 
of   admiration;  while   the  more    astute   and    cynical,  though 

*The  first  from   "  Les  Mousquetaires  de  la  Reine;  "  the  second  from  "  Charles  VI,"— 
Editok. 


A.V  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  375 

scarcely  more  impressionable  Normand,  ten  thousand  of  which 
had  come  from  the  banks  of  the  Marne,  showed  the  thought 
underlying  all  his  daily  actions,  in  one  sentence  :  "  C'est  beit 
beau,  mais  9a  a  coute  beaucoup  d'argent ;  fallait  mieux  le  gar- 
der  en  poche."  Even  at  this  supreme  moment  he  remembered, 
with  a  kind  of  bitterness,  that  he  had  been  made  to  pay  for 
part  of  all  this  glorious  architecture. 

The  Cirques  Napoleon  and  de  ITmperatrice — the  RepubHc 
had  not  had  time  to  change  their  names — had  become  a  kind 
of  left-luggage  office  for  these  human  cargoes,  taken  thither  at 
their  arrival,  which  happened  generally  during  the  night.  In 
the  morning  they  were  transferred  to  their  permanent  encamp- 
ments, and  their  military  education  was  proceeded  with  at  once. 
I  am  afraid  I  am  not  competent  to  judge  of  the  merits  of ,  the 
method  adopted,  but  I  was  by  no  means  powerfully  impressed 
with  the  knowledge  displayed  by  the  instructors. 

The  gardens  of  the  Tuileries  had  been  closed  to  the  public, 
who  had  to  be  satisfied  with  admiring  the  ordnance  and  long 
rows  of  horses  parked  there  from  a  distance.  Did  the  latter 
lend  enchantment  to  the  view  ?  Apparently,  for  they  were 
never  tired  of  gazing  with  ecstasy  on  the  mitrailleuses.  The 
gunners  in  charge  treated  the  foremost  of  the  gazers  now  and 
then  to  a  lecture  on  artillery  practice,  through  the  railings  of 
the  gates.  In  whatsoever  else  they  had  lost  faith,  those  mur- 
derous engines  of  war  evidently  still  commanded  their  confi- 
dence. 

The  frightful  din  that  marked  the  first  weeks  of  the  war  had 
ceased,  but  Paris  did  by  no  means  look  crestfallen.  The  gas 
burned  brightly  still  the  cafes  were  full  of  people,  the  restau- 
rants had  all  their  tables  occupied  ;  for  we  were  not  "  invested  " 
yet,  and  the  idea  of  scarcity,  let  alone  of  famine,  though  a  much- 
discussed  contingency,  was  not  a  staring,  stubborn  fact.  "It 
will  never  become  one,"  said  and  thought  many,  "  and  all  that 
talk  about  doling  out  rations  already  is  so  much  nonsense." 
The  papers  waxed  positively  comic  on  the  subject.  They  also 
waxed  comic  over  the  telegrams  of  the  King  of  Prussia  to  his 
Consort;  but  they  left  off  harping  on  that  string,  for  very 
shame's  sake. 

One  thing  was  certain  from  the  beginning  of  the  siege — what 
ever  else  might  fail,  there  was  enough  wine  and  to  spare  to  cheer 
the  hearts  of  men  who  professed  to  do  and  dare  more  than 
men.  Though  the  best  part  of  my  life  had  been  spent  in  Paris, 
I  had,  curiously  enough,  never  seen  the  wine  and  spirit  depots 
at  Bercy  ;  in  fact,  I  was  profoundly  ignorant  of  that,  as  well  as 


376  AN  ENGLISffMA iV  IN  PA RIS. 

of  other  matters  connected  with  the  food-supply  of  Paris.  So 
I  wrote  to  a  member  of  the  firm  which  had  supplied  me  for 
many  years  with  wine  and  spirits,  and  he  took  me  thither. 

I  should  think  that  the  "entrepot-general,"  as  it  is  called, 
occupied,  at  that  time,  not  less  than  sixty  acres  of  ground, 
which  meant  more  than  treble  that  area  as  far  as  storage  was 
concerned ;  for  there  was  not  only  the  cellarage,  but  the  build- 
ings above  ground,  rising  in  many  instances,  to  three  and  four 
stories.  The  entrepot  consisted,  and  consists  still,  I  believe, 
of  three  distinct  parts  :  one  for  wines  ;  another  for  what  the 
French  call  "  alcohols,"  and  w^e  "  spirits , "  a  third,  much 
smaller,  for  potable  or,  rather,  edible  oils.  The  latter  wing 
contains  the  cellarage  of  the  general  administration  of  the  hos- 
pitals. The  spirit-cellars  were  absolutely  empty  at  the  time  of 
my  visit ;  their  contents  had  been  removed  to  a  bomb  and  shell 
proof  cellarage  hard  by. 

Though  I  had  come  to  see,  I  felt  very  little  wiser  after  leav- 
ing the  cellars  than  before  ;  for,  truth  to  tell,  I  was  absolutely 
bewildered.  I  had  no  more  idea  of  the  quantity  of  wine  stored 
there  than  a  child.     My  guide  laughed. 

"  We'll  soon  make  the  matter  clear  to  you,"  he  said,  shaking 
hands  with  a  gentleman  who  turned  out  to  be  one  of  the  prin- 
cipal employes.  "  This  gentleman  will  tell  you  almost  to  a 
hectolitre  the  quantity  of  ordinary  wine  in  store.  You  know 
pretty  well  the  number  of  inhabitants  of  the  capital,  and  though 
it  has  considerably  increased  during  the  last  few  days,  and  is 
not  unlikely  to  decrease  during  the  siege,  if  siege  there  be,  the 
influx  does  not  amount  to  a  hundred  thousand.  Now,  mon- 
sieur, will  you  tell  this  gentleman  what  you  have  in  stock  ? " 

"  We  have  got  at  the  present  moment  1,600,000  hectolitres 
of  ordinary  wine  in  our  cellars.  Ten  days  ago  we  had  nearly 
one  hundred  thousand  more,  but  the  wine-shops  and  others 
have  laid  in  large  provisions  since  then.  The  more  expensive 
wines  I  need  not  mention,  because  the  quantity  is  very  con- 
siderably less,  and,  moreover,  they  are  not  likely  to  be  wanted  ; 
though,  if  they  were  wanted,  they  would  keep  us  going  for 
many,  many  weeks.  At  a  rough  guess,  the  number  of  *  souls  ' 
within  the  fortifications  is  about  1,700,000,  with  the  recent 
increase  1,800,000  ;  consequently,  with  what  the  '  liquoristes  ' 
have  recently  bought,  one  hundred  litres  for  every  man,  woman, 
and  child.  I  do  not  reckon  the  contents  of  private  cellars, 
nor  those  of  the  wine-merchants,  apart  from  their  recent  pur- 
chases. Nor. is  ordinary  wine  much  dearer  than  it  was  in  years 
of  great  plenty  ;  it  is,  in  fact,  less  by  twenty-five  francs  than  in 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  377 

the  middle  of  the  fifties.  I  am  comparing  prices  for  quarter 
pipes,  containing  from  two  hundred  and  ten  to  two  hundred 
and  thirty  litres.  There  is  no  fear  of  regrating  here,  nor  the 
likelihood  of  our  having  to  drink  water  for  some  time." 

On  our  homeward  journey,  we  noticed  bullocks,  pigs,  and 
sheep  littered  down  in  some  of  the  public  squares  and  on  the 
outer  boulevards.  The  stunted  grass  in  the  former  had  already 
entirely  disappeared,  and  it  was  evident  that,  with  the  utmost 
care,  the  cattle  w^ould  deteriorate  under  the  existing  circum- 
stances ;  for  fodder  would  probably  be  the  first  commodity  to 
fail  :  as  it  was,  it  had  already  risen  to  more  than  twice  its  former 
price.  Moreover,  the  competent  judges  feared  that,  in  the 
event  of  a  rainy  autumn,  the  cattle  penned  in  such  small  spaces 
would  be  more  subject  to  epidemic  diseases,  which  would 
absolutely  render  them  unfit  for  human  food.  In  view  of  such 
a  contingency,  the  learned  members  of  the  Academic  des 
Sciences  were  beginning  to  put  their  heads  together,  but  the 
Tesults  of  their  deliberations  were  not  known  as  yet. 

We  returned  on  foot  as  we  had  come ;  private  carriages  had 
entirely  disappeared,  and  though  the  omnibuses  and  cabs  were 
plying  as  usual,  their  progress  was  seriously  impeded  by  long 
lines  of  vans,  heavily  laden  with  neat  deal  boxes,  evidently 
containing  tinned  provisions.  Very  few  female  passengers  in 
the  public  conveyances,  and  scarcely  a  man  without  a  rifle. 
They  were  the  future  defenders  of  the  capital,  who  had  been 
to  Vincennes,  where  the  distribution  of  arms  was  going  on  from 
early  morn  till  late  at  night.  In  fact,  the  sight  of  a  working- 
man  not  provided  with  a  rifle,  a  mattock,  a  spade,  or  a  pickaxe 
was  becoming  a  rarity,  for  a  great  many  had  been  engaged  to 
aid  the  engineers  in  digging  trenches,  spiking  the  ground,  etc. 

I  did  not,  and  do  not,  feel  competent  to  judge  of  the  utility 
of  all  these  means  of  defence ;  one  of  them,  however,  seemed 
to  be  conceived  in  the  wrong  spirit :  I  allude  to  the  firing  of 
the  woods  around  Paris.  With  the  results  of  Forbach  and 
Woerth  to  guide  them,  the  generals  entrusted  with  the  defence 
of  Paris  could  not  leave  the  woods  to  stand  ;  but  was  there  any 
necessity  to  destroy  them  in  the  way  they  did.'*  In  spite  of 
the  activity  displayed,  there  were  still  thousands  of  idle  hands 
anxious  to  be  employed.  Why  were  not  the  trees  cut  down 
and  transported  to  Paris,  for  fuel  for  the  coming  winter  ?  At 
that  moment  there  were  lots  of  horses  available,  and  such  a 
measure  would  have  given  us  the  double  advantage  of  saving 
coals  for  the  manufacture  of  gas,  and  of  protecting  from  the 
rigors  of  the  coming  winter  hundreds  whose  suffering  would 


378  A  A'  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

have  been  mitigated  by  light  and  heat.  Personally,  I  did  not 
suffer  much.  From  what  I  have  seen  during  the  siege,  I  have 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  shortcomings  in  the  way  of  food 
are  far  less  hard  to  bear,  nay,  are  almost  cheerfully  borne,  in  a 
warm  room  and  with  a  lamp  brightly  burning.  I  leave  out  of 
the  question  the  quantities  of  mineral  oil  wasted  in  the  attempt 
to  set  fire  to  the  woods,  because  in  many  instances  the  attempt 
failed  utterly. 

Meanwhile,  patriotism  was  kept  at  the  boiling  point,  by  glow- 
ing reports  of  the  heroic  defence  of  General  Uhrich  at  Stras- 
burg.  The  statue,  representing  the  capital  of  Alsace  on  the 
Place  de  la  Concorde,  became  the  goal  of  a  reverent  pilgrim- 
age on  the  part  of  the  Parisians,  though  the  effect  of  it  was 
spoiled  too  frequently  by  M.  Prudhomme  holding  forth  sen- 
tentiously,  to  his  sons  apparently,  to  the  crowd  in  reality. 
These  discourses  reminded  one  too  much  of  Heine's  sneer, 
that  "  all  Frenchmen  are  actors,  and  the  worst  are  generally 
on  the  stage."  In  this  instance,  however,  the  amateur  ran 
the  professional  very  hard.  The  crowds  were  not  hyper- 
critical, though,  and  they  applauded  the  speaker,  who  departed, 
accompanied  by  his  offspring,  with  the  proud  consciousness 
that  he  was  a  born  orator,  and  that  he  had  done  his  duty  to 
his  country  by  spouting  platitudes.  It  is  not  difficult  to  give 
the  general  sequel  to  that  amateur  performance.  Next  morn- 
ing there  is  a  line  in  some  obscure  paper,  and  M.  Prudhomme, 
beside  himself  with  joy,  leaves  his  card  on  the  journalist  who 
wrote  it ;  the  journalist  leaves  his  in  return,  and  for  the  next 
six  months  the  latter  has  his  knife  and  fork  laid  at  M.  Prud- 
homme's  table.  The  acquaintance  generally  terminates  on  M. 
Prudhomme's  discovery  that  Madame  Prudhomme  carried  her 
friendship  too  far  by  looking  after  the  domestic  concerns  of  the 
scribe,  at  the  scribe's  bachelor  quarters. 

The  men  who  did  not  spout  were  the  Duruys,  the  Meisso- 
niers,  as  a  hundred  others  I  could  mention.  The  eminent 
historian  and  grand-master  of  the  University,  though  sixty, 
donned  the  simple  uniform  of  a  National  Guard,  and  performed 
his  garrison  duties  like  the  humblest  artisan,  only  distinguished 
from  the  latter  by  his  star  of  grand-officer  of  the  Legion 
d'Honneur ;  the  great  painter  did  the  same.  The  French  shop- 
keeping  bourgeois  is,  as  a  rule,  a  silly,  pompous  creature  ;  very 
frequently  he  is  mean  and  contemptible  besides. 

Here  is  a  story  for  the  truth  of  which  I  can  vouch,  and 
which  shows  him  in  his  true  light.  In  the  skirmish  in  which 
Lieutenant  Winslow  was  killed,  some  damage  had  been  done  to 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  379 

the  inn  at  Schirlenhoff,  where  the  Baden  officers  were  at  break- 
fast when  they  were  surprised  by  General  de  Bernis  and  his 
men.  The  general  had  his  foot  already  in  the  stirrup,  and  was 
about  to  remove  his  prisoners,  when  Boniface  made  his  appear- 
ance, coolly  asking  to  whom  he  was  to  present  the  bill  for  the 
breakage.  The  general  burst  out  laughing  :  "  The  losing  party 
pays  the  damage  as  a  rule,"  he  said,  "  but  France  is  sufficiently 
rich  to  reverse  the  rule.  Here  is  double  the  amount  of  your 
bill." 

A  second  story,  equally  authentic.  A  cable  had  been  secretly 
laid  on  the  bed  of  the  Seine  between  Paris  and  Havre,  shortly 
before  the  siege.  Two  small  shopkeepers  of  St.  Germain 
revealed  the  fact  for  a  consideration  to  the  Germans,  who  had 
but  very  vague  suspicions  of  it,  and  who  certainly  did  not 
know  the  land  bearings  ;  one  of  the  scoundrels  was  caught  after 
the  siege,  the  other  escaped.  The  one  who  was  tried  pleaded 
poverty,  and  received  a  ridiculously  small  sentence.  It  trans- 
pired afterwards  that  he  was  exceedingly  well  paid  for  his 
treachery,  and  that  he  cheated  his  fellow-informer  out  of  his 
share. 

The  contrast  is  more  pleasant  to  dwell  upon.  There  were 
hundreds  of  obscure  heroes,  by  which  I  do  not  mean  those 
prepared  to  shed  their  blood  on  the  battlefield,  but  men  with  a 
sublime  indifference  to  life,  courting  the  fate  of  a  Ravaillac 
and  a  Balthazar  Gerard.  History  would  have  called  them 
regicides,  and  perhaps  ranked  them  with  paid  assassins  had 
they  accomplished  their  purpose,  would  have  held  them  up  to 
the  scorn  of  posterity  as  bloodthirsty  fanatics, — and  history, 
for  once  in  a  way,  would  have  been  wrong.  In  their  reprehen- 
sible folly,  they  were  more  estimable  than  the  Jules  Favres, 
the  Gambettas  who  played  at  being  the  saviours  of  the  country, 
and  who  were  only  the  saviours  of  their  needy,  fellow  political 
adventurers. 

Apart  from  the  former,  there  were  the  inventors  of  impossi- 
ble schemes  for  the  instantaneous  annihilation  of  the  three 
hundred  thousand  Germans  around  Paris, — inventors  who 
supply  the  comic  note  in  the  otherwise  terrible  drama, — inven- 
tors who  day  by  day  besiege  the  Ministry  for  War,  and  to 
whom,  after  all,  the  minister's  coUaborateurs  are  compelled 
to  listen  "  on  the  chance  of  there  being  something  in  their 
schemes." 

"  I  am  asking  myself,  every  now  and  then,  whether  I  am  a 
staff-officer  or  one  of  the  doctors  at  Charenton,"  said  Prince 
Bibesca,  one  evening. 


380  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

"  Since  yesterday  morning,"  he  went  on,  "  I  have  been  in 
terviewed  by  a  dozen  inventors,  every  one  of  whom  wanted  to 
see  General  Trochu  or  General  Schmitz,  and  would  scarcely 
be  persuaded  that  I  would  do  as  well.  The  first  one  simply 
took  the  breath  out  of  me.  I  had  no  energy  left  to  resist  the 
others,  or  to  bow  them  out  politely ;  if  they  had  chosen  to  keep 
on  talking  for  four  and  twenty  hours,  I  should  have  been  com- 
pelled to  listen;  He  was  a  little  man,  about  the  height  of  M. 
Thiers.  His  opening  speech  was  in  proportion  to  his  height ; 
it  consisted  of  one  line.  '  Monsieur,  I  annihilate  the  Germans 
with  one  blow,'  he  said.  I  was  thrown  off  my  guard  in  spite 
of  myself,  for  etiquette  demands  that  I  should  keep  serious  in 
spite  of  myself  ;  and  I  replied,  *  Let  me  fill  my  pipe  before  you 
do  it.' 

"  Meanwhile,  my  visitor  spread  out  a  large  roll  of  paper  on 
the  table.  *I  am  not  an  inventor,'  he  said  ;  *I  merely  adapt 
the  lessons  of  ancient  history  to  the  present  circumstances.  I 
merely  modify  the  trick  of  the  horse  of  Troy.  Here  is  Paris 
with  its  ninety-six  bastions,  its  forts,  etc.  I  draw  three  lines  : 
along  the  first  I  send  twenty-five  tiiousand  men  pretending  to 
attack  the  northern  positions  of  the  enemy ;  along  the  second 
line  I  send  a  similar  number,  apparently  bent  on  a  similar  at- 
tempt .to  the  south ;  my  fifty  thousand  troops  are  perfectly 
visible  to  the  Germans,  for  they  commence  their  march  an  hour 
or  so  before  dusk.  Meanwhile  darkness  sets  in,  and  that  is 
the  moment  I  choose  to  despatch  a  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand troops,  screened  and  entirely  concealed  by  a  movable  wall 
of  sheet  iron,  blackened  by  smoke.  My  inventive  powers  have 
gone  no  further  than  this.  My  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
men  behind  their  wall  penetrate  unhindered  as  far  as  the  Prus- 
sian lines,  where  a  hundred  thousand  fall  on  their  backs,  taking 
aim  over  the  wall,  while  fifty  thousand, keep  moving  it  forward 
slowly.  Twelve  shots  for  every  man  make  twelve  hundred 
thousand  shots — more  than  sufficient  to  cause  a  panic  among 
the  Germans,  who  do  not  know  whence  the  firing  proceeds, 
because  my  wall  is  as  dark  as  night  itself.  Supposing,  how- 
ever, that  those  who  have  been  left  in  the  camp  defend  them- 
selves, their  projectiles  will  glance  off  against  the  sheet  iron  of 
the  wall,  which,  if  necessary,  can  be  thrown  down  finally  by 
our  own  men,  who  will  finish  their  business  with  the  bayonet 
and  the  sword." 

"  My  second  visitor  had  something  not  less  formidable  to 
propose  ;  namely,  a  sledge-hammer,  fifteen  miles  in  circum- 
ference, and  weighing  ten  millions  of  tons.     It  was  to  be  lifted 


A  A'  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  381 

Up  to  a  certain  altitude  by  means  of  balloons.  A  favorable 
wind  had  to  be  waited  for,  which  would  send  the  balloons  in 
the  direction  of  Versailles,  where  the  ropes  confining  the  ham- 
mer would  be  cut.  In  its  fall  it  would  crush  and  bury  the  head- 
quarters and  the  bulk  of  the  German  army. 

"  The  third  showed  me  the  plan  of  a  musical  mitrailleuse, 
which  would  deal  death  and  destruction  while  playing  Wagner, 
Schubert,  and  Mendelssohn,  the  former  by  preference.  '  The 
Germans,'  he  remarked,  '  are  too  fond  of  music  to  be  able  to 
resist  the  temptation  of  listening.  They  are  sure  to  draw  near 
in  thousands  when  my  mitrailleuses  are  set  playing.  We  have 
got  them  at  our  mercy.'  I  asked  him  to  send  me  a  small  one 
as  a  sample  :  he  promised  to  do  so." 

Another  evening  I  was  induced  to  go  to  the  Alcazar.  I  had 
been  there  once  before,  to  hear  Theresa.  This  time  it  was  to 
see  an  "  Exhibition  of  Engines  of  War,"  and  to  listen  to  a 
practical  lecture  thereon.  The  audience  was  as  jolly  as  if  the 
Germans  were  a  thousand  miles  a^yay — jollier,  perhaps,  than 
when  they  listened  to  "  Rien  n'est  sacre  pour  un  sapeur;"  be- 
cause they  were  virtually  taking  part  in  the  performance.  The 
lecturer  began  by  an  exhibition  of  bullet-proof  pads,  by  means 
of  which  the  soldier  might  fearlessly  advance  towards  the 
enemy  ;  "  because  they  render  that  part  of  the  body  on  which 
they  are  worn  invulnerable."  A  wag  among  the  spectators 
made  a  remark  about  "retreating  soldiers,"  which  I  cannot 
transcribe  ;  but  the  exhibitor,  an  Italian  or  Spanish  major,  to 
judge  by  his  accent,  was  in  noway  disconcerted.  He  placed 
his  pad  against  an  upright  board  in  the  shape  of  a  target  and 
began  firing  at  it  with  a  revolver  at  a  distance  of  four  or  five 
paces.  The  material,  though  singed,  was  not  pierced,  but  the 
spectators  seemed  by  no  means  convinced.  "  You  wear  the 
pad,  and  let  me  have  a  shot  at  you,"  exclaimed  one ;  at  which 
offer  the  major  made  a  long  face.  "  Have  you  ever  tried  the 
experiment  on  a  living  animal .''  "  asks  another.  *'  Perfectly," 
replied  the  major;  "  I  tried  it  on  my  clerk,"  which  admission 
was  hailed  with  shouts  of  laughter.  There  were  cries  for  the 
clerk,  who  did  not  appear.  A  corporal  of  the  National  Guards 
proposed  to  try  an  experiment  on  the  major  and  the  pad  with 
the  bayonet  fastened  to  a  chassepot ;  thereupon  major  and  pad 
suddenly  disappeared  behind  the  wings. 

The  next  inventor  exhibits  a  fire-extinguisher  ;  the  audience 
require  more  than  a  verbal  explanation ;  some  of  them  pro- 
pose to  set  the  Alcazar  on  fire.  A  small  panic,  checked  in 
time;   and  the  various   demonstrations   are   proceeded   with 


382  AjV  englishman  in  PARIS. 

amidst  shouts,  and  laughter,  and  jokes.  They  yield  no  practi- 
cal results,  but  they  kill  time.  They  are  voted  the  next  best 
thing  to  the  theatre. 

By  this  time  we  were  shut  oi¥  from  the  outer  world.  On  the 
17th  of  September,  at  night,  the  last  train  of  the  Orleans  Rail- 
way Company  had  left  Paris.  The  others  had  ceased  working 
a  day  or  so  before,  and  placed  their  rolling  stock  in  safety. 
Not  the  whole  of  it,  though.  A  great  many  of  the  third-class 
carriages  have  had  their  seats  taken  out,  the  luggage  and  goods 
vans  have  been  washed,  the  cattle  trucks  boarded  in,  and  all 
these  transformed  into  temporary  dwellings  for  the  suburban 
poor  who  have  been  obliged  to  seek  shelter  within  the  walls  of 
the  capital.  The  interiors  of  the  principal  railway  stations 
present  scenes  that  would  rejoice  the  hearts  of  genre-painters 
on  a  large  scale.  The  washing  and  cooking  of  all  these  squat- 
ters is  done  on  the  various  platforms,  the  carriages  have  be- 
come parlor  and  bedroom  in  one,  and  there  has  even  been 
some  ingenuity  displayed  in  their  decoration.  The  woman- 
kind rarely  stir  from  their  improvised  homes  ;  the  men  are  on 
the  fortifications  or  roaming  the  streets  of  Paris.  Part  of  the 
household  goods  has  been  stowed  inside  the  trucks,  the  rest 
is  piled  up  in  front.  The  domestic  pets,  such  as  cats  and 
dogs,  have,  as  yet,  not  been  killed  for  food,  and  the  former 
have  a  particularly  good  time  of  it,  for  mice  and  rats  abound, 
especially  in  the  goods-sheds.  Here  and  there  a  goat  gravely 
stalking  along,  happily  unconscious  of  its  impending  doom  • 
and  chanticleer  surrounded  by  a  small  harem  trying  to  make 
the  best  of  things. 

Of  course,  the  sudden  and  enormous  influx  of  human  beings 
could  not  be  housed  altogether  in  that  way,  but  care  has  been 
taken  that  none  of  them  shall  be  shelterless.  All  the  tenantless 
apartments,  from  the  most  palatial  in  the  Faubourg  St.  Honore 
and  Champs-Elysees  to  the  humblest  in  the  popular  quarters, 
have  been  utilized,  and  the  pot-au-feu  simmers  in  marble 
fireplaces,  while  Gallic  Hodge  sees  his  face  reflected  in  gigantic 
mirrors  the  like  of  which  he  never  saw  before.  The  dwell- 
ings that  have  been  merely  vacated  by  their  tenants  who  have 
flitted  to  Homburg  and  Baden-Baden,  to  Nice  and  elsewhere, 
are  as  yet  not  called  into  requisition  by  the  authorities. 

From  the  moment  we  were  cut  off  from  the  outer  world,  the 
spy  mania,  which  had  been  raging  fiercely  enough  before,  be- 
came positively  contagious.  There  is  not  the  slightest  doubt 
that  there  were  spies  in  Paris,  but  I  feel  perfectly  certain  that 
they  were  not  prowling  about  the  streets,  and  that  to  have  caught 


A  A'  ENGLmHMAN  IN  PARIS.  383 

them  one  would  have  had  to  look  among  the  personnel  of  the 
ministries.  For  a  foreigner,  unless  he  spoke  French  without 
the  slightest  accent,  to  have  accepted  such  a  mission,  would 
have  been  akin  to  madness  ;  and  there  were  and  are  still  few 
foreigners,  however  well  they  may  know  French,  who  do  not 
betray  their  origin  now  and  then  by  imperfect  pronunciation. 
Besides,  there  was  nothing  to  spy  in  the  streets  ;  nevertheless, 
the  spy  mania,  as  I  have  already  said,  had  reached  an  acute 
crisis.  The  majority  of  the  National  Guard  seemed  to  have 
no  other  occupation  than  to  look  for  spies.  A  poor  Spanish 
priest  was  arrested  because  he  had  been  three  times  in  the 
same  afternoon  to  the  cobbler  for  the  only  serviceable  pair  of 
shoes  he  possessed.  Woe  to  the  man  or  woman  who  was  ill- 
advised  enough  to  take  out  his  pocket-book  in  the  streets.  If 
you  happened  to  be  of  studious  habits,  or  merely  inclined  to  sit 
up  late,  the  lights  peeping  through  the  carelessly  drawn  cur- 
tains exposed  you  to  a  sudden  visit  from  half  a  dozen  ill-man- 
nered, swaggering  National  Guards,  your  concierge  was  called 
out  of  his  bed,  while  you  were  taken  to  the  nearest  commissary 
of  police  to  explain  ;  or,  what  was  worse  still,  to  the  near- 
est military  post,  where  the  lieutenant  in  command  made  it  a 
point  to  be  altogether  soldier-like — according  to  his  ideas,  /.  ^., 
brutal,  rude,  disgustingly  familiar.  You  might  get  an  apology 
from  the  police-official  for  having  been  disturbed  and  dragged 
through  the  streets  for  no  earthly  reason  ;  the  quasi-military 
man  would  have  considered  it  beneath  his  dignity  to  offer  one. 
Of  course,  every  now  and  then,  one  happened  to  meet  with 
a  gentleman  who  was  only  too  anxious  to  atone  for  the  imbe- 
cile "  goings-on  "  of  his  men,  and  I  was  fortunate  enough  to 
do  so  one  night.  It  was  on  the  20th  of  September,  when  the 
feelings  of  the  Parisians  had  already  been  embittered  by  their 
first  and  not  very  creditable  defeat  under  their  own  walls.  I 
do  not  suppose  there  were  more  than  a  score  of  Englishmen 
in  Paris,  besides  the  Irishmen  engaged  in  salting  beef  at  the 
slaughter-house  of  La  Villette,  when,  but  for  that  gentleman,  I 
should  have  been  in  a  sore  strait.  Among  the  English  there 
was  a  groom  who,  at  the  time  of  the  general  exodus,  was  so 
dangerously  ill  that  the  doctor  absolutely  forbade  his  removal, 
even  to  a  hospital.  The  case  had  been  brought  under  my 
notice,  and  as  the  poor  fellow  was  very  respectable  and  had 
been  hard-working,  as  he  had  a  wife  and  a  young  family  be- 
sides, we  not  only  did  all  we  could  for  him,  but  I  went  to  see 
him  personally  two  or  three  times  to  cheer  him  up  a  bit.  He 
was  on  the  mend,  but  slowly,  very  slowly.     He  lived  in  one  of 


384  ^^'  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

the  side  streets  of  the  Avenue  de  Clichy,  and  had  lived  there 
a  good  while,  and  the  concierge  of  the  house  had  her  mind 
perfectly  at  rest  with  regard  to  his  nationality,  albeit  that  the 
fact  of  being  an  Englishman  was  not  always  a  sufficient  guar- 
rantee  against  the  suspicion  of  being  a  spy  on  the  part  of  the 
lower  classes.  Moreover,  they  would  not  always  take  the  fact 
for  granted  ;  they  were  unable  to  distinguish  an  English  from 
a  German  or  any  other  accent,  and,  with  them,  to  be  a  for- 
eigner was  necessarily  to  be  a  German,  and  a  German  could 
not  be  anything  but  a  spy.  However,  in  this  instance,  I  felt 
no  anxiety  for  my  protege. 

Unfortunately,  a  few  days  before  the  closing  of  Paris,  the 
concierge  herself  fell  ill,  and  another  one  took  her  place.  The 
successor  was  a  man,  and  not  by  any  means  a  pleasant  man. 
There  was  a  scowl  on  his  face,  as,  in  answer  to  his  summons, 
I  told  him  whither  I  was  going ;  and  he  cast  a  suspicious  look 
at  a  box  I  was  carrying  under  my  arm,  which  happened  to 
contain  nothing  more  formidable  than  a  surgical  appliance.  I 
took  no  notice,  however,  and  mounted  the  stairs. 

My  visit  may  have  lasted  between  twenty  minutes  and  half 
an  hour.  When  I  came  out,  a  considerable  crowd  had  assem- 
bled on  the  footway  and  in  the  road,  and  a  dozen  National 
Guards  were  ranged  in  a  semi-circle  in  front  of  the  door. 

The  first  cry  that  greeted  me  was  "  Le  voilk,"  and  then  a 
corporal  advanced.  "  Your  name,  citizen,"  he  said,  in  a  hec- 
toring tone,  "  and  what  brings  you  to  this  house  t  "  I  kept 
very  cool,  and  told  him  that  I  would  neither  give  him  my  name 
nor  an  explanation  of  my  visit,  but  that  if  he  would  take  me 
to  his  lieutenant  or  captain,  I  should  be  pleased  to  give  both 
to  the  latter.  But  he  would  not  be  satisfied.  "Where  is  the 
box  you  had  in  your  hand  ?  what  did  it  contain  ?  and  what 
have  you  done  with  it  ?  "  he  insisted.  I  knew  that  it  would  be 
useless  to  try  and  enlighten  him,  so  I  stuck  to  my  text.  Mean- 
while the  crowd  had  become  very  excited,  so  I  simply  repeated 
my  request  to  be  taken  to  the  post. 

The  crowd  would  have  willingly  judged  me  there  and  then  ; 
that  is,  strung  me  up  to  the  nearest  lamp-post.  If  they  had, 
not  a  single  one  among  them  would  have  been  prosecuted  for 
murder,  and  by  the  end  of  the  siege  the  British  Government 
w^ould  have  considered  it  too  late  to  move  in  the  matter ;  be- 
sides, a  great  many  of  my  countrymen  would  have  opined  that 
"  it  served  me  right  "  for  remaining  in  Paris,  when  I  might 
have  made'  myself  so  comfortable  in  London  or  elsewhere. 
So  I  felt  very  thankful  when  the  corporal,  though  very  un- 


AJV  BNGLISHMAN  in  PARIS.  385 

graciously,  ordered  his  men  to  close  around  me  and  "  to  march." 
I  have,  since  then,  been  twice  to  the  Avenue  de  Clichy  on 
pleasure  bent ;  that  is,  to  breakfast  at  the  celebrated  establish- 
ment of  "  le  pere  Lathuille,"  and  the  sight  of  the  lamp-posts 
there  sent  a  cold  shudder  down  my  back. 

The  journey  to  the  military  post  did  not  take  long.  It  had 
been  established  in  a  former  ball-room  or  music-hall,  for  at  the 
far  end  of  the  room  there  was  a  stage,  representing,  as  far  as 
I  can  remember,  an  antique  palace.  The  floor  of  it  was  littered 
with  straw,  on  which  a  score  or  so  of  civic  warriors  were  lazily 
stretched  out ;  while  others  were  sitting  at  the  small  wooden 
tables,  that  had,  not  long  ago,  borne  the  festive  "  saladier  de 
petit  bleu."  Some  of  the  ladles  with  which  that  decoction  had 
been  stirred  were  still  hanging  from  the  walls ;  for  in  those 
neighborhoods  the  love  of  portable  property  on  the  part  of  the 
patrons  is  quite  Wemmickian,  and  the  proprietors  made  and 
make  it  a  rule  to  throw  as  little  temptation  as  possible  in  the 
way  of  the  former.  The  place  looked  quite  sombre,  though  the 
gas  was  alight.  There  was  an  intolerable  smell  of  damp  straw 
and  stale  tobacco  smoke. 

Part  of  the  crowd  succeeded  in  making  their  way  inside,  not- 
withstanding the  efforts  of  the  National  Guards.  My  appear- 
ance caused  a  certain  stir  among  the  occupants  of  the  room  : 
but  in  a  few  moments  the  captain,  summoned  from  an  apart- 
ment at  the  back,  came  upon  the  scene,  and  my  preliminary 
trial  was  proceeded  with  at  once. 

The  indictment  of  the  corporal  who  had  arrested  me  was 
brief  and  to  the  point.  "  This  man  is  a  foreigner  who  pays 
constant  visits  to  another  foreigner,  supposed  to  be  sick.  This 
evening  he  arrived  with  a  box  under  his  arm  which  he  left  with 
his  friend.  The  concierge  has  reason  to  suppose  that  there  is 
something  wrong,  for  he  does  not  believe  in  the  man's  illness. 
He  is  supposed  to  be  poor,  and  still  he  and  his  family  are  liv- 
ing on  the  fat  of  the  land.  My  prisoner  refused  to  give  me 
his  name  and  address,  or  an  explanation  of  his  visit." 

"  What  have  you  to  say,  monsieur  t  "  asked  the  captain,  a 
man  of  about  thirty-five,  evidently  belonging  to  the  better 
classes.  I  found  out  afterwards  that  his  name  M'as  Gamier, 
or  Garmier,  and  that  he  was  a  cashier  in  one  of  the  large  com- 
mercial establishments  in  the  Rue  St.  Martin.  He  was  killed 
in  the  last  sortie  of  the  Parisians. 

It  was  the  first  time  I  had  been  addressed  that  evening  as 
"  monsieur."  I  simply  took  a  card  from  my  pocket-book  and 
gave  it  to  him.     "  If  that  is  not  sufficient,  some  of  your  men 

25 


386  A  A'  ENGLlSHMAxV  IN  PARIS. 

can  accompany  me  home  and  ascertain  for  themselves  that  1 
have  not  given  a  false  name  or  address,"  I  said. 

He  looked  at  it  for  a  moment.  "  It  is  quite  unnecessary.  I 
know  your  name  very  well,  though  I  have  not  the  honor  of 
knowing  you  personally.  I  have  seen  your  portrait  at  my 
relatives'  establishment " — he  named  a  celebrated  picture- 
dealer  in  the  Rue  de  la  Paix, — "  and  I  ought  to  have  recognized 
you  at  once,  for  it  is  a  very  striking  likeness,  but  it  is  so  dark 
here."  Then  he  turned  to  his  men  and  to  the  crowd  :  "  I  will 
answer  for  this  gentleman.  I  wish  we  had  a  thousand  or  so 
of  foreign  spies  like  him  in  Paris.  France  has  no  better  friend 
than  he." 

I  was  almost  as  much  afraid  of  the  captain's  praise  as  I  had 
been  of  the  corporal's  blame,  because  the  crowd  wanted  to 
give  me  an  ovation  ;  seeing  which,  M.  Garmier  invited  me  to 
stay  with  him  a  little  while,  until  the  latter  should  have  dis- 
persed. It  was  while  sitting  in  his  own  room  that  he  told  me 
the  following  story. 

"  My  principal  duty,  monsieur,  seems  to  consist,  not  in  kill- 
ing Germans,  but  in  preventing  perfectly  honest  Frenchmen 
and  foreigners  from  being  killed  or  maimed.  Not  later  than 
the  night  before  last,  three  men  were  brought  in.  They  were 
all  very  powerful  fellows  ;  there  was  no  doubt  about  their  being 
Frenchmen.  They  did  not  take  their  arrest  as  a  matter  of 
course  at  all,  but  to  every  question  I  put  they  simply  sent  me 
to  the  devil.  It  was  not  the  behavior  of  the  presumed  spy, 
who,  as  a  rule,  is  very  soft  spoken  and  conciliating  until  he 
sees  that  the  game  is  up,  when  he  becomes  insulting.  Still,  I 
reflected  that  the  violence  of  the  three  men  might  be  a  clever 
bit  of  acting  also,  the  more  that  I  could  see  for  myself  that 
they  were  abominably,  though  not  speechlessly,  drunk.  Their 
offence  was  that  they  had  been  seen  loitering  in  a  field  very 
close  to  the  fortification,  with  their  noses  almost  to  the  ground. 
Do  what  I  would,  an  explanation  I  could  not  get,  and  at  last 
the  most  powerful  of  the  trio  made  a  movement  as  if  to  draw 
a  knife.  V/ith  great  difficulty  a  dozen  of  my  men  succeeded  in 
getting  his  coat  off ;  and  there,  between  his  waistcoat  and  his 
shirt,  was  a  murderous  looking  blade,  a  formidable  weapon 
indeed. 

"  '  He  is  a  Prussian  spy,  sure  enough  ? '  exclaimed  the  room- 
ful of  guards. 

"  I  examined  the  knife  carefully,  tried  to  find  the  name  of 
the  maker,  and  all  at  once  put  it  to  my  nose.  Then  I  took  up 
a   candle    and   looked  more   carefully  still  at  the  prisoners. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  387 

*  They  are  simply  drunk,'  I  said,  '  and  the  best  thing  you  can 
do  is  to  take  them  home.' 

"  '  But  the  knife  ? '  insisted  the  sergeant. 

"  '  The  knife  is  all  right,'  I  answered. 

"  '  I  should  think  it  is  all  right,'  said  the  owner,  *  seeing  that 
I  am  cutting  provisions  all  day  with  it  for  those  confounded 
Parisians.' 

"  But  the  guards  were  not  satisfied  with  the  explanation. 
They  began  to  surround  me.  '  That  was  surely  a  sign  you 
made  to  the  fellow  when  you  lifted  the  blade  to  your  face,  cap- 
tain,' said  a  sergeant. 

" '  Not  at  all,  friend ;  I  was  simply  smelling  it.  And  it 
smelt  abominably  of  onions.'  That  will  give  you  an  idea, 
monsieur,  of  the  hfe  they  lead  me  also.  Still,  I  would  ask 
you,  as  a  particular  favor,  monsieur,  not  to  mention  your  mis- 
hap to  any  one.  As  you  are  aware,  I  am  not  to  blame  ;  but 
we  are  in  bad  odor  enough  as  it  is  at  the  Ministry  of  War,  and 
we  do  not  wish  to  increase  our  somewhat  justified  reputation 
for  irresponsible  rowdyism  and  lack  of  discipline." 

I  gave  him  my  promise  to  that  effect,  and  have  not  mentioned 
the  matter  until  this  day. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

I  AM  not  a  soldier,  nor  in  the  least  like  one  ;  hence  I  have, 
almost  naturally,  neglected  to  note  any  of  the  strategic  and 
military  problems  involved  in  the  campaign  and  the  siege.  But, 
ignorant  as  I  am  in  these  matters,  and  notwithstanding  the  re- 
peated failures  of  General  Trochu's  troops  to  break  through  the 
lines  of  investment,  I  feel  certain,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the 
Germans  would  have  never  taken  Paris  by  storming  it.  Years 
before.  Von  Moltke  had  expressed  his  opinion  to  that  effect  in 
his  correspondence,  not  exactly  with  regard  to  the  French 
capital,  but  with  regard  to  any  fortified  centre  of  more  than  a 
hundred  thousand  inhabitants.  Such  an  agglomeration,  even 
if  severely  left  alone,  and  only  shut  off  from  the  rest  of  the 
world,  falls  by  itself.  I  am  giving  the  spirit  and  not  the  sub- 
stance of  his  words. 

Consequently,  there  is  no  need  to  say,  that,  to  the  mere 
social  observer,  the  problems  raised  by  the  food-supply  were 
perhaps  the  most  interesting.  Even  under  normal  conditions, 
the  average  Parisian  in  his  method  of  feeding  is  worth  study 
ing ;  he  is  supposed  to  be  one  of  the  most  abstemious  creatures 


388  AA^  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

on  the  civilized  globe.  And  yet,  I  do  not  think  that  he  con- 
sumes less  alcohol  than  the  average  Englishman  or  German. 
The  Frenchman's  alcohol  is  more  diluted  ;  that  is  all.  A 
drunken  woman  is  a  very  rare  sight,  either  in  Paris  or  in  the 
provinces  ;  nevertheless,  there  is,  probably,  not  one  in  a  thou- 
sand women  among  the  lower  classes  who  drinks  less  than  her 
half  a  bottle  of  wine  per  day  ;  while  ladies  of  high  degree  gen- 
erally partake  of  one  if  not  two  glasses  of  chartreuse  with  their 
coffee,  after  each  of  the  two  principal  meals.  Uii  grog  Aitieri- 
cain  is  as  often  ordered  for  the  lady  as  for  the  gentleman,  dur- 
ing the  evening  visits  to  the  cafe.  I  am  speaking  of  gentle- 
women by  birth  and  education,  and  of  the  spouses  of  the  well- 
to-do  men,  not  of  the  members  of  the  demi-monde  and  of  those 
below  them. 

So  far,  the  question  of  drink,  which,  after  my  visit  to  the 
wine-depots  at  Bercy,  assumed  an  altogether  different  aspect  to 
my  mind.  I  began  to  wonder  whether  the  plethora  of  wine 
would  not  do  as  much  harm  as  the  expected  scarcity  of  food  1 
My  fears  were  not  groundless. 

Frenchmen,  especially  Parisians,  not  only  eat  a  great  quan- 
tity of  bread,  but  they  are  very  particular  as  to  its  quality.  I 
have  a  note  showing  that,  during  the  years  1868-69,  the  con- 
sumption per  head  for  every  man,  woman,  and  child  amounted 
to  a  little  more  than  an  English  pound  per  day,  and  that  very 
little  of  this  was  of  "  second  quality,"  though  the  latter  was  as 
good  as  that  sold  at  many  a  London  baker's  as  first,  I  tasted 
it  myself,  because  the  municipality  had  made  a  great  point  of 
introducing  it  to  the  lower  classes  at  twopence  per  quartern 
less  than  the  first  quality.  Nevertheless,  the  French  workman 
v/ould  have  none  of  it.* 

Even  in  the  humblest  restaurants,  the  bread  supplied  to  cus- 
tomers is  of  a  superior  quality  ;  the  ordinary  household  bread 
(pain  de  menage)  is  only  to  be  had  by  specially  asking  fgr  it ; 
the  roll  with  the  cafe-au-lait  in  the  morning  is  an  institution 
except  with  the  very  poor. 

As  for  meat,  I  have  an  idea,  in  spite  of  all  the  doubts  thrown 
upon  the  question  by  English  writers,  that  the  Parisian  work- 
man in  1870  consumed  as  much  as  his  London  fellow.  The 
fact  of  the  former  having  two  square  meals  a  day  instead  of 
one,  is  not  sufficiently  taken  into  account  by  the  casual  ob- 
server. There  are  few  English  artisans  whose  supper,  except 
on  Sundays,  consists  of  anything  more  substantial  than  bread 

*  Goethe,  in  Kis  journey  through  France,  noticed  that  the  peasants  who  drove  his  carriage 
invariably  refused  to  eat  the  soldiers'  bread,  which  he  found  to  his  taste. — Editor. 


J  A'  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  389 

and  cheese.  The  Frenchman  eats  meat  at  twelve  a.  m.  and  at 
six  p.m.  The  nourishment  contained  in  the  scraps,  the  bones," 
etc.,  is  generally  lost  to  the  Englishman  :  not  a  particle  of  it  is 
wasted  in  France.  Be  that  as  it  may,  the  statistics  for  1858 
show  a  consumption  of  close  upon  eight  ounces  (English)  of 
fresh  meat  per  day  for  every  head  of  the  population.  Be  it 
remembered  that  these  statistics  are  absolutely  correct,  because 
a  town-due  of  over  a  half-penny  per  English  pound  is  paid  on 
the  meat  leaving  the  public  slaughter-houses,  and  killed  meat 
is  taxed  similarly  at  the  city  gates.  Private  slaughter-houses 
there  are  virtually  none. 

Allowing  for  all  this,  it  will  be  seen  that  Paris  was  not  much 
better  off  than  other  capitals  would  have  been  if  threatened 
with  a  siege,  except,  perhaps,  for  the  ingenuity  of  even  the 
humblest  French  housewife  in  making  much  out  of  little  by 
means  of  vegetables,  fruit,  and  cunningly  prepared  sauces,  for 
which,  nevertheless,  butter,  milk,  lard,  etc.,  were  wanted,  which 
commodities  were  as  likely  to  fail  as  all  other  things.  Nor 
must  one  forget  to  mention  the  ingenuity  displayed  in  the 
public  slaughter-houses  themselves,  in  utilizing  every  possible 
scrap  of  the  slaughtered  animals  for  human  food.  I  had  occa- 
sion, not  very  long  ago  (1883),  to  go  frequently,  and  for  several 
weeks  running,  to  one  of  the  poorest  quarters  in  London.  T 
often  made  the  journey  on  foot,  for  I  am  ashamed  to  say  that, 
until  then,  the  East  End  was  far  more  unknown  to  me  than 
many  an  obscure  town  in  France,  Italy,  Germany,  and  Spain. 
The  clever  remark  of  a  French  sociologist  that  "  the  battle  of 
life  is  fought  below  the  belt,"holdsespecially  good  with  regard 
to  the  lower  classes.  Well,  I  may  unhesitatingly  say  that  in 
no  country  are  the  poor  left  in  greater  ignorance  with  regard 
to  cheap  and  nourishing  food  than  in  England,  if  I  am  to  judge 
by  London.  The  French,  the  German,  the  Italian,  the  Spanish 
poor,  have  a  dozen  inexpensive  and  succulent  dishes  of  which 
the  English  poor  know  absolutely  nothing  ;  and  still  those  very 
dishes  figure  on  the  tables  of  the  well-to-do,  and  of  fashionable 
restaurants,  as  entrees  under  more  or  less  fantastic  names.  Is 
the  English  working  man  so  utterly  devoid  of  thrift  and  of 
common  sense,  is  his  contempt  for  the  foreigner  so  great  as 
to  make  him  refuse  to  take  a  lesson  from  the  latter  t  I  think 
not.  I  fancy  it  will  depend  much  on  the  manner  in  which  the 
lesson  is  conveyed.  A  little  less  board-school  work  and  Sun- 
day-school teaching,  fewer  Bible  classes,  and  a  good  many 
practical  cooking-classes  would  probably  meet  the  case. 

The  French,  though  aware  of  their  incontestable  superiority 


390  A:V  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

in  the  way  of  preparing  food,  did  not  disdain  to  take  a  lesson 
from  the  alien.  They  clearly  foresaw  the  fate  in  store  for  the 
cattle  penned  in  the  squares  and  public  gardens,  if  compelled 
to  remain  there  under  existing  conditions,  and  with  the  incle- 
ment season  close  at  hand  ;  consequently,  the  authorities  en- 
listed the  services  of  Mr.  Wilson,  an  Irish  gentleman  who  had 
been  residing  in  Paris  for  a  number  of  years,  and  whose  experi- 
ence in  the  salted-provision  trade  seemed  to  them  very  likely 
to  yield  most  satisfactory  results.  Up  till  then,  only  thirty  head 
of  cattle  had  been  submitted  to  his  process,  from  that  moment 
the  number  is  considerably  increased,  and  it  becomes  apparent 
that  in  a  short  while,  there  will  be  few  live  oxen,  sheep,  or  pigs 
left  in  Paris,  though,  as  yet,  we  are  only  in  the  beginning  of 
October.  Under  Mr.  Wilson's  able  management,  half  a  hun- 
dred Irishmen  are  at  work  for  many,  many  hours  a  day  at  the 
slaughter-house  in  La  Villette,  whither  flock  the  Parisians,  at 
any  rate  the  privileged  ones,  to  watch  the  preliminaries  to  the 
regime  of  salt-junk  which  is  staring  them  in  the  face.  I'he 
fodder  thus  economized  will  go  to  the  horses,  although  there  is 
a  whisper  in  the  air  that  one  eminent  savant  has  recommended 
their  immediate  slaughter  and  salting  also.  Of  course,  such  as 
are  wanted  for  military  purposes  will  be  exempted  from  this 
holocaust  on  the  altar  of  patriotism.  M.  Gagne,  who  has  al- 
ready provided  the  Parisians  with  amusement  for  years,  in  his 
capacity  as  a  perpetual  candidate  for  parliamentary  honors, 
does  not  stop  at  hippophagy;  he  seriously  proposes  anthropo- 
phagy. "  A  human  being  over  sixty  is  neither  useful  nor  orna- 
mental," he  exclaimed  at  a  public  meeting;  "  and  to  prove  that 
I  mean  what  I  say,  I  am  willing  to  give  myself  as  food  to  my 
sublime  and  suffering  townsmen."  JPoor  fellow  !  as  mad  as  a 
March  hare,  but  a  man  of  education  and  with  an  infinite  fund 
of  sympathy  for  humanity.  He  was  but  moderately  provided 
for  at  the  best  of  times ;  his  income  was  derived  from  some 
property  in  the  provinces,  and,  as  a  matter  of  course,  the  invest- 
ment of  Paris  stopped  his  supplies  of  funds  from  that  quarter. 
He  was  of  no  earthly  use  in  the  besieged  city,  but  he  refused 
to  go.  He  had  a  small  but  very  valuable  collection  of  family 
plate,  which  went  bit  by  bit  to  the  Mint,  not  to  feed  himself 
but  to  feed  others,  for  he  was  never  weary  of  well-doing.  He 
reminded  one  irresistibly  of  Balzac's  hero,  "  le  Pbre  Goriot," 
parting  with  his  treasures  to  supply  his  ungrateful  daughters, 
for  the  Parisians  were  ungrateful  to  him.  Mad  as  he  was,  no 
man  in  possession  of  all  his  mental  faculties  could  have  been 
more  sublime. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  391 

Whatever  the  question  of  human  flesh  as  food  may  have  been 
to  the  Parisian,  that  of  horseflesh  was  by  no  means  new  to  them. 
Since  '66,  various  attempts  had  been  made  to  introduce  it  on  a 
large  scale,  but  for  once  in  a  way,  they  were  logical  in  their 
objections  to  it.  "  It  is  all  very  well,"  wrote  a  paper,  devoted  to 
the  improvement  of  the  humbler  classes, — "  it  is  all  very  well 
for  a  few  savants  to  sit  round  a  well-appointed  table  to  feast 
upon  the  succulent  parts  of  a  young,  tender,  and  perfectly 
healthy  horse,  especially  if  the  steaks  are  '  aux  truffes,'  and  the 
kidneys  stewed  in  '  Madeira  ; '  but  that  young,  tender,  and  per- 
fectly healthy  horse  would  cost  more  than  an  equally  tender, 
young,  and  perfectly  healthy  bullock  or  cow.  So,  where  is  the 
advantage  ?  In  order  to  obtain  that  advantage,  horses  only  fit 
for  the  knacker's  yard,  not  fit  for  human  food,  would  have  to 
be  killed,  and  the  hard-working  artisan  with  his  non-vitiated 
taste,  who  does  not  even  care  for  venison  or  game  when  it  hap- 
pens to  be  '  high,'  would  certainly  not  care  for  a  superannuated 
charger  to  be  set  before  him.  You.might  just  as  well  ask  an 
unsophisticated  cannibal  to  feast  upon  an  invalid.  The  best 
part  of  the  warrior  on  the  shelf  is  his  wooden  leg  or  his  wooden 
arm  ;  the  best  part  of  the  superannuated  charger  is  his  skin  or 
his  hoof,  with  or  without  the  shoe  ;  and  no  human  being,  whether 
cannibal  or  not,  can  be  expected  to  make  a  timber-yard,  a  tan- 
ner's yard,  or  an  old-iron  and  rag  store  of  his  stomach,  even  to 
please  faddists." 

As  a  consequence,  only  two  millions  of  pounds  of  horse-flesh 
were  "  produced  "  during  the  first  three  years  succeeding  the 
publication  of  that  article  (1866-69)  5  ^^^  ^^  ^^  more  than  doubt- 
ful whether  a  sixteenth  part  of  it  was  consumed  as  human  food 
— with  a  knowledge  on  the  part  of  the  consumers.  And  dur- 
ing those  three  years,  as  if  to  prove  the  writer's  words,  the  pub- 
lic were  being  constantly  fortified  in  their  dislike  with  official 
reports  of  the  seizure  of  diseased  horses  on  their  way  to  the 
four  specially  appointed  slaughter-houses.  I  remember,  that 
in  one  week,  twenty-four  animals  were  thus  confiscated  by  the 
sanitary  inspectors,  "the  flesh  of  which,"  added  the  Moniteur, 
"  would  have  probably  found  its  way  to  the  tables  of  the  better 
class  Parisians,  in  the  shape  of  Aries,  Lorraine,  or  German 
sausages.  These  commoditiss,"  it  went  on,  "  are  never  offered 
by  the  manufacturer  to  the  experienced  proprietors  of  the  ham 
and  beef  shops  (charcutiers),  but  to  fruiterers,  grocers,  vendors 
of  so-called  dainties,  and  dealers  in  preserved  provisions." 
The  article  had  the  effect  of  arousing  the  suspicion  of  the  bet- 
ter classes  as  well  as  of  the  poorer. 


392  AAT  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

The  number  of  "  horse-butchers  "  had  decreased  by  four 
during  the  four  years  that  had  elapsed  since  their  first  establish- 
ment with  the  Government's  sanction,  and  the  remaining  eigh- 
teen were  not  very  prosperous  when  the  siege  brought  the 
question  to  the  fore  once  more.  The  public  could  not  afford 
to  be  positively  hostile  to  the  scheme,  but  the  assertion  of  the 
rare  advocates  of  the  system,  that  they  were  enthusiastic,  is 
altogether  beside  the  truth.  They  had  to  make  the  best  of  a 
bad  game,  that  was  all.  It  is  a  very  curious,  but  positive  fact, 
nevertheless,  that  I  have  heard  Parisians  speak  favorably 
afterwards  of  dog's  and  cat's  flesh,  even  of  rats  baked  in  a  pie  ; 
I  have  heard  them  say  that,  for  once  in  a  way,  even  under 
ordinary  circumstances,  they  would  not  mind  partaking  of  those 
dishes  :  I  have  never  heard  them  express  the  same  goodwill 
towards  horseflesh.  Of  course,  I  am  alluding  to  those  who 
affected  no  partisanship,  either  one  way  or  the  other.  One 
thing  is  very  certain :  at  the  end  of  the  siege  the  sight  of  a  cat 
or  dog  was  a  rarity  in  Paris,  while  by  the  official  reports  there 
were  thirty  thousand  horses  left. 

Meanwhile,  the  Academie  des  Sciences  is  attracting  notice 
by  the  reports  of  its  sittings,  in  which  the  question  of  food  is 
the  only  subject  discussed.  Professor  Dorderone  reads  a 
paper  on  the  utilization  of  beef  and  mutton  fat ;  and  he  com- 
municates a  new  process  with  regard  to  kidney  fat,  which,  up 
till  then,  had  withstood  the  attempts  of  the  most  celebrated 
chefs  for  culinary  purposes.  He  professes  to  have  discovered 
the  means  of  doing  away  with  the  unpleasant  taste  and  smell 
which  have  hitherto  militated  against  its  use,  he  undertakes  to 
give  it  the  flavor  and  aroma  of  the  best  butter  from  Brittany 
and  Normandy.  M.  Richard,  the  maire  of  La  Villette,  attempts 
similar  experiments  with  animal  offal,  which  M.  Dumas,  the 
great  savant,  declares  highly  satisfactory.  M.  Riche,  one  of 
the  superior  officials  of  the  Mint,  transforms  bullock's  blood 
into  black  puddings,  which  are  voted  superior  to  those  hitherto 
made  with  pig's  blood.  The  nourishing  properties  of  gelatine 
are  demonstrated  in  an  equally  scientific  manner,  and  the 
Academie  des  Sciences  gradually  becomes  the  rendezvous  of  the 
fair  ones  of  Paris,  who  come  to  take  lessons  in  the  culinary  art. 

"  Mais,  monsieur,"  says  one,  "  maintenant  que  nous  avons 
du  beurre,  veuillez  nous  dire  d'ou  viendront  nos  epinards  ?  "  * 

"  Don't  let  that  trouble  you,  madame,"  is  the  answer ;  "  if 
you   will  honor  us  with  your  presence  next  week,  one  of  our 

*  "  Mettre  du  beurre  dans  ses  Epinards,"  means,  figuratively,  to  increase  one's  comforts. 
Editor. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  393 

learned  friends  from  the  Jardin  des  Plantes  will  tell  you  how 
to  grow  salads,  and  perhaps  asparagus,  on  your  balcony  and  in 
front  of  your  windows,  in  less  than  a  fortnight." 

The  learned  professor  is  not  trying  to  mystify  his  charming 
interlocutor  ;  he  honestly  believes  in  what  he  says:  and,  a  week 
later,  when  "  the  friend  from  the  Jardin  des  Plantes  "  has  spoken, 
there  is  a  wonderful  run  on  all  the  seed-shops  near  the  Chatelet, 
every  one  tries  to  borrow  flower-pots  from  his  neighbors,  and 
barrow-loads  of  mould  are  being  trundled  in  long  lines  into 
Paris.  Wherever  one  goes,  the  eye  meets  careful  housewives 
bending  over  wooden  boxes  on  the  balconies;  M.  Philippe 
Lockroy,  the  eminent  actor  and  dramatist,  the  father  of  M. 
Edouard  Lockroy,  the  future  minister  of  the  Third  Republic, 
asks  seriously  why  we  should  not  revive  the  hanging  gardens 
of  Semiramis,  and  sets  the  example  by  converting  his  fifth 
floor  balcony  into  a  market  garden,  to  the  discomfiture  of  his  son 
who  finds  his  erstwhile  bedroom  converted  into  a  storehouse 
for  tools  and  less  agreeable  matter.  -  I  may  mention  that  M. 
Lockroy  did  not  abandon  his  project  after  a  mere  fleeting  at- 
tempt, nor  when  the  necessity  for  it  had  disappeared,  but  that 
at  the  hour  I  write  (1883)  he  has  taken  a  prize  for  pears  grown 
on  that  same  balcony. 

The  mania  spreads,  and  every  one  becomes,  for  the  time  be- 
ing, a  market-gardener  in  chambers.  Even  M.  Pierre  Joigneux, 
the  well-known  horticulturist,  and  equally  clever  writer,  is  bitten 
with  it.  That  the  thing  was  perfectly  feasible,  was  proved 
subsequently  by  M.  Lockroy,  but  the  latter  did  not  imitate 
the  nigger  who  dug  up  the  potatoes  an  hour  after  he  had  planted 
them,  to  see  if  they  were  growing.  That  thoroughly  inexperi- 
enced persons  should  have  indulged  in  such  wild  fancies  is  per- 
haps not  to  be  wondered  at:  but  M.  Joigneux  was  not  one  of 
these,  yet  he  provided  an  Englishman,  who  had  come  to  pro- 
pose the  experiment  to  him,  with  all  the  necessary  funds.  "  I 
was  perfectly  certain  that  I  should  never  see  him  again,"  he 
said  afterwards  ;  but,  with  all  due  deference,  we  may  take 
this  as  a  shamefaced  denial  of  his  credulity.  "  Contrary  to  my 
expectations,"'  M.  Joigneux  went  on,  when  he  told  us  the  tale 
a  few  nights  afterwards  at  the  Cafe  de  la  Paix^ — he  lived  in  the 
Rue  du  4  Septembre,— "  my  Englishman  did  come  back,  ac- 
companied by  a  porter  who  carried  the  requisite  material.  I 
did  not  interfere  with  him  in  the  least,  but  merely  watched  him. 
I  knew  that  in  England  they  did  pi-oduce  '  gireen-stuff  '-  in  that 
way;  though  I  was  also  aware  of  the  difference  between  a  few 
blades  and  a  serious  crop." 


S94-  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

Others,  more  ingenious  still,  began  to  argue  that  if  it  was 
possible  to  produce  vegetables  in  a  fortnight  by  means  of  light 
and  a  few  handfuls  of  mould,  it  could  not  be  difficult  to  produce 
mushrooms  with  a  much  thicker  layer  of  mould  and  in  the 
darkness  of  a  cellar. 

Fortunately,  there  is,  as  yet,  a  very  decent  kitchen-garden  to 
fall  back  upon.  It  lies  between  the  fortifications  and  the  forts  ; 
it  has  been  somewhat  pillaged  at  first,  but  the  authorities  have 
organized  several  companies  of  laborers  from  among  those 
whom  they  have  not  been  able  to  provide  with  arms,  and  those 
who  do  not  dig  or  delve  keep  watch  against  depredation.  They 
have  a  very  simple  uniform — a  black  kepi  with  crimson  piping, 
and  a  crimson  belt  round  their  waists.  They  are  exposed  to  a 
certain  danger,  for  every  now  and  then  a  stray  German  bullet 
lays  one  of  them  low,  but,  upon  the  whole,  their  lot  is  not  a 
hard  one. 

"  We  have  still  nearly  everything  we  want,"  writes  a  facetious 
journalist ;  "  and  now  that  good  and  obliging  fellow,  Gambetta, 
is  going  to  fetch  us  some  cream  cheese  from  the  moon  for  our 
dessert." 

In  fact,  during  the  last  few  days,  we  have  been  informed  of 
the  Minister  of  the  Interior's  impending  departure  for  Tours 
by  balloon  on  the  7th  of  October,  and  by  twelve  o'clock  on 
that  day  the  little  Place  St.  Pierre,  right  on  the  heights  of 
Montmartre,  is  simply  black  with  people.  "  The  great  states- 
man," the  "  hero  who  is  to  rouse  the  provinces  to  unheard-of 
efforts  for  the  deliverance  of  the  sacred  soil  of  France  from 
the  polluting  presence  of  the  Teutonic  barbarian,"  has  not 
arrived  yet  when  I  edge  my  way  through  the  crowd,  accom- 
panied by  an  officer  on  General  Vinoy's  staff,  who  is  a  near 
relative  of  mine.  With  the  recollection  of  my  adventure  in 
the  Avenue  de  Clichy  fresh  upon  me,  I  would  not  have  ven- 
tured to  come  by  myself.  There  is  a  military  post  on  the 
Place  St.  Pierre,  and  I  am  wondering  whether  it  will  turn  out 
to  pay  honors  to  "  the  great  statesman  ;  "  and  whether  Nadar, 
the  famous  Nadar,  whom  I  can  see  towering  above  the  crowd, 
and  giving  instructions,  will  treat  Gambetta  with  the  same 
scant  courtesy  he  once  treated  Louis-Napoleon,  when  the 
latter  went  to  see  the  ascent  of  his  balloon,  "  Le  Geant,"  from 
the  Champ-de-Mars.  Nadar's  behavior  on  that  occasion 
reminds  one  of  Elizabeth's  with  the  wife  of  Bishop  Parker. 
"  *  Madam,'  "  said  the  queen,  "  I  rtiay  not  call  you,  and 
'  mistress  '  I  am  loth  to  call  you."  Nadar  was  too  fervent  a 
republican  to  call  Louis-Napoleon  "Majesty;"  he  was  too 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  395 

well-bred  to  insult  his  guest  by  addressing  him  as  "  Monsieur; " 
so,  when  he  saw  the  sovereign  advancing,  he  backed  towards 
his  car,  and,  before  he  could  come  up  with  him,  gave  orders  to 
"  let  go." 

I  do  not  know  whether  Gambetta  came  in  a  carriage.  It 
did  not  make  its  appearance  on  the  Place  St.  Pierre ;  he  prob- 
ably left  it,  like  meaner  mortals,  at  the  foot  of  the  very  steep 
hill.  The  cheering  was  immense,  and  he  took  it  as  if  to  the 
manner  born.  He  was  accompanied  by  M.  Spuller,  who  was  to 
take  the  journey  with  him,  and  who,  even  at  that  time,  bore  a 
curious  likeness  to  Mr.  Spurgeon.  M.  Spuller  did  not  appear 
to  claim  any  of  the  cheers  for  himself,  for  he  kept  perfectly 
stolid.  Gambetta,  on  the  other  hand,  bowed  repeatedly,  at 
which  Nadar  grinned.  Nadar  was  always  honest,  if  out- 
spoken. He  did  not  seem  particularly  pleased  with  the  busi- 
ness in  hand,  and  was  evidently  determined  to  get  it  over  as 
soon  as  possible.  Gambetta  was  still  standing  up,  bowing  and 
waving  his  hands,  when  Nadar  gave  the  order  to  "  let  go  "  the 
ropes,  and  the  dictator  fell  back  into  the  lap  of  his  companion. 
The  balloon  rose  rather  quickly,  and  about  nine  that  same 
night  we  had  the  news  that  the  balloon  had  safely  landed  in 
the  Department  of  the  Oise,  about  twelve  miles  from  Cler- 
mont. 

From  that  moment,  the  ascent  of  a  balloon  with  its  car,  con- 
taining one  or  two,  sometimes  three,  wicker  cages  of  carrier- 
pigeons,  becomes  a  favorite  spectacle  with  the  Parisians,  who 
would  willingly  see  the  departure  of  a  dozen  per  day.  For 
each  departure  means  not  only  the  conveyance  of  a  budget 
of  news  from  the  besieged  city  to  the  provinces,  it  means 
the  return  of  the  winged  messengers  with  perhaps  hopeful 
tidings  that  the  provinces  are  marching  to  the  rescue. 
I  am  bound  to  say,  at  the  same  time,  that  the  terrible  anx- 
iety for  such  rescue  did  not  arise  solely  from  a  wish  to 
escape  further  physical  sufferings  and  privations.  Three- 
fourths  of  the  Parisians  would  have  been  wilUng  to  put  up 
with  worse  for  the  sake  of  one  terrible  defeat  inflicted  upon 
the  Germans  by  their  levies  or  by  those  in  the  provinces. 

But  though  the  gas  companies  did  wonders,  fifty-two  balloons 
having  been  inflated  by  them  during  the  siege,  they  could  do 
no  more.  Nevertheless,  the  experiments  continue :  the  brothers 
Goddard  have  established  their  headquarters  at  the  Orleans 
Railway;  MM.  Dartois  and  Yon. at  the  Northern;  Admiral 
Labrousse,  who  has  already  invented  an  ingenious  gun-carriage, 
is  now  busy  upon  a  navigable  balloon ;  the  Government  grants 


396  A  A'  ENGL  ISHMA  N  IiV  PA  RIS. 

a  subsidy  of  forty  thousand  francs  to  M.  Dupuy  de  Lome  to 
assist  him  in  his  research  ;  and  at  the  Grand  Hotel  there  is  a 
permanent  exhibition  of  appUances  for  navigating  the  air 
under  the  direction  of  MM.  Horeau  and  Saint-Felix.  The 
pubHc  flock  to  them,  and  for  a  moment  there  is  the  hope  that 
if  we  ourselves  cannot  come  and  go  as  free  as  birds,  there  will 
be  at  least  a  means  of  permanent  communication  with  the 
outer  world  that  way.  M.  Granier  has  proposed  to  make  an 
aerial  telegraph  without  the  support  of  poles.  The  wire  is  to 
be  enclosed  in  a  gutta-percha  tube  filled  with  hydrogen  gas, 
which  will  enable  it  to  keep  its  altitude  a  thousand  or  fifteen 
hundred  metres  above  the  earth.  The  cable  is  to  be  paid  out 
by  balloons.  M.  Gaston  Tissandier,  a  well-known  authority 
in  such  matters,  looks  favorably  upon  the  experiment;  but, 
alas,  it  comes  to  nothing,  and  we  have  to  fall  back  upon  less 
ingenious,  more  commonplace  means. 

In  other  words,  we  are  offering  tempting  fees  to  plucky  in- 
dividuals who  will  attempt  to  cross  the  Prussian  lines.  Several 
do  make  the  attempt,  and  for  a  week  or  so  the  newspapers  and 
the  walls  swarm  with  the  advertisements  of  a  private  firm  who 
will  forward  and  receive  despatches  at  the  rate  of  ten  francs 
per  letter.  A  good  many  messengers  depart ;  a  good  many 
return  almost  at  once,  finding  the  task  impossible  ;  those  that 
do  not  return  have  presumably  been  shot  by  the  Prussians,  for 
not  a  single  one  reached  his  destination. 

Then  we  begin  to  turn  our  thoughts  to  the  sheep-dog  as  a 
carrier  of  messages,  or  rather  to  the  smuggler's  dog,  thousands 
of  which  are  known  to  exist  on  the  Belgian  and  Swiss  frontiers. 
The  postal  authorities  go  even  so  far  as  to  promise  two  hun- 
dred francs  for  every  batch  of  despatches  if  delivered  within 
twenty-four  hours  of  the  animal's  departure  from  his  starting- 
place,  and  fifty  francs  less  for  every  twenty-four  hours'  delay  ; 
but  the  animals  fall  a  prey  to  the  Prussian  sentries,  not  one  of 
them  succeeds  in  reaching  the  French  outposts.  The  carrier- 
pigeon  is  all  we  have  left. 

Still,  we  are  not  discouraged  ;  and  in  less  than  a  month 
after  the  investment,  the  Parisians  begin  to  clamor  for  their 
favorite  amusement — the  theatre.  There  are,  of  course,  many 
divergencies  of  opinion  with  regard  to  the  fitness  of  the 
rheasure,  and  we  get  some  capital  articles  on  the  subject, 
studded  with  witty  sentences  and  relieved  by  historical  anec- 
dotes, showing  that,  whatever  they  may  not  know,  French 
journalists  have  an  inexhaustible  fund  of  parallels  when  it  be- 
comes a  question  of  the  playhouse.     "  In  '92  the  Lillois  went 


AM  ENGLTSUMAN  IN  PARIS.  397 

peacefully  to  the  theatre  while  the  shells  were  pouring  into  the 
devoted  city.  Why  should  we  be  less  courageous  and  less 
cheerful  than  they  ?  "  writes  one.  "  Nero  was  fiddling  while 
Rome  was  burning,"  writes  another,  "  but  Paris  is  not  on  fire 
yet ;  and,  if  it  were,  the  Nero  who  might  be  blamed  for  the 
catastrophe  is  at  Wilhelmshohe,  where,  we  may  be  sure,  he  will 
not  eat  a  mouthful  less  for  our  pangs  of  hunger.  If  he  does 
not  fiddle,  it  is  because,  like  his  famous  uncle,  he  has  no  ear 
for  music." 

"  Whatever  may  happen,"  writes  M.  Francisque  Sarcey  in 
the  Gaulois^  "  art  should  be  considered  superior  to  all  things  ; 
the  theatre  is  not  a  more  unseemly  pleasure  under  the  circum- 
stances than  the  perusal  of  a  good  book  ;  and  it  is  just  in  the 
darkest  and  saddest  hours  of  his  life  that  a  man  needs  a  diver- 
sion which  will,  for  a  little  while,  at  least,  prevent  him  from 
brooding  upon  his  sufferings." 

To  which  "  Thomas  Grimm,"  of  Le  Petit  Journal^  who  is  on 
the  opposite  side,  replies  :  "  If  I  may  be  allowed  to  intervene 
in  so  grave  a  question,  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  the 
time  for  singing  and  amusing  ourselves  has  not  arrived.  It 
seems  to  me  very  doubtful  whether  the  spectators  would  not 
be  constantly  thinking  of  scenes  enacted  in  other  spots  than 
behind  the  footlights.  And  in  such  moments,  when  they  might 
concentrate  the  whole  of  their  attention  on  the  pleasant  fiction 
enacted  before  them,  the  sound  of  the  cannon  thundering  in 
the  distance  would  more  than  once  recall  them  to  the  reality." 

The  ice  was  virtually  broken,  and  on  Sunday,  the  23d  of 
October,  the  Cirque  National  opened  its  doors  for  a  concert. 
During  the  last  five  years,  as  my  readers  will  perceive  by  the 
almost  involuntary  break  in  these  notes,  I  had  not  been  so 
assiduous  a  frequenter  of  the  theatre  and  the  concert  hall  as  I 
used  to  be,  and  though  I  was  during  the  siege  overburdened 
with  business,  on  the  nature  of  which  I  need  not  dwell  here,  I 
felt  that  I  wanted  some  amusement.  The  evenings  were  be- 
coming chilly,  one  of  my  cherished  companions  was  doing  his 
duty  with  General  Vinoy,  and,  though  I  had  practically  un- 
limited means  at  my  command  for  my  necessities,  and  am  by 
no  means  sparing  of  money  at  any  time,  I  grudged  the  price 
of  fuel.  As  yet,  wood  only  cost  six  francs  the  hundredweight, 
but  it  was  such  wood  !  If  the  ancient  proverb-coiner  had  been 
seated  in  front  of  the  hearth  in  which  it  was  trying  to  burn,  he 
might  have  hesitated  to  write  that  "there  is  no  smoke  without 
a  fire."  The  friendly  chats  by  the  fireside,  which  I  had  en- 
joyed for  many  years,  had  almost  entirely  ceased.     Nearly  all 


398  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

my  familiars  were  "  on  duty,"  and  the  few  hours  they  could 
snatch  were  either  spent  in  bed,  to  rest  from  the  fatigue  and 
discomforts  of  the  night,  or  else  at  the  cafes  and  restaurants, 
where  the  news,  mostly  of  an  anecdotal  kind,  was  circulating 
freely.  In  fact,  the  cafes  and  restaurants,  as  long  as  there  was 
fuel  and  light,  were  more  amusing  during  the  siege  than  I  had 
known  them  to  be  at  any  time.  Perhaps  the  most  amusing 
feature  of  these  nightly  gatherings  was  the  presentation  of  the 
bill  after  dinner.  The  prices  charged  at  the  Cafe  de  Paris  in 
its  palmiest  days  were  child's  play  compared  to  the  actual  ones. 
I  have  preserved  the  note  of  a  breakfast  for  two  at  Durand's. 

frs. 

Hors-d'CEuvres  (Radishes  and  Sausage)     10 

Entree  (Navarin  aux  Pommes)     18 

Filet  de  Boeuf  aux  Champignons     24 

Omelette  Sucree  (3  oeufs)     12 

Cafe     I 

I  Bouteille  de  M^con     6 

Total  frs.  7 1 

The  bread  and  butter  were  included  in  the  hors-d'oeuvres, 
and  I  may  remark  that  the  entree  and  the  filet  de  bceuf  were 
only  for  one.  Durand's  was  the  cheapest  of  the  five  restaurants 
which  still  retained  their  ordinary  clientele.  Bignon,  Voisin, 
the  Cafes  de  la  Paix  and  Anglais  were  much  dearer.  The  lat- 
ter gave  its  patrons  white  bread  as  late  as  the  i6th  of  December. 

I  made  up  my  mind,  then,  to  go  to  that  concert  at  the  Cirque 
National,  and  to  as  many  of  the  entertainments  as  might  be 
offered.  I  have  rarely  seen  such  a  crowd  outside  a  theatre ; 
and  1  doubt  whether  the  fact  of  the  performance  being  for  a 
charitable  purpose  had  much  to  do  with  it,  because,  if  so,  those 
who  were  denied  admission  might  have  handed  their  money  at 
the  box-office,  but  they  did  not,  they  only  gave  the  reverse  of 
their  blessing.  If  charity  it  was,  it  did  not  want  to  end  at 
home  that  afternoon. 

The  entertainment  began  with  a  charity  sermon  by  the 
Abbe  Duquesnay,  a  hardworking  priest  in  one  of  the  thickly 
populated  quarters  of  Paris.  I  would  willingly  give  another 
ten  francs  to  hear  a  similar  sermon.  I  am  positive  that  the 
Abbe  had  taken  Laurence  Sterne  for  his  model.  I  have 
never  heard  anything  so  brilliant  in  my  life.  Not  the  slightest 
attempt  at  thrusting  religion  down  one's  throat.  A  good  many 
quotations  on  the  advantages  of  well-doing,  notably  that  of 
Shakespeare,  -admirably  translated,  probably  by  the  speaker 
himself.      Then  the  following   to  wind   up  with  :  "  I  do   not 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  39^ 

know  of  a  single  curmudgeon  who  has  ever  been  converted 
into  what  I  should  call  '  a  genuine  alms-giver,'  by  myself  or 
by  my  fellow-priests.  When  he  did  give,  he  looked  upon  the  gift 
as  a  loan  to  the  Lord  in  virtue  of  that  gospel  precept  which 
you  all  know.  Now,  my  good  friends,  allow  me  to  give  you 
my  view  of  that  sentence  :  God  is  just,  and  no  doubt  He  will 
repay  the  loan  with  interest,  but  after  He  has  settled  the  ac- 
count. He  will  indict  the  lender  before  the  Highest  tribunal 
for  usury.  Consequently,  if  you  have  an  idea  of  placing  your 
money  in  that  way  with  God  as  a  security,  you  had  better  keep 
it  in  your  purses." 

After  this,  the  orchestra,  nine-tenths  of  whose  members  are 
in  uniform,  performs  the  overture  to  "  La  Muette  de  Portici  " 
(Masaniello)  ;  Pasdeloup  conducting.  Pasdeloup  is  a  natu- 
ralized German,  whose  real  name  is  Wolfgang,  but,  in  this  in- 
stance, the  public  do  not  seem  to  mind  it ;  nor  is  there  any 
protest  against  the  names  of  two  other  Germans  on  the  pro- 
gramme, Weber's  and  Beethoven's.  On  the  contrary,  the 
latter's  composition  is  frantically  encored.  I  believe  it  is  the 
symphony  in  C  Mmor,  for  it  has  been  wedded  to  Victor  Hugo's 
words,  and  it  is  Madame  Ugalde  who  sings  the  stirring  hymn 
"  Patria." 

There  is  a  story  connected  with  this  hymn,  which  is  not 
generally  known.  I  give  it  as  it  was  told  to  me  a  day  or  so 
afterwards  by  Auber,  who  had  it  from  the  lips  of  Joseph  Dar- 
tigues,  who,  at  the  time  of  its  occurrence,  was  the  musical 
Qritic  of  the  Journal  des  Debafs. 

Hugo  was  very  young  then,  and  one  night  he  went  to  the 
Theatre  de  Madame,  which  has  since  become  the  Gymnase. 
The  piece  was  one  of  Scribe's — "  La  Chatte  metamorphosee  en 
Femme  ;  "  and  Jenny  Vertpre,  whom  our  grandfathers  ap- 
plauded at  the  St.  James  Theatre  in  the  thirties,  was  to  play 
the  principal  part.  Still,  our  poet  was  not  particularly  struck 
with  the  plot,  dialogue,  or  lyrics  ;  but,  all  at  once,  he  sat  up- 
right in  his  seat,  at  the  strains  of  a  "  Hindoo  invocation." 
When  the  music  ceased,  Hugo  left  the  house,  humming  the 
notes  to  himself.  He  was  very  fond  of  music,  though  he 
could  never  reconcile  himself  to  have  his  dramas  appropriated 
by  the  librettists,  and  gave  his  consent  but  very  reluctantly. 
Next  morning,  he  met  Dartigues  on  the  Boulevard  des  Italiens 
4hen  the  Boulevard  de  Gand.  He  told  him  what  he  had  heard 
and  recommended  the  critic  to  go  and  judge  for  himself. 
"  It  is  so  utterly  different  from  the  idiotic  stuff  one  generally 
hears."     Dartigues  acted  upon  the  recommendation.     A  few 


400  AA'  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARTS. 

days  later,  they  met  once  more.  "  Did  you  go  and  hear  that 
music,  at  the  Theatre  de  Madame  ? "  asked  Hugo. 

"  Yes,"  was  the  reply.  "  I  am  not  surprised  at  your  liking 
it  ;  it  is  Beethoven's." 

Curious  to  relate,  Hugo  had  not  as  much  as  heard  the  name 
of  the  great  German  composer.  The  acquaintance  with  classi- 
cal music  was  very  limited  in  the  France  of  those  days.  But 
Hugo  never  forgot  the  symphony,  and,  later  on,  in  his  exile, 
he  wrote  the  words  I  had  just  heard. 

The  impulse  has  been  given,  and  from  that  moment  the  walls 
of  Paris  display  as  many  bills  of  theatrical  and  musical  enter- 
tainments as  if  the  Germans  were  not  at  the  gates.  I  go  to 
nearly  all,  and,  to  my  great  regret,  hear  a  great  many  actors 
and  actresses  who  have  received  favors  and  honors  at  the  hand 
of  Louis-Napoleon  vie  with  one  another  in  casting  obloquy 
upon  him  and  his  reign.  One  of  the  few  honorable  exceptions 
is  M.  Got,  who,  being  invited  to  recite  Hugo's  "Chatiments," 
emphatically  refuses  "  to  kick  a  man  when  he  is  down." 

At  the  Theatre-Fran9ais,  there  is  a  special  box — the  erst- 
while Imperial  box — for  the  convalescents,  who  are  being 
tended  in  the  theatre  itself. 

But  though  I  went  to  hear  IMelchisedec  and  Taillade,  Caron 
and  Berthelier,  there  is  one  performance  that  stands  out  viv- 
idly from  the  rest  in  my  memory.  It  was  a  representation  of 
Hugo's  "  Le  Roi  s'amuse  "  ("  The  Fool's  Revenge  "),  at  the 
theatre  at  Montmartre.  Under  ordinary  circumstances,  I  should 
probably  not  have  gone  so  far  afield  to  see  any  piece,  not  even 
that  which  was  reputed  to  be  the  masterpiece  of  Victor  Hugo,  but, 
in  this  instance,  the  temptation  was  too  great.  The  play  had 
only  been  performed  in  Paris  once — on  the  2 2d  of  November, 
1832  ;  next  day  it  was  suspended  by  order  of  the  Govern- 
ment. Alexandre  Dumas  the  elder,  Theophile  Gautier,  Nestor 
Roqueplan,  all  of  whom  were  present  on  that  memorable  night, 
had  spoken  to  me  of  its  beauties.  I  had  often  promised  my- 
self to  read  it,  and  had  never  done  so.  If  I  had,  I  should  proba- 
bly not  have  gone  to  Montmartre  that  night,  lest  my  illusions 
should  be  disturbed.  The  performance  was  intended  as  a 
tribute  to  the  genius  of  the  poet,  but  also  as  an  act  of  defiance 
on  the  part  of  the  young  Republic  to  the  preceding  re'gimes  ; 
though  why  it  was  not  revived  during  the  Second  Republic  I 
have  never  been  able  to  make  out  clearly. 

My  companion  and  I  toiled  up  the  steep  Rue  des  Martyrs, 
and  it  was  evident  to  us,  when  we  got  to  the  Place  du  Theatre, 
that  something  unusual  was  going  on,  for  the  little  square  was 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  4.0 T 

absolutely  black  with  people,  We  managed,  however,  to  elbow 
our  way  through,  and  to  get  two  stalls.  The  house  was  dimly 
lighted  by  gas,  the  deficiency  made  up,  as  far  as  I  could  see, 
by  lamps  in  the  auditorium,  by  candles  on  the  stage.  There 
was  not  an  empty  seat  anywhere.  The  overture,  consisting  of 
snatches  from  ""Rigoletto,"  was  received  with  deafening  ap- 
plause, and  then  the  curtain  rose  upon  the  magnificent  hall  in 
the  Louvre  of  Francois  I.,  with  the  king  surrounded  by  his 
courtiers  and  his  favorites.  By  his  side  hobbled  Triboulet,  his 
evil  genius,  as  Hugo  has  represented  him. 

My  disappointment  was  great.  I  had  come  to  admire,  not 
expecting  magnificent  scenery,  gorgeous  costumes,  or  tran- 
scendent acting,  but  a  spirit  of  reverence  for  the  immortal  crea- 
tion of  a  great  poet.  At  that  time  I  was  not  sufficiently  famil- 
iar with  provincial  art  in  England  to  be  able  to  picture  a 
performance  of  Shakespeare  except  under  conditions  such  as 
prevail  in  the  best  of  London  theatres.  I  had  read  accounts, 
however,  of  strolling  companies  and  their  doings,  but  I  doubt 
whether  the  humblest  would  have  been  guilty  of  such  utter 
iconoclasm  in  the  spirit  as  well  as  in  the  letter  as  I  witnessed 
that  night.  It  was  not  comic,  it  was  absolutely  painful.  It 
was  not  the  glazed  calico  doing  duty  for  brocade,  that  made  me 
wince  ;  it  was  not  the  anti-macassar  replacing  lace  that  made 
me  gasp  for  breath  :  it  was  the  miserable  failure  of  those 
behind  the  footlights,  as  well  as  of  those  in  front,  to  grasp  the 
meaning  of  the  simplest  line.  They  had  been  told  that  this 
play  was  an  indictment,  not  against  a  libertine  king,  but  against 
generations  and  generations  of  rulers  to  whom  debauch  was  as 
the  air  they  breathed.  And,  in  order  to  make  the  lesson  more 
striking,  Saint-Vallier  was  represented  as  an  old  dotard,  Tribou- 
let as  a  pander,  the  king  as  an  amorous  Bill  Sykes,  and  Tri- 
boulet's  daughter  as  an  hysterical  young  woman  who  virtually 
gloried  in  her  dishonor.  I  had  seen  "  Orphee  aux  Enfers," 
"  La  Belle  Helene,"  and  "  La  Grande  Duchesse ;  "  I  had 
heard  Schneider  at  her  best  and  at  her  worst  ;  I  had  heard 
women  of  birth  and  breeding  titter,  and  gentlemen  roar,  at  al- 
lusions which  would  make  a  London  coal-heaver  blush  ; — I  had 
never  seen  anything  so  downright  degrading  as  this  perform- 
ance. And  when,  at  last,  XkiQciramatis personcp,  gz.'Cci&x^di  xown^ 
a  bust  of  Hippocrates — the  best  substitute  for  one  of  Victor 
Hugo  they  could  find, — and  one  of  them  recited  "  Les  Chati- 
ments,"  I  left,  hoping  that  I  should  never  see  such  an  exhibi- 
tion again.  It  was  one  of  the  first  deliberately  planned  lessons 
in  "  king-hatred"  I   had  heard.     The  disciples  looked  to  me 

26 


402  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

very  promising,  and  the  Commune,  when  it  came,  was  not  such 
a  surprise  to  me,  after  all.  Before  then,  I  had  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  barbarians  outside  the  gates  of  Paris  were 
less  to  be  feared  than  those  inside — the  former,  at  any  rate, 
believed  in  a  chief  ;  the  motto  of  the  others  was,  "  Ni  Dieu,  ni 
maitre." 

Meanwhile,  the  long  winter  nights  have  come.  The  stock 
of  gas  is  pretty  well  exhausted,  or  tantamount  to  it  ;  wood, 
similar  to  that  I  have  described  already,  has  risen  to  seven 
francs  fifty  centimes  the  hundredweight.  Beef  and  mutton 
have  entirely  disappeared  from  the  butchers'  stalls.  Rats  are 
beginning  to  be  sold  at  one  franc  apiece,  and  eggs  cost  thirty 
francs  a  dozen.  Butter  has  risen  to  fifty  francs  the  half-kilo- 
gramme (about  seventeen  ozs.,  English).  Carrots  and  potatoes 
fetch,  the  first,  forty  francs,  the  second,  twenty  francs,  the  peck 
(English).  I  am  being  told  that  milk  is  still  to  be  had,  but  I 
have  neither  tasted  nor  seen  any  for  ten  days.  Personally,  I 
do  not  feel  the  want  of  it  ;  but  in  my  visits  to  some  of  the  poor 
in  my  neighborhood  I  am  confronted  by  the  fact  of  little  ones, 
between  two  and  three  years  of  age,  being  fed  on  bread  soaked 
in  wine,  and  suffering  from  various  ailments  in  consequence. 

I  am  pursuing  some  inquiries  at  the  various  mairies,  and 
find  that  the  death-rate  for  October  has  reached  nearly  three 
thousand  above  the  corresponding  month  of  the  previous  year. 
I  am  furthermore  told  that  not  a  third  of  this  increase  is  due 
to  the  direct  results  of  the  siege^that  is,  to  death  on  the  bat- 
tle-field, or  resulting  from  wounds  received  there  ;  typhus  and 
low  fever,  anaemia,  etc.,  are  beginning  to  ravage  the  inhabitants. 
Worse  than  all,  the  authorities  have  made  a  mistake  with  re- 
gard to  the  influx  of  strangers.  The  seventy-five  thousand 
aliens  and  Parisians  who  have  left  at  the  beginning  of  the  siege 
have  been  replaced  by  three  times  that  number,  so  that  Paris 
has  virtually  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  more  mouths  to 
feed  than  it  counted  upon.  "All  the  women,  children,  and  old 
men,"  says  one  of  my  informants,  "  ought  to  have  been  re- 
moved to  some  provincial  centre  ;  it  would  have  cost  no  more, 
and  would  have  left  those  who  remained  free  for  a  more  ener- 
getic defence.  And  you  will  scarcely  believe  it,  monsieur,  but 
here  is  the  register  to  prove  it  ;  there  have  been  nearly  four 
hundred  marriages  celebrated  during  the  past  month.  It  looks 
to  me  like  tying  the  Gordian  knot  with  a  vengeance." 

One  thing  I  cannot  help  remarking  amidst  all  this  suffering, 
the  Parisian  never  ceases  to  be  witty.  Among  my  pensioners 
there  was  the  wife  of  a  hard-working,  frugal  upholsterer,  whose 


AjV  englishman  in  PARIS.  403 

trade  was  absolutely  at  a  standstill.  He  was  doing  his  duty 
on  the  fortifications  ;  she  was  keeping  the  home  together  on 
the  meagre  pittance  allowed  to  her  husband  by  the  Govern- 
ment, and  the  rations  doled  out  to  her  every  morning.  The 
youngest  of  her  three  children  was  barely  four  weeks  old.  One 
morning,  to  my  great  surprise,  I  found  two  infants  in  her  lap. 
"  C'est  comme  9a,  monsieur,"  she  said,  with  a  wan  smile. 
"  Andre  found  it  on  a  doorstep  in  the  Rue  Mogador,  and  he 
brought  it  home,  saying,  '  It  won't  make  much  difference  ; 
Nature  laid  the  table  for  two  infants.' " 

The  Parisian  is  a  born  lounger.  Balzac  had  said,  "  Fla- 
ner  est  une  science,  c'est  la  gastronomic  de  I'ceil."  Seeing 
that  it  is  the  only  gastronomy  they  can  enjoy  under  the  cir- 
cumstances, the  Parisians  take  to  it  with  a  vengeance  during 
those  months  of  October  and  November,  and  their  favorite 
halting-places  are  the  rare  provision-shops  that  have  still  a 
fowl,  or  a  goose,  or  a  pigeon  in  their  windows.  The  sight  of 
a  turkey  causes  an  obstruction,  and  the  would-be  purchaser  of 
a  rabbit  is  mobbed  like  the  winner  of  a  great  prize  in  the  lot- 
tery. Nine  times  out  of  ten  the  negotiations  do  not  go  beyond 
the  preliminary  stage  of  inquiring  the  price,  because  vendors 
are  obstinate,  though  polite. 

"  How  much  for  the  rabbit  ?  "  says  the  supposed  Nabob,  for 
the  very  fact  of  inquiring  implies  wealth. 

"  Forty-five  francs,  monsieur." 

"You  are  joking.  Forty-five  francs!  It's  simply  ridicu- 
lous," protests  the  other  one. 

"  I  am  not  joking,  monsieur  ;  and  I  cannot  take  a  farthing 
less." 

The  would-be  diner  goes  away ;  but  he  has  scarcely  gone  a 
few  steps,  when  the  dealer  calls  him  back.  "Listen,  mon- 
sieur," he  cries. 

Hope  revives  in  the  other's  breast.  His  fancy  conjures  up 
a  savory  rabbit-stew,  and  he  leaps  rather  than  walks  the  dis- 
tance that  separates  him  from  the  stall. 

"  Ventre  affamd  a  des  oreilles  pour  sur,"  says  a  bystander.* 

"  Well,  how  much  are  you  going  to  take  oif  ?  " 

"  I  am  not  going  to  take  off  a  penny,  but  I  thought  I  might 
tell  you  that  this  rabbit  plays  the  drum." 

Some  of  the  jokes,  though,  were  not  equally  innocent,  and 
revealed  a  callousness  on  the  part  of  the  perpetrators  which  it 
is  not  pleasant  to  have  to  record.  True,  they  did  not  affect 
the  very  poor,   whose  poverty   was,  as  it  were,  a  guarantee 

*  The  proverb  is,  "  Ventre  affam^  n'a  pas  d'oreilles."— Editor. 


404  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

t 

against  them  ;  but  it  is  a  moot  point  whether  the  well-to-do 
should  be  shamelessly  robbed  by  the  well-to-do  tradesman  for 
no  other  reason  than  to  increase  the  latter's  hoard.  Greed, 
that  abominable  feature  in  the  character  of  the  PYench  middle- 
classes,  show^ed  itself  again  and  again  under  circumstances 
which  ought  to  have  suspended  its  manifestations  for  the  time 
being. 

I  have  already  noted  that  one  member  of  the  Academic  des 
Sciences  had  insisted  upon  the  benefits  to  be  derived  from  the 
extraction  of  gelatine  from  bones.  A  great  number  of  equally 
learned  men  simply  scouted  the  idea  as  preposterous,  notably 
Dr.  Gannal,  the  well-known  authority  on  embalming.  His 
opposition  w^ent  so  far  as  to  prompt  him  to  submit  his  family 
and  himself  to  the  "  ordeal,"  as  he  called  it.  At  the  end  of  a 
week,  all  of  them  were  reduced  to  mere  skeletons  ;  and  then, 
but  then  only.  Dr.  Gannal  sent  for  his  learned  colleagues  to 
attest  the  effects.  The  drowning  man  will  proverbially  cling 
to  a  straw ;  consequently,  some  Parisians  took  to  gelatine,  un- 
deterred by  the  clever  lampoons,  one  of  which  I  quote  : — 

*'  L'inventeur  de  la  gelatine. 
A  la  chair  preferant  les  os  ; 
Veut  desormais  que  chacun  dine 
Avec  un  jeu  de  dominos." 

They,  however,  did  so  with  their  eyes  open,  and  as  a  last  re- 
source :  not  so  those  who  were  imposed  upon,  and  induced  to 
part  with  their  money  for  cleverly  imitated  calves'  heads, 
which,  as  a  matter  of  course,  merely  left  a  gluish  substance  at 
the  bottom  of  the  saucepan,  to  the  indignation  of  anxious 
housewives  and  irate  cooks,  one  of  whom  took  her  revenge  one 
day  by  clapping  the  saucepan  and  its  contents  on  the  head  of 
the  fraudulent  dealer,  and,  while  the  latter  was  in  an  utterly 
defenceless  state,  triumphantly  stalking  away  with  two  very 
respectable  fowls.  The  shopkeeper  had  the  impudence  to 
seek  redress  in  a  court  of  law.  The  judge  would  not  so  much 
as  listen  to  him. 

Another  curious  feature  of  the  siege  was  the  sudden  passion 
developed  by  cooks  for  what  I  must  be  permitted  to  call  culi- 
nary literature.  As  a  rule,  the  French  cordon-bleu,  and  even 
her  less  accomplished  sisters,  do  not  go  for  their  recipes  to 
cooker3'-books  ;  theirs  is  knowledge  gained  from  actual  expe- 
rience :  but  at  that  period  such  works  as,  "  Le  Livre  de  Cuisine 
de  Mademoiselle  Marguerite,"  "  La  Cuisiniere  Pratique,"  etc.. 
were  to  be  found  on  everv  kitchen  table.     The  cooks  had  sim- 


A  AT  EJ^GLISHMAN^  IJV  PARIS.  405 

ply  taken  to  them  in  despair,  not  believing  a  single  word  of 
their  contents,  but  on  the  chance  of  finding  a  hint  that  might 
lend  itself  to  the  provisions  placed  at  their  disposal.  I  refrain 
from  giving  their  criticisms  on  the  authors :  the  forcibleness 
of  their  language  could  only  be  done  justice  to  by  such  mas- 
ters of  realism  as  M.  Zola.  I  have  spoken  before  now  of  the 
uniform  good  temper  of  the  Parisians  under  the  most  trying 
circumstances ;  I  beg  to  append  a  rider,  excluding  cooks,  but 
especially  female  ones.  "  C'est  comme  si  on  essayait  d'en- 
seigner  le  patinage  a  la  femme  aux  jambes  de  bois  du  boule- 
vard," said  the  ministering  angel  to  one  of  my  bachelor  friends. 
One  day,  to  my  great  surprise,  on  calling  on  him  I  found  him 
reading.  He  was  not  much  given  to  poring  over  books,  though 
his  education  had  been  a  very  good  one. 

"  What  are  you  doing  ? "  I  asked. 

"  I  am  reading  More's  '  Utopia,'  "  he  said,  putting  down  the 
volume. 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  "  I  remarked,  pointing  to  the  cover, 
displaying  a  young  woman  bending  over  stewpans. 

"  This  is  More's  '  Utopia,'  to  me  at  present.  It  speaks  of 
things  which  will  never  be  realized ;  supreme  de  volaille,  tour- 
nedos  a  la  poivrade,  and  so  forth.  The  book  wants  another 
chapter,"  he  went-  on,  "  a  chapter  treating  of  the  food  of  be- 
sieged cities.  The  Dutch  might  have  written  it  centuries  ago  ; 
at  Leyden  they  were  on  the  point  of  eating  their  left  arms, 
while  defending  themselves  with  their  right ;  they  could  have 
told  us  how  to  stew  the  former.  If  one  could  add  a  chapter 
to  that  effect,  the  book  might  go  through  a  hundred  new  edi- 
tions, and  the  writer  might  make  a  fortune.  It  would  not  do 
him  much  good,  for  he  would  be  expected  to  live  up  to  his 
precepts,  and  not  touch  a  morsel  of  that  beautiful  kangaroo  or 
elephant  I  saw  yesterday  on  the  Boulevard  Haussmann." 

At  that  moment  a  mutual  acquaintance  came  in.  He  had 
been  a  lieutenant  in  the  Foreign  Legion,  and  lost  his  right 
foot  before  Constantine.  Noticing  our  host's  doleful  looks,  he 
inquired  the  cause,  and  we  got  another  spoken  essay  on  the 
difhculties  of  the  situation  as  connected  with  the  food  supply. 
I  may  add  that,  wherever  a  few  men  were  gathered  together, 
this  became  invariably  the  absorbing  topic  of  conversation. 

The  ex-lieutenant  laughed  outright.  "  You  are  altogether 
laboring  under  a  mistake  ;  there  is  plenty  of  food  of  a  kind  left, 
though  1  admit  with  you  that  the  Parisian  does  not  know  how 
to  prepare  it." 

"  Will  you  teach  them  ?  "   was  the  query.   ' 


4o6  AA'  englishman  in  PARIS. 

*'  I  will  not,  because  they  would  simply  sneer  at  me.  Feed- 
ing is  simply  a  matter  of  prejudice ;  and,  to  prove  it  to  you,  I 
will  give  you  a  breakfast  to-morrow  morning  which  you  will 
appreciate.  But  I  am  not  going  to  tell  you  of  what  it  consists, 
nor  will  I  do  so  until  two  days  after  the  entertainment." 

We  accepted  the  invitation,  though  I  must  confess  that  I 
was  not  eager  about  it.  Nevertheless,  next  day,  about  one, 
we  were  seated  at  the  hospitable  board  of  our  ex-lieutenant, 
who,  three  weeks  before,  had  dismissed  his  female  servant  and 
was  waited  upon  by  an  old  trooper,  with  one  arm.  Though 
perfectly  respectful,  Joseph  received  us  with  a  broad  grin,  which, 
as  the  repast  progressed,  was  contracted  into  a  proud  smile. 
He  had  evidently  co-operated  with  his  master  in  the  concoction 
of  the  dishes,  all  of  which,  I  am  bound  to  say,  were  very  savory. 
In  fact,  I  was  like  that  new  tenant  of  the  house  haunted  by  a 
laughing  ghost.  But  for  the  knowledge  that  there  was  some- 
thing uncanny  about  it,  I  would  have  been  intensely  gratified 
and  amused.  Our  host  told  us,  with  great  glee,  that  Joseph 
had  been  up  since  a  quarter-past  four  that  morning  ;  and  that 
before  five  he  was  at  the  Halles.  As  we  could  distinctly  taste 
the  onions  in  the  stew  that  served  as  an  entree,  and  as  the 
potatoes  round  the  next  dish  were  visible  to  the  naked  eye,  we 
concluded  that  the  old  trooper  had  got  up  so  early  to  buy 
vegetables,  and  were  correspondingly  grateful.  There  was  no 
mystery  whatsoever  about  the  fish,  and  about  the  entremets. 
The  first  was  dry  cod — but  with  a  sauce  such  as  I  had  never 
tasted  before  nor  have  since.  The  latter  was  a  delicious  dish 
of  sweet  macaroni,  fit  to  set  before  a  prince.  I  repeat,  but  for 
my  knowledge  that  there  was  something  uncanny  about  that 
meal,  I  would  have  asked  permission  to  come  every  day.  Yet 
I  felt  almost  equally  convinced  that,  with  regard  to  one  dish, 
we  had  been  doubly  mystified — that  they  were  larks,  which 
our  host  had  managed  to  procure  somehow,  though  I  missed 
the  bones. 

True  to  his  word,  our  Amphitryon  revealed  the  real  ingre- 
dients of  the  menu  forty-eight  hours  after.  The  entree  had 
been  composed  of  very  small  mice — field-mice,  I  think  we  call 
them  in  England  ;  the  second  dish  was  rat.  Not  a  single  ounce 
of  butter  or  lard  had  been  used  in  the  sauces  or  for  the  macaroni. 
The  dried  cod  was  still  plentiful  enough  to  be  had  at  any 
grocer's  or  salted-provision-shop.  Instead  of  butter,  Joseph 
used  horse-marrow.  The  horse-butchers  sold  the  bones  ridic- 
ulously cheap,  not  having  the  slightest  idea  what  to  do  with 
them.     The  mice,  Joseph  caught  round  about  the  fortifications, 


A  A'  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 


407 


whither  he  went  almost  every  day.  The  rats  he  caught  in  the 
cellarage  of  the  Halles.  He  had  a  cousin  there  in  a  large  way 
of  business,  and  access  to  the  underground  part  of  the  market 
was  never  refused  to  him. 

"  From  what  you  have  tasted  at  my  rooms,"  concluded  the 
ex-lieutenant,  "  you  will  easily  see  that  our  vaunted  superiority 
as  cooks  is  so  much  humbug.  The  dish  of  cod  1  gave  you, 
and  which  you  liked  so  much,  may  be  seen  on  the  table  of 
the  poorest  household  in  Holland  and  Flanders  at  least  once, 
sometimes  twice,  a  week,  especially  in  North-Brabant,  where 
the  good  Catholics  scarcely  ever  eat  anything  else  on  Fridays. 
The  sauce,  which  they  call  a  mustard-sauce,  would  naturally 
be  better  if  made  with  butter,  but  you  could  not  taste  the  dif- 
ference if  the  cook  takes  care  to  sprinkle  a'  little  saffron  in 
her  fat  or  marrow.  Saffron  is  a  great  thing  in  cooking,  and 
still  our  best  chefs  know  little  or  nothing  about  it.  But  for  the 
saffron,  you  would  have  detected  a  slight  odor  of  musk  in 
the  entree  you  took  to  be  larks.  You  may  almost  disguise 
anything  with  saffron,  except  dog's-flesh.  Listen  to  what  I  tell 
you,  and  in  a  month  or  so,  perhaps  before,  you'll  admit  the 
truth  of  my  words.  The  moment  horseflesh  fails,  the  Parisians 
will  fall  back  upon  dogs,  turning  up  their  noses  at  cats  and 
rats,  though  both  are  a  thousand  times  superior  to  the  latter. 
In  saying  this,  I  am  virtually  libelling  the  cat  and  the  rat ; 
for  '  the  friend  of  man,'  be  he  cooked  in  ever  so  grand  a  way, 
is  always  a  detestable  dish.  His  flesh  is  oily  and  flabby ;  stew 
him,  fry  him,  do  what  you  will,  there  is  always  a  flavor  of  castor 
oil  about  him.  The  only  way  to  minimize  that  flavor,  to  make 
him  palatable,  is  to  salt,  or  rather  to  pepper  him  ;  that  is,  to 
cut  him  up  in  slices,  and  leave  them  for  a  fortnight,  bestrewing 
them  very  liberally  with  pepper-corns.  Then,  before  'accom- 
modating '  them  finally,  put  them  into  boiling  water  for  a  while 
and  throw  the  water  away. 

"  No  such  compromises  are  necessary  with  'the  fauna  of  the 
tiles,'  who,  with  his  larger-sized  victim,  the  rat,  has  been  the 
most  misprized  and  misjudged  of  all  animals,  from  the  culinary 
point  of  view.  Stewed  puss  is  by  far  more  delicious  than 
stewed  rabbit.  The  flesh  of  the  former  tastes  less  pungent 
than  that  of  the  latter,  and  is  more  tender.  As  for  the  preju- 
dice against  cat,  well,  the  Germans  have  the  same  prejudice 
against  rabbit,  and  while  I  was  in  the  Foreign  Legion  there 
was  a  VVurtemberger,  a  lieutenant,  who  would  not  touch  bunny, 
but  who  would  devour  grimalkin.  Those  who  have  not  tasted 
couscoussu  of  cat,  prepared  according  to  the  Arabian  recipe — 


4o8  AA^  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

though  the  Arabs  won't  touch  it — have  never  tasted  any- 
thing." * 

Our  friend  said  much  more,  notably  with  regard  to  rat  and 
horseflesh  ;  and  then  he  wound  up  :  "  But  what  is  the  good  ? 
Those  who  might  benefit  by  my  advice  are  not  here,  and,  if 
they  were,  they  w^ould  probably  scorn  it ;  I  mean  the  very  poor. 
The  only  item  of  animal  food  which  cannot  be  adequately  re- 
placed by  something  else  yielding  as  much  or  nearly  as  much 
nourishment  is  milk.  But,  unless  an  adult  be  in  delicate  health 
or  suffering  from  ailments  to  the  alleviation  and  cure  of  which 
milk  is  absolutely  necessary,  he  may  very  well  go  without  it 
for  six  months.  Not  so  children.  I  am  only  showing  you 
that  the  poor,  with  their  slender  resources — and  Heaven  knows 
they  are  slender  enough — might  do  better  than  they  are  doing, 
for  cats  and  rats  must  still  be  very  plentiful,  only  they  won't 
touch  them." 

The  reference  to  the  very  poor  and  their  slender  resources 
recurred  more  than  once  that  evening,  but  I  knew  that  the  au- 
thorities were  trying  to  do  all  they  could  in  the  way  of  reliev- 
ing general  and  individual  distress,  and  that  they  were  admi- 
rably seconded  by  private  charity,  which  not  only  placed  com- 
paratively large  sums  at  their  disposal,  but  bestirred  itself  by 
means  of  specially  appointed  committees  and  visitors.  The  ra- 
tions of  meat  (horsemeat)  and  bread  distributed  were  not  suffi- 
cient. The  first  had  already  fallen  to  forty-five  grammes  per 
day  per  head,  the  second  to  three  hundred  and  fifty  grammes  ;t 
they  were  to  fall  much  lower.  Tickets  were  also  distributed 
for  set  meals,  with  and  without  meat.  There  was,  furthermore, 
a  distribution  of  fuel,  albeit  that  there  was  really  no  more  fuel 
to  distribute.  All  the  wooden  seats  in  the  public  thorough- 
fares, the  scaffoldings  before  the  half-finished  buildings,  had 
disappeared.  At  one  of  my  friend's  apartments  there  was  none 
but  the  outer  door  left,  all  the  others  had  been  replaced  by 
curtains.  They  had  been  chopped  up  to  keep  his  family 
warm.  The  fear  of  the  terrible  landlord  may  have  prevented 
the  poor  from  imitating  this  proceeding.  At  any  rate,  I  no- 
ticed no  absent  doors  in  my  visits  to  any  of  them.  A  further 
supply  of  meat  or  bread,  even  if  they  had  the  money,  was  out 
of  the  question  for  them ;  because,  though  some  shops  re- 
mained open  and  their  owners  were  compelled  to  sell  according 

*  The  Arab  kuskus  generally  consists  of  a  piece  of  mutton  baked  in  a  paste  vi-ith  the 
vegetables  of  the  season,  flavored  with  herbs  -,  and  the  addition  of  half  a  dozen  hard-boiled 
eggs.     The  whole  of  the  flesh  is  boned.— Editor. 

t  Five  hundred  French  grammes  make  seventeen  ounces  English,  and  a  fraction.— 
Editor, 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 


409 


to  the  tariff  set  forth  by  the  municipality,  they  had  nothing  to 
sell.  I  remember  being  in  the  Rue  Lafayette  one  morning, 
near  one  of  those  shops,  when  I  saw  the  whole  of  the  crowd, 
that  had  been  waiting  there  for  hours  probably,  turn  away  dis- 
appointed. The  assistant  had  just  told  them  that  "this  morn- 
ing we  have  nothing  to  sell  but  preserved  trufties." 

At  the  same  time,  I  am  bound  to  note  the  fact  that,  at  the 
slightest  rumors  of  peace,  the  usually  empty  windows  became 
filled  with  artistically  arranged  pyramids  of  "  canned  "  provi- 
sions, at  prices  considerably  below  those  charged  twenty-four 
hours  before,  and  even  below  those  mentioned  in  the  munici- 
pal tariff.  Frequent  attempts  were  made  by  the  police  to 
discover  the  hiding-places  for  this  stock,  but  they  failed  in 
every  instance.  Those  hiding  places  were  far  away  from  the 
shops,  and  the  shopkeepers  themselves  were  too  wary  to  be 
caught  napping.  A  stranger  might  have  safely  gone  in  and 
offered  a  hundred  francs  for  half  a  dozen  tins  of  their  wares. 
They  would  have  looked  a  perfect  blank,  and  told  him  they 
had  none  to  sell :  and  no  wonder ;  their  detection  would  have 
meant  certain  death ;  no  earthly  power  could  have  saved  them 
from  the  legitimate  fury  of  the  populace. 

And  even  those  who  bought  the  hidden  food  at  abnormal 
prices  were  compelled  to  preserve  silence,  at  the  risk  of  seeing 
their  supplies  cut  off.  One  thing  is  certain,  and  I  can  unhesi- 
tatingly vouch  for  it.  JVIy  name  had  become  known  in  connec- 
tion with  several  committees  for  the  relief  of  the  poor.  On 
the  25th  of  January,  at  11  a.  m.,  when  the  negotiations  between 
Bismarck  and  M.  Jules  Favre  could  have  been  but  in  the  pre- 
liminary stage,  I  received  a  note,  brought  by  hand,  from  a 
grocer  in  the  Faubourg  Montmartre,  asking  me  to  call  person- 
ally, as  he  had  something  to  communicate  which  might  be 
to  the  advantage  of  my  proteges.  An  hour  later  I  was  at  his 
establishment,  and  he  offered  to  sell  me  five  hundred  tins  of 
various  provisions  and  two  hundred  and  fifty  boxes  of  sar- 
dines at  two  francs  each.  It  was  something  like  double  the 
ordinary  price.  A  little  more  than  three  weeks  before  that  date, 
I  had  sent  a  letter  to  the  same  man,  asking  him  for  a  similar 
quantity  of  goods,  which  I  intended  to  distribute  as  New 
Year's  gifts.  The  reply,  was,  that  he  had  none,  but  that  he 
m\^\.  possibly  procure  them  at  the  rate  of  five  francs  a  tin  and 
box.  I  found  out  afterwards,  that  the  excellent  grocer  had  a 
son  at  the  Ministry  for  Foreign  Affairs.  I  need  not  point  out 
the  logical  deduction. 

I  am  equally  certain  that  there   were  large   quantities  of 


41  o  A  A'  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PA  RIS. 

horseflesh,  salted  or  fresh,  hidden  somewhere  ;  for,  as  I  have 
already  noted,  it  was  officially,  or  at  any  rate  semi-officially 
stated,  that,  on  the  day  of  the  conclusion  of  the  armistice, 
there  were  thirty  thousand  live  horses  in  Paris,  and  the  greater 
part  of  these  would  have  been  slaughtered  by  order  of  the 
Government,  if  the  measure  had  been  thought  expedient,  for 
there  is  scarcely  any  need  to  say  that  the  pretext  of  their  being 
wanted  for  military  purposes  would  not  hold  water,  A  sixth 
part  of  them,  or  less,  would  have  been  amply  sufficient  for  that. 
In  reality,  M.  Favre  and  his  colleagues  were  by  this  time  fully 
convinced  that  all  further  resistance  was  useless,  but  they 
had  not  the  courage  to  say  so'  frankly,  and  they  wished  to  con- 
vert the  advocates  of  "  resistance  to  death  "  to  their  side  by 
aggravating  the  scarcity  of  the  food  supply,  as  if  it  were  not 
bad  enough  already.  The  horses  confiscated  by  the  Govern- 
ment for  food  were  paid  for  by  them  at  the  rate  of  between 
one  and  two  francs  per  pound,  yet  there  was  no  possibility  of 
buying  a  single  pound  of  horseflesh,  beyond  what  was  distrib- 
uted at  the  municipal  canteens,  for  less  than  seven,  or  eight 
francs.     Whence  this  difference  ? 

Butter  could  be  bought  for  thirty  to  thirty-five  francs  per 
pound,  but  such  butter  !  Anything  worth  eating  commanded 
sixty  francs.  Inhere  was  a  kind  of  grease  that  fetched  two 
francs  per  pound,  but  even  the  poorest  shrank  from  it,  and  pre- 
ferred to  eat  dry  bread,  which  was  composed  as  follows : — 

(For  a  Loaf  of  3cxd  Grammes.) 

75  grammes  of  wheat. 

15        "        "     rye,  barley,  or  peas. 

60        "         '*    rice. 

90        "        "     oats. 

30        "        "    chopped  straw  mixed  with  starch. 

30        "        "    bran. 

As  for  the  rest,  here  are  some  of  the  prices — at  which,  how- 
ever, things  were  not  always  to  be  had  : — 

frs. 

A  dog  or  a  cat 20 

A  rat,  crow,  or  sparrow 3  or  4 

I  lb.  of  bear's  flesh 12 

I  lb.  of  venison 14 

I  lb,  of  wolf's  flesh,  or  porcupine's 8 

A  rabbit 40 

A  fowl 40 

A  pigeon , 25 

A  goose 80 

A  turkey 100 

I  lb.  of  ham  (vefy  rare) 10 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  41 1 

1  lb.  of  bacon  (not  so  rare) 6 

Eggs  (each) c 

Haricot  beans  (per   litre) 8 

Cabbages   (each) 16 

Leeks  (each) i 

Bushel  of  carrots  (2^  gallons) 75 

Bushel  of  potatoes 35 

Bushel  of  onions 00 

Still,  until  the  very  last,  there  occurred,  as  far  as  I  know,  no 
case  of  actual  starvation,  and  I  was  pretty  well  posted  up  in 
that  respect.  The  very  young  and  very  old  suffered  most : 
for  the  milk  that  was  sold  at  two  francs  per  litre  was  simply 
disgraceful,  three-fourths  of  it  was  water ;  and  beef-tea,  or  that 
worthy  of  the  name,  was  not  to  be  had  at  any  price.  Both 
commodities  were  distributed  to  the  poor  at  the  municipal 
canteens,  on  the  certificate  of  a  doctor ;  but  the  latter,  though 
by  no  means  hard-hearted,  and  thoroughly  sympathetic  with 
the  ills  he  was  scarcely  able  to  alleviate,  had  to  draw  the  line 
somewhere.  Of  bedding,  bed-linen,  and  warm  underclothing 
there  was  little  or  no  lack ;  but  the  cold,  for  several  days,  at 
frequent  intervals  was  severe  to  a  degree. 

Our  ex-lieutenant's  reference  to  the  poor  and  their  slender 
resources  recurred  frequently  to  my  mind  for  several  days 
after  the  scene  described  above,  and  set  me  wondering  how 
far  the  poor  had  parted,  finally  or  temporarily,  with  their  house- 
hold goods  and  small  valuables  in  order  to  obtain  some  of  the 
quasi-luxuries  I  have  just  enumerated.  In  order  to  get  at  the 
truth  of  the  matter,  I  determined  to  pay  a  visit  to  the  central 
pawnbroking  ofhce  in  the  Rue  des  Blancs  Manteaux.  I  pro- 
vided myself  with  a  letter  of  introduction  to  the  director,  who 
placed  an  official  at  my  disposal.  This  was  towards  the  latter 
end  of  December. 

I  transcribe  my  informant's  statement  in  brief  and  from 
memory,  but  I  am  positive  as  to  main  facts.  Up  till  the  end 
of  August  the  transactions  at  the  central  office,  which  virtually 
included  those  of  the  whole  of  the  capital,  presented  nothing 
abnormal,  but  the  moment  the  investment  became  an  almost 
foregone  conclusion,  there  was  a  positive  run  on  the  Mont-de- 
Piete.  The  applicants  for  loans,  however,  were  by  no  means 
of  the  poorest  or  even  of  the  lower-middle  class,  but  the  well- 
to-do  people,  whose  chief  aim  was  to  place  their  valuables  in 
safety,  and  who  looked  upon  the  9  1-2  per  cent,  interest  they 
had  to  pay  on  the  advances  received  as  a  premium  for  ware- 
housing and  insurance.  They  knew  that  nothing  could  be 
more  secure  than  the  fire  and  burglar  proof  receptacles  of  the 


412  A  .Y  E:\  GL ISHMA  N  IN  PA  RIS. 

Mont-de-Piet6,  and  that,  come  what  might,  the  State  would  be 
responsible  for  the  value  of  the  articles  deposited. 

This  run  ceased  when  the  investment  was  an  accomplished 
fact,  but,  as  a  matter  of  course,  the  financial  resources  had 
been  put  to  a  severe  test,  and,  at  the  time  my  informant  spoke 
to  me,  they  had  dwindled  from  nearly  eight  millions  of  francs, 
at  which  they  were  computed  in  the  beginning  of  August,  to 
about  three-quarters  of  a  million.  The  order  of  the  mayor  of 
Paris,  intended  to  prevent  this,  had  come  too  late.  The  decree 
of  1863,  limiting  the  maximum  of  a  loan  to  ten  thousand  francs 
at  the  chief  office,  and  to  five  hundred  francs  at  any  of  the 
auxiliary  ones,  had  been  suspended  in  favor  of  a  decision  that, 
during  the  investment,  no  loan  should  exceed  fifty  francs.* 
From  the  19th  of  September  to  the  end  of  October,  the  cessa- 
tion from  rt-// labor,  and,  consequently,  the  non-receipt  of  wages 
throughout  the  capital,  had  to  be  faced  in  the  acceptance  of 
thousands  of  pledges,  consisting  of  household  goods,  apparel, 
etc.  ;  but,  curiously  enough,  workmen's  tools  and  implements 
formed  but  a  small  proportion  of  these.  At  present,  the  whole 
of  the  business  was  at  a  standstill ;  there  was  no  redemption 
of  pledges,  and  few  were  ofi^ered.t 

Meanwhile,  Christmas  and  the  New  Year  were  at  hand,  and 
not  a  single  sortie  had  led  to  any  practical  modification  of  the 
situation.  The  cold  was  intense.  Coal  and  coke  could  be 
obtained  for  neither  money  nor  love.  The  street  lamps  had 
not  been  lighted  for  nearly  a  month  ;  up  till  the  end  of  October, 
one  had  been  lighted  here  and  there  ;  then  there  had  been  an 
attempt  to  supply  the  absence  of  gas  by  paraffin  in  the  public 
thoroughfares,  but  the  stock  of  mineral  oil  was  also  getting 
lower.  Most  of  the  shops  were  closed,  but,  at  the  advent  of 
the  festive  season,  a  few  took  down  their  shutters  and  made  a 
feeble  display  of  bonbons  in  sugar  and  chocolate,  and  even  of 
marrons  glaces.  I  doubt  whether  these  articles  found  many 
purchasers.  The  toy-shops  never  took  the  trouble  of  exhibit- 
ing at  all.  They  were  wise  in  their  abstention,  for  even  the 
most  ignorant  Parisian  was  aware  that  nine-tenths  of  the  wares 
in  these  establishments  hailed  from  Germany,  and  he  would 

*  A  similar  measure  had  been  decided  upon  in  1814,  under  analogous  circumstances,  but 
the  maximum  was  twenty  francs  instead  of  fifty  francs. — Editor. 

t  A  curious  feature  in  connection  with  the  pledging  of  tools  and  implements  may  be  re 
corded  here.  At  the  termination  of  the  siege,  a  committee  in  London  transmitted  20,000 
francs  (iJ8oo)  for  the  express  purpose  of  redeeming  these.  The  Paris  committee  entrusted 
with  the  task,  while  grateful  for  the  solicitude  shown,  rightly  considered  that  it  would  not  go 
very  far,  considering  that,  at  the  time,  the  Mont-de-Piet^  held  a  total  of  1,708,549  articles, 
representing  loans  to  the  amountof  37,502,743  francs.  The  authorities  took  particular  pains 
to  publish  tne  receipt  of  the  20,000  francs,  and  the  purposes  thereof.  Within  a  given  time, 
they  returned  6,430  francs  to  the  committee.  Only  2,383  tobls  (or  sets  of  tool?)  had  been 
redeemed,  representing  a  lent  value  of  13,570  francs. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  413 

assuredly  have  smashed  the  windows  if  they  had  been  offered 
for  sale.  Nay,  the  booths  that  make  their  appearance  on  the 
Boulevards  at  that  time  of  the  year  displayed  few  toys,  except 
of  a  military  kind.  It  was  very  touching,  in  after  years,  to 
hear  the  lads  and  lassies  refer  to  the  ist  of  January,  187 1,  as 
the  New  Yearns  Day  without  the  New  Yearns  gifts. 

Nevertheless,  it  must  not  be  thought  that  Paris  was  given 
over  to  melancholy  on  these  two  days.  Crowds  perambulated 
the  streets  and  sat  in  the  cafes.  In  spite  of  all  that  has  been 
said  by  ultra-patriotic  writers,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the 
Parisians  no  longer  cherished  any  illusions  about  the  possibil- 
ity of  retrieving  their  disasters,  though  many  have  thought 
that  the  besiegers  would  abstain,  at  the  last  moment,  from 
shelling  the  city.  The  Government — whether  with  the  inten- 
tion of  cheering  the  besieged  or  for  the  purpose  of  exhausting 
their  stock  of  provisions  as  quickly  as  possible,  in  order  to 
capitulate  with  better  grace — had  made  the  city  a  magnificent 
New  Year's  gift  of 

104,000  kilogrammes  of  preserved  beef, 
52,000  "  "  dried  haricot  beans, 

52,000  "  "  olive  oil, 

52,000  "  "  coffee  (not  roasted), 

52,000  "  "  chocolate; 

which  gift  elicited  the  reply  of  a  group  of  artists  and  litterateurs 
that,  though  thankful  for  their  more  epicurean  brethren  and 
sisters,  they,  the  litterateurs  and  artists,  had  fared  very  well  on 
Christmas  Day  and  would  meet  again  on  New  Year's  Day  to 
discuss  the  following  menu  : — 

"  Consomme  de  Cheval  au  millet. 

Brochettes  de  Foie  de  Chien  ^  la  Maitre  d'Hotel. 

Emince  de  Rable  de  Chat,  Sauce  Mayonnaise. 

Epaules  et  Filets  de  Chien  braises  i  la  Sauce  Tomate. 

Civet  de  Chat  aux  Champignons. 

Cotelettes  de  Chien  aux  Champignons. 

Gigots  de  Chien  flanques  de  Ratons. 

Sauce  Poivrade. 

Begonias  au  Jus. 

Plum-pudding  au  Rhum  et  i  la  Moelle  de  Cheval." 

Simultaneously  with  the  publication  of  the  menu,  a  dealer 
in  the  St.  Germain  Market  put  up  a  new  sign-board : — 

«  RESISTANCE  A  OUTRANCE. 

"Grande  Boucherie  Canine  et  Feline. 

"  L'heroique  Paris 'brave  les  Prussiens  ; 
II  ne  sera  jamais  vaincu  par  la  famine  ! 
Quand  il  aura  mange  la  race  chevaline 
II  maugera  ses  rats,  et  ses  chats,  et  ses  chiens." 


414  ^^^  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

The  proprietor  of  a  cookshop  in  the  Rue  de  Rome  had  con- 
fined himself  to  prose,  but  prose  which,  to  those  who  could 
read  it  aright,  was  much  cleverer  than  the  poetry  of  his  tran- 
spontine fellow-tradesman. 

"VIN  A  DIX-HUIT  SOUS 

ET  EAU-DESSUS. 

RossE  Beef. 

Rat  Gout  de  Mouton."  * 

Personally,  I  have  eaten  the  flesh  of  elephants,  wolves,  cas- 
sowaries, porcupines,  bears,  kangaroos,  rats,  cats,  and  horses. 
I  did  not  touch  dog's-flesh  knowingly  after  I  had  been 
warned  by  our  ex-lieutenant;  The  proprietor  of  the  English 
butcher-shop,  M.  Debos,  who  was  not  an  Englishman  at  all, 
supplied  most  of  these  strange  dishes  :  for  he  bought  nearly 
all  the  animals  from  the  Zoological  Gardens,  at  tremendous 
prices.  These  were  only  the  animals  from  the  Jardin  d' Ac- 
climation in  the  Bois,  which  had  been  sent  as  guests  to  the  Jar- 
din  des  Plantes.  The  elephants  belong  to  the  latter  establish- 
ment, and  were  sold  to  M.  Debos  for  twenty-seven  thousand 
francs.  In  January  I  was  elected  a  member  of  the  Jockey 
Club,  but  I  had  dined  there  once  before  by  special  invitation. 
I  give  the  meau  as  far  as  I  remember  : 

"  Soupe  au  Poireau. 

Aloyau  de  Bceuf. 

Poule  au  Riz. 

Flageolets  aux  Jus. 

Biscuits  de  Reims  glaces. 

Charlotte  aux  Pommes." 

In  spite  of  the  hope  that  Paris  would  escape  being  shelled, 
minute  instructions  how  to  act,  in  the  event  of  such  a  calam- 
ity, had  been  posted  on  the  walls.  In  fact,  if  speechifying 
and  the  promulgation  of  decrees  could  have  saved  the  city, 
Trochu  first,  and  the  rest  afterwards,  would  have  so  saved  it. 
But  I  have  solemnly  promised  myself  at  the  outset  of  these 

*  Here  are  the  two  English  readings,  as  far  as  I  am  able  to  give  them  : — 

"WINE  AT  EIGHTEEN  SOUS  THE  LITRE 

AND  UPWARDS. 

Roast  Beef. 

Ragout  of  Mutton." 

"WINE  AT  EIGHTEEN  SOUS  THE  LITRE 

AND  WATER  ATOP. 

Old  Crock's  Flesh. 

Rat  tasting  of  Mutton." — Editor. 


AA^  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 


415 


notes  not  to  be  betrayed  into  any  criticism  of  the  military 
operations,  and  I  will  endeavor  to  keep  my  promise  to  myself. 

The  first  and  foremost  result  of  these  directions  on  the  part 
of  the  Government  was  a  display  of  waterbutts,  filled  to  the 
brim,  in  the  passage,  and  of  sand-heaps  in  the  yard  of  every 
building.  As  the  months  went  by,  and  there  was  no  sign  of  a 
bombardment,  the  contents  of  the  casks  became  so  much 
solid  ice,  and  the  sand-heaps  disappeared  beneath  the  accumu- 
lated snow,  to  be  converted  into  slush  and  mire  at  the  first 
thaw,  which  gave  us,  at  the  same  time,  a  kind  of  miniature 
deluge;  because,  as  a  matter  of  course,  the  barrels  had  sprung 
leaks  which  were  not  attended  to  at  the  time. 

And  when,  early  on  the  5th  of  January,  the  first  projectiles 
crashed  down  upon  some  houses  in  the  south  of  Paris,  the  peo- 
ple were  simply  astonished,  but  still  deluded  themselves  into 
the  belief  that  it  was  a  mistake,  that  the  "  trajectory"  had  been 
miscalculated,  and  that  the  shells  had  carried  farther  than  was 
intended.  To  a  certain  extent  they  had  good  grounds  for  their 
supposition.  They  had  heard  the  big  cannon  boom  and  roar 
at  frequent  intervals  ever  since  the  morning  of  the  27th  of  De- 
cember, and  been  given  to  understand  that  it  was  merely  a  big 
artillery  duel  for  the  possession  of  the  plateau  d' Avron,  between 
the  positions  of  Noisy-le-Grand  and  Gournay  on  the  enemy's 
side,  and  the  forts  of  Nogent,  Rosny,  and  Noisy  on  that  of  the 
French.  They  were,  furthermore,  under  the  impression  that 
the  shelling  of  the  city  would  be  preceded  by  a  final  summons 
to  surrender  :  they  had  got  that  notion  mostly  from  their  mili- 
tary dramas  and  popular  histories.  But  there  were  men,  better 
informed  than  the  majority  of  the  masses,  who  made  sure  that, 
if  not  the  Parisians  themselves,  the  foreign  consuls  and  the 
aliens  under  their  charge  would  receive  a  sufficiently  timely 
notice,  in  order  to  leave  the  city  if  they  felt  so  minded. 

The  5th  of  January  was  a  bitterly  cold  day ;  it  had  been 
freezing  hard  during  the  whole  of  the  night,  and,  as  I  wended 
my  way  across  the  Seine,  about  noon,  the  mist,  which  had  been 
hanging  over  the  river,  was  slowly  rising  in  banked  and  jagged 
masses,  with  only  a  rift  here  and  there  for  the  pitilessly  glacial 
sun  to  peer  through  and  mock  at  our  shivering  condition. 
When  I  got  to  the  Boulevard  Montparnasse,  I  met  several 
stretchers,  bearing  sentries  who  had  been  absolutely  frozen  to 
within  an  ace  of  death. 

I  know  nothing  of  the  military  import  of  a  bombardment, 
but  have  been  told  that  even  the  greatest  strategists  only  count 
upon  the  moral  effect  it  produces  upon  the  besieged  inhabit- 


4 1 6  A  A'  ENGL  ISHMA  N  I  A '  PARIS. 

ants.  I  can  only  say  this :  if  Marshal  von  Moltke  took  the 
"  moral  effect"  of  his  projectiles  into  his  calculations  to  accel- 
erate the  surrender  of  Paris,  he  might  have  gone  on  shelling 
Paris  for  a  twelvemonth  without  being  one  vi^hit  nearer  his  aim  : 
that  is,  if  I  am  to  judge  by  the  scene  I  witnessed  on  that  Janu- 
ary morning,  before  familiarity  with  the  destruction-dealing 
shells  could  have  produced  the  proverbial  contempt.  At  the 
risk  of  offending  all  the  sensation-mongers,  foreign  and  native, 
with  pen  or  with  pencil,  I  can  honestly  say  that  a  broken-down 
omnibus  and  a  couple  of  prostrate  horses  would  have  excited 
as  much  curiosity  as  did  the  sight  of  the  battered  tenements  at 
Vaugirard,  Montrouge,  and  Vanves.  On  the  Chaussee  du 
Maine,  the  roadway  had  been  ploughed  up  for  a  distance  of 
about  half  a  dozen  yards  by  a  shell ;  in  another  spot,  a  shell 
had  gone  clean  through  the  roof  and  killed  a  woman  by  the 
side  of  her  husband ;  in  a  third,  a  shell  had  carried  away  part 
of  the  wall  of  a  one-storied  cottage,  and  the  whole  of  the  oppo- 
site wall :  in  short,  there  was  more  than  sufficient  evidence  that 
life  was  no  longer  safe  within  the  fortifications,  and  yet  there 
was  no  wailing,  no  wringing  of  hands,  no  heart-rending, 
frenzied  look  of  despair,  either  pent  up  or  endeavoring  to  find 
vent  in  shrieks  and  yells,  nay,  not  even  on  the  part  of  the 
women.  There  was  merely  a  kind  of  undemonstrative  con- 
tempt— very  unlike  the  usual  French  way  of  manifesting  it — 
blended  with  a  considerable  dash  of  badauderie, — for  which 
word  I  cannot  find  an  English  equivalent,  because  the  Parisian 
loafers  or  idler  is  unlike  any  of  his  European  congeners.  To 
grasp  the  difference  between  the  former  and  the  latter,  one 
must  have  had  the  good  fortune  to  see  the  same  incident  in 
the  streets  of  Paris,  London,  Madrid,  Florence,  and  Rome, 
Vienna,  Berlin,  and  St.  Petersburg,  not  to  mention  Brussels,  the 
Hague,  Amsterdam,  Munich,  and  Dresden.  The  "  Monsieur 
Prudhomme  "  of  Charles  Monnier  shows  but  one  facet  of  the 
Paris  badaud's  character.  The  nearest  approach  to  him  is  the 
middle-class  English  tourist  on  the  Continent,  who  endeavors 
to  explain  to  his  wife  and  companions  things  he  does  not  know 
himself,  and  blesses  his  stars  aloud  for  having  made  him  an 
Englishman. 

But  even  the  Paris  badaud,  who  is  not  unlike  his  Roman 
predecessor  in  his  craving  for  circuses,  must  have  bread  ;  and 
when  the  cry  arises,  a  fortnight  later,  that  "  there  is  no  more 
bread,"  the  siege  is  virtually  at  an  end. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS,  4 1 7 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

I  HAVE  before  now  spoken  of  a  young  medical  student  in 
whose  company  I  spent  several  evenings  at  a  cafe  on  the  Boule- 
vard St.  Michel,  during  the  Empire.  He,  like  myself,  remained 
in  Paris  during  the  siege,  and  refused  to  stir  at  the  advent  of 
the  Commune.  As  a  matter  of  course,  whenever  we  met,  while 
the  latter  lasted,  we  rarely  spoke  of  anything  else.  He  sympa- 
thized, to  a  certain  extent,  with  the  principle,  though  not  with 
the  would-be  expounders  of  it.  I  knew  few,  if  any,  of  the 
leaders  even  by  sight,  though  I  had  heard  of  some,  such  as,  for 
instance,  Jules  Valles,  in  connection  with  their  literary  work. 
My  admiration  was  strictly  confined  to  those  performances,  and 
I  often  said  so  to  my  friend.  "  You  are  mistaken  in  your  esti- 
mate of  them,"  he  invariably  replied.  "  There  are  men  of  ur^- 
doubted  talent  among  them,  for  instance,  Cluseret ;  but  most 
of  them  are  like  square  pegs  in  round  holes.  Come  with  me 
to-night,  and  you  will  be  able  to  judge  for  yourself ;  for  he  is 
sure  to  be  at  the  Brasserie  Saint-Severin." 

I  had  never  been  to  the  Brasserie  Saint-Severin,  though  I 
had  paid  two  or  three  visits  several  years  before  to  the  Caf'i 
de  la  Renaissance  opposite  the  Fontaine  Saint-Michel,  at  which 
establishment  the  Commune  may  be  said  to  have  been  hatched. 
It  was  there  that,  in  1866,  Raoul  Rigault,  Longuet,  the  broth- 
ers Levraud,  Dacosta,  Genton,  Protot,  and  a  dozen  more  were 
arrested  by  th:  Commissary  of  Police,  M.  Cllment. 

That  night,  about  eight  o'clock,  we  crossed  the  Pont  Saint- 
Michel,  and,  in  a  minute  or  so,  found  ourselves  amidst  some 
■f  the  shining  lights  of  the  Commune. 

Save  on  review  days  I  had  never  seen  so  many  brillia.it 
uniforms  gathered  togethero  As  far  as  I  can  recollect,  there 
was  only  one  civilian  in  the  group  pointed  out  to  me.  He 
looked  a  mere  skeleton,  was  misshapen,  and  one  of  the  ugliest 
men  I  have  ever  met.  I  asked  his  name,  and  was  told  it  was 
Tridon.  The  name  was'  perfectly  familiar  t«^  me  as  belonging 
to  one  of  the  most  remarkable  polemists  during  the  late  regime. . 
A  little  while  afterwards,  Cluseret  came  in. 

My  friend  introduced  me,  and  we  sat  talking  for  more  than 
two  hours  ;  and  I  have  rarely  been  more  interested  than  I  was 
that  night.     Cluseret  spoke  English  very  well,  for  he  had  been 

27 


4lS  AA'  ENGLISHMAX  IN  PARIS. 

in  America  several  years,  and  our  conversation  was  carried  on 
in  that  language.  1  have  already  remarked  that  I  had  no  in- 
tention, at  that  time,  to  jot  down  my  recollections,  still  I  was 
so  impressed  with  what  I  had  heard  that  I  made  some  rough 
memoranda  when  I  got  home.  They  are  among  the  papers  I 
have  preserved. 

Cluseret  fostered  no  illusions  as  to  the  final  upshot  of  the 
Commune.  "  If  every  man  were  as  devoted  to  the  cause  as 
Kossuth  and  Garibaldi  were  to  theirs,  we  should  not  be  able 
to  establish  a  permanent  Commune  ;  but  this  is  by  no  means 
the  case.  Most  of  the  leaders,  even  those  who  are  not  self- 
seekers,  are  too  visionary  in  their  aims  ;  they  will  not  abate 
one  jot  of  their  ideal.  The  others  think  of  nothing  but  their 
own  aggrandisement,  and  though  many  are  no  doubt  capable  to 
a  degree,  they  are  absolutely  useless  for  the  posts  they  have 
chosen  for  themselves.  There  are  certainly  exceptions  ;  such 
as,  for  instance,  Rossel.  His  technical  knowledge  is  very 
considerable.  If  I  had  to  describe  him  in  two  words,  I  should 
call  him  Lothario-Cromwell.  For,  notwithstanding  his  military 
aptitudes  and  his  Puritan  stiffness  in  many  things,  he  has  too 
many  petticoats  about  him.  In  addition  to  this,  he  is  over- 
bearing and  absolutely  eaten  up  with  ambition  ;  he  is  a  re- 
publican who  despises  the  proletariat ;  he  would  fain  imitate 
the  axiom  of  Napoleon  I.,  '  The  tools  to  those  who  can  use 
them  ;'  but  he  forgets  that  he  will  not  do  for  a  socialistic  regime 
such  as  we  would  establish,  because  it  is  exactly  those  that 
cannot  use  the  tools  who  wish  to  be  treated  as  if  they  could. 
If  they  had  intelligence  enough  to  use  the  tools,  they  would 
have  lifted  themselves  out  of  their  humble,  unsatisfactory 
positions  without  any  aid.  Rossel  is  no  doubt  a  better  strate- 
gist than  I  am,  and  I  do  not  in  the  least  mind  his  letting  me 
know  it,  but  if  Dombrowski  or  Bergeret  was  '  Delegate  for 
War,'  Rossel  would  have  been  in  prison  or  shot  a  fortnight 
ago. 

"  For,"  continued  Cluseret,  "  Bergeret  especially  thinks 
himself  a  heaven-born  general.  He  shows  well  on  horseback, 
because,  I  believe,  he  began  life  as  a  stable-lad  :  so  did  Michel 
Ney ;  but  then,  Michel  Ney  served  his  apprenticeship  at  fight- 
ing, while  Bergeret  became  a  compositor,  a  chef-de-claque,  a 
proof-reader,  and,  finally,  a  traveller  for  a  publishing  firm.  All 
these  are,  no  doubt,  very  honorable  occupations,  but  they  are 
scarcely  calculated  to  make  a  good  general.  Still,  you  should 
see  him  ;  he  wfears  his  sash  as  your  officers  wear  theirs  when 
on  duty ;  he  would  like  the  people  to  mistake  it  for  the  grand- 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 


419 


cordon  of  the  Legion  d'Honneur ;  and  his  staff  is  more  nu- 
merous than  that  of  the  late  Emperor.  You  should  go  and 
dine  at  the  headquarters  of  the  military  governor  of  Paris ;  I 
am  sure  you  would  be  very  welcome.  Marast  at  the  Palais- 
Bourbon  in  '48  was  nothing  to  it.  If  the  Commune  lasts 
another  three  months  there  will  be  servants  in  livery,  gold 
lace,  and  powder,  like  in  your  country.  At  present,  Bergeret 
has  to  put  up  with  attendants  in  faultless  black. 

"  Personally,"  he  went  on,  "  I  am  not  fighting  for  Com- 
munism, but  for  Communalism,  which,  I  need  not  tell  you,  is 
quite  a  different  thing.  I  fail  to  see  why  Paris  and  Lyons 
should  be  judged  incapable  of  managing  their  own  municipal 
affairs  without  the  interference  of  the  State,  while  other  great 
provincial  centres  are  considered  capable  of  doing  so.  The 
English  Government  does  not  interfere  with  the  municipal 
affairs  of  London  on  the  plea  that  it  is  the  capital,  with  those 
of  Manchester  on  the  plea  that  it  has  inaugurated  a  policy  of 
its  own,  any  more  than  it  interferes  with  those  of  Liverpool, 
Leeds,  or  Bristol.  Your  lord-lieutenants  of  counties  are  vir- 
tually decorative  officials,  something  different  from  our  pre- 
fects and  our  sub-prefects,  and  your  Home  Secretary  has  not 
a  hundredth  part  of  the  power  of  our  Minister  of  the  Interior. 
We  wish  to  go  a  step  further  than  you,  without,  however, 
shirking  the  financial  obligations  imposed  by  a  federation. 
What  you  would  call  imperial  taxes,  we  are  willing  to  pay  in 
kind  as  well  as  money.  This  is  one  of  the  things  we  do  want ; 
what  we  do  not  want  is  the  resuscitation  of  the  Empire.  I  am, 
not  speaking  at  random  when  I  tell  you  that  there  are  rumors 
about  traitors  in  our  camp,  and  that,  according  to  these 
rumors,  the  struggle  against  the  Versaillese  troops  would  be  a 
mere  pretext  to  sweep  the  deck  for  the  unopposed  entry  of  an 
imperial  army  into  Paris.  Whence  would  that  army  be 
recruited  ?  From  among  the  prisoners  going  to  leave  Germany, 
who  have  been  worked  all  the  while  in  the  interest  of  the 
Napoleonic  dynasty.  After  all,  we  have  as  much  right  to 
overthrow  the  Government  of  Versailles  as  the  Government 
of  Versailles  had  the  right  to  upset  the  Empire.  Their  powers 
are  by  no  means  more  valid  by  virtue  of  the  recent  elections, 
than  was  the  power  of  Louis-Napoleon  by  virtue  of  the 
plebiscite  of  1870.  Does  M.  Thiers  really  think  that  he  is  a 
better  or  greater  man  than  Abraham  Lincoln,  who  treated  the 
Southerns  as  belligerents,  not  as  insurgents  ?  " 

So  far  Cluseret.     I  am  not  prepared  to  say  that  he  was  a 
strictly  honorable  man,  but  he  was  a  very  intelligent  on€, 


4i6  Ak  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

probably  the  most  intelligent  among  the  leaders  of  the  Com- 
mune. At  any  rate,  his  conversation  made  me  anxious  to  get 
a  nearer  sight  of  some  of  the  latter,  and,  as  they  had  evidently 
made  the  Brasserie  Saint-Severin  their  principal  resort  of  an 
evening,  I  returned  thither  several  times. 

A  few  nights  afterwards,  I  was  just  in  time  to  witness  the 
arrival  of  Raoul  Rigault,  on  horseback,  accompanied  by  a  staff 
running  by  the  side  of  his  animal.  The  whole  reminded  me 
irresistibly  of  Decamp's  picture,  "  La  Patrouille  Turque." 
The  Prefect  of  Police  was  scarcely  less  magnificently  attired 
than  the  rest  of  his  fellow-dignitaries.  His  uniform,  if  I 
remember  rightly,  was  blue  with  red  facings,  but  it  is  impos- 
sible to  say,  because  it  was  covered  everywhere  with  gold  lace. 
His  myrmidons  hustled  the  crowd  in  order  to  make  room  for 
their  chief,  and  some  one  laughed  :  "  Mais  il  n'y  a  rien  de 
change ;  c'est  absolument  comme  sous  I'Empire."  For  a 
moment  Rigault  sat  quite  still,  surveying  the  crowd  and  ogling 
the  women  through  his  double  eye-glasses.  Then  he  alighted, 
and  caught  sight  of  my  friend  and  myself  standing  on  the 
threshold.  "  Quels  sont  ces  citoyens  ?  "  he  inquired,  taking 
us  in  from  top  to  toe,  and  stroking  his  long  beard  all  the  while. 
Some  one  told  him  our  names,  at  which  he  made  a  wry  face, 
the  more  that  mine  must  have  been  familiar  to  him,  seeing 
that  a  very  near  relative  of  mine,  bearing  the  same,  had  been 
a  special  favorite  with  General  Vinoy.  He  did  not  think  fit 
to  molest  us  ;  had  he  done  so,  it  might  have  fared  badly  with 
•us,  for  by  the  time  Lord  Lyons  could  have  interfered,  we 
might  have  been  shot. 

Ever  since,  my  friend  and  I  have  been  under  the  impression 
that  we  owed  our  lives  to  a  dark,  ugly  little  man  who,  at  that 
moment,  whispered  something  to  him,  and  who,  my  friend 
told  me,  immediately  afterwards,  was  the  right  hand  of  Raoul 
Rigault,  Theophile  Ferre.  That  name  was  also  familiar  to 
me,  as  it  was  to  most  Parisians,  previous  to  the  outbreak  of 
the  war,  because  Ferre  was  implicated  in  the  plot  against 
Louis-Napoleon's  life,  and  was  tried  in  the  early  part  of  '70  at 
Blois.  Every  one  knew  how  he  insulted  the  President,  how 
he  refused  to  answer,  and  finally  exclaimed,  "  Yes,  I  am  an 
anarchist,  a  socialist,  an  atheist,  and  woe  to  you  when  our  turn 
comes."  He  kept  his  word  ;  he  was  a  fiend,  and  looked  one. 
Whenever  there  was  anything  cruel  and  bloodthirsty  going  on, 
he  made  it  a  point  to  be  present.  He  was,  though  ugly,  not 
half  so  ugly  as  Tridon,  but  one  involuntarily  recoiled  from 
him. 


AN  ENGLISHMAN-  IN  PARIS.  X2 1 

Curiously  enough,  this  very  Theophile  Ferre,  whom  I  then 
saw  for  the  first  time,  had  been  the  subject  of  a  conversation 
I  had  with  Gil-Peres,  the  actor  of  the  Palais- Royal,  on  the  25th 
or  26th  of  March.  I  had  known  Gil-Peres  from  the  moment 
he  made  his  mark  in  "  La  Dame  aux  Camelias  "  as  Gaudens. 
To  my  great  surprise,  a  day  or  two  after  the  proclamation  of 
the  Commune,  I  heard  that  he  had  been  cruelly  maltreated  in 
the  Rue  Drouot,  that  he  had  narrowly  escaped  being  killed. 
Two  days  later,  I  paid  him  a  vi^t  in  his  lodgings  at  Mont- 
martre ;  for  he  had  been  severely,  though  not  dangerously 
hurt,  and  was  unable  to  leave  his  bed. 

"  I  am  very  sorry  for  your  mishap,"  I  said  ;  "  but  what,  in 
Heaven's  name,  induced  you  to  meddle  with  politics  ? " 

He  burst  out  laughing,  in  that  peculiar  laugh  of  his  which  I 
have  never  heard  before  or  since,  on  or  oif  the  stage.  The 
nearest  approach  to  it  was  that  of  Grassot,  but  the  latter's  was 
like  a  discharge  of  artillery,  while  Gil-Peres'  was  like  that  of  a 
musketry  volley. 

"  I  did  not  meddle  with  politics,"  he  replied  ;  "  but  you 
know  how  fond  I  am  of  going  among  crowds  to  study  char- 
acter. This  day  last  week,  I  was  passing  along  the  Rue 
Drouot,  when  I  saw  a  large  group  in  front  of  the  Mairie.  I 
had  left  home  early  in  the  morning,  I  knew  nothing  of  what 
was  going  on  in  my  neighborhood,  so  you  may  imagine  my 
surprise  when  I  heard  them  calmly  discussing  the  death  of 
Clement  Thomas  and  Lecomte.  My  hair  stood  positively  on 
end,  and  I  must  have  pushed  a  bit  in  order  to  get  nearer  the 
speakers.  I  had  a  long  black  coat  on,  and  they  mistook  me 
for  a  cur^.  I  did  all  I  could  to  tell  them  my  name,  but, 
before  I  could  utter  a  word,  I  was  down,  and  they  began 
trampling  on  me.  Some  one,  God  alone  knows  who,  saved 
me  by  telling  them  my  name.  I  knew  nothing  more,  for  I 
was  brought  home  unconscious.  And  to  think,"  he  added, 
"  that  I  might  have  been  a  member  of  the  Commune  myself,  if 
I  had  liked." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ? "  I  said,  for  I  began  to  think  that  he 
was  out  of  his  mind. 

"  Well,  you  know  that  during  the  siege  I  tried  to  do 
my  duty  as  a  National  Guard,  and  in  my  battalion  was 
this  Thdophile  Ferre  of  whom  you  have  already  heard.  A  most 
intelligent  creature,  but  poor  as  Job  and  ferocious  to  a  degree. 
He  was  a  study  to  me,  and,  of  late,  he  frequently  came  to  see 
me  in  the  morning.  I  generally  asked  him  to  stay  to  breakfast, 
for  I  liked  to  hear  him  talk  of  the  future  Commune,  though  I  had 


42  2  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

not  the  slightest  faith  in  his  visions.  I  considered  him  a  down- 
right lunatic.  About  two  or  three  days  before  this  outbreak, 
he  came,  one  morning,  looking  as  pale  as  a  ghost,  but  evidently 
very  much  excited.  Before  I  had  time  to  ask  him  the  cause 
of  his  emotion,  he  exclaimed,  '  This  time  there  is  no  mistake 
about  it ;  we  are  the  masters.'  I  suppose  my  face  must  have 
looked  a  perfect  blank,  for  he  proceeded  to  explain.  '  In  two 
days  we'll  hold  our  sittings  at  the  H6tel-de-Ville,  and  the  Com- 
mune will  be  proclaimed.  ♦And  now,'  he  added,  '  what  can  I 
do  for  you,  citoyen  Gil-Peres  ?  You  have  always  been  very 
kind  to  me,  and  I  am  not  likely  to  forget  it  when  I  am  at  the 
top  of  the  tree.' 

"  I  told  him  that  I'd  feel  much  obliged  to  him  if  he  could 
induce  Sardou  or  Dumas  to  write  me  a  good  part,  like  the  latter 
had  done  before,  because  I  wanted  to  be  something  more  than 
a  comic  actor.     But  I  saw  that  he  was  getting  angry. 

"'Do  you  mean  to  tell  me,'  he  almost  hissed,  'that  you  do 
not  want  to  belong  to  the  Commune  ? ' 

" '  I  haven't  the  slightest  ambition  that  way,'  I  replied. 
*  People  would  only  make  fun  of  me,  and  they  would  be  per- 
fectly right.' 

"  '  Why  should  people  make  fun  of  you  ? ' 

"  '  Because,  because '  I  stammered. 

"  He  left  me  no  time  to  finish.  '  Because  you  are  a  small 
man,'  he  said.  '  Well,  I  am  a  small  man,  too,  and  an  ugly  one 
into  the  bargain.  I  can  assure  you  that  the  world  will  hear  as 
much  of  me  before  long  as  if  I  had  been  an  Adonis  and  a  Her- 
cules.' With  this  he  disappeared,  and  I  have  not  seen  him 
since." 

My  purpose  in  reporting  this  conversation  is  to  show  that 
the  Commune,  with  all  its  evils,  might  have  been  prevented  by 
the  so-called  government  of  Versailles,  if  its  members  had  been 
a  little  less  eager  to  get  their  snug  berths  comfortably  settled. 

To  return  for  a  moment  to  Ferre  and  his  companions,  who, 
without  exception,  were  sober  to  a  degree,  though  many  were 
probably  fond  of  good  cheer.  The  English  writers,  often  very 
insufficiently  informed,  have  generally  maintained  the  contrary, 
but  I  know  for  a  fact  that,  among  the  leaders  of  the  movement 
drunkenness  was  unknown.  Ferre  himself  was  among  the 
soberest  of  the  lot  :  the  few  evenings  I  saw  him  he  drank 
either  cold  coffee  or  some  cordial  diluted  with  water.  Never- 
theless, it  was  he  who  was  directly  responsible  for  the  death  of 
Archbishop  Darboy,  whom  he  could  and  might  have  saved. 

In  every  modern  tragedy  there  is  a  comic  element,  and  in 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS, 


423 


that  of  the  Commune  the  comic  parts  were,  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent, sustained  by  Gambon,  Jourde,  and  a  few  others  whoip  it 
is  not  necessary  to  mention.  Gambon  was  one  of  the  mildest 
of  creatures,  and  somewhat  of  a  "  communard  malgre  lui."  He 
would  have  willingly  "  left  the  settlement  of  all  these  vexed 
questions  to  moral  force,"  and  he  proposed  once  or  twice  a 
mission  to  Versailles  to  that  effect.  He  was  about  fifty,  and 
a  fine  specimen  of  a  robust,  healthy  farmer.  His  love  of 
''  peaceful  settlement "  arose  from  an  experiment  he  had  made 
in  that  way  during  the  Empire,  though  it  is  very  doubtful 
whether  strictly  logical  reasoners  would  have  looked  upon  it  as 
*'  peaceful."  Gambon  had  been  a  magistrate  and  a  member 
of  the  National  Assembly  during  the  Second  Republic,  and 
voted  with  the  conservative  side.  The  advent  of  the  Empire 
made  an  end  of  his  parliamentary  career,  and,  in  order  to 
mark  his  disapproval  of  the  Coup-d'Etat  and  its  sequel, 
Gambon  refused  to  pay  his  taxes.  The  authorities  seized  one 
of  his  cows,  and  were  proceeding  to  sell  it  by  auction,  when 
Gambon,  accompanied  by  a  good  many  of  his  former  con- 
stituents, appeared  on  the  scene.  "This  cow," 'he  shouts, 
"  has  been  stolen  from  me  by  the  Imperial  fisc,  and  whosoever 
buys  it  is  nothing  more  than  a  thief  himself."  Result :  not  a 
single  bid  for  the  cow,  and  the  auctioneer  was  compelled  to 
adjourn  the  sale  for  a  week.  The  auctioneer  deemed  it 
prudent  to  transport  the  cow  to  a  neighboring  commune,  but 
Gambon  had  got  wind  of  the  affair,  and  adopted  the  same  ex- 
pedient of  moral  persuasion.  For  nearly  three  months  the 
auctioneer  transported  the  cow  from  one  commune  to  another, 
and  Gambon  followed  him  everywhere,  until  they  reached  the 
limits  of  the  department.  Gambon  apprehended  that  moral 
persuasion  would  have  no  effect  among  strangers,  and  he  let 
things  take  their  course.  The  cost  of  selling  the  cow  amounted 
to  about  ten  times  its  worth.  As  a  matter  of  course  the  whole 
affair  was  revived  by  "  les  journaux  bien  pensants  "  at  the  ad- 
vent of  the  Commune,  and  Gambon  was  elected  a  member  by 
the  loth  Arrondissement.  Gambon  managed  to  escape  into 
Switzerland  ;  but  when  the  amnesty  was  proclaimed,  he  re- 
turned, and  solicited  once  more  the  suffrages  of  his  former 
constituents.  At  the  Brasserie  Saint-Severin,  Gambon  was 
generally  to  be  found  at  the  ladies'  table,  about  the  occupants 
of  which  I  cannot  speak,  seeing  that  I  was  not  introduced  to 
them. 

Jourde  was  one  of  two  "  financial  delegates  "  of  the  Com- 
mune,    He  had  been   a   superior   employe  at   the    Bank   of 


42  4  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

France  and  was  considered  an  authority  on  financial  affairs. 
It  was  he  to  whom  the  Marquis  de  Ploeuc,  the  governor  of  the 
Bank,  had  handed  the  first  million  for  the  use  of  the  Commune. 
My  friend,  the  doctor,  had  known  him  in  his  former  capacity, 
and  often  invited  him  to  our  table,  to  which  invitation  the 
"  paymaster-general  "  always  eagerly  responded.  One  evening, 
the  conversation  turned  upon  the  events  which  had  preceded 
the  request  for  funds.  "  On  the  second  day  of  the  Com- 
mune," he  said,  "  the  want  of  money  began  to  be  horribly 
felt.  Eudes  proposed  that  I  should  go  and  fetch  some  from 
the  Bank  of  France.  To  be  perfectly  candid,  I  did  not  care 
about  it.  Had  I  been  a  soldier,  I  might  have  invaded  the 
Bank  at  the  head  of  a  regiment ;  but,  to  go  and  ask  my  former 
chief  for  a  million  or  so  as  a  matter  of  course,  was  a  different 
thing,  and  I  had  not  the  moral  courage.  The  director  of  the 
Bank  of  France  is  very  little  short  of  a  god  to  his  subordinates, 
and,  in  spite  of  our  boasted  '  Liberty,  Fraternity,  and  Equality,' 
there  is  no  nation  so  ready  to  bow  down  before  its  governors 
as  the  French.  Seeing  that  I  hung  back,  Eudes  proposed  to 
go  himself,  and  did,  refusing  to  take  a  single  soldier  with  him. 
But  he  did  not  want  the  responsibility  of  handling  the  million 
of  francs  the  governor  placed  at  our  disposal,  so  I  was  after 
all,  obliged  to  beard  my  former  chief  in  his  own  den.  He  was 
very  polite,  and  called  me  '  Monsieur  le  delegue  aux  finances,' 
but  I  would  have  preferred  his  calling  me  all  the  names  in  the 
world,  for  I  caught  sight  of  a  very  ironical  smile  at  the 
corners  of  his  mouth  when,  on  taking  leave  of  him,  he  said, 
'  You  may  be  my  successor  one  day,  Monsieur  le  ddlegue,  and 
I  hope  you  will  profit  by  the  lessons  I  have  always  endeavored 
to  teach  my  subordinates ;  obedience  to  the  powers  that 
be.' " 

Jourde  was  by  no  means  a  fool  or  a  braggart ;  he  was  a  very 
good  administrator,  and  exceedingly  conscientious.  Like  most 
men  who  have  had  the  constant  handling  of  important  sums  of 
money,  he  was  absolutely  indifferent  to  it ;  and  I  feel  certain 
that  he  did  not  feather  his  own  nest  during  the  two  months  he 
had  the  chance.  But  he  vainly  endeavored  to  impress  upon 
the  others  the  necessity  for  economy.  Every  now  and  then, 
he  tore  his  red  hair  and  beard  at  the  waste  going  on  at  the 
H6tel-de-Ville,  where,  in  the  beginning,  Assi  was  keeping  open 
table.  Not  that  they  were  feasting,  but  every  one  who  had  a 
mind  could  sit  down,  and,  though  the  sum  charged  by  the 
steward  was  moderate,  two  francs  for  breakfast  and  two  francs 
fifty  centimes  for  dinner,  the  number  of  self-invited  guests  in- 


AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  425 

creased  day  by  day,  and  the  paymaster-general  was  at  his  wits' 
end  to  keep  pace  with  the  expenses.  The  Central-Committee 
put  a  stop  to  this  indiscriminate  hospitality  by  simply  arresting 
Assi,  whom  I  never  saw. 

When  the  Commune  decreed  the  demolition  of  the  Vendome 
column,  Jourde  was  still  more  angry  and  in  despair.  He  was, 
first  of  all,  opposed  to  its  destruction,  from  a  patriotic  and 
common-sense  point  of  view :  secondly,  he  objected  to  the 
waste  of  money  that  destruction  entailed ;  he  endeavored  to 
cut  the  Gordian  knot  by  stopping  the  workmen's  pay.  Though 
three  or  four  of  his  "  fellow  delegates  "  were  absolutely  of  the 
same  opinion,  the  rest  sent  him  a  polite  intimation  that  if  the 
necessary  funds  were  not  disbursed  voluntarily  they  would  send 
for  them,  and  take  the  opportunity,  at  the  same  time,  to  "  put 
him  against  the  wall,"  and  make  an  end  of  him.  That  night, 
Courbet,  the  painter,  who  had  been  the  prime  mover  in  this 
work  of  destruction,  came  to  the  Brasserie  Saint-Severin  from 
the  Brasserie  Andler,  hard  by,  to  taste  the  sweets  of  his  vic- 
tory. His  friend,  Chaudey,  of  the  Steele,  was  no  longer  with 
him.  Like  Mgr.  Darboy,  the  Abbes  Lagarde,  Crozes,  and  De- 
guerry,  he  had  been  arrested  by  Raoul  Rigault  as  a  hostage, 
in  virtue  of  a  decree  by  the  Commune,  setting  forth  that  every 
execution  of  a  prisoner  of  war,  taken  by  the  Versaillais,  would 
be  followed  by  the  execution  of  three  hostages  to  be  drawn  by 
lot. 

Jourde  did  not  wear  a  uniform  ;  at  any  rate,  I  never  saw  him 
in  one.  I  happened  to  remark  upon  it  one  evening,  and  he 
then  gave  me  a  partial  explanation  why  the  others  did  wear 
them  in  so  ostentatious  a  manner. 

"  It  is  really  done"  to  please  the  National  Guards ;  they 
mistrust  those  who  remain  '  in  mufti ;'  they  attribute  their  re- 
luctance to  don  the  uniform  to  the  fear  of  being  compromised, 
to  the  wish  to  escape  unnoticed  if  things  should  go  wrong.  I 
grant  you  that  all  this  does  not  warrant  the  uniforms  most  of 
my  colleagues  do  wear,  but  to  the  Latin  races  the  wisdom  of 
Solomon  Ues  in  his  magnificence,  and  they  trace  the  elevation 
of  Joseph  to  its  primary  cause — his  coat  of  many  colors.  I 
am  not  only  '  delegate  of  finances '  and  paymaster-general,  but 
head  cook  and  bottle-washer  in  all  that  concerns  monetary 
matters  to  the  Central-Committee.  I  have  very  few  clerks  to 
assist  me  in  my  work,  and  fewer  still  upon  whose  honesty  I  can 
depend  ;  consequently,  I  am  compelled  to  do  a  good  deal  of 
drudgery  myself,  Yesterday  I  received  the  fortnightly  accounts 


426  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

of  Godillot,*  the  military  tailors  and  accoutrement  manufac- 
turers. They  seemed  to  me  simply  monstrous,  not  so  much  in 
respect  of  the  prices  charged  for  each  uniform,  as  in  respect  of 
the  number  of  uniforms  supplied.  To  have  sent  one  of  my 
clerks  would  have  been  of  no  earthly  use  ;  there  is  an  old  Nor- 
mand  saying  about  sending  the  cat  to  Rome  and  his  coming 
back  mewing  ;  the  clerk  would  have  simply  come  back  mewing ; 
saying  that  there  was  no  mistake,  so  I  went  myself.  I  saw  the 
chief  manager. 

"  '  I  am  positive  there  is  no  mistake,  monsieur,'  he  said, 
*  though  I  may  tell  you  at  once  that  I  made  the  same  remark 
when  I  passed  the  accounts  ;  the  number  of  uniforms  seemed 
to  me  inordinately  large  ;  mais  il  faut  se  rendre  k  I'evidence, 
and  I  ticketed  off  every  item  by  its  corresponding  voucher.  Still 
I  felt  that  there  is  a  terrible  waste  somewhere,  and  said  so  to 
the  head  of  the  retail  department.  "  If  you  will  remain  down- 
stairs for  one  hour,"  was  the  answer,  "  you  will  have  the  ex- 
planation." I  can  only  say  the  same  to  you,  Monsieur  le 
delegue.' 

"  I  did  remain  on  that  ground-floor  for  one  hour,"  Jourde 
went  on,  "  and,  during  that  time,  no  fewer  than  eight  young 
fellows  came  in  with  vouchers  for  complete  uniforms  of  lieu- 
tenants or  captains  of  the  staff.  Most  of  them  looked  to  me 
as  if  they  had  never  handled  a  sword  or  rifle  in  their  lives — 
yardsticks  seemed  more  in  their  line  ;  and  the  airs  they  gave 
themselves  positively  disgusted  me  ;  but  I  do  not  want  another 
reminder  of  the  Central-Committee  about  my  cheese-paring,  so 
I'll  let  things  take  their  course.  Look,  here  is  a  sample  of 
how  we  deck  ourselves  out  quand  nous  allons  en  guerre." 

I  looked  in  the  direction  pointed  out  'to  me,  and  beheld  a 
somewhat  dark  individual  with  lank,  black  hair,  of  ordinary 
height,  or  a  little  below  perhaps,  dressed  in  a  most  extraordinary 
costume.  He  wore  a  blue  Zouave  jacket,  large  baggy  crimson 
breeches  tucked  into  a  pair  of  quasi-hessian  boots,  a  crimson 
sash,  and  a  black  sombrero  hat  with  a  red  feather.  A  long 
cavalry  sabre  completed  the  costume.  Upon  the  whole,  he 
carried  himself  well,  though  there  was  a  kind  of  swashbuckler 
air  about  him  which  smacked  of  the  stage.  I  was  not  mistaken  ; 
the  scent  or  the  smell  of  the  footlights  was  over  it  all. 

"  This  is  Colonel  Maxime  Lisbonne,  an  actor  by  profession, 
who  has  taken  to  soldiering  with  a  vengeance,"  said  Jourde. 
"  There  is  no  doubt  about  his  bravery,  but  he  is  as  fit  to  be  a 

*  The  word  "  Godillot  "  has  passed  into  the  French  language,  and,  at  present,  means  the 
soldier's  shoes. — Editor. 


AJV  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS.  427 

colonel  as  I  am  to  be  a  general.  It  does  not  seem  to  strike 
my  colleagues  that,  in  no  matter  what  profession,  one  has  to 
serve  an  apprenticeship,  and,  most  of  all,  in  the  science  of 
soldiering ;  Maxime  Lisbonne  said  he  would  be  a  colonel,  so 
they,  without  more  ado,  made  him  one.*  He  never  moves 
without  that  Turco  at  his  heels." 

On  another  occasion  I  saw  the  famous  General  Dombrowski, 
and  the  no  less  famous  Colonel  or  General  la  Cecilia.  I  only 
exchanged  a  few  words  with  the  former,  but  I  sat  talking  for  a 
whole  evening  to  the  latter.  He  was  a  short,  spare,  fidgety 
man,  strongly  pitted  with  small  pox,  with  a  few  straggling  hairs 
on  the  upper  lip  and  chin.  He  was  terribly  near-sighted,  and 
wore  a  pair  of  thick  spectacles.  Nervous  and  restless  to  a 
degree,  but  a  voice  of  remarkable  sweetness.  His  English  was 
faultless,  with  scarcely  any  accent,  and  I  was  told  that  he 
spoke  every  European  language  and  several  Oriental  ones  with 
the  same  accuracy.  He  was  the  only  Frenchman  who  could 
converse  with  Dombrowski  and  the  other  Poles  in  their  native 
language.  He  was  a  clever  mathematician,  and,  that  evening, 
he  endeavored  to  prove  mathematically  that  Von  Moltke  had 
committed  several  blunders,  both  at  Sadowa  and  Sedan. 
"  That  kind  of  thing,"  said  Jourde,  after  he  was  gone,  "  was 
sure  to  'fetch  '  the  Central-Committee ;  he  always  reminds  me 
of  the  doctors  in  Moliere  trying  to  prove  that  one  of  their  con- 
freres had  cured  a  patient  contrary  to  the  principles  of  medicine. 
Mind,  do  not  imagine  that  La  Cecilia  is  not  a  good  soldier. 
He  got  all  his  grades  in  the  Italian  army,  on  the  battle-fields 
of  '59 — '60,  and,  during  the  late  war,  he  directed  the  brilliant 
defence  of  Alen^on.  But  between  a  good  soldier  and  a  great 
general  there  is  a  vast  difference." 

*  During  my  stay  in  Pans,  1881-86,  as  the  correspondent  of  a  London  evening  paper, 
I  had  occasion  to  see  a  great  deal  of  M.  Maxime  Lisbonne,  who  is  a  prominent  figure  at 
nearly  every  social  function,  such  as  premieres,  the  unveiling  of  monuments,  the  opening  of 
public  buildings,  etc.  The  reason  of  this  prominence  has  never  been  very  clear  to  me,  unless 
it  be  on  the  assumption  that  the  Paris  journalists,  even  the  foremost  of  whom  he  treats  on 
a  footing  of  equality,  consider  him  "  good  copy."  Only  as  late  as  a  few  years  ago,  he  made 
a  considerable  sensation  in  the  Paris  press  by  appearing  at  one  of  M.  Camot's  receptions  in 
evening  dress,  redolent  of  benzine,  because  the  dress  had  been  lying  perciu  for  so  many 
years.  It  was  he  who  started  the  famous  "  taveme  du  bagne,"  on  the  Boulevard  Roche- 
chouart,  to  which  "all  Pans"  flocked.  Previous  to  this,  he  had  been  the  lessee  of  the 
Bouffes  du  Nord,  at  which  theatre  he  brought  out  Louise  Michel's  "  Nadine."  Though  by 
no  means  an  educated  man,  he  can,  on  occasions,  behave  himself  very  well,  and  truth  com- 
pels me  to  state  that  he  is  very  good-natured  and  obliging.  One  day,  on  the  occasion  of  an 
important  murder  trial,  I  failed  to  see  Commandant  Lunel  at  the  Padais  de  Justice,  and  was 
turning  away  disconsolately,  when,  at  a  sign  from  M.  Lisbonne,  the  sergeant  of  the  Gardes 
de  Paris,  who  had  refused  to  admit  me  on  the  presentation  of  my  card,  relented.  That  same 
afternoon,  at  the  mere  expression  of  his  wish,  the  manager  of  the  Jardin  de  Paris,  which  had 
just  been  opened,  presented  me  with  a  season  ticket,  or,  to  speak  correctly,  placed  my  name 
on  the  permanent  free  list.  In  short,  I  could  mention  a  score  of  instances  of  a  similar  nature ; 
all  tending  to  show  that  M.  Maxime  Lisbonne's  "  participation  "  in  the  events  of  the  Com- 
pune  has  had  the  effect  of  investing  him  with  a  kind  of  social  halo. — Editor. 


428  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PA RIS. 

Physically,  Dombrowski  was  almost  the  counterpart  of  La 
Cecilia,  with  the  exception  of  the  glasses  and  the  small-pox. 
But  while  the  Frenchman — for  Ce'cilia  was  a  Frenchman  not- 
withstanding his  ItaHan  name — was  modest  though  critical,  the 
Pole  was  a  braggart,  though  by  no  means  devoid  of  courage. 
Up  to  the  very  end,  he  sent  in  reports  of  his  victories,  all  of 
which  were  purely  imaginary.  Even  as  late  as  the  21st  of 
May,  when  the  Versailles  troops  were  carrying  everything 
before  them,  the  newspaper-boys  were  shouting,  "  Brilliant 
victory  of  General  Dombrowski."  Dombrowski  had  been 
invested  with  his  high  command  under  the  pretext  that  he  had 
fought  under  Garibaldi  and  in  the  Polish  struggle  against 
Russia.  It  transpired  afterwards  that  he  had  never  seen 
Garibaldi  nor  Garibaldi  him,  and  that,  so  far  from  having  aided 
his  own  countrymen,  he  had  been  a  simple  private  in  the  Russian 
army.  Still,  he  was  a  better  man  than  his  countryman 
Wrobleski,  who  showed  his  courage  by  going  to  bed  while  the 
Versaillais  were  shelling  Vanves. 

Among  my  papers  I  find  a  torn  programme  of  a  concert  at 
the  Tuileries  during  the  Commune.     It  reads  as  follows  : — 

Commune  de  Paris, 

PALAIS  DES  TUILERIES 

Servant  pour  la  premiere  fois  a  une  oeuvre  patriotique 

GRAND  CONCERT 

Au  Profit  des  Veuves  et  Orphelins  de  la  Republique. 


Sous  le  Patronage  de  la  Commune  et  du  Citoyen  Dr.  Rousselle. 


Tout  porteur  de  billet  pris  h.  I'avance  pourra  sans  retribution,  visiter  le 
Palais  des  Tuileries. 

The  rest  is  missing,  but  I  remember  that  among  the  artists 
who  gave  their  services  were  Mesdames  Agar  and  Bordas ; 
MM.  Coquelin,  cadet,  and  Francis  Thome,  the  pianist. 

I  did  not  take  my  ticket  beforehand,  consequently  was  not 
entitled  to  a  stroll  through  the  Palace  previous  to  the  concert. 
When  I  entered  the  Salle  des  Mare'chaux,  where  the  concert 
was  to  take  place,  I  felt  thankful  that  the  trial  had  been  spared 
to  me,  and  I  mentally  ejaculated  a  wish  that  I  might  never  see 


A^V  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 


429 


that  glorious  apartment  under  similar  circumstances.  The 
traces  of  neglect  were  too  painful  to  behold,  though  I  am  bound 
to  say  that  I  could  detect  no  proofs  of  wilful  damage.  My 
wish  was  gratified  with  a  vengeance.  A  little  more  than  a 
month  afterwards,  the  building  was  in  flames,  and,  at  the  hour 
I  write,  it  is  being  razed  to  the  ground. 

I  did  not  stay  long  ;  I  heard  Madame  Agar,  dressed  in  deep 
mourning,  declaim  "  the  Marseillaise,"  and  M.  Thome  execute 
a  fantasia  on  well-known  operatic  airs.  Some  of  the  reserved 
seats  were  occupied  by  the  minor  dignitaries  of  the  Commune, 
but  the  greater  part  of  the  place  was  filled  by  working  men  and 
their  spouses  and  the  wG.ry petite  bourgeoisie.  The  latter  seemed 
to  be  in  doubt  whether  to  enjoy  themselves  or  not ;  but  the 
former  were  very  vociferous,  and  had  evidently  made  up  their 
minds  that  the  Commune  was  the  best  of  all  possible  re'gimes, 
seeing  that  it  enabled  them  to  listen  to  a  concert  in  a  palace 
for  a  mere  trifle.  "  That's  equality,  as  I  understand  it,  mon- 
sieur," said  a  workman  in  a  very  clean  blouse  to  me,  at  the 
same  time  making  room  for  me  on  the  seat  next  to  him.  He 
and  his  companion  beguiled  the  time  between  the  first  and 
second  number  on  the  programme  by  sucking  barley-sugar. 

About  a  month  later — on  Wednesday,  May  17th,  but  I  will 
not  be  certain — I  was  present  at  the  first  gala-performance 
organized  by  the  Commune,  although  the  Versailles  troops 
were  within  gunshot  of  the  fortifications.  This  time  I  had 
taken  a  ticket  beforehand.  The  performance  was  to  take  place 
at  the  Opera-Comique,  and  long  before  the  appointed  hour  the 
Boulevards  and  the  streets  adjoining  the  theatre  were  crowded 
with  idlers,  anxious  to  watch  the  arrival  of  the  bigwigs  under 
whose  immediate  patronage  the  entertainment  was  to  be  given. 
The  papers  had  been  full  of  it  for  days  and  days  beforehand ; 
the  posters  on  the  walls  had  set  forth  its  many  attractions.  In 
accordance  with  traditional  usage  on  such  occasions,  the  pro- 
gramme was  a  miscellaneous  one,  and  the  wags  did  not  fail  to 
remark  that  the  Commune  ought  to  have  struck  out  something 
original  instead  of  blindly  following  the  precedents  of  tyrants  ; 
but  in  reality  the  Commune  had  no  choice,  ^t'ew  of  the  prin- 
cipal artists  of  the  subsidized  theatres  were  available,  and  there 
was  an  evident  reluctance  to  co-operate  among  some  of  those 
who  were ;  hence  it  was  decided  to  give  fragments  of  such 
operas  or  comedies,  calculated  to  stimulate  still  further  the 
patriotic  and  republican  sentiments  with  which  the  majority  of 
the  spectators  were  credited.  There  had  been  less  difficulty 
in  recruiting  the  orchestra,  and  a  very  fair  band  was  got  to- 


430  AN  ENGLISHMAN  IN  PARIS. 

gather.  A  great  many  invitations  had  been  issued  ;  few  of  the 
seats,  especially  in  the  better  parts,  were  paid  for. 

All  the  entrances  had  been  thrown  open,  and  around  every 
one  there  was  a  considerable  gathering,  almost  exclusively 
composed  of  National  Guards  in  uniform,  and  women  of  the 
working  classes,  who  enthusiastically  cheered  each  known  per- 
sonage on  his  arrival.  The  latter  were  too  magnificent  for 
words,  the  clanking  sabres,  resplendent  uniforms,  and  waving 
plumes  only  paled  in  contrast  with  the  toilettes  of  their  female 
companions  who  hung  proudly  on  their  arms.  For  them,  at 
any  rate,  "  le  jour  de  gloire  etait  arrive." 

The  crowd,  especially  the  fairer  portion  of  it,  was  decidedly 
enthusiastic,  perhaps  somewhat  too  enthusiastic,  in  their  ultra- 
cordial  greetings  and  recognition  of  the  ladies,  so  suddenly 
promoted  in  the  social  scale.  Melanie  and  Clarisse  would 
have  been  satisfied  with  a  less  literal  interpretation  of  "  Auld 
Lang  Syne,"  as  they  stepped  out  of  the  carriages,  the  horses  of 
which  belied  the  boast  that  at  the  end  of  the  siege  there  were 
30,000  serviceable  animals  of  that  kind  left. 

The  performance  had  been  timed  for  half-past  seven  ;  at 
half-past  eight,  the  principal  box  set  apart  for  the  chiefs  of  the 
new  regime  was  still  empty.  As  I  have  already  said,  disquiet- 
ing rumors  had  been  afloat  for  the  last  few  days  with  regard  to 
the  approach  of  the  Versailles  troops,  the  guns  had  been 
thundering  all  day  long,  and,  what  was  worse,  for  the  last 
forty-eight  hours  no  "  startling  victory  "  had  been  announced 
either  on  the  walls  of  Paris  or  in  the  papers.  Some  of  the 
"  great  men,"  among  the  audience  in  the  stalls  and  dress- 
circle,  and  easily  to  be  distinguished  from  the  ruck  of  ordinary 
mortals,  professed  themselves  unable  to  supply  authentic  in- 
formation, but  as  the  performance  had  not  been  counter- 
manded, they  suggested  that  things  were  not  so  bad  as  they 
looked. 

The  theatre  was  crammed  from  floor  to  ceiling,  and  the  din 
was  something  terrible.  The  heat  was  oppressive  ;  luckily  the 
gas  was  burning  low  because  the  companies  were  as  yet  unable 
to  provide  a  full  supply.  There  were  few  people  out  of 
uniform  in  either  stalls  or  dress-circle,  but  the  upper  parts  were 
occupied  by  blouses  with  a  fair  sprinkling  of  cloth  coats. 
The  women  seemed  to  me  to  make  the  most  infernal  noise. 
The  two  stage-boxes  were  still  empty  :  in  the  others  there 
were  a  good  many  journalists  and  ladies  who  had  come  to  cri- 
ticise the  appearance  and  demeanor  of  the  "  dames  de  nos  nou- 
veaux  gouvernants."     There  was  one  box  which  attracted  par- 


AM  ENGUSHMAN  IN  PARIS.  43 1 

ticular  attention  ;  one  of  its  occupants,  evidently  a  "  dame  du 
monde,"  was  in  evening  dress,  wearing  some  magnificent  dia- 
monds, while  it  was  very  patent  that  those  of  her  own  social 
status  had  made  it  a  point  to  dress  as  simply  as  possible.  I 
have  never  been  able  to  find  out  the  name  of  the  lady ;  I  had 
not  seen  her  before.    I  have  not  seen  her  since. 

At  about  a  quarter  to  nine  the  doors  of  the  stage-boxes  were 
flung  back,  and  the  guests  of  the  evening  appeared.  But,  alas, 
they  were  not  the  chief  members  of  the  Commune,  only  the 
secondary  characters.  It  is  doubtful,  though,  whether  the 
former  could  have  been  more  magnificently  attired  than  were 
the  latter.  Their  uniforms  were  positively  hidden  beneath  the 
gold  lace. 

Immediately,  the  band  struck  up  the  inevitable  "Marseil- 
laise;" the  spectators  in  the  upper  galleries  joined  in  the 
chorus  ;  the  building  shook  to  its  foundations,  and,  amidst  the 
terrible  din,  one  could  distinctly  hear  the  crowds  on  the  Boule- 
vards re-echoing  the  strains.  The  occupants  of  the  state 
boxes  gave  the  signal  for  the  applause,  then  the  curtain  rose, 
and  Mdlle.  Agar,  in  peplos  and  cothurnus,  recited  the  strophes 
once  more.  When  the  curtain  fell,  the  audience  rushed  to  the 
foyer  or  out  in  the  open  air  ;  at  anyrate,  the  former  was  not 
inconveniently  crowded.  Among  those  strolling  up  and  down 
I  not^'ced  the  lady  of  the  diamonds,  on  the  arm  of  a  rather 
commoK-lookin*]^  individual  in  a  gorgeous  uniform.  I  believe  I 
caught  sight  of  the  American  Minister,  but  I  will  not  be  certain. 

This  time  the  curtain  rose  upon  an  act  of  a  comedy :  the 
spectators,  however,  did  net  seem  to  be  vastly  interested; 
they  were  evidently  waiting  for  the  duo  to  be  sung  by  Madame 
Ugalde  and  a  tenor  whose  name  I  do  not  remember.  He 
was,  I  heard,  an  amateur  of  great  promise. 

Scarcely  had  Madame  Ugalde  uttered  her  first  notes,  when 
a  bugler  of  the  francs-tireurs  of  the  Commune  stepped  in  front 
of  an  empty  box  and  sounded  the  charge.  The  effect  was  start- 
ling. The  audience  rose  to  a  man,  and  rushed  to  the  exits. 
In  less  than  five  minutes  the  building  was  empty.  I  had  let 
the  human  avalanche  pass  by.  When  I  came  outside  I  was 
told  that  it  was  a  false  alarm,  or,  rather,  a  practical  joke ;  but 
no  one  re-entered  the  theatre.  Thus  ended  the  gala-perform- 
ance of  the  Commune,  and  a  careful  observer  would  have  had 
no  difficulty  in  foreseeing  the  end  of  the  latter.  The  bugler 
had,  unconsciously  perhaps,  sounded  its  death-knell. 

THE  END. 


Vandam,  A.  DC 

733* 
An  Englishman  in  Paris       .V2