FRANCE
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NINETEENTH CENTURY
1830-1890
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CORNELL
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARYCornell University Library
DC 330.L35 1894
3 1924 028 170 086
31924028170086EMPEROR XAPOr.EON /.FRANCE
IN
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
1830-1890
BY
ELIZABETH WORMELEY LATIMER
AUTHOR OF “SALVAGE,” “MY WIFE AND MY WIFE’S SISTER,”
“PRINCESS AMALIE,” “FAMILIAR TALKS ON SOME
OF SHAKESPEARE’S COMEDIES,” ETC.
CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY
1894Copyright
By A. C. McClurg and Co.
a.d. 1892NOTE
The sources from which I have drawn the ma-
terials for this book are various; they come largely
from private papers, and from articles contributed to
magazines and newspapers by contemporary writers,
French, English, and American. I had not at first
intended the work for publication, and I omitted to
make notes which would have enabled me to restore
to others the “unconsidered trifles” that I may have
taken from them.
As far as possible, I have endeavored to remedy
th is; but should any other writer find a gold thread
of his own in my embroidery, I hope he will look
upon it as an evidence of my appreciation of his
work, and not as an act of intentional dishonest)'.
E. W. L.
September, 1892.CONTENTS.
CHAPTER	PAGE
I. Charles X. and the Days oe July' ...	9
II. Louis Philippe and his Family ....	34
III.	Louis Napoleon’s Early	Career	...	58
IV.	Ten Years of the Reign of the Citizen-
King ........... ............... 81
V.	Some Causes of the Revolution of 1S4S 93
VI.	The Downfall of Louis	Philippe	.	10S
VII.	Lamartine and the Second Republic .	125
VIII. The Coup d’Etat . .	....	150
IX.. The Emperor’s Marriage .	.	.	165
X.	Maximilian and Mexico	....	.	191
XI. The Emperor and Empress at the Sum-
mit of Prosperity.......................... 215
XII. Paris in 1870, — August and September .	238
XIII.	The Siege of Paris	....	.	256
XIV.	The Prussians in France .	.	.	282
XV. The Commune..............................301
XVI. The Hostages .	.	  323
XVII. The Great Revenge ....	... 349
XVIII. The Formation of the Third Republic .	372
XIX. Three French Presidents ....	. 400
XX. General Boulanger........................427LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Emperor Napoleon I................... Frontispiece
Charles X................... . .	To face page 16
Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans	. . 20
Duchesse de Berry............ 40
Queen Marie Amelie . .	.	....	54
Louis Philippe, “The Citizen King”	...	81
Alphonse de Lamartine......................... 125
Louis Napoleon, “The Prince	President” .	144
Due De Morny........................... 150
Eugenie..................... .165
Emperor Maximilian........................... .191
Emperor Napoleon III.......... 215
Empress Eugenie . .	...	.	232
Jules Simon............. ...	257
Jules Favre ...	...	.	.	292
Monseigneur Darboy, Archbishop	of Paris . . . 323
President Adolph Thiers ...	. 372
Leon Gambetta................................. 3S2
Comte de Chambord................ . 390
President Jules Grevy................. .	408
President Sadi-Carnot..........................424
General Boulanger..............................427FRANCE
IN THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY.
1830-1S90.
CHAPTER I.
CHARLES X. AND THE DAYS OF JULY.
OUIS XVIII. in iS15 returned to his throne, borne
on the shoulders of foreign soldiers, after the fight at
Waterloo. The allied armies had a second time entered
France to make her pass under the saws and harrows of
humiliation. Paris was gay, for money was spent freely by
the invading strangers. Sacrifices on the altar of the Em-
peror were over; enthusiasm for the extension of the great
ideas of the Revolution had passed away; a new generation
had been bom which cared more for material prosperity
than for such ideas; the foundation of many fortunes had
been laid ; mothers who dreaded the conscription, and men
weary of war and politics, drew a long breath, and did not
regret the loss of that which had animated a preceding gene-
ration, in a view of a peace which was to bring wealth, com-
fort, and tranquillity into their own homes.
The bourgeoisie of France trusted that it had seen the
last of the Great Revolution. It stood between the work-
ing-classes, who had no voice in the politics of the Restora-
tion, and the old nobility, — men who had returned to France
full of exalted expectations. The king had to place himself
on one side or the other. He might have been the true10 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Bourbon and headed the party of the returned emigres, — in
which case his crown would not have stayed long upon his
head ; or he might have made himself king of the bourgeoisie,
opposed to revolution, Napoleonism, or disturbances of any
kind, — the party, in short, of the Restoration of Peace : a
peace that might outlast his time; et apres moi le deluge !
But animals which show neither teeth nor claws are seldom
left in peace, and LouisXVIII.’s reign — from 1814 to 1824
— was full of conspiracies. The royalty of the Restoration
was only an ornament tacked on to France. The Bourbon
dynasty was a necessary evil, even in the eyes of its sup-
porters. “ The Bourbons,’' said Chateaubriand, “ are the
foam on the revolutionary wave that has brought them back
to power;” whilst every one knows Talleyrand’s famous
saying that after five and twenty years of exile they had
nothing remembered and nothing forgot.” Of course the
old nobility, who flocked back to France in the train of the
allied armies, expected the restoration of their estates. The
king had got his own again, — why should not they get back
theirs? And they imagined that France, which had been
overswept by successive waves of revolution, could go back to
what she had been under the old regime. This was impossi-
ble. The returned exiles had to submit to the confiscation
of their estates, and receive in return all offices and employ-
ments in the gift of the Government. The army which had
conquered in a hundred battles, with its marshals, generals,
and 1deux moustaches, was not pleased to have young officers,
chosen from the nobility, receive commissions and be charged
with important commands. On the other hand, the Holy
Alliance expected that the king of France would join the des-
potic sovereigns of Russia, Austria, and Prussia in their cru-
sade against liberal ideas in other countries. Against these
difficulties, and many more, Louis XVIII. had to contend. He
was an infirm man, physically incapable of exertion, — a man
who only wanted to be let alone, and to avoid by every means
in his power the calamity of being again sent into exile.
He placed himself on the side of the stronger party. — he
took part with the bourgeoisie. His aim, as he himself said,CHARLES X. AND THE DA YS OF JUL Y. II
was to minager his throne. He began his reign by having
Fouche and Talleyrand, men of the Revolution and the
Empire, deep in his councils, though he disliked both
of them. Early in his reign occurred what was called the
White Terror, in the southern provinces, where the adher-
ents of the white flag repeated on a small scale the bar-
barities of the Revolution.
The king was forced to put himself in opposition to the
old nobles who had adhered to him in his exile. They
bitterly resented his defection. They used to toast him as
le roi-quand-mime, “ the king in spite of everything.” His
own family held all the Bourbon traditions, and were op-
posed to him. To them everything below the rank of a
noble with sixteen quarterings was la canaille.
Louis XVIII.’s favorite minister was M. Decazes, a man
who studied the interests of the bourgeoisie; and the royal
family at last made the sovereign so uncomfortable by their
disapproval of his policy that he sought repose in the society
and intimacy (the connection is said to have been nothing
more) of a Madame de Cayla, with whom he spent most of
his leisure time.
Before the Revolution, Louis XVIII. had been known
sometimes as the Comte de Provence, and sometimes as
Monsieur. Though physically an inert man, he was by no
means intellectually stupid, for he could say very brilliant
things from time to time, and was very proud of them ;
but he was wholly unfit to be at the helm of the ship of state
in an unquiet sea.
He had passed the years of his exile in various European
countries, but the principal part of his time had been spent
at Hartwell, about sixty miles from London, where he formed
a little court and lived a life of royalty in miniature. Charles
Greville, when a very young man, visited Hartwell with his
relative, the Duke of Beaufort, shortly before the Restoration.
He describes the king’s cabinet as being like a ship’s cabin,
the walls hung with portraits of Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette,
Madame Elisabeth, and the dauphin. Louis himself had a
singular habit of swinging his body backward and forward12 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
when talking, “ which exactly resembled the heavings of a
ship at sea.” “ We were a very short time at table,” Gre-
ville adds ; “ the meal was a very plain one, and the ladies
and gentlemen all got up together. Each lady folded up
her napkin, tied it round with a bit of ribbon, and carried
it away with her. After dinner we returned for coffee and
conversation to the drawing-room. Whenever the king
came in or went out of the room, Madame d’Angouleme
made him a low courtesy, which he returned by bowing
and kissing her hand. This little ceremony never failed to
take place.” They finished the evening with whist, “his
Majesty settling the points of the game at a quarter of a
shilling.” “We saw the whole place,” adds Greville,
“ before we came away; they had certainly shown great
ingenuity in contriving to lodge so great a number of peo-
ple in and around the house. It was like a small rising
colony.”
Louis XVIII. was childless. His brother Charles and
himself had married sisters, princesses of the house of
Savoy. These ladies were amiable nonentities, and died
during the exile of their husbands; but Charles’s wife had
left him two sons, — Louis Antoine, known as the Due
d’Angouleme, and Charles Ferdinand, known as the Due
de Berri. The Due d’Angouleme had married his cousin
Marie Th£rese, daughter of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoi-
nette. Their union was childless. The Due de Berri had
married Marie Caroline, a princess of Naples. She had
two children, — Louise, who when she grew up became
Duchess of Parma ; and Henri, called variously the Due
de Bordeaux, Henri V., and the Comte de Chambord.
All Louis XVIII.’s efforts during his ten years’ reign were
directed to keeping things as quiet as he could during his
lifetime. He greatly disapproved of the policy of the
Holy Alliance in forcing him to make war on Spain in
order to put down the Constitutionalists under Riego and
Mina. The expedition for that purpose was commanded
by the Due d’Angouleme, who accomplished his mission,
but with little glory or applause except from flatterers.CHARLES X. AND THE DAYS OF JULY. 13
The chief military incident of the campaign was the cap-
ture by the French of the forts of Trocadtiro, which com-
manded the entrance to Cadiz harbor.
The Duchesse d’Angouleme, that filia dolorosa left to
languish alone in the Temple after her parents and her
aunt were guillotined, had been exchanged with Austria
for Lafayette by Bonaparte in the treaty of Campo-
Formio; but her soul had been crushed within her by
her sorrows. Deeply pious, she forgave the enemies of
her house, she never uttered a word against the Revolu-
tion ; but the sight of her pale, set, sad face was a mute
reproach to Frenchmen. She could forgive, but she could
not be gracious. At the Tuileries, a place full of graceful
memories of the Empress Josephine, she presided as a
devote and a dowdy. She could not have been expected
to be other than she was, but the nation that had made
her so, bore a grudge against her. There was nothing
French about her. No sympathies existed between her
and the generation that had grown up in France during the
nineteenth century. Both she and her husband were stiff,
cold, ultra-aristocrats. In intelligence she was greatly the
duke’s superior, as she was also in person, he being short,
fat, red-faced, with very thin legs.
The Due de Berri was much more popular. He was a
Frenchman in character. His faults were French. He
was pleasure-seeking, pleasure-loving, and he married a
young and pretty wife to whom he was far from faithful,
and who was as fond of pleasure as himself.
The Due de Berri was assassinated by a man named
Louvel, Feb. 13, 1820, as he was handing his wife into
her carriage at the door of the French Opera House.
They carried him back into the theatre, and there, in a
side room, with the music of the opera going on upon the
stage, the plaudits of the audience ringing in his ears, and
ballet-girls flitting in and out in their stage dresses, the
heir of France gave up his life, with kindly words upon
his dying lips, reminding us of Charles II. on his death-
bed.14 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
As I have said, Louis XVIII.’s reign was not without
plots and conspiracies. One of those in 1823 was got up
by the Carbonari. Lafayette was implicated in it. It
was betrayed, however, the night before it was to have
been put in execution, and such of its leaders as could be
arrested were guillotined. Lafayette was saved by the
fact that the day fixed upon for action was the anniversary
of his wife’s death, — a day he always spent in her chamber
in seclusion.
It may be desirable to say who were the Carbonari.
“ Carbone ” is Italian for charcoal. The Carbonari were
charcoal-burners. The conspirators took their name be-
cause charcoal-burners lived in solitary places, and were
disguised by the coal-dust that blackened their faces. It
was a secret society which extended throughout France,
Italy, and almost all Europe. It was joined by all classes.
Its members, under pain of death, were forced to obey
the orders of the society. The deliverance of Italy from
the Austrians became eventually the prime object of the
institution.
Lafayette, during his visit to America in 1824, expressed
himself freely about the Bourbons. “ France cannot be
happy under their rule,” he said ;1 “ and we must send
them adrift. It would have been done before now but
for the hesitation of Laffitte. Two regiments of guards,
when ordered to Spain under the Due d’Angouleme, halted
at Toulouse, and began to show symptoms of mutiny. The
matter was quieted, however, and the affair kept as still
as possible. But all was ready. I knew of the whole
affair. All that was wanted to make a successful revolu-
tion at that time was money. I went to Laffitte; but he
was full of doubts, and dilly-dallied with the matter. Then
I offered to do it without his help. Said I : ‘ On the first
interview that you and I have without witnesses, put a
million of francs, in bank-notes, on the mantelpiece, which
I will pocket unseen by you. Then leave the rest to me.’
1 Vincent Nolte, Fifty Years in Two Hemispheres.CHARLES X. AXD THE DAYS OF JULY. 15
Laffitte still fought shy of it, hesitated, deliberated, and
at last decided that he would have nothing at all to do
with it.”
Here the gentleman to whom Lafayette was speaking
exclaimed, “If any one had told me this but yourself,
General, I would not have believed it.”
Lafayette merely answered, “ It was really so,” — a
proof, thinks the narrator, how fiercely the fire of revolu-
tion still burned in the old man’s soul.
The last months of Louis XVIII.’s life were embit-
tered by changes of ministry from semi-liberal to ultra-
royalist, and by attempts of the officers of the Crown to
prosecute the newspapers for free-speaking. He died,
after a few days of illness and extreme suffering, Sept.
15, 1824, and was succeeded by the Comte d’Artois,
his brother, as Charles X. This was the third time
three brothers had succeeded each other on the French
throne.
Charles X. was another James II., with cold, harsh, nar-
row ideas of religion, though religion had not influenced
his early life in matters of morality. He was, as I have
said, a widower, with one remaining son, the Due d’An-
gouleme, and a little grandson, the son of the Due de
Berri. His two daughters-in-law, the Duchesse d’Angou-
leme and the Duchesse de Berri, were as unlike each other
as two women could be, — the one being an unattractive
saint, the other a fascinating sinner.
Charles X. was not like his brother, — distracted be-
tween two policies and two opinions. He was an ultra-
royalist. He believed that to the victors belong the spoils;
and as Bourbonism had triumphed, he wanted to stamp out
every remnant of the Revolution. Constitutionalism, the
leading idea of the day, was hateful to him. He is said
to have remarked, “ I had rather earn my bread than be
a king of England ! ” He probably held the same ideas
concerning royal prerogative as those of his cousin, the
king of Naples, expressed in a letter found after the sack
of the Tuileries in 1848.16 FRANCE IN THE NINE TEE NTH CENTURY.
“ Liberty is fatal to the house of Bourbon ; and as regards
myself, I am resolved to avoid, at any price, the fate of
Louis XVI. My people obey force, and bend their necks;
but woe to me if they should ever raise them under the impulse
of those dreams which sound so fine in the sermons of philoso-
phers, and which it is impossible to put in practice. With
God’s blessing, I will give prosperity to my people, and a gov-
ernment as honest as they have a right to expect; but I will be
a king, — and that always ! ”
Charles X. was on the throne six years. He was a fipe-
looking man and a splendid horseman, — which at first
pleased the Parisians, who had been disgusted with the
unwieldiness and lack of royal presence in Louis XVIII.
His first act was a concession they little expected, and one
calculated to render him popular. He abridged the
powers of the censors of the Press. His minister at this
time was M. de Villele, a man of whom it has been said
that he had a genius for trifles; but M. de Villele having
been defeated on some measures that he brought before
the Chamber of Deputies, Charles X. was glad to remove
him, and to appoint as his prime minister his favorite, the
Prince de Polignac. Charles Greville, who was in Paris
at the time of this appointment, writes: “ Nothing can
exceed the violence of feeling that prevails. The king does
nothing but cry ; Polignac is said to have the fatal obsti-
nacy of a martyr, the worst courage of the ruat caslum
sort.”
Six months later Greville writes : “ Nobody has an idea
how things will turn out, or what are Polignac’s intentions
or his resources.” He appeared calm and well satisfied,
saying to those who claimed the right to question him, that
all would be well, though all France and a clear majority
in the Chambers were against him. “ I am told,” says
Charles Greville, “ that there is no revolutionary spirit
abroad, but a strong determination to provide for the
stability of existing institutions, and disgust at the obsti-
nacy and the pretensions of the king. It seems also that
a desire to substitute the Orleans for the reigning branchCHAKI.ES xCHARLES X. AND THE DAYS OF JULY. 17
is becoming very general. It is said that Polignac is
wholly ignorant of France, and will not listen to the opin-
ions of those who could enlighten him. It is supposed
that Charles X. is determined to push matters to ex-
tremity ; to try the Chambers, and if his ministers are
beaten, to dissolve the House and to govern par ordon-
nances du roi.” This prophecy, written in March, 1830,
foreshadowed exactly what happened in July of the same
year, when, as an outspoken English Tory told Henry Crabb
Robinson, in a reading-room at Florence : “ The king of
France has sent the deputies about their business, has
abolished the d----d Constitution and the liberty of the
Press, and proclaimed his own power as absolute king.”
“And what will the end be?” cried Robinson.
“ It will end,” said a Frenchman who was present, “ in
driving the Bourbons out of France ! ”
During the last months of Charles X.’s reign France
made an expedition against the Dey of Algiers, which
was the first step in the conquest of Algeria. The im-
mediate object of the expedition, however, was to draw
off the attention of a disaffected nation from local politics.
An army of 57,000 soldiers, 103 ships of war, and many
transports, was despatched to the coast of Barbary. The
expedition was not very glorious, but it was successful. Te
Deums were sung in Paris, the general in command was
made a marshal, and his naval colleague a peer.
The royalists of France were at this period divided into
two parties; the party of the king and Polignac, who were
governed by the Jesuits, looked for support to the clergy of
France. The other party looked to the army. Yet the
most religious men in the country — men like M. de la
Ferronays, for example — condemned and regretted the
obstinacy of the king.
Louis Philippe, the Duke of Orleans, on whom all eyes
were fixed, was the son of that infamous Duke of Orleans
who in the Revolution proclaimed himself a republican, took
the name of Philippe figalite, and voted for the execution
of the king, drawing down upon himself the rebuke of the18 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
next Jacobin whose turn it was to vote in the convention,
who exclaimed : “ I was going to vote Yes, but I vote
No, that I may not tread in the steps of the man who
has voted before me.”
fCgalite was in the end a victim. He perished, after
suffering great poverty, leaving three sons and a daughter.
The sons were Louis Philippe, who became Duke of Or-
leans, the Comte de Beaujolais, and the Due de Montpen-
sier. One of these had shared the imprisonment of his
father, and narrowly escaped the guillotine.
Louis Philippe had solicited from the Republic permis-
sion to serve under Dumouriez in his celebrated cam-
paign in the Low Countries. He fought with distinguished
bravery at Valmy and Jemappes as Dumouriez’s aide-de-
camp ; but when that general was forced to desert his army
and escape for his life, Louis Philippe made his escape too.
He went into Switzerland, and there taught mathematics in
a school. Thence he came to America, travelled through
the United States, and resided for some time at Brooklyn.
In 1808 he went out to the Mediterranean in an English
man-of-war in charge of his sick brother, the Comte de
Beaujolais. The same vessel carried Sir John Moore out
to his command, and landed him at Lisbon. Louis Phi-
lippe could not have had a very pleasant voyage, for the
English admiral, on board whose ship he was a passenger,
came up one day in a rage upon the quarter-deck, and de-
clared aloud, in the hearing of his officers, that the Duke of
Orleans was such a d----d republican he could not sit at
the same table with him.1
There used to be stories floating about Paris concerning
Louis Philippe’s birth and parentage, — stories, however, not
to be believed, and which broke down upon investigation.
These made him out to be the son of an Italian jailer, ex-
changed for a little girl who had been born to the Duke of
Orleans and his wife at a time when it was a great object
with them to have a son. The little girl grew up in the
1 My father was present, and often told the storyCHARLES X. AND THE DAYS OF JULY. 19
jailer Chiappini’s house under the name of Maria Stella
Petronilla. There is little doubt that she was a changeling,
but the link is imperfect which would connect her with the
Duke and Duchess of Orleans. She was ill-treated by the
jailer’s wife, but was very beautiful. Lord Newburgh, an
English nobleman, saw her and married her. Her son suc-
ceeded his father as a peer of England. After Lord New-
burgh’s death his widow married a Russian nobleman.
Chiappini on his death-bed confessed to this lady all he
knew about her origin, and she persuaded herself that her
father must have been the Duke of Orleans. She took up
her residence in the Rue Rivoli, overlooking the gardens
of the Tuileries, and received some small pension from the
benevolent royal family of France. She died in 1845.
But whoever the mother of Louis Philippe may have
been, she whom he and Madame Adelaide looked up to
and loved as though she had been their second mother, was
Madame de Genlis. In her company Louis Philippe wit-
nessed, with boyish exultation, the destruction of the Bas-
tile. To her he wrote after the great day when in the
Champ de Mars the new Constitution was sworn to both by
king and people : “ Oh, my mother ! there are but two’
things that I supremely love, — the new constitution and
you ! ”
On Christmas Day, 1809, he married at Palermo the
Princesse Marie Amdlie, niece to Marie Antoinette, and
aunt to the future Duchesse de Berri.
No breath of scandal ever disturbed the matrimonal hap-
piness of Louis Philippe and Marie Amalie. They had a
noble family of five sons and three daughters, all distin-
guished by their ability and virtues. I shall have to tell
hereafter how devotion to the interests of his family was
one cause of Louis Philippe’s overthrow.
In 1814, when Napoleon abdicated at Fontainebleau,
Louis Philippe left Palermo, attended only by one servant,
and made his way to Paris and the home of his family, the
Palais Royal. He hurried into the house, and in spite of
the opposition of the concierge, who took him for a mad-20 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
man, he rushed to the staircase; but before he ascended it
he fell upon his knees, and bursting into tears, kissed the
first step before him.
This was probably the most French-like thing in Louis
Philippe’s career. He was far more like an Englishman
than a Frenchman. Had he been an English prince, his
faults would have seemed to his people like virtues.
Of course the son of figalit^ could be no favorite with the
elder Bourbons ; but he soon became the hope of the middle
classes, and was very intimate with Laffitte the banker, and
with Lafayette, who, as we have seen, were both impli-
cated in conspiracies seven years before the Revolution of
1830. He was for many years not rich, but he and the
ladies of his house were very charitable. Madame Ade-
laide, speaking one day to a friend 1 of the reports that were
circulated concerning her brother’s parsimony, said, —
“ People ask what he does with his money. To satisfy them
it would be necessary to publish the names of honorable friends
of liberty who, in consequence of misfortunes, have solicited
and obtained from him sums of twenty, thirty, forty, and even
three hundred thousand francs. They forget all the extraordinary
expenses my brother has had to meet, all the demands he has to
comply with. Out of his income he has furnished the Palais
Royal, improved the apanages of the House of Orleans; and
yet sooner or later all this property will revert to the nation.
When we returned to France our inheritance was so encumbered
that my brother was advised to decline administering on the
estate ; but to that neither he nor I would consent. For all these
things people make no allowances. Truly, we know not how to
act to inspire the confidence which our opinions and our con-
sciences tell us we fully deserve.”
It is not necessary in a sketch so brief to go minutely
into politics. Prince Polignac and the king dissolved the
Chambers, having found the deputies unwilling to approve
their acts, and a few days afterwards the king published his
own will and pleasure in what were called Les Ordonnances
du Roi. One of these restricted the liberty of the Press,
1 M. Appert, chaplain to Queen Marie Amalie.Lours piiilippe.
{Duke of Orleans. ICHARLES X. AND THE DA YS OF JUL Y.
21
and was directed against journalism; another provided new
rules, by which the ministry might secure a more subser-
vient Chamber.
As we have seen, these ordonnances even in foreign coun-
tries spread dismay. The revolution that ensued was the
revolution of the great bankers and the business men, — the
haute bourgeoisie. In general, revolutions are opposed by
the moneyed classes; but this was a revolution effected by
them to save themselves and their property from such an out-
break as came forty years later, which we call the Commune.
The working-classes had little to do with the Revolution of
1830, except, indeed, to fight for it, nor had they much to
do with the Revolution of 1848. It was the moneyed men
of France who saw that the resuscitated principles of the
old regime had been stretched to their very uttermost all
over Europe, and that if they did not check them by a
well-conducted revolution, worse would be sure to come.
On July 26, 1830, the ordonnances appeared. The
working-classes seemed to hear of them without emotion;
but their effect on all those who had any stake in the
prosperity of the country was very great. By nightfall
the agitation had spread in Paris to all classes. King
Charles X. was at Saint-Cloud, apparently apprehending
no popular outbreak. No military preparations in case
of disturbances had been made, though on the morning
of the 26th the Due d’Angouleme sent word to Marshal
Marmont to take command of the troops in Paris, “ as
there might be some windows broken during the day.”
The next morning trouble was begun by the journeymen
printers, who, as the newspapers on which they worked
had been prohibited, were sent home from their printing-
offices. Before long they were joined by others, notably
by the cadets from the Polytechnic School. Casimir
Perrier and Laffitte were considered chiefs of the revolu-
tion. The cry was everywhere “ Vive la Charte,” — a com-
pendium that had been drawn up of the franchises and
privileges of Frenchmen. M. Thiers, then young, coun-
selled moderation in the emergency.22 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
On July 28 the tricolored flag was again unfurled in
Paris, — those colors dear to Frenchmen, who had long
hated the white flag, which represented in their eyes despo-
tism and the rule of the Bourbons ! The National Guard
(or militia) was called out, and the populace began erect-
ing barricades.
It is surprising how rapidly in an emergency a barricade
can be formed. A carriage or two is overturned, furniture
is brought out from neighboring houses, a large tree, if
available, is cut down, and the whole is strengthened with
paving-stones. By night all Paris had become a field of
battle.
In vain Marshal Marmont had sent courier after courier
to Saint-Cloud, imploring the king and his ministers to do
something that might allay the fury of the people. No
answer was returned. The marshal went himself at last,
and the king, after listening to his representation of the
state of Paris, said calmly: “Then it is really a revolt?”
“No, sire,” replied Marmont; “it is not a revolt, but a
revolution.”
As soon as the idea of ruin broke upon the royal house-
hold, everything at Saint-Cloud became confusion and de-
spair. The Duchesse de Berri wanted to take her son, the
Due de Bordeaux, into Paris, hoping that the people would
rally round a woman and the young heir to the throne.
Some implored the king to treat with the insurgents; some
to put himself at the head of his troops; some to sacrifice
the ordonnances and the most obnoxious of his ministers.
The Parisian mob by this time had its blood up. It
fought with any weapons that came to hand. Muskets
were loaded with type seized in the printing-offices. At
the Hotel-de-Ville, Laffitte, Lafayette, and other leading
men opposed to the policy of Charles X. were assembled
in council.
The troops at first fought in their king’s cause bravely, but
without enthusiasm. Subsequently the Duke of Wellington
was asked if he could not have suppressed the revolution
with the garrison of Paris, which was twenty thousand men.CHARLES X. AA'D THE DAYS OF JULY. 23
He answered, “ Easily; but then they must have been
fighting for a cause they had at heart.”
The fight continued all the night of the 28th, bloody and
furious. By morning the soldiers were short of ammuni-
tion. As usual, the Swiss Guard was stanch, but the French
soldiers faltered. About midday of the 29th two regi-
ments went over to the insurgents.
Two peers were at this juncture sent to negotiate with
the royal family. The ministers, with Polignac at their
head, went out also to Saint-Cloud. “Sire,” said one of
the negotiators, “ if in an hour the ordonnances are not
rescinded, there will be neither king nor kingdom.” “ Could
you not offer me two hours?” said the king, sarcastically,
as he turned to leave the chamber. The envoy, an old
man, fell on his knees and seized the skirt of the king’s
coat. “Think of the dauphine 1 ” he cried, imploringly.
The king seemed moved, but made no answer.
In Paris, Marmont, whose heart was with the insurgents,
endeavored nevertheless to do his duty ; but his troops de-
serted him. On learning this, Talleyrand walked up to his
clock, saying solemnly: “Take notice that on July 29,
1830, at five minutes past twelve o’clock, the elder branch
of the Bourbons ceased to reign.”
The Louvre was taken, and the Tuileries. There was no
general pillage, the insurgents contenting themselves with
breaking the statues of kings and other signs of royalty.
One of the most obnoxious persons in Paris was the
archbishop. The mob fought to the music of “ Qa ira,”
with new words : —
“ C’est l’Archeveque de Paris
Qui est Jesuite comme Charles Dix.
Dansons la Carmagnole; dansons la Carmagnole,
Et 9a ira! ”
There were deeds of heroism, deeds of self-sacrifice,
deeds of loyalty, deeds of cruelty, and deeds of mercy, as
there always are in Paris in times of revolution. By night-
fall on the 29th the fighting was over. It only remained24 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
to be seen what would be done with the victory. The
evening before, Laffitte had sent a messenger to Louis
Philippe, then residing two miles from Paris, at his Chateau
de Neuilly, warning him to hold himself in readiness for
anything that might occur. Lafayette had been made
governor of Paris, and thus held in his hand the destinies
of France. Under him served an improvised municipal
commune.
By this time Prince Polignac had been dismissed, and the
Due de Montemart had been summoned by the king to
form a more liberal ministry. Everything was in confusion
in the palace. The weary troops, who had marched to
the defence of Saint-Cloud when the struggle in Paris be-
came hopeless, were scattered about the park unfed and
uncared-for.
The king, having at last made up his mind to yield, sent
the envoys who had been despatched to him, back to Paris,
saying : “ Go, gentlemen, go; tell the Parisians that the
king revokes the ordonnances. But I declare to you that
I believe this step will be fatal to the interests of France
and of the monarchy.”
The envoys on reaching Paris were met by the words :
“ Too late ! The throne of Charles X. has already passed
from him in blood.”
The king, however, confident that after such concessions
the revolt was at an end, played whist during the evening,
while the Due d’Angouleme sat looking over a book of
geography. At midnight, however, both were awakened to
hear the news from Paris, and then Charles X.’s confidence
gave way. He summoned his new prime minister and sent
him on a mission to the capital. The Due d’Angouleme,
however, who was opposed to any compromise with rebels,
would not suffer the minister to pass his outposts. The
Due de Montemart, anxious to execute his mission, walked
all night round the outskirts of Paris, and entered it at last
on the side opposite to Saint-Cloud. The city lay in the
profound silence of the hour before day.1
1 Louis Blanc, Dix Ans. Histoire de trente heures, 1830.CHARLES X. AND THE DAYS OF JULY. 25
The question of who should succeed Charles X. had
already been debated in Laffitte’s chamber. Laffitte de-
clared himself for Louis Philippe, the Duke of Orleans.
Some were for the son of Napoleon. Many were for the
Due de Bordeaux, with Louis Philippe during his minority
as lieutenant-general of the kingdom. “ That might have
been yesterday,” said M. Laffitte, “ if the Duchesse de
Berri, separating her son’s cause from that of his grand-
father, had presented herself in Paris, holding Henri V. in
one hand, and in the other the tricolor.” “ The tricolor ! ”
exclaimed the others; “ why, they look upon the tricolor
as the symbol of all crimes ! ”	“ Then what can be done
for them ? " replied Laffitte.
At this crisis the poet B^ranger threw all his influence
into the party of the Duke of Orleans, and almost at the
same moment appeared a placard on all the walls of
Paris : —
“ Charles X. is deposed.
A Republic would embroil us with all Europe.
The Duke of Orleans is devoted to the cause of the Revolution.
The Duke of Orleans never made war on France.
The Duke of Orleans fought at Jemappes.
The Duke of Orleans will be a Citizen-King.
The Duke of Orleans has worn the tricolor under fire : he
will wear the tricolor as king.”
Meantime, early on the evening of the 29th, Neuilly had
been menaced by the troops under the Due d’Angouleme,
and Madame Addlai'de had persuaded her brother to quit
the place. When M. Thiers and the artist, Ary Scheffer,
arrived at Neuilly, bearing a request that the Duke of
Orleans would appear in Paris, Marie Amalie received them.
Aunt to the Duchesse de Berri and attached to the reign-
ing family, she was shocked by the idea that her husband
and her children might rise upon their fall; but Madame
Ade'lal'de exclaimed : “ Let the Parisians make my brother
what they please, — President, Garde National, or Lieuten-
ant-General, — so long as they do not make him an exile.”
Louis Philippe, who was at Rainey (or supposed to be26 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
there, for the envoys always believed he was behind a
curtain during their interview with his wife and sister),
having received a message from Madame Adelaide, set out
soon after for Paris. The resolution of the leaders of the
Revolution had been taken, but in the Municipal Com-
mune at the Hotel-de-Ville there was still much excitement.
There a party desired a republic, and offered to place
Lafayette at its head.
At Saint-Cloud the Duchesse de Berri and her son had
been sent off to the Trianon ; but the king remained behind.
He referred everything to the dauphin (the Due d’Angou-
leme) ; the dauphin referred everything to the king.
The dauphin’s temper was imperious, and at this crisis
it involved him in a personal collision with Marshal Mar-
mont. In attempting to tear the marshal’s sword from
his side, he cut his fingers. At sight of the royal blood the
marshal was arrested, and led away as a traitor. The king,
however, at once released him, with apologies.
When the leaders in Paris had decided to offer the
lieutenant-generalship of France to Louis Philippe during
the minority of the Due de Bordeaux, he could not be
found. He was not at Rainey, he was not at Neuilly.
About midnight, July 29, he entered Paris on foot and in
plain clothes, having clambered over the barricades. He
at once made his way to his own residence, the Palais
Royal, and there waited events.
At the same moment the Duchesse de Berri was leaving
Saint-Cloud with her son. Before daylight Charles X.
followed them to the Trianon; and the soldiers in the
Park at Saint-Cloud, who for twenty-four hours had eaten
nothing, were breaking their fast on dainties brought out
from the royal kitchen.
The proposal that Louis Philippe should accept the
lieutenant-generalship was brought to him on the morn-
ing of July 30, after the proposition had first been sub-
mitted to Talleyrand, who said briefly : “ Let him accept
it.” Louis Philippe did so, accepting at the same time the
tricolor, and promising a charter which should guaranteeCHARLES X. AND THE DAYS OF JULY. 27
parliamentary privileges. He soon after appeared at a
window of the Hotel-de-Ville, attended by Lafayette and
Laffitte, bearing the tricolored flag between them, and was
received with acclamations by the people. But there were
men in Paris who still desired a republic, with Lafayette
at its head. Lafayette persisted in assuring them that
what France wanted was a king surrounded by republican
institutions, and he commended Louis Philippe to them as
“ the best of republics.” This idea in a few hours rapidly
gained ground.
By midday on July 30th Paris was resuming its usual
aspect. Charles X., finding that the household troops were
no longer to be depended on, determined to retreat over
the frontier, and left the Trianon for the small palace of
Rambouillet, where Marie Louise and the King of Rome
had sought refuge in the first hours of their adversity.
The king reached Rambouillet in advance of the news
from Paris,1 and great was the surprise of the guardian of
the Chateau to see him drive up in a carriage and pair with
only one servant to attend him. The king pushed past the
keeper of the palace, who was walking slowly backward
before him, and turned abruptly into a small room on the
ground floor, where he locked himself in and remained for
many hours. When he came forth, his figure seemed to
have shrunk, his complexion was gray, his eyes were red
and swollen. He had spent his time in burning up old
love-letters, — reminiscences of a lady to whom he had been
deeply attached in his youth.
The mob of Paris having ascertained that the fugitive
royal family were pausing at Rambouillet, about twelve
miles from the capital, set out to see what mischief could
be done in that direction. The Duchesse de Berri, her
children, and the Due d’Angouleme were at the Chateau de
Maintenon, and the king, upon the approach of the mob,
composed only of roughs, determined to join them. As he
passed out of the chateau, which he had used as a hunting-
1 All the Year Round, 1SS5.28 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
lodge, he stretched out his hand with a gesture of despair
to grasp those of some friends who had followed him to
Rambouillet, and who were waiting for his orders. He
had none to give them. He spoke no word of advice, but
walked down the steps to his carriage, and was driven to
the Chateau de Maintenon to rejoin his family.
The mob, when it found that the king had fled, was per-
suaded to quit Rambouillet by having some of the most
brutal among them put into the king’s coaches. Attended by
the rest of the unruly crowd, they were driven back to Paris,
and assembling before the Palais Royal, shouted to Louis
Philippe: “ We have brought you your coaches. Come
out and receive them ! ” Eighteen years later, these
coaches were consumed in a bonfire in the Place du
Carrousel.
At the Chateau de Maintenon all was confusion and dis-
couragement, when suddenly the dauphine (the Duchesse
d’Angouleme) arrived. She, whom Napoleon had said was
the only man of her family, was in Burgundy when she re-
ceived news of the outbreak of the Revolution. At once she
crossed several provinces of France in disguise. Harsh of
voice, stern of look, cold in her bearing, she was neverthe-
less a favorite with the household troops whose spirit was
reanimated by the sight of her.
From Rambouillet the king had sent his approbation of
the appointment of the Duke of Orleans as lieutenant-
general during the minority of Henri V. Louis Philippe’s
answer to this communication so well satisfied the old
king that he persuaded the dauphin to join with him
in abdicating all rights in favor of Henri V., the little
Due de Bordeaux. Up to this moment Charles seems never
to have suspected that more than such an abdication could
be required of him. But by this time it was evident that
the successful Parisians would be satisfied with nothing less
than the utter overthrow of the Bourbons. Their choice
lay between a constitutional monarchy with Louis Phi-
lippe at its head, or a renewal of the attempt to form a
republic.CHARLES X. AND THE DAYS OF JULY. 2Q
The populace, on hearing that the abdication of the king
and of the dauphin had been announced to the Chamber of
Deputies, assembled to the number of sixty thousand, and
insisted on the trial and imprisonment of the late king.
Hearing this, the royal family left the Chateau de Main-
tenon the next morning, the king and the Duchesse d’An-
gouleme taking leave of their faithful troops, and desiring
them to return to Paris, there to make their submission
to the lieutenant-general, “ who had taken all measures for
their security and prosperity in the future.”
During the journey to Dreux, Charles X. appeared to
those around him to accept his misfortunes from the hand
of Heaven. The Duchesse d’Angouleme, pale and self-
contained, with all her wounds opened afresh, could hardly
bring herself to quit France for the third time. Her hus-
band was stolid and stupid. The Duchesse de Berri was
almost gay.
Meantime old stories were being circulated throughout
France discrediting the legitimacy of the Due de Bordeaux,
the posthumous son of the Due de Berri. He had been
born seven months after his father’s death, at dead of night,
with no doctor in attendance, nor any responsible witnesses
to attest that he was heir to the crown. Louis Philippe had
protested against his legitimacy within a week after his birth.
There was no real reason for suspecting his parentage; no-
body believes the slander now, but it is not surprising that in
times of such excitement, with such great interests at stake,
the circumstances attending his birth should have provoked
remark. They were both unfortunate and unusual.
Charles X. was the calmest person in the whole royal
party. He was chiefly concerned for the comfort of the
rest. The dauphine wept, her husband trembled, the chil-
dren were full of excitement and eager for play. Charles
was unmoved, resigned; only the sight of a tricolored flag
overcame him.
He complained much of the haste with which he was es-
corted through France to Cherbourg; but that haste proba-
bly insured his safety. At Cherbourg two ships awaited30 FRANCE IN 7HE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
him, — the “Great Britain" and the “Charles Carroll;”
both were American-built, and both had formed part of the
navy of Napoleon.
The day was fine when the royal fugitives embarked. In
a few hours they were off the Isle of Wight. For several
days they stayed on board, waiting till the English Govern-
ment should complete arrangements which would enable
them to land. They had come away almost without clothes,
and the Duchesses of Angouleme and Berri were indebted
for an outfit to an ex-ambassadress. The king said to
some of those who came on board to see him, that he and
his son had retired into private life, and that his grand-
son must wait the progress of events; also, that his con-
science reproached him with nothing in his conduct towards
his people.
After a few days the party landed in England and took
up their abode at Ludworth Castle. Afterwards, at the
king’s own request, the old Palace of Holyrood, in Edin-
burgh, was assigned him. There was some fear at the
time lest popular feeling should break out in some insult to
him or his family. To avert this, Sir Walter Scott, though
then in failing health, wrote in a leading Edinburgh news-
paper as follows : —
“ We are enabled to announce from authority that Charles of
Bourbon, the ex-king of France, is about to become once more
our fellow-citizen, though probably only fora limited space, and
is presently about to inhabit the apartments again that he so
long occupied in Holyrood House. This temporary arrange-
ment has been made, it is said, in compliance with his own
request, with which our benevolent monarch immediately com-
plied, willing to consult in every way possible the feelings of a
prince under pressure of misfortunes, which are perhaps the
more severe if incurred through bad advice, error, or rashness.
The attendants of the late sovereign will be reduced to the least
possible number, and consist chiefly of ladies and children, and
his style of life will be strictly retired. In these circumstances
it would be unworthy of us as Scotchmen, or as men, if this un-
fortunate family should meet with a word or a look from the
meanest individual tending to aggravate feelings which must be
at present so acute as to receive injury from insults, which inCHARLES X. AND THE DAYS OF JULY. 31
other times would be passed over with perfect disregard. His
late opponents in his kingdom have gained the applause of
Europe for the generosity with which they have used their vic-
tory', and the respect which they have paid to themselves in
their moderation towards an enemy. It would be a great con-
trast to that part of their conduct which has been most gener-
ally applauded, were we, who are strangers to the strife, to affect
a deeper resentment than those concerned more closely. Those
who can recollect the former residence of this unhappy prince in
our Northern capital cannot but remember the unobtrusive, quiet
manner in which his little court was then conducted, and now,
still further restricted and diminished, he may naturally expect
to be received with civility and respect by a nation whose good
will he has done nothing to forfeit. Whatever may have been
his errors towards his own subjects, we cannot but remember in
his adversity that he did not in his prosperity forget that Edin-
burgh had extended him her hospitality', but that at the period
when the fires consumed so much of our city, he sent a princely
benefaction to the sufferers. ... If there be any who entertain
angry or invidious recollections of late events in France, they
ought to remark that the ex-monarch has by his abdication re-
nounced the conflict, into which perhaps he was engaged bv
bad advice, that he can no longer be an object of resentment to
the brave, but remains, to all, the most striking example of the
instability of human affairs which our unstable times have
afforded. He may say, with our own deposed Richard, —
‘ With mine own hands I washed away my blame;
With mine own hands I gave away my crown ;
With my own tongue deny my sacred state.’
“ He brings among us his ‘ gray, discrowned head,’ and in a
‘ nation of gentlemen,’ as we were emphatically termed by the
very highest authority, it is impossible, I trust, to find a man
mean enough to insult the slightest hair of it.”
Charles X. was greatly indebted to this letter for the cor-
diality of Iris reception at Edinburgh, where he lived in dig-
nified retirement for about two years; then, finding that the
climate was too cold for his old age, and that the English
Government was disquieted because of the attempts of the
Duchesse de Berri to revive her son’s claims to the French
throne, he made his way to Bohemia, and lived for a while
in the Castle of Prague. At last he decided to make his32 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
final residence in the Tyrol, not far from the warm climate
of Italy. It is said that as the exiled, aged king cast a last
look at the Gothic towers of the Castle of Prague, he said to
those about him : “ We are leaving yonder walls, and know
not to what we may be going, like the patriarchs who knew
not as they journeyed where they would pitch their tents.” 1
On reaching the Baths of Toplitz, where the waters
seemed to agree with him, and where he wished to rest
awhile, he found it needful to “move on,” for the house he
occupied had been engaged for the king of Prussia. The
cholera, too, was advancing. The exiled party reached
Budweiz, a mountain village with a rustic inn, and there it
was forced to halt for some weeks, for the Due de Bordeaux
was taken ill with cholera. It was a period of deep anxiety
to those about him, but at last he recovered.
After trying several residences in the Tyrolese mountains,
to which the old king had gone largely in hopes that he
might enjoy the pleasures of the chase, the exiled family
fixed its residence at Goritz towards the end of October,
1836. The king was then in his eightieth year, but so hale
and active that he spent whole mornings on foot, with his
gun, upon the mountains.
The weather changed soon after the family had settled at
Goritz. The keen winter winds blew down from the snow
mountains, but the king did not give up his daily sport.
One afternoon, after a cold morning spent upon the hills, he
was seized at evening service in the chapel with violent
spasms. These passed off, but on his joining his family
later, its members were struck by the change in his appear-
ance. In a few hours he seemed to have aged years. At
night he grew so ill that extreme unction was administered
to him. It was an attack of cholera. When dying, he
blessed his little grandchildren, the boy and girl, who, not-
withstanding the nature of his illness, were brought to him.
“God preserve you, dear children,” he said. “Walk in
paths of righteousness. Don’t forget me. . . . Pray for
me sometimes.”
1 Memoirs of the Duchesse d’Angoul^me.CHARLES X. AND THE DAYS OF JULY. 33
He died Nov. 6, 1836, just one week after Louis Napo-
leon made his first attempt to have himself proclaimed
Emperor of the French, at Strasburg.
He was buried near Goritz, in a chapel belonging to the
Capuchin Friars. In another chapel belonging to the same
lowly order in Vienna, had been buried four years before,
another claimant to the French throne, the Due de Reich-
stadt, the only son of Napoleon.
On the coffin of the ex-king was inscribed, —
“ Here lieth the High, the Potent, and most Excellent Prince,
Charles Tenth of that name, by the Grace of God King of
France and of Navarre. Died at Goritz, Nov. 6, 1836, aged
79 years and 28 days.”
All the courts of Europe put on mourning for him, that
of France excepted. The latter part of his life, with its re-
verses and humiliations, he considered an expiation, not for
his political errors, but for the sins of his youth.
As he drew near his end, his yearnings after his lost coun-
try increased more and more. He firmly believed that the
day would come when his family would be restored to the
throne of France, but he believed that it would not be by
conspiracy or revolt, but by the direct interposition of God.
That time did almost come in 1871, after the Commune.
3CHAPTER II.
LOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY.
OUIS PHILIPPE, after accepting the lieutenant-gener-
alship of the kingdom, which would have made him
regent under Henri V., found himself raised by the will
of the people — or rather, as some said, by the will of the
bourgeoisie — to the French throne. He reigned, not by
“ right divine,” but as the chosen ruler of his countrymen, —
to mark which distinction he took the title of King of the
French, instead of King of France, which had been borne
by his predecessors.
It is hardly necessary for us to enter largely into French
politics at this period. The government was supposed to
be a monarchy planted upon republican institutions. The
law recognized no hereditary aristocracy. There was a
chamber of peers, but the peers bore no titles, and were
chosen only for life. The dukes, marquises, and counts
of the old regime retained their titles only by courtesy.
The ministers of Charles X. were arrested and tried.
The new king was very anxious to secure their personal
safety, and did so at a considerable loss of his own popu-
larity. They were condemned to lose all property and all
privileges, and were sent to the strong fortress of Ham.
After a few years they were released, and took refuge in
England.
There were riots in Paris when it was known that the
ministers and ill-advisers of the late king were not to be
executed; one of the leaders in these disturbances was
an Italian bravo named Fieschi,—a man base, cruel, and
bold, whom Louis Blanc calls a scelerat bel esprit.LOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY.
35
The emeute, which was formidable, was suppressed chiefly
by a gallant action on the part of the king, who, while
his health was unimpaired, was never wanting in bravery.
“The king of the French,” says Greville, “has put an
end to the disturbances in Paris about the sentence of
the ministers by an act of personal gallantry. At night,
when the streets were most crowded and agitated, he
sallied from the Palais Royal on horseback, with his son,
the Due de Nemours, and his personal cortege, and paraded
through Paris for two hours. That did the business. He
was received with shouts of applause, and at once reduced
everything to tranquillity. He deserves his throne for this,
and will probably keep it.”
The next trouble in the new reign was the alienation of
public favor from Lafayette, who had done so much to
place the king upon the throne. He was accused by one
party of truckling to the new court, by the other of being
too much attached to revolutionary methods and republican
institutions. He was removed from the command of the
National Guard, and his office of commander-in-chief of
that body was abolished.
All Europe becomes “ a troubled sea ” when a storm breaks
over France. “ I never remember,” writes Greville at this
period, “ days like these, nor read of such, — the terror and
lively expectation that prevails, and the way in which peo-
ple’s minds are turned backward and forward from France
to Ireland, then range exclusively from Poland to Piedmont,
and fix again on the burnings, riots, and executions that are
going on in England.”
Meantime France was subsiding into quiet, with occa-
sional slight shocks of revolutionary earthquake, before re-
turning to order and peace. The king was le bon bourgeois.
He had lived a great deal in England and the United States,
and spoke English well. He had even said in his early
youth that he was more of an Englishman than a French-
man. He was short and stout. His head was shaped
like a pear, and was surmounted by an elaborate brown wig;
for in those days people rarely wore their own gray hair.36 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
He did not impress those who saw him as being in any
way majestic ; indeed, he looked like what he was, — le bon
p'ere tie famille. As such he would have suited the people
of England; but it was un vert galant like Henri IV., or
royalty incarnate, like Louis XIV., who would have fired
the imagination of the French people. As a good father
of a family, Louis Philippe felt that his first duty to his chil-
dren was to secure them a good education, good marriages,
and sufficient wealth to make them important personages in
any sudden change of fortune.
At the time of his accession all his children were un-
married, — indeed, only four of them were grown up. The
sons all went to college, — which means in France what
high-school does with us. Their mother’s dressing-room
at Neuilly was hung round with the laurel-crowns, dried
and framed, which had been won by her dear school-
boys.
The eldest son, Ferdinand, Duke of Orleans, was an
extraordinarily fine young man, far more a favorite with
the French people than his father. Had he not been
killed in a carriage accident in 1842, he might now, in
his old age, have been seated on the French throne.
One of the first objects of the king was to secure for
his heir a suitable marriage. A Russian princess was first
thought of; but the Czar would not hear of such a mes-
alliance. Then the hand of an Austrian archduchess was
sought, and the young lady showed herself well pleased
with the attentions of so handsome and accomplished a
suitor ; but her family were as unfavorable to the match
as was the Czar of Russia. Finally, the Duke of Orleans
had to content himself with a German Protestant princess,
Helene of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, a woman above all praise,
who bore him two sons,— the Comte de Paris, bom in
1838, and the Due de Chartres, born a year or two later.
The eldest daughter of Louis Philippe, the Princess
Louise, was married, soon after her father’s elevation to
the throne, to King Leopold of Belgium, widower of the
English Princess Charlotte, and uncle to Prince Albert andLOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY.
37
to Queen Victoria. The French princess thus became,
by her marriage, aunt to these high personages. They
were deeply attached to her. She named her eldest
daughter Charlotte, after the lamented first wife of her
husband. The name was Italianized into Carlotta, — the
poor Carlotta whose reason and happiness were destroyed
by the misfortunes of her husband in Mexico.
The second son of Louis Philippe was the Due de Nemours,
— a blond, stiff young officer who was never a favorite with
the French, though he distinguished himself in Algeria as
a soldier. He too found it hard to satisfy his father’s
ambition by a brilliant marriage, though a throne was
offered him, which he had to refuse. He then aspired
to the hand of Maria da Gloria, the queen of Portugal;
but he married eventually a pretty little German princess
of the Coburg race.
The third son was Philippe, Prince de Joinville, the sailor.
He chose a bride for himself at the court of Brazil, and
brought her home in his frigate, the “ Belle Poule.”
The charming artist daughter of Louis Philippe, the
Princess Marie, pupil and friend of Ary Scheffer, the artist,
married the Duke of Wiirtemberg, and died early of con-
sumption. Pier only child was sent to France, and placed
under the care of his grandmother. Princess Clementine
married a colonel in the Austrian service, a prince of the
Catholic branch of the house of Coburg. Her son is
Prince Ferdinand, the present ruler of Bulgaria.
The marriage of Louis Philippe’s fifth son, the Due de
Montpensier, with the Infanta Luisa is so closely connected
with Louis Philippe’s downfall that it can be better told
elsewhere; but we may here say a few words about the
fortunes of Henri, Due d’Aumale, the king’s fourth son,
who has proved himself a man brave, generous, patriotic,
and high-minded, a soldier, a statesman, an historian, a
patron of art, and in all these things a man eminent among
his fellows. He was only a school-boy when a tragic and
discreditable event made him heir of the great house of
Condd, and endowed him with wealth that he refuses to38 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
pass on to his family, proposing at his death to present
it to the French people and the French Academy.
The royal family of the house of Bourbon was divided
in France into three branches, — the reigning branch, the
head of which was Charles X.; the Orleans branch, the
head of which was Louis Philippe ; and the Conde branch,
the chief of which, and its sole representative at this period,
was the aged Duke of Bourbon, whose only son, the Prince
d’Enghien, had been shot by order of Napoleon.
This old man, rich, childless, and miserable, had had a
romantic history. When very young he had fallen violently
in love with his cousin, the Princess Louise of Orleans. He
was permitted to marry her, but only on condition that
they should part at the church door, — she to enter a convent
for two years, he to serve for the same time in the French
army. They were married with all pomp and ceremony;
but that night the ardent bridegroom '■scaled the walls of
the convent and bore away his bride. Unhappily their
mutual attachment did not last long. “ It went out,” says a
contemporary memoir-writer, “like a fire of straw.”1 At
last hatred took the place of love, and the quarrels be-
tween the Prince de Conde (as the Due de Bourbon was
then called) and his wife were among the scandals of the
court of Louis XVI., and helped to bring odium on the
royal family.
The only child of this marriage was the Due d’Enghien.
The princess died in the early days of the Revolution. Her
husband formed the army of French emigres at Coblentz,
and led them when they invaded their own country. On
the death of his father he became Duke of Bourbon, but
his promising son, D’Enghien, was already dead. The duke
married while in exile the princess of Monaco, a lady of
very shady antecedents. She was, however, received by
Louis XVIII. in his little court at Hartwell. She died
soon after the Restoration.
In 1830 the old duke, worn out with sorrows and excesses,
1 Madame d’Oberkircli.LOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY.
39
was completely under the power of an English adventuress,
a Madame de Feucheres.1 He had settled on her his
Chateau de Saint-Leu, together with very large sums of
money. Several years before 1830 it had occurred to
Madame de Feucheres that the De Rohans, who were related
to the duke on his mother’s side, might dispute these gifts
and bequests, and by way of making herself secure, she
sought the protection of Louis Philippe, then Duke of Or-
leans. She offered to use her influence with the Duke of
Bourbon to induce him to make the Due d’Aumale, who
was his godson, his heir, if Louis Philippe would engage to
stand her friend in any trouble.
The relations of the Due de Bourbon to this woman
bore a strong resemblance to those that Thackeray has de-
picted between Becky Sharp and Jos Sedley. The old
man became thoroughly in fear of her; and when the Revo-
lution broke out later, he was also much afraid of being plun-
dered and maltreated at Saint-Leu by the populace, — not,
however, because he had any great regard for his cousin
Charles X., with whom in his youth he had fought a cele-
brated duel. Impelled by these two fears, he resolved to es-
cape secretly from France, and so rid himself of the tyranny
of Madame de Feucheres and the dangers of Revolution.
He arranged his flight with a trusted friend; it was fixed
for the day succeeding Aug. 31, 1830, — a month after
the Revolution. That evening he retired to his chamber
in good spirits, though he said good-night more impress-
ively than usual to some persons in his household. The
next morning he was found dead, hanging to one of the
espagnolettes, or heavy fastenings, of a tall French window.
The village authorities were summoned ; but although it was
impossible a man so infirm could have thus killed himself,
and though many other circumstances proved that he did
not die by his own hand, they certified his death by suicide.
The Catholic Church, however, did not accept this verdict,
and the duke was buried with the rites of religion.
1 Louis Blanc.40 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
There was certainly no proof that Madame de Feucheres
had had any hand in the murder of the old man who had
plotted to escape from her, and who had expressed to others
his dread of the tyranny she exercised over him; but there
was every ground for strong suspicion, and the public lost no
time in fastening part of the odium that attached to the
supposed murderess on the king, whose family had so
greatly benefited by her influence over the last head of the
house of Condd. She retained her ill-gotten wealth, and
removed at once to Paris. She had been engaged in stock
operations for some time, and now gave herself up to them,
winning enormous sums.
The new throne was sadly shaken by these events, added
to discontents concerning the king’s prudent policy of non-
intervention in the attempted revolutions of other countries,
which followed that of France in 1830 and 1831. The
next very interesting event of this reign was the escapade
and the discomfiture of the young Duchesse de Berri.
About the close of 1832, while France and all Europe
were still experiencing the after-shocks which followed the
Revolution of July, Marie Caroline, the Duchesse de Berri,
planned at Holyrood a descent upon France in the interests
of the Due de Bordeaux, her son.1 Had he reigned in
consequence of the deaths of his grandfather and uncle,
Charles X. and the Due d’Angouleme, the duchess his
mother was to have been regent during his minority. She
regretted her inaction during the days of July, when, had
she taken her son by the hand and presented him her-
self to the people, renouncing in his name and her own all
ultra-Bourbon traditions and ideas, she might have saved
the dynasty.
Under the influence of this regret, and fired by the idea
of becoming another Jeanne d’Albret, she urged her plans
on Charles X., who decidedly disapproved of them ; but
“ the idea of crossing the seas at the head of faithful pal-
adins, of landing after the perils and adventures of an un-
1 Louis Blanc and papers in “ Figaro.”LOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY.
41
premeditated voyage in a country of knights-errant, of
eluding by a thousand disguises the vigilance of enemies
through whom she had to pass, of wandering, a devoted
mother and a banished queen, from hamlet to hamlet and
from chateau to chateau, appealing to human nature high
and low on its romantic side, and at the end of a victorious
conspiracy unfurling in France the ancient standard of the
monarchy, was too dazzling not to attract a young, high-
spirited woman, bold through her very ignorance, heroic
through mere levity, able to endure anything but depression
and ennui, and prepared to overbear all opposition with
plausible platitudes about a mother’s love.” 1
At last Charles X. consented to let her follow her own
wishes; but he placed her under the guardianship of the
Due de Blancas. She set out through Holland and the
Tyrol for Italy. She travelled incognita, of course. Charles
Albert, of Sardinia, received her at Turin with great per-
sonal kindness, and lent her a million of francs, — which he
borrowed from a nobleman of his court under pretence of
paying the debts of his early manhood; but he was forced
to request her to leave his dominions, and she took refuge
with the Duke of Modena, who assigned her a palace at
Massa, about three miles from the Mediterranean. A rising
was to be made simultaneously in Southern France and in
La Vendee. Lyons had just been agitated by a labor in-
surrection, and Marseilles was the first point at which it
was intended to strike.
The Legitimists in France were divided into two parties.
One, under Chateaubriand and Marshal Victor, the Due de
Bellune, wished to restore Henri V. only by parliamentary
and legal victories; the other, favored by the court at
Holyrood, was for an armed intervention of the Great
Powers. The Due de Blancas was considered its head.
The question of the invasion of France with foreign troops
was excitedly argued at Massa. The duchess wished above
all things to get rid of the tutelage of M. de Blancas, and
1 Louis Blanc, Histoire de Dix Ans.42 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
she was disposed to favor, to a certain extent, the more
moderate views of Chateaubriand. After endless quarrels
she succeeded in sending off the duke to Holyrood, and
was left to take her own way.
April 14, 1832, was fixed upon for leaving Massa. It
was given out that the duchess, was going to Florence. At
nightfall a carriage, containing the duchess, with two ladies
and a gentleman of her suite, drove out of Massa and
waited under the shadow of the city wall. While a footman
was absorbing the attention of the coachman by giving him
some minute, unnecessary orders, Madame (as they called
the duchess) slipped out of the carriage door with one of
her ladies, while two others, who were standing ready in
the darkness, took their places. The carriage rolled away to-
wards Florence, while Madame and her party, stealing along
under the dark shadow of the city wall, made their way to
the port, where a steamer was to take them on board.
That steamer was the “Carlo Alberto,” a little vessel
which had been already used by some republican conspira-
tors, and had been purchased for the service of Marie
Caroline. It had some of her most devoted adherents on
board, but the captain was in ignorance. He thought
himself bound for Genoa, and was inclined to disobey
when his passengers ordered him to lay to off the harbor
of Massa. However, they used force, and at three in the
morning Marie Caroline, who was sleeping, wrapped in her
cloak, upon the sand, was roused, put on board a little
boat, and carried out to the steamer. She had a tempes-
tuous passage of four days to Marseilles. The steamer ran
out of coal, and had to put into Nice. At last, in a heavy
sea which threatened to dash small craft to pieces, a fish-
ing-boat approached the “ Carlo Alberto,” containing some
of the duchess’s most devoted friends. With great danger
she was transferred to it, and was landed on the French
coast. She scrambled up slippery and precipitous rocks,
and reached a place of safety. But the delay in the arrival
of her steamer had been fatal to her enterprise. A French
gentleman in the secret had hired a small boat, and putLOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY.
43
out to sea in the storm to see if he could perceive the miss-
ing vessel. His conduct excited the suspicion of his crew,
who talked about it at a wine-shop, where they met other
sailors, who had their story to tell of a lady landed mysteri-
ously a few hours before at a dangerous and lonely spot
a few miles away. The two accounts soon reached the
ears of the police, and Marseilles was on the alert, when
a party of young men, with their swords drawn and waving
white handkerchiefs, precipitated their enterprise, by ap-
pearing in the streets and striving to rouse the populace.
They were arrested, as were also the passengers left on
board the “Carlo Alberto,” —among them was a lady who
deceived the police into a belief that she was the Duchesse
de Berri.
Under cover of this mistake the duchess, finding that all
hope was over in the southern provinces, resolved to cross
France to La Vendee. At Massa she had had a dream.
She thought the Due de Berri had appeared to her and
said : “ You will not succeed in the South, but you will
prosper in La Vendee.”
She quitted the hut in which she had been concealed,
made her way on foot through a forest, lost herself, and
had to sleep in the vacant cabin of a woodcutter. The
next night she passed under the roof of a republican, who
respected her sex and would not betray her. She then
reached the chateau of a Legitimist nobleman with the
appropriate name ofM. de Bonrecueil. Thence she started
in the morning in a postchaise to cross all France along
its public roads.
She accomplished her journey in safety, and fixed May
24, 1832, as the day for taking up arms. She made her
headquarters at a Breton farm-house, Les Meliers. She
wore the costume of a boy, — a peasant of La Vendee, —
and called herself Petit Pierre.
On May 21, three days before the date fixed upon for
the rising, she was waited upon by the chiefs,—the men
most likely to suffer in an abortive insurrection, — and was
assured that the attempt would fail. Had the South risen,44 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
La Vendee would have gladly joined the insurrection ; but
unsupported by the South, the proposed enterprise was too
rash a venture. Overpowered by these arguments and the
persuasions of those around her, Marie Caroline gave way,
and consented to return to Scotland with a passport that
had been provided for her. But in the night she re-
tracted her consent, and insisted that the rising should
take place upon the 3d of June. She was obeyed; but
what little prospect of success there might have been at
first, was destroyed by the counter-order of May 22. All
who rose were at once put down by the king’s troops, and
atrocities on both sides were committed.
Nantes, the capital city of La Vendee, was hostile to the
duchess; in Nantes, therefore, she believed her enemies
would never search for her. She took refuge there in the
house of two elderly maiden ladies, the Demoiselles Du-
guigney, where she remained five months. They must
have been months of anguish to her, and of unspeakable
impatience. It is very possible that the Government did
not care to find her. She was the queen’s niece, and if
captured what could be done with her? To set her free to
hatch new plots would have been bitterly condemned by
the republicans; to imprison her would have made an
additional motive for royalist conspiracies; to execute her
would have been impossible. Marie Caroline, however, had
solved these difficult problems by her own misconduct.
Meantime the premiership of France passed into the
hands of M. Thiers. A Jew — a Judas — named Deutz,
came to him mysteriously, and bargained to deliver into
his hands the Duchesse de Berri. Thiers, who had none
of the pity felt for her by the Orleans family, closed
with the offer. Some years before, Deutz had renounced
his Jewish faith and pretended to turn Christian. Pope
Gregory XVI. had patronized him, and had recommended
him to the Due de Berri as a confidential messenger. He
had frequently carried despatches of importance, and knew
that the duchess was in Nantes, but he did not know her
hiding-place. He contrived to persuade her to grant himLOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY.
45
an interview. It took place at the Demoiselles Dugnigney’s
house ; but he was led to believe that she only used their
residence for that purpose. With great difficulty he pro-
cured a second interview, in the course of which, having
taken his measures beforehand, soldiers surrounded the
house. Before they could enter it, word was brought to
the duchess that she was betrayed. She fled from the
room, and when the soldiers entered they could not find
her. They were certain that she had not left the house.
They broke everything to pieces, sounded the walls, ripped
up the beds and furniture. Night came on, and troops
were left in every chamber. In a large garret, where there
was a wide fireplace, the soldiers collected some newspapers
and light wood, and about midnight built a fire. Soon
within the chimney a noise of kicking against an iron
panel was heard, and voices cried: “ Let us out, — we
surrender ! ”
For sixteen hours the duchess and two friends had been
imprisoned in a tiny hiding-place, separated from the hearth
by a thin iron sliding-panel, which, when the soldiers lit
their fire, had grown red hot. The gentleman of the party
was already badly burned, and the women were nearly suffo-
cated. The gendarmes kicked away the fire, the panel
was pushed back, and the duchess, pale and fainting, came
forth and surrendered. The commander of the troops was
sent for. To him she said : “ General, I confide myself to
your honor.’' He answered, “ Madame, you are under the
safeguard of the honor of France.”
This capture was a great embarrassment to the Govern-
ment. Pity for the devoted mother, the persecuted prin-
cess, the brave, self-sacrificing woman, stirred thousands of
hearts. The duchess was sent at once to an old chateau
called Blaye, on the banks of the Gironde, the estuary
formed by the junction of the Dordogne and the Garonne.
Tradition said that the old castle had been built by the
paladin Orlando (or Roland), and that he had been buried
within its walls after he fell at Roncesvalles.46 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
In this citadel the Duchesse de Berri was confined, with
every precaution against escape or rescue; and the re-
straint and monotony of such a life soon told upon a
woman of her character. She could play the heroine,
acting well her part, with an admiring world for her au-
dience ; but “ cabined, cribbed, confined ” in an old,
dilapidated castle, her courage and her health gave way.
She was cheered, however, at first by Legitimist testimonies
of devotion. Chateaubriand wrote her a memorable letter,
imploring her, in the name of M. de Malesherbes, his
ancestor who had defended Louis XVI., to let him under-
take her defence, if she were brought to trial; but the
reigning family of France had no wish to proceed to such
an extremity. The duchess had not come of a stock
in which all the women were sans reproche, like Marie
Amelie. Her grandmother, Queen Caroline of Naples,
the friend of Lady Hamilton and of Lord Nelson, had
been notoriously a bad woman; her sister, Queen Christina
of Spain, had made herself equally famous; and doubts
had already been thrown on the legitimacy of the son
of the duchess, the posthumous child of the Due de
Berri. The queen of France, who was almost a saint,
had been fond of her young relative for her many engaging
qualities; and what to do with her, in justice to France,
was a difficult problem.
To the consternation and disgust of the Legitimists, the
heroine of La Vendee dropped from her pedestal and
sank into the mire. “ She lost everything,” says Louis
Blanc, — “ even the sympathy of the most ultra-partisans
of the Bourbon dynasty; and she deserved the fate that
overtook her. It was the sequel to the discovery of a
terrible secret, — a secret whose publicity became a just
punishment for her having, in pursuit of her own purposes,
let loose on France the dogs of civil war.”
In the midst of enthusiasm for her courage and pity for
her fate, rose a rumor that the duchess would shortly give
birth to a child. It was even so. The news fell like aLOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY.	47
blow on the hearts of the royalists. If she had made a
clandestine, morganatic marriage, she had by the law of
France forfeited her position as regent during her son’s
minority; she had forgotten his claims on her and those
of France. If there was no marriage, she had degraded
herself past all sympathy. At any rate, now she was harm-
less. The policy of the Government was manifestly to let
her child be bom at Blaye, and then send her to her Nea-
politan home.
Her desire was to leave Blaye before her confinement.
In vain she pleaded her health and a tendency to con-
sumption. The Government sent physicians to Blaye,
among them the doctor who had attended the duchess
after the birth of the Due de Bordeaux; for it insisted
on having full proof of her disgrace before releasing her.
But before this disgrace was announced in Paris, twelve
ardent young Legitimists had bound themselves to fight
twelve duels with twelve leading men of the opposite party,
who might, if she were brought to trial, injure her cause.
The first of these duels took place ; Armand Carrel, the
journalist, being the liberal champion, while M. Roux-La-
borie fought for the duchess. The duel was with swords,
and lasted three minutes. Twice Carrel wounded his
adversary in the arm; but as he rushed on him the third
time, he received a deep wound in the abdomen. The
news spread through Paris. The prime minister, M. Thiers,
sent his private secretary for authentic news of Carrel’s
state. The attendants refused to allow the wounded man
to be disturbed. “ Let him see me,” said Carrel; “ for
I have a favor to ask of M. Thiers, — that he will let no
proceedings be taken against M. Roux-Laborie.”
Government after this became anxious to quench the
loyalty of the Duchesse de Bern’s defenders as soon and as
effectually as possible. The duel with Armand Carrel was
fought Feb. 2, 1833 ; on the 22d of February General
Bugeaud, commander of the fortress of Blaye, received
from the duchess the following declaration : —48 FRANCE IN THE NINETENETH CENTURY.
Under the pressure of circumstances and of measures
taken by Government, I think it due to myself and to my chil-
dren (though I have had grave reasons for keeping my mar-
riage a secret) to declare that I have been privately married
during my late sojourn in Italy'.
(Signed)	Marie Caroline.
From that time up to the month of May the duchess
continued to make vain efforts to obtain her release before
the birth of her child. It had been intimated to her that
she should be sent to Palermo as soon afterwards as she
should be able to travel.
The Government took every precaution, that the event
might be verified when it took place. Six or seven of the
principal inhabitants of Blaye were stationed in an adjoin-
ing chamber, as is the custom at the birth of princes.
A little girl having been born, these witnesses were sum-
moned to the chamber by Madame de Hautfort, the duch-
ess’s lady-in-waiting. The duchess answered their questions
firmly, and on returning to the next room, her own physician
declared on oath that the duchess was the lawful wife of
Count Hector Luchesi-Palli, of the family of Campo Formio,
of Naples, gentleman of the bedchamber to the king of the
Two Sicilies, living at Palermo.
This was the first intimation given of the parentage of
the child. A mouth later, Marie Caroline and her infant
embarked on board a French vessel, attended by Marshal
Bugeaud, and were landed at Palermo. Very few of the
duchess’s most ardent admirers in former days were will-
ing to accompany her. Her baby died before it was
many months old. Charles X. refused to let her have
any further care or charge of her son. “ As Madame
Luchesi-Palli,” he said, “she had forfeited all claims to
royal consideration.”
A reconciliation, however, official rather than real, was
patched up by Chateaubriand between the duchess and
Charles X.; but her political career was over. She was
allowed to see the Due de Bordeaux for two or three days
once a year. The young prince was thenceforward underLOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY.
49
the maternal care of his aunt, the Duchesse d’Angouleme.
The Duchesse de Berri passed the remainder of her adven-
turous life in tranquillity. Her marriage with Count Luchesi-
Palli was apparently a happy one. They had four children.
She owned a palace in Styria, and another on the Grand
Canal at Venice, where she gave popular parties. In T847
she gave some private theatricals, at which were present
twenty-seven persons belonging to royal or imperial families.
Her buoyancy of spirit kept her always gay. One would
have supposed that she would be overwhelmed by the fall
we have related. She was good-natured, charitable, and
extravagant. She died leaving heavy debts, which the Due
de Bordeaux paid for her. Her daughter Louise, sister of
the Due de Bordeaux, married the Duke of Parma, who was
assassinated in 1854. Their daughter married Don Carlos,
who claims at present to be rightful heir to the thrones
of France and Spain. She died in 1864, shortly after
the Count Luchesi-Palli. The Duchesse de Berri, who in
her later years became very devout, d'apr'es la manilre
Italienne, as somebody has said, wrote thus about his
death: —
“ I have been so tried that my poor head reels. The loss of
my good and pious daughter made me almost crazy, but the
care of my husband had somewhat calmed me, when God took
him to himself. He died like a saint in my arms, with his
children around him, smiling at me and pointing to heaven.”
The duchess died suddenly at Brussels in 1870, aged
seventy-one. “ And,” adds an intensely Legitimist writer
from whom I have taken these details of her declining
years, “had she lived till 1873, she would have given her
son better advice than that he followed.” 1
Without following the ins and outs of politics during the
first ten years of Louis Philippe’s reign, which were check-
ered by revolts, ententes, and attempts at regicide, I pass on
to the next event of general interest, — the explosion of the
“ infernal machine ” of Fieschi.
1 Memoire de la Duchesse d’Angouleme.
450 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
It was customary for King Louis Philippe to make a
grand military promenade through Paris on one of the three
days of July which during his reign were days of public
festivity. On the morning of July 28, 1835, as the clock
struck ten, the king, accompanied by his three elder sons,
Marshals Mortier and Lobeau, his ministers, his staff, his
household, and many generals, rode forth to review forty
thousand troops along the Boulevards. At midday they
reached the Boulevard du Temple. There, as the king
was bending forward to receive a petition, a sudden volley
of musketry took place, and the pavement was strewed with
dead and dying. Marshal Mortier was killed, together with
a number of officers of various grades, some bystanders, a
young girl, and an old man. The king had not been shot,
but as his horse started, he had received a severe contusion
on the arm. The Duke of Orleans and the Prince de Join-
ville were slightly hurt. Smoke came pouring from the third-
story windows of a house (No. 50) on the Boulevard. A
man sprang from the window, seized a rope hanging from
the chimney, and swung himself on to a lower roof. As he
did so, he knocked down a flower-pot, which attracted at-
tention to his movements. A police agent saw him, and a
national guard arrested him. He was in his shirt-sleeves,
and his face was covered with blood. The infernal ma-
chine he had employed consisted of twenty-five gun-barrels
on a stand so constructed that they could all be fired at
once. Happily two did not go off, and four burst, wound-
ing the wretch who had fired them. Instantly the reception
of the king, which had been cold when he set forth, changed
into rapturous enthusiasm. He and his sons had borne
themselves with the greatest bravery.
The queen had been about to quit the Tuileries to
witness the review, when the door of her dressing-room was
pushed open, and a colonel burst in, exclaiming : “ Madame,
the king has been fired at. He is not hurt, nor the princes,
but the Boulevard is strewn with corpses.” The queen,
raising her trembling hands to heaven, waited only for a
repetition of his assurance that her dear ones were all safe,LOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY.	5 I
and then set out to find the king. She met him on the
staircase, and husband and wife wept in each other’s
arms.
The queen then went to her sons, looked at them, and
touched them, hardly able to believe that they were not
seriously wounded, and turned away, shuddering, from the
blood on M. Thiers’ clothes. Then, returning to her
chamber, she sent a note at once to her younger boys,
D’Aumale and Montpensier, who were with their tutors at
the Chateau d’Eu. It began with these words : “ Fall down
on your knees, my children; God has preserved your
father.”
Of course the Legitimists, and likewise the Republicans,
were accused of inspiring the attempt of Fieschi. The
trials, that took place about six months later, proved that
the assassin Fieschi was a wretch bearing a strong resem-
blance to our own Guiteau.
The funeral ceremonies of the victims of the infernal
machine were celebrated with great pomp. The affair led
to a partial reconciliation between the new Government and
the Legitimist clergy; it led also to certain restrictions on
the Press and an added stringency in the punishment for
crimes of the like character.
On Jan. 31, 1836, the trial of the prisoners took place
before the Peers. The crow'd of spectators was immense.
There were five prisoners, but the eyes of the spectators
were fixed on only three.
The first was a man under-sized, nervous and quick in his
movements. His face, which was disfigured by recent scars,
had an expression of cunning and impudence. His forehead
was narrow, his hair cropped close, one corner of his mouth
was disfigured by a scar, his smile was insolent, and so was
his whole bearing. He seemed anxious to concentrate the
attention of all present on himself, smiled and bowed to
every one he knew, and seemed well satisfied with his
odious importance.
The second was an old man, pale and ill. He bore
himself with perfect calmness. He seated himself where52 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
he was told to sit, and gave no sign of emotion throughout
the trial.
The third was utterly prostrated by fear.
The first was Fieschi; the second was called Morey; the
third was a grocer named Pepin.
The two last had been arrested on the testimony of Nina
Lassave, who had had Fieschi for her lover. The life of this
man had been always base and infamous. He was a Corsi-
can by birth, and had been a French soldier. He had
fought bravely, but after his discharge he had been impris-
oned for theft and counterfeiting. He led a wandering life
from town to town, living on his wits and indulging all his
vices. He had even succeeded in getting some small favors
from Government; but finding that he could not long escape
punishment for crimes known to the police, he undertook,
apparently without any especial motive, the wholesale
murder of king, court, and princes.
During his imprisonment his vanity had been so great
that the officers of the Crown played upon it in order to
obtain confessions and information.
The only witness against Morey was Nina Lassave, who
insisted that, Fieschi having invented the murderous instru-
ment, Morey had devised a use for it, and that Pepin had
furnished the necessary funds for its completion.
I give Louis Blanc’s account of Fieschi’s behavior on
his trial, because when foreign nations have reproached us
for the scandal of the license granted to the murderer of
President Garfield on his trial, I have never seen it re-
marked that Guiteau’s conduct was almost exactly like that
of Fieschi.
“With effrontery, with a miserable kind of pride, and with
smiles of triumph on his lips, he alluded to his victims with
theatrical gesticulations, and plumed himself on the magnitude
of his own infamy, answering his judges by ignoble buffooneries,
playing the part of an orator, making pretensions to learning,
looking round to see what effect he was producing, and courting
applause. And some of those who sat in judgment on him did
applaud. At each of his atrocious vulgarisms many of theLOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY.
53
Peers laughed, and this laugh naturally encouraged him. Did
he make a movement to rise, voices called out: ‘ Fieschi
desires to say something, Monsieur le President! Fieschi is
about to speak ! ’ The audience was unwilling to lose a word
that might fall from the lips of so celebrated a scoundrel. He
could hardly contain himself for pride and satisfaction. His
bloody hand was eager to shake hands with the public, and
there were those willing to submit to it. He exchanged signs
with the woman Nina, who was seated in the audience. He
posed before the spectators with infinite satisfaction. What
more can we say ? He directed the proceedings. He prompted
or browbeat the witnesses, he undertook the duties of a prose-
cuting attorney. He regulated the trial. . . . He directed coarse
jokes at the unhappy Pepin ; but reckless as he was, he dared
not meddle with Morey. He had no hesitation in accusing
himself. He owned himself the worst of criminals, and declared
that he esteemed himself happy to be able to pay with his own
blood for the blood of the unhappy victims of his crime. But
the more he talked about his coming fate, the plainer it was
that he expected pardon, and the more he flattered those on
whom that pardon might depend.”
The trial lasted twelve days, and very little was elicited
about the conspiracy, — if indeed there was one. Suddenly
Pepin, whose terror had been abject, rallied his courage,
refused to implicate Morey or to make revelations, and
kept his resolution to the last.
One of the five prisoners was acquitted, one was con-
demned to a brief imprisonment, and Morey, Pepin, and
Fieschi were sent to the block. Up to almost the last
moment Fieschi expected pardon; but his last words were
to his confessor: “ I wish I could let you know about my-
self five minutes from now.”
On the scaffold Morey’s white hair elicited compassion
from the spectators. Pepin at the last moment was offered
a pardon if he would tell whence the money came that he
had advanced to Fieschi. He refused firmly, and firmly
met his fate.
The next day the woman who had betrayed her lover and
the rest was presiding at a cafe on the Place de la Bourse,
having been engaged as an attraction !54 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
After these horrors we turn with relief to some account
of good and noble women, the ladies of Louis Philippe’s
family.
After the murderous attempt of Fieschi the king lived
under a continual expectation of assassination. He no
longer walked the streets of Paris with his cane under his
arm. When he drove, he sat with his back to the horses,
because that position gave less certainty to the aim of an
assassin. It was said that his carriages were lined with
sheet-iron. He was thirteen times shot at, and the pallid
looks of the poor queen were believed to arise from con-
tinual apprehension. Her nerves had been shaken by the
diabolical attempt of Fieschi, and she never afterwards would
leave her husband, even for a few days. She stayed away
from the deathbed of her daughter, the Queen of the Bel-
gians, lest in her absence he should be assassinated.
Neuilly was the home of the family, its beloved, partic-
ular retreat. The greatest pang that Louis Philippe suffered
in 1848 was its total destruction by rioters. The little
palace was furnished in perfect taste, with elegance, yet
with simplicity. The inlaid floors were especially beautiful.
The rooms were decorated with pictures, many of them
representing passages in the early life of the king. In one
he was teaching mathematics in a Swiss school; in another
he was romping with his children. His own cabinet was
decorated with his children’s portraits and with works of
art by his accomplished daughter, the Princess Marie. The
family sitting-room was furnished with the princesses’ em-
broidery, and there was a table painted on velvet by the
Duchesse de Berri. The library was large, and contained
many English books, among them a magnificent edition of
Shakspeare. The park enclosed one hundred acres. The
gardens were laid out in the English style. A branch of
the Seine ran through the grounds, with boat-houses and
bath-houses for the pleasure of the young princes, — and
in one night this cherished home was laid in ruins !
“ All is possible,” said Louis Philippe to a visitor who
talked with him at Claremont in his exile, “ all is possibleQUEEM MARIE A ME LIE.LOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY.
55
to France, — an empire, a republic, the Comte de Chambord,
or my grandson ; but one thing is impossible, — that any of
these should last. On a tue le respect, — the nation has
killed respect.”
Queen Marie Amdlie was bom in Naples in 1782. Her
mother was a daughter of Maria Theresa, and sister to
Marie Antoinette. This lady was not one who inspired re-
spect, but she had some good qualities. 'She was a good
mother to her children, and had plenty of ability. Of course
she hated the French Revolution, and everything that savored
of what are called liberal opinions. Her career, which was
full of vicissitudes and desperate plots, ended by her being
dismissed ignominiously from Naples by the English ambas-
sador, and she went to end her days with her nephew at
Vienna.
Marie Amalie used sometimes to tell her children how
she had wept when a child for the death of the little
dauphin, the eldest son of Louis XVI., who, before the
Revolution broke out, was taken away from the evil to
come. She was to have been married to him had he lived.
When older, she had an early love-affair with her cousin,
Prince Antoine of Austria; but he was destined for the
Church, and the youthful courtship came to an untimely end.
When she first met her future husband, she and her family
were living in a sort of provisional exile in Palermo. The
princess was twenty-seven, Louis Philippe was ten or twelve
years older, and they seem to have been quite determined to
marry each other very soon after their acquaintance began.
It was not easy to do so, however, for the duke, as we have
seen, was at that period too much a republican to suit even
an English Admiral; but the princess declared that she
would go into a convent if the marriage was forbidden,
and on Dec. 25, 1809, she became the wife of Louis
Philippe.
No description could do justice to the purity and charity
of this admirable woman; and in her good works she was
seconded by her sister-in-law, Madame Adelaide, and by
her daughter.56 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
“The queen,” her almoner tells us, “ had 500,000 francs
a year for her personal expenses, and gave away 400,000 of
them.” “ M. Appert,” she would say to him, “ give those
500 francs we spoke of, but put them down upon next
month’s account. The waters run low this month ; my purse
is empty.” An American lady, visiting the establishment of
a great dressmaker in Paris, observed an old black silk
dress hanging over a chair. She remarked with some sur-
prise : “ I did not know you would turn and fix up old
dresses.” “ I do so only for the queen,” was the answer.
The imposture, ingratitude, and even insolence of some
of Marie Amalie’s petitioners failed to discourage her benev-
olence. For instance, an old Bonapartist lady, according
to M. Appert, one day wrote to her : —
Madame,—If the Bourbons had not returned to France, for
the misfortune of the country, my beloved mistress and protec-
tress, the Empress Marie Louise, would still be on the throne,
and I should not be under the humiliating necessity of telling
you that I am without bread, and that the wretched bed on which
I sleep is about to be thrown out of the garret I inhabit, because
I cannot pay a year’s rent. I dare not ask you for assistance,
for my heart is with my real sovereign, and I cannot promise you
my gratitude. If, however, you think fit to preserve a life which,
since the misfortunes of my country, has been full of bitterness,
I will accept a loan. I should blush to receive a gift.
I am, Madame, your servant,	C.
When this impertinent letter was handed to the almoner,
the queen had written on it:	“ She must be very un-
happy, for she is very unjust. A hundred francs to be sent
to her immediately, and I beg M. Appert to make inquiries
concerning this lady’s circumstances.”
In vain the almoner remonstrated. The only effect of
his remonstrance was that the queen authorized him to
make her gift 300 francs if he found it necessary. When
he knocked at the door of the garret of the petitioner, she
opened it with agitation. “ Oh, Monsieur ! ” she said,
“ are you the Commissioner of Police come to arrest me
for my outrageous letter to the queen ? I am so unhappyLOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY.
57
that at times I become deranged. I am sorry to have
written as I did to a princess who to all the poor is good
and charitable.” For answer, M. Appert showed her her
own letter, with the queen’s memorandum written upon it.
“There was no lack of heartfelt gratitude then,” he says,
“ and no lack of poverty to need the triple benefaction.”CHAPTER III.
LOUIS NAPOLEON’S EARLY CAREER. — STRASBURG, BOULOGNE,
HAM.
HERE is a theory held by some observers that the
man who fails in his duty to a woman who has
claims upon his love and his protection, never afterwards
prospers; and perhaps the most striking illustration of
this theory may be found in the career of the Emperor
Napoleon. Nothing went well with him after his divorce
from Josephine. His only son died. The children of his
brothers, with the exception of Louis Napoleon, and the
Prince de Canino, the son of Lucien, were all ordinary
men, inclined to the fast life of their period; while the
descendants of Josephine, honored and respected, are now
connected with many European thrones.
The son of Napoleon, called by his grandfather, the Aus-
trian emperor, the Due de Reichstadt, but by his own
Bonaparte family Napoleon II., died at Vienna, July 22,
1832. The person from whom, during his short, sad life,
he had received most kindness, and to whom, during his
illness, he was indebted for almost maternal care, was the
young wife of his cousin Francis, the Princess Sophia of
Bavaria, who in the same week that he died, became the
mother of Maximilian, the unfortunate Emperor of Mexico,
who, exactly thirty-five years after, on July 22, 1867, was
shot at Queretaro.
The Emperor Napoleon had made a decree that if male
heirs failed him, his dynasty should be continued by the
sons of his brother Joseph. Lucien, the republican, was
passed over, as well as his descendants; and Joseph fail-LOUIS NAPOLEON'S EARLY CAREER.
59
ing of male heirs, the throne of France was to devolve on
Louis, king of Holland, and his heirs. Joseph left only
daughters, Zenaide and Charlotte. Louis Bonaparte when
he died, left but one son.
Louis Bonaparte was nine years younger than his brother
Napoleon, who by no right of primogeniture, but by right of
success, was early looked upon as the head of the family of
Bonaparte. He assumed the place of father to his little
brother Louis, and a very unsatisfactory father he proved.
Louis was studious, poetical, solid, honorable, and unam-
bitious. His brother was resolved to make him a dis-
tinguished general and an able king. He succeeded in
making him a brave soldier and a very good general; but
Louis had no enthusiasm for the profession of arms. He
hated bloodshed, and above all he hated sack and pillage.
He had no genius, and crooked ways of any kind were
abhorrent to him. When a very young man he fell pas-
sionately in love with a lady, whom he called his Sophie.
But his brother and the world thought the real name of
the object of his affection was Emilie de Beauharnais, the
Empress Josephine’s niece by marriage. This lady became
afterwards the wife of M. de La Vallette, Napoleon’s post-
master-general, who after the return of the Bourbons in
1815, was condemned to death with Ney and Lab^doyere.
His wife saved him by changing clothes with him in prison;
but the fearful strain her nerves suffered until she was sure
of his escape, unsettled her reason. She was not sent to an
asylum, but lived to a great age in an appartement in Paris,
carefully tended and watched over by her friends.1
But whether it was with a Sophie or an Emilie, Louis Bona-
parte fell in love, and Hortense de Beauharnais, the daugh-
ter of Josephine, gay, lively, poetical, and enthusiastic, had
given her heart to General Duroc, the Emperor Napoleon’s
aide-de-camp; therefore both the young people resisted
the darling project of Napoleon and Josephine to marry
them to each other. By such a marriage Josephine hoped
to avert the divorce that she saw to be impending. She
1 Jerrold’s Life of Napoleon III.60 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
fancied that if sons were born to the young couple, Napo-
leon would be content to leave his throne to the heir of
his brother Louis, whom he had adopted, and of his step-
daughter, of whom he was very fond. But Louis would
not marry Hortense, and Hortense would not have
Louis. At last, however, in the excitement of a ball, a
reluctant consent was wrung from Louis; then Hortense
was coerced into being a good French girl, and giving up
Duroc. She and Louis were married. A more unhappy
marriage never took place. Husband and wife were sepa-
rated by an insurmountable (or at least unsurmounted)
incompatibility of temperament. Louis was a man whose
first thought was duty. Hortense loved only gayety and
pleasure. He particularly objected to her dancing; she
was one of the most graceful dancers ever seen, and would
not give it up to please him. In short, she was all graceful,
captivating frivolity; he, rigid and exacting. Both had
burning memories in their hearts of what “ might have
been,” and above all, after Louis became king of Holland,
each took opposite political views. Louis wanted to govern
Holland as the good king of the Dutch ; Napoleon expected
him to govern it in the interests of his dynasty, and as a
Frenchman. The brothers disagreed most bitterly. Na-
poleon wrote indignant, unjust letters to Louis. Hortense
took Napoleon’s side in the quarrel, and led a French party
at the Dutch court.
Intense was the grief of Louis and Hortense, Napoleon
and Josephine, when the eldest son of this marriage, the
child on whom their hopes were set, died of the croup at
an early age. Hortense was wholly prostrated by her loss.
She had still one son, and was soon to have another. The
expected child was Charles Louis Napoleon, who was to
become afterwards Napoleon III.
Soon after Louis Napoleon’s birth, King Louis abdicated
the throne of Holland. He said he could not do justice
to the interests and wishes of his people, and satisfy his
brother at the same time. He retired to Florence, where
he lived for many years, only once more coming back toLOUIS NAPOLEON'S EARLY CAREER.
6l
public life, viz., in 1814, to offer his help to his brother
Napoleon, when others were deserting him.
Napoleon was very fond of Hortense’s little boys, though
in 1811 he had completed his divorce, had married the
Austrian archduchess, and had a son of his own.
Louis Napoleon has left us some fragmentary reminis-
cences of his childhood, which have a curious interest.
“My earliest recollections,” he says, “go back to my bap-
tism, and I hasten to remark that I was three years old when I
was baptized, in 1810, in the chapel at Fontainebleau. The
emperor was my godfather, and the Empress Marie Louise
was my godmother. Then my memory carries me back to Alal-
maison. I can still see my grandmother, the Empress Josephine,
in her salon, on the ground floor, covering me with her caresses,
and, even then, flattering my vanity by the care with which she
retailed my bons mots j for my grandmother spoiled me in every
particular, whereas my mother, from my tenderest years, tried
to correct my faults and to develop my good qualities. I re-
member that once arrived at Malmaison, my brother and I
were masters to do as we pleased. The empress, who passion-
ately loved flowers and conservatories, allowed us to cut her
sugar-canes, that we might suck them, and she always told us to
ask for anything we might want.
“ One day, when she wished to know as usual, what we would
like best, my brother, who was three years older than I, and
consequently more full of sentiment, asked for a watch, with a
portrait of our mother; but I, when the empress said : ‘ Louis,
ask for whatever will give you the greatest pleasure,’ begged to
be alloxved to go out and paddle in the gutter with the little
boys in the street. Indeed, until I was seven years old it was a
great grief to me to have to ride always in a carriage with four
or six horses. When, in 1S15, just before the arrival of the
allied army in Paris, we were hurried by our tutor to a hiding-
place, and passed on foot along the Boulevards, I felt the keen-
est sensations of happiness within my recollection. Like all
children, though perhaps even more than most children, soldiers
fixed my attention. Whenever at Malmaison I could escape
from the salon, I was off to the great gates, where there were
always grenadiers of the Garde Impdriale. One day, from a
ground-floor window I entered into conversation with one of
these old grognards who was on duty. He answered me laugh-
ing. I called out: ‘ I know my drill. I have a little musket!'62 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Then the grenadier asked me to put him through his drill, and
thus we were found, I shouting, ‘ Present arms ! Carry arms!
Attention ! ’ the old grenadier obeying, to please me. Imagine
my happiness ! I often went with my brother to breakfast with
the emperor. When he entered the room, he would come up to
us, take our heads in his hands, and so lift us on the table. This
frightened my mother very much, Dr. Corvisart having told her
that such treatment was very bad for children.”
The day before the Emperor Napoleon left Paris for the
campaign of Waterloo, Hortense carried her boys to the
Tuileries to take leave of him. Little Louis Napoleon con-
trived to run alone to his uncle’s cabinet, where he was
closeted with Marshal Soult. As soon as the boy saw the
emotion in the emperor’s face, he ran up to him, and bury-
ing his head in his lap, sobbed out: “ Our governess says
you are going to the wars, — don’t go; don’t go, Uncle.”
“And why not, Louis? I shall soon come back.” “Oh,
Uncle, those wicked allies will kill you ! Let me go with
you.” The emperor took the boy upon his knee and
kissed him. Then, turning to Soult, who was moved by the
little scene, he said, “ Here, Marshal, kiss him; he will
have a tender heart and a lofty spirit; he is perhaps the
hope of my race.”
After Waterloo, the emperor, who passed one night in
Paris, kissed the children at the last moment, with his foot
upon the step of the carriage that was to carry him the first
stage of his journey to St. Helena.
After this, Hortense and her boys were not allowed to
live in France. Protected by an aide-de-camp of Prince
Schwartzenberg, they reached Lake Constance, on the far-
thest limits of Switzerland. There, after a while, Queen
Hortense converted a gloomy old country seat into a refined
and beautiful home. A great trial, however, awaited her.
King Louis demanded the custody of their eldest son, and
little Napoleon was taken from his mother, leaving her only
Louis. Louis had always been a “ mother’s boy,” frail in
health, thoughtful, grave, loving, and full of sentiment.
Hortense’s life at Arenenberg was varied in the winter byLOUIS NAPOLEON’S EARLY CAREER.
63
visits to Rome. Her husband lived in Florence, and they
corresponded about their boys. But though they met
once again in after years, they were husband and wife no
more. Indeed, charming as Hortense was to all the circle
that surrounded her, tender as a mother, and devoted as a
friend, her conduct as a wife was not free from reproach.
She was a coquette by nature, and it is undeniable that
more than one man claimed to have been her lover.
After a while her son Louis went for four years to college
at Heidelberg. Mother and son never forget the possibil-
ities that might lie before them. When the Italian revolu-
tion broke out, in 1832, Hortense went to Rome, both her
sons being at that time in Florence with their father. Al-
though the elder was newly married to his cousin, the
daughter of King Joseph, both he and Louis were full of
restlessness, and caught the revolutionary fervor. They
contrived to escape from their father’s house and to join
the insurgents, to the great displeasure of both father an 1
mother; but they were fired by enthusiasm for Italian
liberty, and took the oaths as Carbonari.
King Louis and Queen Hortense were exceedingly dis-
tressed ; both foresaw the hopelessness of the Italian rising.
Queen Hortense went at once to Florence to consult her
husband, and it was arranged that she should go in pursuit
of her sons, inducing them, if possible, to give up all con-
nection with so hopeless a cause. But before she reached
them, the insurgents, who seem to have had no fixed plan
and no competent leader, had come to the conclusion that
Bonapartes were not wanted in a struggle for republican-
ism ; they therefore requested the young men to withdraw,
and their mother went after them to Ancona. On her way
she was met by her son Louis, who was coming to tell her
that his brother was dead. There has always been mystery
concerning the death of this young Napoleon. The accred-
ited account is that he sickened with the measles, and died
at a roadside inn on his way to Ancona. The unhappy
mother went into that little town upon the Adriatic with her
youngest son; but she soon found that the Austrians, having64 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
come to the help of the Pope, were at its gates. Louis,
too, had sickened with the measles. She hid him in an
inner chamber, and spread a report that he had escaped
to Corfu. She had with her an English passport for an
English lady, travelling to England with her two sons. She
was obliged to substitute a young Italian, who was compro-
mised, for her dead son; and as soon as Louis could rise
from his bed, they set out, meeting with many adventures
until they got beyond the boundaries of Italy. Under
cover of their English passport they crossed France, and
visited the Chateau of Fontainebleau, where the mother
pointed out to her son the scenes of his childhood.
The death of the Due de Reichstadt in July, 1832,
caused Louis Napoleon to consider himself the head of the
Napoleonic family. According to M. Claude, the French
Minister of Police, he came on this occasion into Paris, and
remained there long enough to dabble in conspiracy.
After spending a few months in England, mother and
son went back to Arenenberg, where they kept up a close
correspondence with all malcontents in France. The Le-
gitimists preferred them the house of Orleans, and the
republicans of that period—judging from their writings as
well as their acts—evidently believed that Louis Napoleon,
now head of the house of Bonaparte, represented repub-
lican principles based on universal suffrage, as well as the
glories of France.
One fine morning in October, 1836, Louis took leave of
his mother at Arenenberg, telling her that he was going
to visit his cousins at Baden. Stephanie de Beauharnais in
the days of the Empire had been married to the Grand
Duke of that little country. Queen Hortense knew her
son’s real destination, no doubt, for she took leave of him
with great emotion, and hung around his neck a relic which
Napoleon had taken from the corpse of the Emperor
Charlemagne when his tomb was opened at Aix-la-Cha-
pelle. It was a tiny fragment of wood, said to be from the
True Cross, set beneath a brilliant emerald. It seems pos-
sible that this may have been the little ornament found onLOUIS NAPOLEON'S EARLY CAREER. 65
the neck of the Prince Imperial after his corpse was stripped
by savages in Zululand.
With this talisman against evil, and with the wedding-
ring with which Napoleon had married Josephine, upon his
finger, Prince Louis Napoleon set out upon an expedition
so rash that we can hardly bring ourselves to associate it
with the character popularly ascribed to the Third Em-
peror Napoleon.
His plan was to overturn the government of Louis Phi-
lippe, and then appeal to the people by a plebiscite, — i. e.,
a question to be answered yes or no by universal suffrage.
This same plan he carried out successfully several times
during his reign.
He went from Arenenberg to Baden-Baden,1 where he
made his final arrangements. Strasburg was to be the scene
of his first attempt, and at Baden-Baden he had an inter-
view with Colonel Vamb^ry, who commanded the Fourth
Regiment of Artillery, part of the Strasburg garrison.
Louis Blanc, the republican and socialist historian,
writing in 1843, speaks thus of Louis Napoleon : —
“Brought up in exile, unfamiliar with France, Louis Bona-
parte had assumed that the bourgeoisie remembered only that
the Empire had curbed the Revolution, established social order,
and given France the Code Napoleon. He fancied that the
working-classes would follow the eagle with enthusiasm the
moment it appeared, borne, as of old, at the head of regiments,
and heralded by the sound of trumpets. A twofold error!
The things the bourgeoisie in 1836 remembered most distinctly
about Napoleon were his despotism and his taste for war; and
the most lasting impression of him amongst the most intelligent
in the working-classes was that whilst sowing the seeds of
democratic aspiration throughout Europe, he had carefully
weeded out all democratic tendencies in his own dominions.”
But though Louis Blanc is right in saying that the evil
that Napoleon did, lived after him in the memories of
thinking men, it is also true that those born since the fall
of the Second Empire can have no idea of the general
1 Louis Blanc, Dix Ans.
S66 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
enthusiasm that still lingered in France in Louis Philippe’s
reign, round memories of the glories of Napoleon. Men
might not wish him back again, but they worshipped him
as the national demigod. After Sedan he was pulled
down literally and metaphorically from his pedestal; and
the old feelings about him which half a century ago even
foreign nations seemed to share, now seem obsolete and
extravagant to readers of Lanfrey and the books of
Erckmann-Chatrian.
Even in 1836, when Louis Napoleon in secret entered
Strasburg, he was surprised and disappointed to find that
those on whom he had counted to assist him in making the
important “ first step” in his career, were very doubtful of
its prudence. He had counted on the co-operation of
General Voirol, an old soldier of the Empire who was in
command of the Department in which Strasburg was sit-
uated ; but when he wrote him a letter, in the most moving
terms appealing to his affection for the emperor, the old
general not only declined to join the plot, but warned the
Prefect of Strasburg that mischief was on foot, though he
did not mention in what quarter. The Government in
Paris seems, however, to have concluded that it would be
best to let a plot so very rash come to a head. There was
a public singer, calling herself Madame Gordon, at Baden,
who flung herself eagerly into the conspiracy. Louis
Napoleon on quitting Arenenberg had expected to meet
several generals of distinction, who had served under his
uncle, at a certain trysting-place between Arenenberg and
Strasburg. He waited for them three days, but they
never came. He then resolved to continue his campaign
without their aid or encouragement, and entered Stras-
burg secretly on the night of Oct. 28, 1836. The next
morning he had an interview with Colonel Vamb^ry, who
endeavored to dissuade him from his enterprise.
Vamb^ry’s prudent reasons made no impression on the
prince, and he then promised his assistance. Having
done so, Louis Napoleon offered him a paper, securing a
pension of 10,000 francs to each of his two children, inLOUIS NAPOLEON’S EARLY CAREER. 67
case he should be killed. The colonel tore it up, say-
ing, “ I give, but do not sell, my blood.” Major Parquin,
an old soldier of the Empire, who was in the garrison, had
been already won. On the night of the prince’s arrival
the conspirators met at his lodging.
Three regiments of infantry, three regiments of artil-
lery, and a battalion of engineers formed the garrison at
Strasburg. The wisest course would have been to appeal
first to the third regiment of artillery ; but other counsels
prevailed. The fourth artillery, whose adhesion to the
cause was doubtful, was chosen for the first attempt. All
depended upon the impression made upon this regiment,
which was the one in which Napoleon had served when
captain of artillery at Toulon.
The night was spent in making preparations. Procla-
mations were drawn up addressed to the soldiers, to the
city, and to France; and the first step was to be the
seizure of a printing-office.
At five o’clock in the morning the signal was given.
The soldiers of the fourth regiment of artillery were roused
by the beating of the assemblee. They rushed, half-dressed,
on to their parade-ground. Louis Napoleon, whose fate it
was never to be ready, was not prompt even on this occa-
sion ; he was finishing two letters to his mother. One
was to be sent to her at once if he succeeded, the other
if he failed.
On entering the barrack-yard he found the soldiers
waiting, drawn up in line. On his arrival the colonel
(Vamb^ry) presented him to the troops as the nephew of
Napoleon. He wore an artillery uniform. A cheer rose
from the line. Then Louis Napoleon, clasping a gilt
eagle brought to him by one of the officers, made a
speech to the men, which was well received. His cause
seemed won.
Next, followed by the troops, but exciting little enthusi-
asm in the streets of Strasburg as he passed along them
in the gray dawn of a cloudy day, Louis Napoleon made
his way to the quarters of General Voirol. The general68 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
emphatically refused to join the movement, and a guard
was at once set over him.
Up to this moment all had smiled upon the enterprise.
The printing of the proclamations was going rapidly on,
the third regiment of artillery was bringing out its guns
and horses, and the inhabitants of Strasburg, roused from
their beds, were watching the movement as spectators, pre-
pared to assist it or to oppose it, according as it made
its way to success or failure.
The prince, and the troops who supported him, next
marched to the barracks of the infantry. On their road
they lost their way, and approached the barracks in such a
manner that they left themselves only a narrow alley to
retreat by, in case of failure.
On the prince presenting himself to the guard, an old
soldier of the army of Napoleon kneeled and kissed his
hand, when suddenly one of the officers, who had his quar-
ters in the town, rushed upon the scene with his sword
drawn, crying : “ Soldiers, you are deceived ! This man is
not the nephew of the Emperor Napoleon, he is an im-
postor,— a relative of Colonel Vambery ! ”
This turned the tide. Whilst the soldiers stood irreso-
lute, the colonel of the regiment arrived. For a few
moments he was in danger from the adherents of the
prince. His own soldiers rushed to his rescue. A tumult
ensued. The little band of Imperialists was surrounded,
and their cause was lost.
Louis Napoleon yielded himself a prisoner. One or two
of the conspirators, among them Madame Gordon, man-
aged to escape ; the rest were captured.
News was at once sent by telegraph to Paris; but the
great wooden-armed telegraph-stations were in those days
uncertain and unmanageable. Only half of the telegram
reached the Tuileries, where the king and his ministers sat
up all night waiting for more news. At daybreak of Octo-
ber 30 a courier arrived, and then they learned that the
rising had been suppressed, and that the prince and his
confederates were in prison.LOUIS NAPOLEON’S EARLY CAREER.	69
Meantime the young officer in charge of Louis Napo-
leon’s two letters to Queen Hortense had prematurely come
to the conclusion that the prince was meeting with success,
and had hurried off the letter announcing the good news
to his mother.
How to dispose of such a capture as the head of the
house of Bonaparte was a great puzzle to Louis Philippe’s
ministers. They dared not bring him to trial; they dared
not treat him harshly. In the end he was carried to
Paris, lodged for a few days in the Conciergerie, and then
sent off, without being told his destination, to Cherbourg,
where he was put on board a French frigate which sailed
with orders not to be opened till she reached the equator.
There it was found that her destination was Rio Janeiro,
where she was not to suffer the prince to land, but after
a leisurely voyage she was to put him ashore in the United
States.
As the vessel was about to put to sea, an official personage
waited on the prince, and after inquiring if he had funds
enough to pay his expenses on landing, handed him, on the
the part of Louis Philippe, a considerable sum.
On reaching Norfolk, Virginia, the prince landed, and
learned, to his very great relief, that all his fellow-con-
spirators had been tried before a jury at Strasburg, and
acquitted !
He learned too, shortly afterwards, that his mother was
very ill. The shock of his misfortune, and the great exer-
tions she had made on his behalf when she thought his
life might be in danger, had proved too much for her.
Louis Napoleon recrossed the ocean, landed in England,
and made his way to Arenenberg. He was just in time to
see Queen Hortense on her death-bed, to receive her last
wishes, and to hear her last sigh.
After her death the French Government insisted that the
Swiss Confederacy must compel Louis Napoleon to leave their
territory. The Swiss refused, repaired the fortifications of
Geneva, and made ready for a war with France ; but Louis
Napoleon of his own free will relieved the Swiss Government7O FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
from all embarrassment by passing over into England,
where it was not long before he made preparations for a
new attempt to overthrow Louis Philippe’s government.
He lived quietly in London at that period, visiting few
persons except Count D’Orsay at Gore House, the resi-
dence of Lady Blessington, and occupying himself a great
deal with writing. He had already completed a Manual
of Artillery, and was engaged on a book that he called
“ Les Id6es napoHoniennes.” Its principal “idea” was
that France wanted an emperor, a definite head, but that
she also needed extreme democratic principles. Therefore
an empire ought to be founded on an expression of the will
of the people, —in plain words, on universal suffrage. The
mistake Napoleon III. made in his after career, as well as
in his “ Idties napoHoniennes,” was in not perceiving that an
empire without military glory would become a pool of
corruption, while vast military efforts, which would embroil
France with all Europe, would lose the support of the
bourgeoisie. “ In short,” as Louis Blanc has said, “ he
imagined a despotism without its triumphs; a throne sur-
rounded by court favorites, but without Europe at its foot-
stool ; a great name, with no great man to bear it, — the
Empire, in short, minus its Napoleon ! ”
During the months that Louis Napoleon passed in Lon-
don he was maturing the plot of a new enterprise. He
was collecting round him his adherents, some of them
Carbonaro leaders, with whom he had been associated in
Italy. Some were his personal friends; some were men
whose devotion to the First Napoleon made them ashamed
to refuse to support his nephew, even in an insurrection
that they disapproved ; while some were mere adventurers.
Very few persons were admitted to his full confidence ; the
affair was managed by a clique, “ the members of which had
been previously sounded ; and in general those were set aside
who could not embark in the undertaking heart and hand.”
By all these men Louis Napoleon was treated as an
imperial personage. To the Italians he stood pledged,
and had stood pledged since 1831, that if they helpedLOUIS NAPOLEON'S EARLY CAREER.
71
him to ascend the throne of France, he would fight after-
wards for the cause of Italy. This pledge he redeemed
at Solfcrino and Magenta, but not till after some impatient,
rash Italians (believing him forsworn) had attempted his
assassination.
In vain he was advised to wait, to let Louis Philippe’s
Government fall to the ground for want of a foundation.
He had made his decision, and was resolved to adhere to
it, not fearing to make that step which lies between the
sublime and the ridiculous.
The attempt had been in preparation ever since Louis
Napoleon had arrived in England. There were about
forty of his adherents living in London at his expense,
awaiting the moment for action. What form that action
was to take, none of them knew.1 It was resolved to make
the movement in the month of Augu-.t, 1840. The prince
calculated that the remains of his great uncle, restored by
England to France, being by that time probably on their
way from St. Helena, public enthusiasm for the great em-
peror would be at its height, and that he would have the
honor of receiving those revered remains when they had
been brought back from exile by Louis Philippe’s son.
Besides this, the garrisons of northern France happened
at that moment to contain the two regiments whose fidelity
he had tampered with at Strasburg four years before.
Of course there were French agents of police (detec-
tives, as we call them) watching the prince in London;
and this made it necessary that he should be very circum-
spect in making his preparations. A steamer, the “ Edin-
burgh Castle,” was secretly engaged. The owners and
the captain were informed that she was chartered by some
young men for a pleasure-trip to Hamburg.
On Tuesday, Aug. 4, 1840, the “Edinburgh Castle”
came up the Thames, and was moored alongside a wharf
facing the custom-house. As soon as she was at the wharf,
1 In this account I am largely indebted to the interesting narra-
tive of Count Joseph Orsi, an Italian banker, Prince Louis Napo-
leon’s stanch personal friend.72 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Count Orsi, who seems to have been the most business-
like man of the party, shipped nine horses, a travelling
carriage, and a large van containing seventy rifles and as
many uniforms. Proclamations had been printed in ad-
vance ; they were placed in a large box, together with
a little store of gold, which formed the prince’s treasure.
At dawn all this was done, and the " Edinburgh Castle ”
started down the river. At London Bridge she took in
thirteen men, and at Greenwich three more. At Black-
wall some of the most important conspirators came on
board. The boat reached Gravesend about two o’clock,
where twelve more men joined them. Only three or four
of those on board knew where they were going, or what
was expected of them. They were simply obeying
orders.
At Gravesend the prince was to have joined his followers,
and the “ Edinburgh Castle ” was at once to have put
to sea, touching, however, at Ramsgate before crossing
the Channel. Those on board waited and waited, but no
prince came.	Only five persons in the vessel (one of
whom was Charles Th^lin, the prince’s valet) knew what
they were there for.
For some time the passengers were kept quiet by break-
fast. Then, having no one at their head, they began to
grow unruly. Those in the secret were terribly afraid
that the river police might take notice of the large num-
ber of foreigners on board, especially as the vessel claimed
to be an excursion-boat, and not a petticoat was visible.
It was all important to catch the tide, — all important
to reach Boulogne before sunrise on the 5 th of August,
when their friends expected them. But no prince came.
Major Parquin, who had been one of the Strasburg con-
spirators, was particularly unmanageable; and late in the
afternoon he insisted on going ashore to buy some cigars,
saying that those on board were detestable. In vain Per-
signy and Orsi, who in the prince’s absence considered
themselves to be in command, assured him that to land
was impossible; Parquin would not recognize their au-LOUIS NAPOLEON’S EARLY CAREER.	73
thority. The rest of the story I will tell in Count Orsi’s
own words. He wrote his account in “ Fraser’s Magazine,”
1879 : —
“The wrath of the major was extreme. There was danger
in his anger. I consulted Persigny on the advisability of
letting him go on shore, with the distinct understanding that
he should be accompanied by me or by Charles Timlin.”
The truth, it may be suspected, was that Parquin was
drunk, or that, having suspected the object of the expe-
dition, he had some especial object in going ashore, which
he would not reveal to his fellow-conspirators.
“Persigny,” continues Count Orsi, “consented to the idea,
and Parquin and I got into the boat. The vessel was lying
in the stream. Thelin was with us. As we were walking to
the cigar-shop, the major remarked a boy sitting on a log
of wood and feeding a tame eagle with shreds of meat. The
eagle had a chain fastened to one of its claws. The major
turned twice to look at it, and went on without saying a word.
On our way back to the boat, however, we saw the boy within
two yards of the landing-place. The major went up to him,
and looking at the eagle, said in French, ‘ Is it for sale ? ’ The
boy did not understand him. ‘My dear Major,’ I said, ‘I
hope you do not intend to buy that eagle. We have other
things to attend to. For Heaven’s sake, come away ! ’ ‘Why
not? I will have it. Ask him what he asks for it.’”
The major paid a sovereign for the eagle, and this
unlucky purchase was the cause that endless ridicule was
cast on the expedition. It has always been supposed that
the eagle was one of the “ properties ” provided for the
occasion, and that it was intended to perch on the Na-
poleon Column at Boulogne. It may well be supposed
that this is not far from the truth, and that Major Parquin
had the eagle waiting for him at Gravesend. Eagles are
so very uncommon in England that it is unlikely that a
boy, without set purpose, would be waiting with a tame
one on a wharf at Gravesend. The unfortunate bird be-
came in the end the property of a butcher in Boulogne.74 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
By six p. m. the party in the “ Edinburgh Castle ” grew
very uneasy; the prince had not arrived. Count Orsi
took a post-chaise and drove overland to Ramsgate,
where Count Montholon (Napoleon’s fellow-exile at St.
Helena) and two colonels were waiting the arrival of the
steamer. Only one of these gentlemen had been let into
the plot, and Montholon was subsequently deeply wounded
by having been excluded.
About dawn, when this party had just gone to bed, the
“ Edinburgh Castle ” steamed up to the beautiful Ramsgate
pier; but it was already the hour when she should have
been off Boulogne.
A second time Louis Napoleon had damaged his chances
and risked his friends by his want of punctuality. He had
not taken proper precautions as to his mode of leaving
London. He found that the police were on the alert, and
it was late in the day before he contrived to leave his
house unseen. He might have made more exertion, but
he had quite forgotten the importance of the tide !
What was now to be done? Four hours is the passage
from Ramsgate to Boulogne. It would not do to arrive
there in broad daylight. They dared not stay at Ramsgate.
It became necessary to put to sea, and to steam about
aimlessly till night arrived. The captain and the crew
had to be told the object of the expedition, the van had
to be opened, and the arms and uniforms distributed.
This was done after dark, and no light was allowed on
board the steamer.
At three o’clock a. m. of Aug. 6, 1840, the “Edinburgh
Castle ” was off Wimereux, a little landing-place close to
Boulogne. The disembarkation was begun at once. The
steamer was ill provided with boats. She had but one,
and could only land eight men at a time. This was
one of the many oversights of the expedition.
At five a. m. the little troop, clad as French soldiers,
marched up to the barracks at Boulogne. The gates were
thrown open by friends within, and the prince and his
followers entered the yard. The reason why it had beenLOUIS NAPOLEON'S EARLY CAREER.
75
so important to reach Boulogne twenty-four hours earlier,
was that a certain Colonel Piguellier, who was a strong
republican, was sure to be against them. Some French
friends of the prince, who were in the secret, had there-
fore invited Colonel Piguellier to a shooting-party on the
4th, the invitation including one to pass the night at a
house in the country; but by the evening of the 5th he
had returned to his quarters in Boulogne.
At the moment of the prince’s entrance, with his little
troop, into the yard of the barracks, the soldiers of the
garrison were just getting out of their beds. The few who
were already afoot on different duties were soon made to
understand who the prince was, and what his party had
come for. At the name of Napoleon they rushed up to
the dormitories to spread the news. In a short time all
the men were formed in line in the barrack-yard.
The prince, at the head of his little troop, addressed
them. His speech was received with enthusiasm. At
that moment Colonel Piguellier, in full uniform, appeared
upon the scene. One of the prince’s party threatened to
fire on him with a revolver. His soldiers at once took his
part. It was the affair of Strasburg over again.
In vain, threats and promises were urged upon the
colonel. All he would say was: “ You may be Prince
Louis Napoleon, or you may not. Napoleon, your pre-
decessor, overthrew legitimate authority, and it is not right
for you to attempt to do the same thing in this place.
Murder me if you like, but I will do my duty to the last.”
The soldiers took the side of their commander. Resis-
tance was of no avail. The prince and his party were
forced to leave the barracks, the gates of which were shut
at once by Colonel Piguellier’s order. The only concession
the prince had been able to obtain was that he and his
followers should not be pursued by the troops, but be left
to be dealt with by the civil authorities.
The failure was complete. The day before, a party of
the prince’s friends had been at Boulogne on the lookout
for his arrival; but when they found he did not come, theyy6 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
had left the city. All that remained to be done was to
attempt to save the prince. He was almost beside him-
self. Apparently he lost his self-command, and men of
more nerve and experience did with him what they would.
He and his party reached the sea at last. The National
Guard of Boulogne began firing on them. The prince,
Count Persigny, Colonel Voisin, and Galvani, an Italian,
were put into a boat. As they pushed off, a fire of mus-
ketry shattered the little skiff, and threw them into the
water. Colonel Voisin’s arm was broken at the elbow, and
Galvani was hit in the body. The prince and Persigny
came up to the surface at some distance from the land.
Colonel Voisin and Galvani, being nearer to the shore, were
immediately rescued. Count Orsi says that as the prince
swam towards the steamer, still fired on by the National
Guard stationed on the heights, a custom-house boat headed
him off. But in Boulogne it was reported and believed
that he was captured and brought to land in a bathing
machine.
The prisoners were tried by a royal decree. No one
was sentenced to death, but the prince, Count Montholon,
Count Persigny, Colonel Voisin, Major Parquin, and an-
other officer were sent to the fortress of Ham, on the
frontier of Belgium, where they occupied the same quarters
as Prince Polignac and the other ministers of Charles X.
had done. Count Montholon, four months after, made
piteous appeals to be let out on parole for one day, that he
might be present when the body of Napoleon was brought
back to the capital.
The prince passed five years in prison, reading much,
and doubtless meditating much on the mistakes of his
career. Many plans of escape had been secretly pro-
posed to him, but he rejected all of them, fearing they were
parts of a trap laid for him by the authorities. It has al-
ways been believed, however, and it is probably true, that
Louis Philippe would have been very willing to have the
jailers shut their eyes while Louis Napoleon walked out of
their custody, believing that the ridicule that had attendedLOUIS NAPOLEON'S EARLY CAREER.	77
his two attempts at revolution had ruined his chances as a
pretender to the throne.
During the years Louis Napoleon was imprisoned at
Ham, he received constant marks of sympathy, especially
from foreigners. He was known to favor the project of an
interoceanic canal by the Nicaragua route between the At-
lantic and Pacific Oceans, and the Government of Nicaragua
proposed to him to become president of a company that
would favor its views, expressing the hope that he would
make himself as great in America by undertaking such a
work, as his uncle has made himself by his military
glory.
The illness of his father in Florence gave Prince Louis
Napoleon a good reason for asking enlargement on parole
from the French Government. Louis Philippe was willing
to grant this; but his ministers demurred, unless Louis
Napoleon would ask pardon loyalement. This Louis Napo-
leon refused to do; and having by this time managed to ex-
tract a loan of ,£6,000 from the rich and eccentric Duke of
Brunswick, he resolved to attempt an escape.
Here is the story as he told it himself when he reached
England. The governor of Ham, it must be premised, was
a man wholly uncorruptible. He was kind to his prisoner,
with whom he played whist every evening, but he was bent
on fulfilling his duty.
This duty obliged him to see the prince twice a day,
and at night to turn the key upon him, which he put into
his pocket.
The fortress of Ham forms a square, with a round tower
at each of the angles. There is only one gate. Between
the towers are ramparts, on one of which the prince daily
walked, and in one corner had made a flower-garden. A
canal ran outside the ramparts on two sides; barracks were
under the others. Thelin, the prince’s valet, was suffered
to go in and out of the fortress at his pleasure. On the
23d of May, 1845, ThHin went to St. Quentin, the nearest
large town, and hired a cabriolet, which was to meet him
the next day at an appointed place upon the high-road.78 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
The prince’s plan depended on there being workmen in
the prison, and he had been about to make a request to
have his rooms papered and painted, when the governor
informed him that the staircase was to be repaired. The
day before the one chosen for the attempt, two English
gentlemen, probably by a previous understanding, had
visited the prisoner, and he asked one of them to lend
his passport to the valet Th£lin.
“Very early on the morning of May 25th, the prince, Dr.
Conneau, and Thelin were looking out eagerly for the arrival of
the workmen. A private soldier whose vigilance they had reason
to dread had been placed on guard that morning, but by good
luck he was called away to attend a dress parade.
“ The workmen arrived. They proved to be all painters and
masons, —which was a disappointment to the prince, who had
hoped to go out as a carpenter. But at once he shaved off his long
moustache, and put over his own clothes a coarse shirt, a work-
man’s blouse, a pair of blue overalls much worn, and a black
wig. His hands and face he also soiled with paint; then, putting
on a pair of wooden shoes and taking an old clay pipe in his
mouth, and throwing a board over his shoulder, he prepared to
leave the prison. He had with him a dagger, and two letters
from which he never parted, — one written by his mother, the
other by his uncle, the emperor.
“ It was seven o’clock by the time these preparations were
made. Thdlin called to the workmen on the staircase to come
in and have a glass of wine. On the prince’s way downstairs
he met two warders. One Thelin skilfully drew apart, pretend-
ing to have something to say to him; the other was so intent on
getting out of the way of the board carried by the supposed
workman that he did not look in the prince’s face, and the
prince and Thelin passed safely into the yard.”
As he was passing the first sentinel, the prince let his pipe
fall from his mouth. He stooped, picked it up, and re-lighted
it deliberately.
“Close to the door of the canteen he came upon an officer
reading a letter. A little farther on, a few privates were sitting
on a bench in the sun. The concierge at the gate was in his
lodge, but his attention was given to Th£lin, who was following
the prince, accompanied by his dog Ham. The sergeant, whose
duty it was to open and shut the gate, turned quickly and lookedLOUIS NAPOLEON’S EARLY CAREER.
79
at the supposed workman ; but a movement the prince made at
that moment with his board caused him to step aside. He opened
the gate : the prince was free.
“ Between the two drawbridges the prince met two workmen
coming towards him on the side his face was exposed. He
shifted his board like a man weary of carrying a load upon one
shoulder. The men appeared to eye him with suspicion, as if
surprised at not knowing him. Suddenly one said : 1 Oh ! it is
Berthon ; ’ and they passed on into the fortress.”
The prince hastened with Thelin to the place where the
cabriolet engaged the day before was waiting for them.
As Louis Napoleon was about to fling away the board he
had been carrying, another cabriolet drove by. As soon as
it was out of sight, the prince jumped into his own, shook
the dust off his clothes, kicked off his wooden shoes, and
seized the reins. The fifteen miles to St. Quentin were
soon accomplished. The prince got out at some distance
from the town, and Thelin entered it alone, to exchange the
cabriolet for a postchaise. The mistress of the post-house
offered him a large piece of pie, which he thankfully ac-
cepted, knowing that it would be a godsend to his master.
A woman, whom they had passed upon the highway on
entering the town, took Thelin aside and asked him how
he came to be driving with such a shabby, common
man that morning; for Thtdin was well known in the
neighborhood.
Before he rejoined the prince with the pie and the post-
chaise, Louis Napoleon had become very impatient. See-
ing a carriage approach, he stopped it, and asked the
occupant if he had seen anything of a postchaise coming
from St. Quentin. The traveller proved afterwards to have
been the prosecuting attorney of the district (le procureur
du roi).
It was nine in the evening when the prince, Th£Iin, and
the dog Ham were safely in the carriage. They reached
Valenciennes at a quarter to three a. m., and had to wait
more than an hour at the station for the train. The prince
had discarded his working clothes, but still wore his black wig.
The train arrived at last. By help of the Englishman’s pass-80 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
port the prince safely crossed the frontier, and soon reached
Brussels. Thence he went by way of Ostend to London.
He was not in time to see his father, who died in Florence
before he could get permission from the German States to
cross the continent.
All the French papers treated his escape as a matter of no
consequence. Immediately on reaching London, he wrote
a letter to Louis Philippe, pledging himself to make no fur-
ther attempt to disturb the peace of France during his reign.
He probably judged that the end of the Orleans dynasty
might be near.
His escape from prison was not known until the evening;
Dr. Conneau gave out that he had been very ill during the
night, but under the influence of opiates was sleeping
quietly. The governor insisted on remaining all day in the
sitting-room, and finally upon seeing him. In the dim
light of the sick chamber he saw only a figure, with its
face turned to the wall, covered up in the bed-clothes.
At last he became suspicious. ThHin’s prolonged ab-
sence seemed unaccountable. A closer examination was
insisted on, and the truth was discovered. Nobody was
punished except Dr. Conneau, who suffered a few months’
imprisonment.LOUIS PHILIPPE
(u The Citizen King.")CHAPTER IV.
TEN YEARS OF THE REIGN OF THE CITIZEN KING.
BESIDES the affairs of the Duchesse de Berri, of Louis
Napoleon, of Fieschi and his infernal machine, and
difficulties attending on the marriage of the Duke of
Orleans, the first ten years of Louis Philippe’s reign were
full of vicissitudes. France after a revolution is always an
“ unquiet sea that cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire
and dirt.” Frenchmen do not accept the inevitable as
Americans have learned to do, through the working of their
institutions.
One of the early troubles of Louis Philippe was the
peremptory demand of President Jackson for five million
dollars, — a claim for French spoliations in 1797. This
amount had been acknowledged by the Government of
Louis Philippe to be due, but the Chambers were not will-
ing to ratify the agreement. In the course of the negotia-
tions the secretary of General Jackson, having occasion to
translate to him a French despatch, read, “ The French
Government demands —” “ Demands ! ” cried the gen-
eral, with a volley of rough language ; “ if the French Gov-
ernment dares to demand anything of the United States, it
will not get it.”
It was long before he could be made to understand the
true meaning of the French word demands, and his own
demands were backed with threats and couched in terms
more forcible than diplomatic. The money was paid after
the draft of the United States for the first instalment had
been protested, and France has not yet forgotten that when
682 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
she was still in the troubled waters of a recent revolution,
she was roughly treated by the nation which she had
befriended at its birth.
The greatest military success in Louis Philippe’s reign
was the capture of Constantine in Algeria. So late as 1810
Algerine corsairs were a terror in the Mediterranean, and
captured M. Arago, who was employed on a scientific expe-
dition.1 In 1835, France resolved to undertake a crusade
against these pirates, which might free the commerce of the
Mediterranean. The enterprise was not popular in France.
It would cost money, and it seemed to present no material
advantages. It was argued that its benefits would accrue
only to the dynasty of Louis Philippe, that Algeria would be
a good training-school for the army, and that the main duty
of the army in future might be to repress republicanism.
In 1834, a young Arab chief called Abdul Kader, the son
of a Marabout of great sanctity, had risen into notice.
Abdul Kader was a man who realized the picture of Saladin
drawn by Sir Walter Scott in the “ Talisman.” Brave,
honorable, chivalrous, and patriotic, his enemies admired
him, his followers adored him. When he made his first
treaty with the French, he answered some doubts that were
expressed concerning his sincerity by saying gravely : “ My
word is sacred ; I have visited the tomb of the Prophet.”
Constantine, the mountain fortress of Oran, was held, not
by Abdul Kader, but by Ahmed Bey, the representative
of the sultan’s suzerainty in the Barbary States. The first
attack upon it failed. The weather and the elements fought
against the French in this expedition. General Changarnier
distinguished himself in their retreat, and the Due de
Nemours showed endurance and bravery.
From the moment of that repulse, popular enthusiasm
was aroused. A cry rang through France that Constantine
must be taken. It was captured two years later, after a
1 About the same time they took prisoner a cousin of my father,
John Warner Wormeley, of Virginia. He was sold into slavery ; but
when tidings of his condition reached his friends, he was ransomed by
my grandfather.REIGN OF THE CITIZEN KING.
83
biege in which two French commanders-in-chief and many
generals were killed. Walls fell, and mines exploded ; the
place at last was carried by assault. At one moment, when
even French soldiers wavered, a legion of foreign dare-
devils (chiefly Irishmen and Englishmen) were roused by
an English hurrah from the man who became afterwards
Marshal Saint-Arnaud. With echoing cheers they followed
him up the breach, the army followed after them, and the
city was won.
Louis Philippe had been raised to power by four great
men, — Lafayette, Laffitte, Talleyrand, and Thiers. Of these,
Laffitte and Lafayette retained little influence in his coun-
cils, and both died early in his reign. In 1838 died
Talleyrand, — the prince of the old diplomatists. The king
and his sister, Madame Adelaide, visited him upon his
death-bed. Talleyrand, supported by his secretary, sat up
to receive the king. He was wrapped in a warm dressing-
gown, with the white curls he had always cherished, flowing
over his shoulders, while the king sat near him, dressed in
his claret-colored coat, brown wig, and varnished boots.
Some one who was present whispered that it was an inter-
view between the last of the ancienne noblesse and the first
citizen bourgeois. But the old courtier was touched by the
intended kindness, and when the king was about to go
away, he said, half rising : “ Sire, this honor to my house
will be gratefully remembered in the annals of my family.”
Deep and true was the grief felt for the loss of Talleyrand
in his own household; many and bitter have been the
things said of his character and his career. He himself
summed up his life in some words written shortly before
his death, which read like another verse in the Book of
Ecclesiastes : —
“Eighty-three years have rolled away! How many cares,
how many anxieties! How many hatreds have I inspired, how
many exasperating complications have I known ! And all this
with no other result than great moral and physical exhaustion,
and a deep feeling of discouragement as to what may happen in
the future, — disgust, too, as I think over the past.”84 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
A writer in “ Temple Bar ” (probably Dr. Jevons) speaks
of Prince Talleyrand thus : —
“ On his private life it would be unfair to pass judgment with-
out taking into consideration the turbulence and lawlessness,
the immorality and corruption both social and political, which
characterized the stormy epoch in which he was called to play
a very prominent part. If he did not pass through it blameless,
he was less guilty than many others ; if his hands were not pure,
at least they were not blood-stained; and it is possible that, as
Bourienne, who knew him well, says: ‘History will speak as
favorably of him as his contemporaries have spoken ill.’ ”
The summer of rS40 seemed peaceful and serene, when
a storm burst suddenly out of a cloudless sky. It was a
new phase of that Eastern Question which unhappily was
not settled in the days of the Crusades, but has survived to
be a disturbing element in the nineteenth century. Two
men were engaged in a fierce struggle in the East, and, as
usual, they drew the Powers of the West and North into
their quarrel.
Sultan Mahmoud, who had come to the throne in 1808,
had done his best to destroy the power of his pashas. He
hated such powerful and insubordinate nobles, and after the
destruction of the Mamelukes in i8ir, he placed Egypt
under the rule of the bold Macedonian soldier, Mehemet
Ali, not as a pasha, but as viceroy. In course of time, as
the dominions of Sultan Mahmoud became more and more
disorganized by misgovernment and insurrection, Mehemet
Ali sent his adopted son, Ibrahim Pasha, with an army into
Syria. Ibrahim conquered that province and governed it
far better than the Turks had done, when he was stopped
by a Russian army (1832), which, under pretence of assist-
ing the sultan, interfered in the quarrel. An arrangement
was effected by what is called the treaty of Unkiar-Thelessi.
Ibrahim was to retain the pashalik of Syria for his life, and
Russia stipulated that no vessels of war should be allowed
to pass the Dardanelles or Hellespont without the consent
of the sultan.REIGN OF THE CITIZEN KING.
35
Mehemet Ali, who was anxious above all things to have
his viceroyalty in Egypt made hereditary, that he might
transmit his honors to his brave son, cast about in every
direction to find friends among European diplomatists. Six
years before, he had proposed to England, France, and
Austria a partition of the sultan’s empire. “ Russia,” he
said, “ is half mistress of Turkey already. She has estab-
lished a protectorate over half its subjects, who are Greek
Christians, and where she professes to protect, she oppresses
instead. If she seizes Constantinople, there is the end of
your European civilization. I am a Turk, but I propose to
you to inaugurate a crusade which will save Turkey and
save Europe. I will raise my standard against the czar; I
will put at your disposal my army, fleet, and treasure; I
will lead the van ; and in return I ask only my independence
of the Porte and an acknowledgment of me as an hereditary
sovereign.” This proposition was promptly declined. It
was renewed, in 1838, in a modified form, but again Eng-
land, France, and Austria would not listen to the viceroy’s
reasoning. Mehemet Ali became a prey to despair.
Sultan Mahmoud meantime was no less a victim to re-
sentment and anxiety. He hated his enforced subservience
to Russia, and above all he hated his great subject and rival,
Mehemet Ali. With fury in his heart he watched how,
shred by shred, his great empire was wrenched away from
him, — Greece, Syria, Servia, Algiers, Moldavia, and Wal-
lachia. Little remained to him but Constantinople and its
surrounding provinces. Russia, all-powerful in the Black
Sea, could at any moment force him to give up to her the
key of the Dardanelles. Among the Turks (the only part
of his subjects on whom he could rely) were many mal-
contents. Fanatic dervishes predicted his overthrow, and
called him the Giaour Sultan. He had destroyed Turkish
customs, outraged Turkish feelings, and by the massacre o
the Janissaries, in 1826, he had sapped Turkish strength.
He now began in his own person to set at nought the pre-
cepts of the Koran. All day he worked with frenzy, and at
night he indulged himself in frightful orgies, till, dead drunk,86 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
he desisted from his madness, and was carried by his slaves
to his bed.1
In the early months of 1839 Mahmoud made quiet prep-
arations to thrust Ibrahim Pasha out of Syria ; and in June
a great battle was fought between the Egyptians and the
Turks on the banks of the Euphrates, in which Ibrahim
Pasha, by superior generalship, wholly defeated the Turkish
commander, Hafiz Pasha.
Sultan Mahmoud never heard of this disaster. He
died of delirium tremens the very week that it took place,
and his son, Abdul Medjid, mounted his throne. Ibrahim
Pasha immediately after his victory had made ready to
threaten Constantinople, when despatches from his father
arrested him. Mehemet wrote that France had promised
to take the part of Egypt, and to settle all her difficulties
by diplomacy.
Meantime the new sultan, or his vizier, having offended
the Capitan Pasha (or Admiral of the Fleet), that officer
thought proper to carry the ships under his command over
to Mehemet Ali.
It was a proud day for the viceroy when the Turkish
ships sailed into the harbor of Alexandria. This defection
of the fleet so discouraged Abdul Medjid that he offered his
vassal terms of peace, by which he consented to Mehemet’s
hereditary viceroyalty in Egypt, and Ibrahim Pasha’s he-
reditary possession of the pashalik of Syria.
But the Great Powers would not consent to this dismem-
berment of the Turkish Empire. A fierce struggle in diplo-
macy took place between France and England, which might
have resulted in an open rupture, had not Louis Philippe
and Marshal Soult (then Minister for Foreign Affairs in
France) been both averse to war. The old marshal had
seen more than enough of it, and Louis Philippe felt that
peace alone could strengthen his party, — the bowgeoisie.
Mehemet Ali, his rights and his wrongs, seem to have been
entirely overlooked in the tempest of diplomacy.
After some weeks of great excitement the Five Great
1 Louis Blanc, Dix Ans.REIGN OF THE CITIZEN KING.
87
Powers agreed among themselves that Mehemet Ali should
become the Khedive, or hereditary viceroy, of Egypt, but
that he must give up Syria. To this he demurred, and the
allied troops attacked Ibrahim Pasha. Admiral Sir Charles
Napier bombarded his stronghold, St. Jean d’Acre, and
forced him into submission. The triumph of Lord Palmer-
ston’s policy was complete ; as Charles Greville remarked :
“ Everything has turned out well for him. He is justified
by the success of his operations, and by the revelations in
the French Chambers of the intentions of M. Thiers; and
it must be acknowledged he has a fair right to plume him-
self on his diplomacy.”
After the death of Talleyrand, only M. Thiers remained of
the four great men who had assisted Louis Philippe to attain
supreme power. M. Thiers was not insensible to the ad-
vantage it would be to his History of the Consulate and
Empire, if he could add to it a last and brilliant chapter
describing the restoration to France of the mortal re-
mains of her great emperor. Therefore in the early
part of 1840, before any disturbance of the entente cor-
diale, he made a request to the English Government for
the body of Napoleon, then lying beneath a willow-tree
at Longwood, on a desolate island that hardly seemed
to be part of the civilized world. Lord Palmerston re-
sponded very cordially, and Louis Philippe’s third son,
the Prince de Joinville, in his frigate, the “ Belle Poule,”
attended by other French war-ships, was despatched
upon the errand. Napoleon had died May 5, rS2i.
For almost twenty years his body had reposed at St.
Helena. With the Prince de Joinville went Bertrand and
Gourgaud, who had been the Emperor’s companions in
captivity.
The coffin was raised and opened. The face was per-
fect. The beard, which had been shaved before the burial,
had apparently a week’s growth. The white satin which
had lined the lid of the coffin had crumbled into dust, and
lay like a mist over the body, which was dressed in a green
uniform, with the cocked hat across its knees.88 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
The corpse was transferred to another coffin brought
from France, and was carried over the rough rocks of St.
Helena by English soldiers. All the honors that in that
remote island England could give to her former captive
were respectfully offered; and early in December, 1840,
news arrived in Paris that the “ Belle Poule ” had reached
Havre.
This was sooner than her arrival had been looked for,
and at once all Paris was in a scramble of preparation.
Laborers and artists worked night and day. The weather
was piercingly cold. Indeed, no less than three hundred
English were said to have died of colds contracted on the
day of the funeral procession.
The body was landed at Courbevoie from a flat-bottomed
barge that had been constructed to bring it up the Seine.
Courbevoie is about two miles from the Arch of Triumph,
which is again nearly the same distance from the Place de
la Concorde.
Between each gilded lamp-post, with its double burners,
and beneath long rows of leafless trees, were colossal plaster
statues of Victory, alternating with colossal vases burning
incense by day, and inflammable materials for illumination
by night. Thus the procession attending the body had
about five miles to march from the place of disembarkation
to the Invalides, on the left bank of the Seine. The spec-
tators began to assemble before dawn. All along the route
scaffoldings had been erected, containing rows upon rows of
seats. All the trees, bare and leafless at that season, were
filled with freezing gamins. All the wide pavements were
occupied. Before long, rows of National Guards fringed the
whole avenue. They were to fall in behind the procession
as it passed, and accompany it to the Invalides.
The arrival of the funeral barge had been retarded while
the authorities hastened the preparations for its reception.
When the body of Napoleon was about to re-land on French
soil, “ cannon to right of it, cannon to left of it, volleyed and
thundered.” The coffin was received beneath what was
called a votive monument, — a column one hundred feet inREIGN OF THE CITIZEN KING.
89
height, with an immense gilded globe upon the top, sur-
mounted by a gilded eagle twenty feet high. Banners and
tripods were there ad libitum, and a vast plaster bas-relief
cast in the “Belle Poule’s” honor.
The coffin, having been landed, was placed upon a cata-
falque, the cannon gave the signal to begin the march, and
the procession started. The public was given to understand
that in a sort of funeral casket blazing with gold and purple,
on the top of the catafalque, twenty feet from the ground,
was enclosed the coffin of the Emperor; but it was not
so. The sailors of the “ Belle Poule ” protested that the
catafalque was too frail, and the height too great. They
dared not, they said, atttempt to get the lead-lined coffin up
to the place assigned for it, still less try to get it down again.
It was consequently deposited, for fear of accident, on a low
platform between the wheels.
First came the gendarmes, or mounted police, with
glittering brazen breastplates, waving horse-hair crests,
fine horses, and a band of trumpeters ; then the mounted
Garde Municipale; then Lancers; then the Lieutenant-
General commanding the National Guard of Paris, sur-
rounded by his staff, and all officers, of whatever grade, then
on leave in the capital. These were followed by infantry,
cavalry, sappers and miners, Lancers, and Cuirassiers, staff-
officers, etc., with bands and banners. Then came a car-
riage containing the chaplain who had had charge of the
body from the time it left St. Helena, following whom were a
crowd of military and naval officers. Next appeared a led
charger, son of a stallion ridden by Napoleon, and soon
after came a bevy of the marshals of France. Then all
the banners of the eighty-six departments, and at last the
funeral catafalque.
As it passed under the Arch of Triumph, erected by
Napoleon in commemoration of his victories, there were
hundreds in the crowd who expected to see the Emperor
come to life again.
Strange to say, the universal cry was “Vive l’empereur ! ”
One heard nowhere “ Vive le roi ! ”gO FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
The funeral car was hung with purple gauze embroidered
with golden bees. As I said, the coffin of the Emperor was
suffered to repose upon a gilded buckler supported by four
golden caryatides; but it was, as the sailors would have said,
“ stowed safely in the hold.”
The catafalque was hung all over with wreaths, emblems,
and banners. It had solid gilded wheels, and was drawn by
eight horses covered with green velvet, embroidered with
gold bees; each horse was led by a groom in the Bonaparte
livery. At the four corners of the car, holding the tassels of
the pall, rode two marshals, an admiral, and General Ber-
trand, who had shared the captivity of the Emperor. Count
Montholon was not suffered to leave his imprisonment for
the occasion, though he also had been a companion of the
Emperor at St. Helena. Around the catafalque marched the
five hundred sailors of the “ Belle Poule,” headed by their
captain, the Prince de Joinville, — slender, tall, and dark,
a very naval-looking man. He was supposed to be intensely
hostile to England, and only to be kept in check by a strong
hand. Then came all the Emperor’s aides-de-camp who
were still living, and all the aged veterans in Paris who had
served under him. This was the most touching feature of the
procession. Many tears were shed by the spectators, and
a thrill ran through the hearts of eight hundred thousand
people as the catafalque creaked onward, passing under the
arch which celebrated Napoleon’s triumphs, and beneath
which at other times no carriage was allowed to pass. But
enthusiasm rose to the highest point at the sight of the vete-
rans in every kind of faded uniform, — Grenadiers of the
Guard, Chasseurs, Dragoons of the Empress, Red Lancers,
Mamelukes, Poles, and, above all, the Old Guard. “ Vive
la Vieille Garde ! ” shouted the multitude ; “ Vive les Polo-
nais ! Vive l’empereur ! ”
The funeral was a political blunder. It stirred up the
embers of Napoleonism. Ten years later they blazed into
a consuming fire.
The procession passed through the Place de la Concorde,
beneath the shadow of the obelisk of Luxor, which of oldREIGN OF THE CITIZEN KING.
91
had looked on triumphs and funeral processions in Egypt;
then it crossed the Seine. On the bridge were eight colossal
statues, representing prudence, strength, justice, war, agri-
culture, art, commerce, and eloquence.
The statues along the Champs Elys^es were Victories,
each inscribed with the name of some Napoleonic battle.
Great haste had been required to get them ready. At the last
moment Government had had to order from certain manu-
factories pairs of wings by the dozen, and bucklers and
spears in the same way. All night the artists had been
fixing these emblems on their statues. A statue of Marshal
Ney, which had been ordered among those of the other
marshals, was found to be, not of colossal, but of life size.
It had to be hurriedly cut into three parts. The deficiency
in the torso was concealed by flags, and the “bravest of the
brave ” took his place on a par with his comrades.
On the steps of the Chamber of Deputies was a colossal
statue of Immortality, designed for the top of the Pantheon,
but pressed into service on this occasion, holding forth a
gilded crown as if about to place it on the coffin of the
Emperor.
At the gate of the Invalides was another genuine statue,
Napolehn in his imperial robes was holding forth the cordon
of the Legion of Honor. This statue had been executed
for the Pillar at Boulogne commemorative of the Army of
England. It was surrounded by plaster statues of the depart-
ments of France, and was approached through a long line of
marshals, statesmen, and the most illustrious of French kings,
among them Louis XIV., who would have been much aston-
ished to find himself rendering homage to a soldier of barely
gentlemanly birth, born on an island which was not French
in his time.
The coffin was borne by sailors into the Chapelle Ardente
at the Invalides. “ Sire,” said Prince de Joinville to his father,
“ I present to you the body of the Emperor Napoleon.”
“ I receive it in the name of France,” replied the king.
Then Marshal Soult put the Emperor’s sword into the
king’s hand. “ General Bertrand,” said the king, “ I charge92 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
you to lay it on the coffin of the Emperor. General Gour-
gaud, place the Emperor’s hat also on the coffin.”
Then began the appropriate religious ceremonies, and
during the following week the public were admitted to view
the coffin as it lay in state in the Chapelle Ardente. The
crowd was very great. Women fainted daily, and many were
almost pressed to death against the gilded rails.
After all, there was little to see. The coffin was enclosed
in a sort of immense cage to keep it from intrusion, the air
was heavy with incense, and the light was too dimly religious
to show anything with distinctness.
A splendid tomb has since been erected to Napoleon in
the Chapel of the Invalides, where he rests under the care
of the war-worn soldiers of France. Few now can be living
who fought under him. Not a Bonaparte was at his funeral;
the only one then upon French soil was in a prison.
Napoleon sleeps where in his will he prayed that his re-
mains might rest, — on the banks of the Seine.CHAPTER V.
SOME CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1848.
FTER the signing of the treaty of 1841, which restored
the entente con/ia/e between France and England,
and satisfied the other European Powers, Louis Philippe
and his family were probably in the plenitude of their pros-
perity. The Duke of Orleans had been happily married ;
and although his wife was. a Protestant, — which was not
wholly satisfactory to Queen Marie Amdlie, — the character
of the Duchesse Helene was so lovely that she won all hearts,
both in her husband’s family and among the people.
On the occasion of the fetes given in Paris at the nuptials
of the Duke of Orleans, in 1837, the sad presage of mis-
fortune that had accompanied the marriage festivities of
Marie Antoinette was repeated. One of the spectacles
given to the Parisians was a sham attack on a sham cit-
adel of Antwerp in the Champ de Mars. The crowd was
immense, but all went well so long as the spectacle lasted.
When the crowd began to move away, a panic took place.
The old and the feeble were thrown down and trampled
on. Twenty-four persons were killed, the fetes were broken
up, and all hearts were saddened both by the disaster and
the omen.
One part of the festivities on that occasion consisted in
the opening of the galleries of historical paintings at Ver-
sailles, — a magnificent gift made by the Citizen King to his
people.
I have spoken already of the storming of Constantine.
No French success since the wars of the Great Napoleon94 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
had been so brilliant; yet the Chamber of Deputies, in
a fit of parsimony, reduced from two thousand to eleven
hundred dollars the pension proposed by the ministers
to be settled on the widow of General Damremont, the
commander-in-chief, who had been killed by a round shot
while giving orders to scale the walls. At the same time
they voted two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the
year’s subsidy to the theatres of Paris for the amusement
of themselves and their constituents.
Algeria proved a valuable school for soldiers; there
Lamoriciere, Changarnier, Cavaignac, Saint-Arnaud, Pris-
sier, and Bugeaud had their military education. Louis
Philippe’s three sons were also with the troops, sharing all
the duties, dangers, and hardships of the campaign.
By the end of 1847 Abdul Kader had retired to a strong-
hold in the mountains, where, seeing that his cause was
lost, he tendered his submission to the Due d’Aumale,
then governor of Algeria. The offer was accepted. Abdul
Kader surrendered on an understanding that he should be
conducted to some Mohammedan place of refuge, — Alexan-
dria or St. Jean d’Acre. But this stipulation was disre-
garded by the French Government, whose breach of faith
has always been considered a stain on the honor of Louis
Philippe and his ministers. The Due d’Aumale vehe-
mently remonstrated, believing his own word pledged to
the Arab chieftain. Abdul Kader, his wives, children, ser-
vants, and principal officers were taken to France, and for
five years lived at Amboise, where some of the subordinate
attendants, overcome by homesickness, committed suicide.
In 1852 Louis Napoleon, who possibly had a fellow-feeling
for captives, restored Abdul Kader to liberty, who there-
upon took up his residence at Damascus. There he
subsequently protected a large number of Christians from
massacre, sheltering them in his house, and giving them
food and clothing. He afterwards removed to the island
of Ceylon, where, as everywhere else, he won “ golden
opinions ” by his generous behavior.
Meantime, while France was in some respects in the fullCAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1848.	95
tide of prosperity, great discontent was growing up among
the working-classes, reinforced by the worthless class, always
ready for disturbances. In May, 1839, Barbes led an
entente in Paris which might have proved formidable. His
attempt opened with a deliberate murder, and there was
considerable fighting in the streets for about twenty-four
hours. Barbes was condemned to death. The king was
desirous to spare him, and yielded readily to the prayers of
his sister, for whom an opportunity of interceding for him
was obtained by the good offices of Lamartine.
The entente of Barbes was regarded with disfavor by more
experienced conspirators, but secret societies had intro-
duced organization among the workmen. Moreover, they
were led by the bourgeoisie with a cry for parliamentary
reform, which at that period was the supposed panacea for
every kind of evil.
The king was not popular. He was not the ideal French-
man. He was a Frenchman of the epicier, or small grocer,
type. As a bon p'ere de famille he was anxious to settle his
sons well in life. They were admirable young men, they
deserved good wives, and as far as grace, beauty, and ami-
ability went, they all obtained them; but up to 1846 not
one of them had made a brilliant marriage. This good
fortune Louis Philippe hoped was reserved for his two
younger sons, — D’Aumale and Montpensier.
The Duke of Orleans was the most popular of the king’s
sons. Handsome, elegant, accomplished, and always care-
ful in his toilet, he was a thorough Frenchman, — the ap-
proved type of an aristocrat with liberal sympathies and
ideas. He was born at Palermo in 1810, and did not come
to France till he was four years old. He had an excellent
tutor, who prepared him for his college. There he took his
place entirely on a par with other boys, and gained several
prizes. All Louis Philippe’s sons were sent to public
schools.
The duke afterwards prepared for and entered the Poly-
technic, which is said to demand more hard study than
any other school in the world. He made his first campaign96 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
in Africa in 1835, and afterwards served with distinction
in the early part of that one which resulted in the retreat
from Constantine; but before Constantine was reached, a
severe illness invalided him. He was a liberal in politics,
the sincere friend of the working-classes, and was on inti-
mate terms with men of letters, even with Victor Hugo, in
spite of his advanced opinions. He was a patron of art
and artists. Some beautiful table-pieces that he had or-
dered, by Barye, are now in the gallery of Mr. W. S. Walters,
of Baltimore, they not having been completed when he died.
His wife charmed every one by her good sense, grace, and
goodness. They had had four years of happy married life,
and had two little sons, when, in July, 1842, the duchess
went for her health to the baths of Plombieres, in the
mountains of the Vosges. Her husband escorted her
thither, and then returned to Paris, on his way to at-
tend some military manoeuvres near Boulogne.
As he was driving out to Neuilly to make his adieux
to his family, the horses of his carriage were startled by an
organ-grinder on the Avenue de Neuilly. The duke, who
was alone, tried apparently to jump out of the carriage.
Had he remained seated, all would have been well. He
fell on his head on the pave of the broad avenue, breaking
the vertebral column.
He was carried into a small grocer’s shop by the way-
side, where afterwards a little chapel was erected by his
family. Messengers were sent to the Chateau de Neuilly,
and his father, mother, and sisters, without bonnets or hats,
came rushing to the spot. He lived, unconscious, for four
hours. A messenger was despatched at once to bring his
wife from Plombieres. She had just finished dressing for
dinner, in full toilet, when the news reached her. Without
changing her dress, she started instantly for Paris, but when
she reached it, her husband was in his coffin.
When his will was opened, it was found to contain an
earnest exhortation to his son that, whether he proved
“ one of those tools that Heaven fits for work, but does not
use,” or ascended the French throne, he “ should alwaysCAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1848.	97
hold in his heart, above all things, love to France, and fidel-
ity to the principles of the French Revolution.”
Here is the poor Queen Amalie’s account of the death of
her son, written to a dear friend four days after : —
“ My Chartres,1 my beloved son, he whose birth made all my
happiness, whose infancy and growing years were all my occu-
pation, whose youth was my pride and consolation, and who
would, as I hoped, be the prop o£ my old age, no longer lives.
He has been taken from us in the midst of completed happi-
ness, and of the happiest prospects of the future, whilst each
day he gained in virtue, in understanding, in wisdom, following
the footsteps of his noble and excellent father. He was more
than a son to me, -—he was my best friend. And God has taken
him from me! . . . On the 2d of July he and Hdl&ne left for
PlombRres, where the latter was to take the baths. He was,
after establishing her there, to come back and spend a few days
at the camp of St.-Omer, there to take command of an army
corps, which was intended to execute great military manoeuvres
on the Marne, and which had been the object of his thoughts
and employments for a year past. Accordingly, on the 9th he
returned from Plombi&res, and came to dine with us at Neuilly,
full of the subject of the elections, and talking of them with that
warmth of heart and intellect which was apparent in all he did.
Next day —my fete day — he came, contrary to his usual cus-
tom, with an enormous bouquet, telling me it was given in the
name of the whole family. He heard mass, and breakfasted
with us. He was so cheerful. He sat beside me at dinner.
He got up, drank my health with much vivacity, and made the
band play a particular tune, — in my honor, as he said. Who
would have thought that this was the last time this dear child
was to show me so much affection! On the nth he again re-
turned to dinner with us, much occupied all the time with the
camp and the elections. . . .
“ On the 12th he arrived about fouro’clock inhis country suit.
We conversed together about the health of H^Rne, which was
a subject of anxiety, about Clementine’s marriage, which he
earnestly desired; about the elections and many other subjects,
the discussion of which he always ended with the refrain: ‘In
short, dear Majesty, we finish as usual by agreeing in all impor-
tant particulars.’ And it was very true.
1 It was his first title before his father came to the throne. His
mother always continued to use it.
798 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
“ After dinner we took a turn in the park, he and Victoire,
Clementine, D’Aumale, and I. Never had he been so gay, so
brilliant, so affectionate. He spoke to me of his arrangements
for the troops, of the time when the king was to go with us to
Ste.-Menehoulde, of the time that he would spend there, and
of his own daily occupations. He looked forward to giving his
father a representation of the battle of Valmy. I gave him my
arm, saying : 1 Come, dear prop of my old age ! ’ And the next
day he was to be alive no longer !
“We returned to the drawing-room a little late. A great
many people had arrived. He remained with us talking until
ten o’clock, when on going away he came to bid me good-night.
I gave him my hand, and said : ‘You will come and see us to-
morrow before going away ? ’ He replied: ‘ Perhaps so.’
“On the next day, July 13, about eleven o’clock, we were
about to get into the carriage to go to the Tuileries. As I fol-
lowed the king to the red drawing-room, I saw Troussart, the
commissary of police, with a terrified countenance whispering
something to General Gourgaud, who made a gesture of horror,
and went to speak in a low voice to the king. The king cried
out: ‘ Oh, my God ! ’ Then I cried : ‘ Something has happened
to one of my children ! Let nothing be kept from me ! ’ The
king replied: ‘Yes, my dear; Chartres has had a fall on his
way here, and has been carried into a house at Sablonville.’
Hearing this, I began to run like a madwoman, in spite of the
cries of the king and the remonstrances of M. de Chabannes,
who followed me. But my strength was not equal to my im-
pulses, and on getting as far as the farm, I was exhausted.
Happily the king came up in the carriage with my sister, and I
got in with them. Our carriage stopped. We got out in haste,
and went into the cabaret, where in a small room, stretched
upon a mattress on the floor, we found Chartres, who was at
that moment being bled. . . . The death-rattle had begun.
‘ What is that ? ’ said the king to me. I replied : ‘ Mon ami,
this is death. For pity’s sake let some one fetch a priest, that
my poor child may not die like a dog!’ and I went for a mo-
ment into a little side room, where I fell on my knees and im-
plored God from my inmost soul, if He needed a victim, to take
me and spare so dear a child. . . .
“ Dr. Pasquier arrived soon after. I said to him : ‘ Sir, you are
a man of honor; if you think the danger imminent, I beseech
you tell me so, that my child may receive extreme unction.’ He
hung his head, and said : ‘ Madame, it is true.’
“ The curl of Neuilly came and administered the sacrament
while we were all on our knees around the pallet, weeping andCAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1S4S.
99
praying. I unloosed from my neck a small cross containing a
fragment of the True Cross, and I put it into the hand of my
poor child, that God the Saviour might have pity on him in his
passage into eternity. Dr. Pasquier got up and whispered to
the king. Then that venerable and unhappy father, his face
bathed in tears, knelt by the side of his eldest son, and tenderly
embracing him, cried : 1 Oh that it were I instead of thee ! ’ I
also drew near and kissed him three times, — once for myself,
once for Hdline, and once for his children. I laid upon his lips
the little cross, the symbol of our redemption, and then placed
it on his heart and left it there. The whole family kissed him
by turns, and then each returned to his place. . . . His breath-
ing now became irregular. Twice it stopped, and then went on.
I asked that the priest might come back and say the prayers
for the dying. He had scarcely knelt down and made the sign
of the cross, when my dear child drew a last deep breath, and
his beautiful, good, generous, and noble soul left his body. . . .
The priest at my request said a De profundis. The king wanted
to lead me away, but I begged him to allow me to embrace for
the last time my beloved son, the object of my deepest tender-
ness. I took his dear head in my hands; I kissed his cold and
discolored lips; J placed the little cross again upon them, and
then carried it away, bidding a last farewell to him whom I
loved so well, — perhaps too well!
“The king led me into the next room. I fell on his neck.
We were unhappy together. Our irreparable loss was common
to us both, and I suffered as much for him as for myself. There
was a crowd in that little room. I wept and talked wildly, and
I was beside myself. I recognized no one but the unhappy
Marshal Gdrard, the extent of whose misfortune I then under-
stood.1 After a few minutes they said that all was ready. The
body had been placed on a stretcher covered with a white cloth.
It was borne by four men of the house, attended by two gen-
darmes. They went out through the stable-yard; there was an
immense crowd outside. . . . We all followed on foot the inan-
imate body of this dear son, who a few hours before had passed
over the same road full of life, strength, and happiness. .
Thus we carried him, and laid him down in our dear little cha-
pel, where four days before he had heard mass with the whole
family.”
The death of the Duke of Orleans was the severest blow
that could have fallen on Louis Philippe, not only as a
1 Marshal Gerard was then mourning for his son.IOO FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
father, but as head of a dynasty. The duke left two infant
sons, — the Comte de Paris and the Due de Chartres. The
former is now both the Orleanist and Legitimist pretender
to the French throne.
In the early part of 1845 Louis Philippe, who had already
visited Windsor and been cordially received there, was vis-
ited in return at his Chateau d’Eu by Queen Victoria and
Prince Albert, accompanied by Lord Aberdeen, then Eng-
lish Minister for Foreign Affairs. The king’s reception of
the young queen was most paternal. He kissed her like a
father, and did everything in his power to make her visit
pleasant. Among the subjects discussed during the visit
was the question of “the Spanish marriages.”
The unfortunate Queen of Spain, Isabella II., was just
sixteen years old; her sister, the Infanta Luisa, was a year
younger. Isabella was the daughter of a vicious race, and
with such a mother as she had in Queen Christina, she had
grown up to early womanhood utterly ignorant and un-
trained. One of her ministers said of her that “ no one
could be astonished that she had vices, but the wonder was
that she had by nature so many good qualities.” Jolly,
kindly, generous, a rebel against etiquette, and an habitual
breaker of promises, she was long popular in Spain, in
spite of a career of dissoluteness only equalled by that of
Catherine of Russia.
In 1846, however, she had not shown this tendency, and
in the hands of a good husband might have made as good
a wife and as respectable a woman as her sister Luisa has
since proved.
There were many candidates for the honor of Queen
Isabella’s hand. Louis Philippe sent his sons D’Aumale and
Montpensier to Madrid to try their fortunes ; but England
objected strongly to an alliance which might make Spain
practically a part of France. The candidature of the
French princes was therefore withdrawn.
A prince of the Catholic branch of the Coburgs was
then proposed, — Prince Ferdinand, who made subsequently
an excellent king-consort in Portugal; but to him FranceCAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF ISiS.	101
objected, as too nearly allied to the English Crown. Finally
the suitors were reduced to three, — the queen’s cousin
Enrique (Henry), a rough sailor of rather radical opinions
and turbulent ways; the Comte de Trepani, a Neapolitan
prince, a man of small understanding ; and another cousin,
Don Francisco d’ Assis, a creature weak alike in mind and
body, whom it was an outrage to think of as fit mate for
a young queen. England was willing to consent to the
queen’s marrying any one of these princes, and also
that the Due de Montpensier should marry the Infanta
Luisa, provided that the queen was first married and had
had a child. All this was fully agreed upon in the confer-
ence at Eu. But Christina, the queen-mother, who had
been plundering the Spanish treasury till she had accumu-
lated an enormous fortune, offered, if Louis Philippe would
use his influence to prevent any inquiry into the state of her
affairs, to further his views as to the Due de Montpensier.
It seems more like a scene in the Middle Ages than an
actual transaction in our own century, that at midnight, in
a Spanish palace, a dissolute Italian dowager and a French
ambassador should have been engaged in coercing a sover-
eign of sixteen into a detested marriage. As morning
dawned, the sobbing girl had given her consent to marry
Don Francisco, and the ambassador of Louis Philippe, pale
from the excitement of his vigil, left the palace to send
word of his disgraceful victory to his master. The Due
de Montpensier, who was in waiting on the frontier, soon
arrived in Madrid, and Isabella and Luisa were married on
the same day ; while M. Guizot, who was head of the French
Government, and Louis Philippe excused their breach of
faith to the queen of England by saying that Queen
Isabella was married before her sister, though on the
same morning.
Isabella at once banished her unwelcome husband to a
country seat, and flung herself headlong into disgraceful
excesses.
Queen Victoria was greatly hurt by the treachery dis-
played by Louis Philippe and his minister, and doubtless,102 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
as a woman, she was deeply sorry for the young queen.
Louis Philippe not only lost credit, popularity, and the sup-
port he derived from the personal friendship of the Queen
and the Prince Consort of England, but he obtained no
chance of the throne of Spain for his son by his wicked
devices; for Queen Isabella, far from being childless, had
three daughters and a son. The latter, subsequently Alfonso
XII., married, in spite of much opposition, his lovely cousin
Mercedes, daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Mont-
pensier. She died a few months after her marriage, so that
no son or grandson of Louis Philippe will be permitted
by Providence to mount the Spanish throne.
The affair of the Spanish marriages, the quarrel it in-
volved with Queen Victoria, and the loss to Louis Philippe
of personal honor, had a great effect upon him ; he became
irritable and obstinate, and at the same time weak of will.
Troubles multiplied around him. Things with which he
had nothing whatever to do increased his unpopularity, and
the secret societies kept discontents alive. Everything that
went wrong in France was charged upon the king and the
royal family.
One of the great families in France was that of Choiseul-
Praslin. The head of it in Louis Philippe’s time was a
duke who had married Fanny, daughter of Marshal Sd-
bastiani, an old officer of Napoleon and a great favorite
with Louis Philippe. The Due de Praslin had given in
his adhesion to the Orleans dynasty, while so many old
families stood aloof, and was in consequence made an
officer in the Duchess of Orleans’ household. The Due
and Duchesse de Praslin had ten children. The duchess
was a stout, matronly little woman, rather pretty, with
strong affections and a good deal of sentiment. Several
times she had had cause to complain of her husband, and
did complain somewhat vehemently to her own family; but
their matrimonial differences had always been made up by
Marshal S£bastiani. The world considered them a happy
married pair.
After seventeen years of married life a governess wasCAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF !Sf8.	103
engaged for the nine daughters, a Mademoiselle Henriette
de Luzy. She was a Parisian by birth, but had been edu-
cated in England, had English connections, and spoke
English fluently. She was one of those women who make
a favorable impression upon every one brought into per-
sonal contact with them. Soon the children adored her,
and it was not long before the duke had come under the
same spell. The duchess found herself completely isolated
in her own household; husband and children had alike
gone over to this stranger. The duchess wrote pathetic
letters to her husband, pleading her own affection for him,
and her claims as a wife and a mother. These letters no
doubt exasperated the duke, but we read them with deep
pity for her whose heart they lay bare.
It is to be understood that there was apparently no
scandal — that is, scandal in the usual sense — in the
relations between the duke and Mademoiselle de I.uzy.
She had simply bewitched a weak man who had grown
tired of his wife, and had cast the same spell over his
children ; and she had not the superiority of character which
would have led her to throw up a lucrative situation because
she was making a wife and mother (whom doubtless she
considered very unreasonable) extremely unhappy.
At last things came to such a pass that, Madame de
Praslin appealed to her father, insisting on a legal sepa-
ration from her husband. The marshal intervened, and
the affair was compromised. Mademoiselle de Luzy was to
be honorably discharged, and the duchess was to renounce
her project of separation. Mademoiselle de Luzy there-
fore gave up her situation, and went to board in a pension
in Paris with her old schoolmistress. Madame de Praslin
went to her country house, the magnificent Chateau de
Vaux, where she herself undertook the education of her
children; but in their estimation she by no means replaced
Mademoiselle de Luzy, whom from time to time they visited
in company with their father.
In the middle of the summer of 1847 it was arranged
that the whole family should go to the seaside, and they104 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
came up to Paris to pass one night in the Faubourg Saint-
Honor6 at the Hotel S^bastiani. Like most French estab-
lishments, the Hotel Sdbastiani was divided between the
marshal and his daughter, the old marshal occupying
one floor during the winter, the duke and duchess, with
their family, the one above it, while the servants of both
establishments had their sleeping-rooms under the roof.
The house was of gray stone, standing back in a yard;
the French call such a situation entre cour et jardin. The
duke had been in Paris several times during the previous
week, and had occupied his own rooms, where the con-
cierge and his wife — the only servants left in the house —
had remarked that he seemed very busy.
It was afterwards reported in the neighborhood, but I do
not think the circumstance was ever officially brought out,
that the police found subsequently that all the screws but
one that held up the heavy tester over the bed of the
duchess, had been removed, and the holes filled with wax;
it is certain that the duke partly unscrewed the bolt that
fastened the door of her dressing-room.
On the evening of the family’s arrival in Paris, the father
and children went in a carriage to see Mademoiselle de
Luzy. She told the duke that she could get a good situ-
ation, provided the duchess would give her a certificate of
good conduct; and the duke at parting promised to obtain
it for her.
The whole family went to bed early, that they might be
ready to start for the seaside betimes upon the morrow.
The children’s rooms were in a wing of the building, at
some distance from the chambers of their father and
mother. The concierge and his wife slept in their lodge.
Towards one o’clock in the morning they were awakened
by screams; but they lay still, imagining that the noise
came from the Champs Elys^es. Then they heard the
loud ringing of a bell, and starting from their bed, rushed
into the main building. The noise had proceeded from
the duchess’s chamber. They knocked at the door, but
there was no answer, only low moans. They consultedCAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF IS48.	105
together, and then roused the maid and valet, who were
sleeping in the attic chambers. Again they knocked, and
there was no answer. The valet then went to the duke’s
room, which looked upon the garden and communicated
with the dressing-room of the duchess by a balcony and
window as well as by the door. The duke opened the
door of his chamber. He was in his dressing-gown. When
he heard what was the matter, he went at once through the
window into the duchess’s chamber. There a scene of
carnage unparalleled, I think, in the history of murder met
their eyes. The duchess was lying across her bed, not yet
quite dead, but beyond the power of speech. There were
more than forty wounds on her body. She must have
struggled desperately. The walls were bloody, the bell-
rope was bloody, and the floor was bloody. The night-
dress of the duchess was saturated with blood. Her hands
were cut almost to pieces, as if she had grasped the blade
of the knife that killed her. The furniture was overturned
in all parts of the room.1
At once the valet and the concierge ran for the police,
for members of the family, and for a doctor. The duke
retired to his dressing-room. One of the gentlemen who
first arrived was so sickened by the sight of the bloody
room that he begged for a glass of water. The valet
ran for the nearest water at hand, and abruptly entered
the duke’s dressing-room. He had a glass with him, and
was going to fill it from a pail standing near, when the
duke cried out : “ Don’t touch it; it is dirty; ” and at
once emptied the contents out of the window', but not
before the valet had seen that the water was red with blood.
This roused his suspicions, and when all the servants in the
house were put under arrest, he said quietly to the police :
“You had better search the duke’s dressing-room.”
When this was done there could be no more doubt.
Three fancy daggers were found, one of which had always
hung in the chamber of the duchess. All of them were
1 We were then living near the Hotel Sebastini. The excitement
in the neighborhood the next morning is indescribable.106 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
stained with blood. The duke had changed his clothes,
and had tried to wash those he took off in the pail whose
bloody water he had thrown away. Subsequently it was
conjectured that his purpose had been to stab his wife in
her sleep, and then by a strong pull to bring down upon her
the heavy canopy. The bolt he had unscrewed permitted
him at dead of night quietly to enter her chamber.
The police were puzzled as to how they ought to treat
the murderer. As he was a peer of France, they could not
legally arrest him without authority from the Chamber of
peers, or from the king. The royal family was at Dreux.
The king was appealed to at once, and immediately gave
orders to arrest the duke and to summon the peers for his
trial. But meantime the duke, who had been guarded by
the police in his own chamber, had contrived to take
poison. He took such a quantity of arsenic that his
stomach rejected it. He did not die at once, but lingered
several days, and was carried to prison at the Luxembourg,
where the poison killed him by inches. He died untried,
having made no confession.
His son, who was very young at the time of his parents’
death, married an American lady when he grew to man-
hood. It was a long courtship, for the young duke’s in-
come went largely to keep in repair his famous Chateau de
Vaux, where Fouquet had entertained Louis XIV. with regal
magnificence. Finally a purchaser was found for the an-
cestral seat; and relieved of the obligations it involved, the
duke married, and retired to his estates in Corsica.
As to Mademoiselle de Luzy, she was tried for complicity
in the murder of the duchess, and acquitted. There was
no evidence whatever against her. But popular feeling
concerning her as the inciting cause of the poor duchess’s
death was so strong that by the advice of her pastor—the
Protestant M. Coquerel — she changed her name and came
to America. She brought letters of introduction to a family
in Boston, who procured her a situation as governess in
Connecticut. There she soon after married a Congrega-
tional minister.CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF ISiS. 107
It seems hard to imagine how such a tragedy could have
borne its part among the causes of Louis Philippe’s down-
fall ; but those who look into Alison or Lamartine will
see it set down as one of the events which greatly assisted
in bringing about the revolution of February. Mobs,
like women, are often swayed by persons rather than by
principles.
It was believed by the populace that court favor had pre-
vented the duke from going to prison like any common
criminal, and that the same influence had procured him the
poison by which he escaped a public execution.CHAPTER VI.
THE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS PHILIPPE.
S I said in the last chapter, everything in the year
1847 and during the opening weeks of 1848 seemed
unfavorable to Louis Philippe. Besides the causes of dis-
satisfaction I have mentioned, there was a scarcity of grain,
there were drains on the finances, there was disaffection
among the National Guard, and hostility among the peers
to the measures of the Ministry. Then came the conviction
of M. Teste, a member of the Cabinet, for misappropriating
public funds. Even private affairs seemed turned against
the royal family. Madame Lafarge murdered her husband,
and it was said that the co'urt had attempted to procure
her acquittal because she was connected with the house of
Orleans by a bar-sinister. A quarrel about an actress led
to a duel. The man wounded was a journalist who was
actively opposed to the king’s Government. It was hinted
that the duel was a device of the court to get him put out
of the way. But the greatest of the king’s misfortunes was
the death of his admirable sister, Madame Adelaide, in
January, 1848. She had been all his life his bosom friend
and his chief counsellor. She died of a severe attack of
influenza.
In a letter from the Prince de Joinville to the Due de
Nemours, found in the garden of the Tuileries in Feb-
ruary, 1848, among many valuable documents that had
been flung from the windows of the palace by the mob,
the situation of things at the close of 1847 and the begin-
ning of 1848 is thus summed up by one brother writing
in confidence to another : —THE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS PHILIPPE. 109
"The king will listen to no advice. His own will must be
paramount over everything. It seems to me impossible that in
the Chamber of Deputies at the next session the anomalous
state of the government should fail to attract attention. It has
effaced all traces of constitutional government, and has put for-
ward the king as the primary, and indeed sole, mover upon all
occasions. There is no longer any respect for ministers ; their
responsibility is null, everything rests with the king. He has
arrived at an age when he declines to listen to suggestions. He
is accustomed to govern, and he loves to show that he does so.
His immense experience, his courage, and his great qualities
lead him to face danger; but it is not on that account the less
real or imminent.”
Then, after further summing up the state of France, — the
finances embarrassed, the entente cordiale with England at
an end, and the provinces in confusion, — the prince adds :
“Those unhappy Spanish marriages! — we have not yet
drained the cup of bitterness they have mixed for us to
drink.”
In this state of things the opposition party was divided
into liberals who wished for reform, and liberals who
aimed at revolution. For a while the two parties worked
together, and their war-cry was Reform ! There was little
or no parliamentary opposition, for the Chamber of Peers
and the Chamber of Deputies were alike virtually chosen
by the Crown. The population of France in 1848 was
thirty-five millions ; but those entitled to vote were only two
hundred and forty thousand, or one to every one hundred
and forty-six of the population, and of these a large part
were in Government employ. It wras said that the number
of places in the gift of the Ministry was sixty-three thou-
sand, every place, from that of a guard upon a railroad to
that of a judge upon the bench, being disposed of by minis-
terial favor.
The plan adopted to give expression to the public dis-
content was the inauguration of reform banquets. To these
large crowds were attracted, both from political motives
and from a desire in the rural districts to hear the great
speakers, Lamartine and others, who had a national renown.IIO FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Many of the speeches were inflammatory. The health of
the king was never drunk on these occasions, but the “ Mar-
seillaise ” was invariably played.
Seventy-four of these banquets had been given in the
provinces, when it was decided to give one in Paris; and a
large inclosed piece of ground on the Rue Chaillot, not far
from the Arch of Triumph, was fixed upon for the pur-
pose. This banquet was to take place on Tuesday, Feb. 22,
1848. Until Monday afternoon opinions seemed divided
as to whether it would be suffered to go on. But mean-
time the city had been crammed with troops, and the sleep
of its inhabitants had been broken night after night by the
tramp of regiments and the rumble of artillery. Monday,
February 21, was a beautiful day, the air was soft and genial,
the streets and the Champs Elys£es were very gay. Scarcely
any one was aware at that time that it was the intention of
the Government to forbid the banquet; but that night the
preparations made for it were carted away by order of the
liberal leaders, who had been warned of the decision of the
authorities, while at the same time every loose paving-stone
that might help to erect a barricade was, by orders from the
police, removed out of the way.
When morning dawned, a proclamation, forbidding the
banquet, was posted on every street-corner. The soldiers
were everywhere confined to their quarters, the windows of
which were stuffed with mattresses; but to residents in Paris
the day seemed to pass quietly, though about noon the
Place de la Madeleine was full of men surrounding the
house of Odillon Barrot, the chief leader of the opposition,
demanding what, under the circumstances, they had better
do. In the Place de la Concorde, troops were endeavoring
to prevent the crowd from crossing the Seine and assem-
bling in front of the Chamber of Deputies. In order to
break up the throng upon the bridge, a heavy wagon was
driven over it at a rapid pace, escorted by soldiers, who
slashed about them with their sheathed swords. At the
residence of M. Guizot, then both Prime Minister and Min-
ister for Foreign Affairs, a large crowd had assembled andTHE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS PHIUPTE. Ill
had broken his windows; but the rioters were dispersed by
the Municipal Guard and the Police.
In the afternoon, on the Place de la Concorde, a party of
men and boys, apparently without leaders, contrived to
break through the troops guarding the bridge, and began to
ascend the steps of the Chamber of Deputies. Being re-
fused admission to the hall, they proceeded to break win-
dows and do other damage. Then a party of dragoons
began to clear the bridge, but good-humoredly, and tire
people were retiring as fast as they might, when a detach-
ment of the Municipal Guard arrived. The Municipal
Guard was a handsome corps of mounted police, the men
being all stalwart and fine-looking. They wore brazen hel-
mets and horse-tails and glittering breastplates, but they
were very unpopular, while the National Guards were looked
on by the rioters as their supporters. The Municipal
Guards, when they came upon the bridge, began treating
the crowd roughly, a good many persons were hurt, and an
old woman was trodden down. At this the crowd grew
furious, stones were thrown, and the soldiers drew their
swords. Before nightfall there was riot and disorder all
over Paris. Towards dusk the rappel—the signal for the
National Guard to muster — had been beaten in the streets,
and soon many soldiers of that body might be seen, escorted
by men in blouses carrying their guns, while the National
Guards, unarmed, were shouting and singing.
All Tuesday, February 22, the affair was a mere riot. But
during the night the secret societies met, and decided on
more formidable action.
The next morning was chilly and rainy, very dispiriting
to the troops, who had bivouacked all night in the public
squares, where they had been ill-provided with food
and forage. The coats and swords of the students at the
Polytechnic had been removed during the night, to pre-
vent their joining the bands who were singing the “ Mar-
seillaise ” and the “ Dernier Chant des Girondins ” under
their windows.
Meantime barricades had been raised in the thickly112 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
populated parts of Paris, and successful efforts had been
made to enlist the sympathies of the soldiers and the
National Guard.
During the early hours of Wednesday, the 23d, reports of
these disaffections succeeded each other rapidly at the
Tuileries, and a council was held in the king’s cabinet, to
which the queen and the princes were invited. The king
spoke of resigning his crown, adding that he was “ fortunate
in being able to resign it.” “ But you cannot abdicate, mon
ami," said the queen. “ You owe yourself to France. The
demand made is for the resignation of the Ministry. M.
Guizot should resign, and I feel sure that being the man of
honor that he is, he will do so in this emergency.”
M. Guizot and his colleagues at once gave in their resig-
nations. The king wept as he embraced them, bidding
them farewell. Count MoH was then called in and re-
quested to form a ministry. Before he could do so, how-
ever, things had grown worse, and M. Thiers, instead of
Count M0I6, was made head of the Cabinet. He insisted
that Odillon Barrot, the day before very popular with the
insurgents, must be his colleague. The king declined to
assent to this. To put Odillon Barrot into power, he said,
was virtually to abandon the policy of his reign.
But before this matter was decided, there had occurred
a lamentable massacre at the gates of the residence of M.
Guizot, the Minister for Foreign Affairs. The building had
been surrounded by a fierce crowd, composed mainly of
working-men from the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Some con-
fusion was occasioned by the restlessness of a horse belong-
ing to an officer in command of a squad of cavalry detailed
to defend the building. The leader of the mob fired a
pistol. The soldiers responded with a volley from their
carbines. Fifty of the crowd were killed. The bodies
were piled by the mob upon a cart and paraded through
Paris, the corpse of a half-naked woman lying conspicuously
among them. The sight everywhere woke threats of
vengeance.
The king, when he heard of this, yielded. Odillon Bar-THE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS PHILIPPE. 11 3
rot was associated with M. Thiers, and Marshal Bugeaud was
placed i# command of the military.
M. Thiers’ foible was omniscience; and to Bugeaud’s
amazement, amusement, and indignation he insisted on in-
specting his military plans and giving his advice concerning
them. Happily the marshal’s plans met with the approval
of the minister, and the commander-in-chief went to
his post; while Odillon Barrot, accompanied by Horace
Vernet, the painter, went forth into the streets to inform
the insurgents that their demand for reform had been
granted, that the obnoxious ministers had been dismissed,
and that all power was made over to himself and to his
colleagues.
Marshal Bugeaud found everything in wild confusion at
the War Office ; but was restoring order, and had marched
four columns of troops through Paris without serious op-
position, when he received orders from M. Thiers that not
another shot was to be fired by the soldiers. The marshal
replied that he would not obey such orders unless he re-
ceived them from the king. The Due de Nemours therefore
signed the paper in the name of his father, and soon after-
wards a new proclamation was posted on the walls : —
Citizens! An order has been given to suspend all firing.
We are charged by the king to form a ministry. The Chamber
is about to be dissolved. General Lamorici&re has been ap-
pointed Commander-in-Chief of the National Guard. Mes-
sieurs Odillon Barrot, Thiers, Lamorici&re, and Duvergier de
Haurannes are ministers. Our watchwords are, — Order,
Union, Reform !
(Signed)	Odillon Barrot.
Thiers.
This proclamation may be said to have been the begin-
ning of the end. The soldiers were disgusted ; supporters
of the monarchy lost heart; the secret societies now felt that
the game was in their hands. By that time barricades with-
out number, it was said, had been thrown up in the streets.
The suburbs of Paris were cut off from the capital. During
the previous night, arms had been everywhere demanded
8114 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
from private houses; but in obtaining them the insurgents
endeavored to inspire no unnecessary terror. One1 lady in
the English quarter was found kneeling by the bedside of
her dying child. When a party of armed men entered
the chamber they knelt down, joined their prayers to hers
for the soul that was departing, and then quitted the room
in silence, placing a guard and writing over the door in
chalk : “ Respect this house, for death is here.”
By nine o’clock on Wednesday morning the troops, dis-
gusted by the order which forbade them to defend them-
selves, reversed their arms and fraternized with the people,
the officers sheathing their swords.
A little later, Odillon Barrot, who supposed himself to be
the people’s favorite, rode along the Boulevard to proclaim to
the rioters that he was now their minister, and that the cause
of reform was assured. He was met with cries of “ Never
mind him ! We have no time to hear him ! Too late, too
late ! We know all he has to say ! ” About the same time
the Rcole Militaire was taken ; but a guard en blouse was
posted to protect the apartments of the ladies of the gov-
ernor. The fight before the Palais Royal occurred about
noon. The palace, which was the private property of Louis
Philippe, was sacked, and many valuable works of art were
destroyed.
The royal family were sitting down to breakfast about
midday when a party of gentlemen, among them M. fimile
de Girardin, made their way into the Tuileries, imploring
the king to abdicate at once and spare further bloodshed.
Without a word, Louis Philippe drew pen and paper towards
him and wrote his abdication. Embracing his grandson,
the little Comte de Paris, he went out, saying to the gentle-
men about him : “ This child is your king.”
Through the Pavilion de l’Horloge, the main entrance
to the Tuileries, came a party of dragoons, leading their
horses down the marble steps into the gardens. The victo-
rious blouses already filled the inner court, the Place du Car-
rousel. The royal family, slenderly attended, followed the
king. The crowd poured into the Tuileries on the side ofTIIE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS PHILIPPE. I 15
the Carrousel as the royal family quitted it through the
gardens.
In the Place de la Concorde, beneath the old Egyptian
obelisk which had witnessed so many changes in this
troubled world, they found two cabs in waiting. The king
and queen entered one, with several of the children. Into
the second stepped the Duchesse de Nemours, the Princess
Clementine, and an attendant. Some persons in the crowd
who recognized them, cried out: “ Respect old age ! Re-
spect misfortune ! ” And when an officer in attendance
called out to the crowd not to hurt the king, he was
answered: “Do you take us for assassins? Let him get
away!”
This, indeed, was the general feeling. Only a few persons
ventured to insult the royal family. The coachmen, how-
ever, drove off in such haste that the Spanish princess,
Luisa, Duchesse de Montpensier, was left alone upon the side-
walk, weeping bitterly. A Portuguese gentleman gave her
his arm, anrd took her in search of her husband’s aide-
de-camp, General Thierry. With several other gentlemen,
who formed a guard about her, they passed back into the
garden of the Tuileries, where M. Jules de Lasteyrie, the
grandson of Lafayette, took possession of the duchess and
escorted her to his own house. From thence, a few days
later, he forwarded her to the coast, where she rejoined her
husband.
When the king quitted the Tuileries he was urged to
leave behind him a paper conferring the regency on the
Duchess of Orleans. He refused positively. “ It would
be contrary to law,” he said; “ and I have never yet done
anything, thank God ! contrary to law.” “ But what must
I do,” asked the duchess, “ without friends, without rela-
tions, without counsel?” “ DIa chere Helene,” the king
replied, “the dynasty and the crown of your son are in-
trusted to you. Remain here and protect them.”
As the mob began to pour into the palace after the
king’s departure, the duchess, by the advice of M. Dupin,
the President (or Speaker) of the Chamber, set out on foot116 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
to cross the bridge nearest to the palace, and to reach the
Palais Bourbon. She held her eldest son, the Comte de
Paris, by the hand; her youngest, who was too small to
walk, was carried by an aide-de-camp. Beside them
walked M. Dupin, the Due de Nemours, and a faithful
servant. They left the Tuileries in such haste that they
failed to give orders to the faithful Garde Municipale, who
would have suffered the fate of the Swiss Guard in 1792,
had not National Guards in the crowd assisted them to
change their conspicuous uniforms and to escape out of
the windows.
During the first half hour after the invasion of the palace
a great deal of money and many other valuables disap-
peared ; but after that time it was death to appropriate
anything, even if it were of little value.
Soon the gardens of the Tuileries were white with papers
flung from the windows of the palace, many of them of
great historical value. A piece of pink gauze, the prop-
erty, probably, of some maid-of-honor, streamed from one
of the windows in the roof and fluttered across the whole
building. The crowd, in high good humor, tossed forth
livery coats, fragments of state furniture, and papers. The
beds still stood unmade, and all the apparatus of the ladies’
toilet-tables remained in disorder. In one royal bed-
chamber a man was rubbing pomade with both hands into
his hair, another was drenching himself with perfume, a
third was scrubbing his teeth furiously with a brush that had
that morning parted the lips of royalty. In another room
a man en blouse was seated at a piano playing the “ Mar-
seillaise ” to an admiring audience (the “ Marseillaise"
had been forbidden in Paris for many years). Elsewhere
a party of gamins were turning over a magnificent scrap-
book. In the next room was a grand piano, on which
four men were thumping at once. In another, a party of
working-men were dancing a quadrille, while a gentleman
played for them upon a piano. At every chimney-piece
and before every work of art stood a guard, generally
ragged and powder-stained, bearing a placard, “ Death toTHE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS PHILIPPE. I 17
Robbers ! ” while at the head of the Grand Staircase others
stood, crying, “ Enter, messieurs ! Enter ! We don’t have
cards of admission to this house everyday!” While the
cry that passed through the crowd was: “ Look as much
as you like, but take nothing ! ”	“ Are not we magnificent
in our own house, Monsieur?” said a gamin to an English-
man ; while another was to be seen walking about in one of
poor Queen Amalie’s state head-dresses, surmounted by a
bird-of-paradise with a long tail.
At first the crowd injured nothing, even the king’s por-
traits being respected; but after a while the destruction of
state furniture began. Three men were seen smoking in
the state bed; some ate up the royal breakfast; and the
cigars of the princes were freely handed to rough men in
the crowd.
Meantime in the Chamber of Deputies the scene was
terrible. M. Dupin, its president, lost his head. Had he,
when he knew of the king’s abdication, declared the sit-
ting closed, and directed the Deputies to disperse, he might
possibly have saved the monarchy. But the mob got pos-
session of the tribune (the pulpit from which alone speeches
can be made in the Chamber) ; they pointed their guns at
the Deputies, who cowered under their benches, and the
last chance for Louis Philippe’s dynasty was over. Odillon
Barrot, who had come down to the house full of self-
importance, notwithstanding his reception on the Boule-
vards, found that his hour was over and his power gone.
M. de Lamartine was the idol of the mob, though he
was very nearly shot in the confusion. Armed insurgents
crowded round him, clinging to his skirts, his hands, his
knees. Throughout the tumult the reporters for the “ Mo-
niteur ” kept their seats, taking notes of what was passing.
The Duchess of Orleans found the Chamber occupied
by armed men. She was jostled and pressed upon. A
feeble effort was made to proclaim her son king, and to
appoint her regent during his minority. She endeavored
several times to speak, and behaved with an intrepidity
which did her honor. But when Lamartine, mounting theIl8 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
tribune, cast aside her claims, and announced that the
moment had arrived for proclaiming a provisional govern-
ment and a republic, she was hustled and pushed aside by
the crowd.
She was dressed in deep mourning. Her long black
veil, partly raised, showed her fair face marred with sorrow
and anxiety. Her children were dressed in little black
velvet skirts and jackets, with large white turned-down
collars. Soon the crowd around the tribune, beneath
which the duchess had her seat, grew so furious that her
attendants, fearing for her life, hurried her away.
In the press and the confusion the Due de Nemours
and her two children were parted from her. The Comte
de Paris was seized by a gigantic man en blouse, who said
afterwards that he had been only anxious to protect the
child; but a National Guard forced the boy from his
grasp, and restored him to his mother. The Due de
Chartres was for some time lost, and was in great danger,
having been knocked down on the staircase by an ascend-
ing crowd.
At last, however, the little party, under the escort of the
Due de Nemours, who had disguised himself, escaped on
foot into the streets, then growing dark; and finding a
hackney-coach, persuaded the coachman to drive them to
a place of safety. The Due de Chartres was not to be
found, and his mother passed many hours of terrible anxiety
before he was restored to her arms.
Very strange that night was the scene in the Champs
Elys^es. They were filled with a joyous and triumphant
crowd in every variety of military costume, and armed
with every sort of weapon. Soldiers alone were unarmed.
They marched arm-in-arm with their new friends, singing,
like them, the “ Marseillaise ” and “ Mourir pour la Patrie.”
In the quarter of the Champs Elysties, where well-to-do for-
eigners formed a considerable part of the population, there
was no ferocity exhibited by the mob. The insurgents
were like children at play, — children on their good be-
havior. They had achieved a wonderful and unexpectedTHE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS PHILIPPE. I 19
victory. The throne had fallen, as if built on sand. Those
who had overturned it were in high good-humor.
A French mob at the present day is very different. It
has the modern grudge of laborer against employer, it has
memories of the license of the Commune, and above all it
has learned the use of absinthe. There is a hatred and a
contempt for all things that should command men’s rev-
erence, which did not display itself in 1848.
May I here be permitted to relate a little story connected
with this day’s events ? I was with my family in Paris during
those days of revolution. Our nurse, — an Englishwoman
who had then been with us twenty-five years, and who died
recently, at the age of ninety-eight, still a member of our
family, — when we returned home from viewing the devas-
tation at the Tuileries, expressed strongly her regret at not
having accompanied us. She was consoled, however, by an
offer from our man-servant to escort her down the Champs
Elysd'es. They made their way to the Place du Carrousel,
at the back of the palace, where a dense crowd was assem-
bled, and the good lady became separated from her protector.
The National Guard and the servants in the palace had just
succeeded in getting the crowd out of the rooms and in clos-
ing the doors. This greatly disappointed our good nurse.
She had counted on seeing the interior of the king’s abode,
and above all, the king’s throne. She could speak very
little French, but she must in some way have communicated
her regrets to the crowd around her. “ Does Madame de-
sire so much to pass in? ” said a big man in a blouse, girt
with a red sash, and carrying a naked sword; “ then Ma-
dame shall pass in 1 ” Thereupon he and his followers in
the front rank of the crowd so bepummelled the door with
the hilts of their swords and the stocks of their muskets that
those within were forced to throw it open. In marched our
dear nurse beside her protector. They passed through room
after room until they reached the throne-room; there she
indicated her wish to obtain a relic of departed royalty.
Instantly her friend with the bare sword sliced off from the
throne a piece of red velvet with gold embroidery. She120 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
kept it ever after, together with a delicate china cup marked
L. P.; but the cup was much broken. “ You see, dears,” she
would say to us, “ there was lots of things like these lying
about, but there were men standing round with naked swords
ready to cut your head off if you stole anything. So I took
this cup and broke it. It was not stealing to carry off a
broken cup, you know.” And she would add, when winding
up her narrative : “Those Frenchmen was so polite to me
that they didn’t even tread on my corns.”
That night there was a brilliant conflagration in the Carrou-
sel. It was a bonfire of those very carriages which eighteen
years before the mob had brought in triumph to Louis
Philippe from the stables of Charles X. at Rambouillet.
All the next day not a newspaper was to be had. The
“ Presse,” indeed, brought out a half sheet, mainly taken up
in returning thanks to two compositors “ who, between two
fires,” had been “so considerate” as to set up the type.
But their consideration could not have lasted long, for the
news broke off abruptly in the middle of a sentence on the
first page. Events worked faster than compositors.
By noon on Friday, February 25, the entire population of
Paris was in the streets. From the flags on public offices,
the blue and white strips had been torn away. On that day
— but on that day only — every man wore a red ribbon in
his button-hole. Many did so very unwillingly, for red was
understood to be the badge of Red Republicanism.
On the Boulevards the iron railings had been torn up, and
most of the trees had been cut down. They were replanted,
however, not long after, to the singing of the “ Marseillaise ”
and the firing of cannon. For more than a week there was a
strange quiet in Paris : no vehicles were in the streets, for the
paving-stones had been torn up for barricades; no shops
were open; on the closed shutters of most of them ap-
peared the words “Armes donnees.” Everywhere a paint-
brush had been passed over the royal arms. Even the words
“roi,” “reine,” “ royal,” were effaced. The patriots were
very zealous in exacting these removals. Two gamins with
swords hacked patiently for two hours at a cast-iron double-
headed Austrian eagle.THE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS PHILIPPE.
12 I
Change (small money, I mean) was hardly to be had in
Paris. For a month it was necessary, in order to obtain it,
to apply at the Mairie of the Arrondissement, and to stand
for hours in a queue. Other money could be had only from
the bankers in thousand-franc notes. Shopping was of course
at an end, and half Paris was thrown out of employment.
Gold and silver were hidden away.
Louis Philippe and his family drove in their two cabriolets
to Versailles. There they found great difficulty in getting
post-horses. Indeed, they would have procured none, had
there not been some cavalry horses in the place, which were
harnessed to one of the royal carriages. About midnight of
their second day’s journey they reached Dreux. There Louis
Philippe found himself without money, and had to borrow
from one of his tenants. He had left behind him in his haste
three hundred and fifty thousand francs on a table in the
Tuileries.
The Provisional Government, which was kept well informed
as to his movements, forwarded to him a supply of money.
At Dreux the king’s party was joined by the Duke of Mont-
pensier with news that the king’s attempt to save the mon-
archy by abdication had failed.
The old man seemed stupefied by his sudden fall. Over
and over again he was heard to repeat:	Cornme Charles X. !
Corame Charles X. ! ” The next day, travelling under feigned
names, the royal party pushed on to Evreux, where they were
hospitably received by a farmer in the forest, who harnessed
his work-horses to their carriage. Thence they went on to
their own Chateau d’Eu. The danger to which during this
journey they were exposed arose, not from the new Govern-
ment at Paris, but from the excited state of the peasantry.
After many perils and adventures, sometimes indeed
travelling on foot to avoid dangerous places, they reached
Harfleur on March 3. An English steamer, the “ Express,”
lay at the wharf, on which the king and queen embarked as
Mr. and Mrs. William Smith. The following morning they
were off the English coast, at Newbern. They landed, and
proceeded at once to Claremont, the palace given to their122 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
son-in-law, Leopold of Belgium, for his lifetime by the Eng-
lish Parliament.
The government set up in Paris was a provisional one.
The members of the Provisional Government were many of
them well known to the public, and of approved character.
No men ever had a more difficult task before them, and
none ever tried with more self-sacrifice to do their duty.
The measures they proposed were eighteen in number:
1.	The retention of the tricolor.
2.	The retention of the Gallic cock.
3.	The sovereignty of the people.
4.	The dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies.
5.	The suppression of the Chamber of Peers.
6.	The convocation of a National Assembly.
7.	Work to be guaranteed to all working-men.
8.	The unity of the army and the populace.
g. The formation of a Garde Mobile.
10.	The arrest and punishment of all deserters.
11.	The release of all political prisoners.
12.	The trial of M. Guizot and his colleagues.
13.	The reduction of Vincennes and Fort Valdrien, still heid
by the troops for the king.
14.	All officials under Louis Philippe to be released from
their oaths.
15.	All objects at the Mont de Pidtd (the Government pawn-
broking establishment) valued under ten francs, to be restored.
16.	All National Guards dismissed under preceding Govern-
ments to be reinstated.
17.	The million of francs expended on the court to be given to
disabled workmen.
18.	A paternal commission to be nominated, to look after the
interests of the working-classes.
The institution of the Garde Mobile was a device for
finding employment for those boys and young men who
formed one of the most dangerous of the dangerous classes.
It is easy to see how tempting these promises were to
working-men ; and yet the better class among them mourned
their loss of steady employment. The Revolution of 1848,
though it was not originated by the working-classes, was
made to appear as if it were intended for their profit; andTHE DOIVNFALL OF LOUIS PHILIPPE. 123
that indeed was its ruin, for it was found impossible to keep
the promises of work, support, parental protection, etc.,
made to the Parisian masses. The bourgeoisie, when they
recovered from their astonishment and found that the stone
they had set rolling under the name of reform had dislodged
their own Revolution of 1830, and the peasants of the pro-
vinces, when they found that all the praise and all the profits
were solely for the working-men of the capital, were very
far from satisfied.
As to the upper classes, their terror and dismay were over-
whelming. Everything seemed sliding away under their
feet. Many women of rank and fashion, distrusting the
stability of the king’s government, had for some time past
been yearly adding diamonds to their necklaces, because,
as one of them exclaimed to us during this month of Feb-
ruary : “ We knew not what might happen to stocks or to
securities, but diamonds we can put into our pockets. No
other property in France can be called secure ! ”
And yet Paris soon resumed its wonted appearance. Com-
merce and shopping might be impossible in a city where
nobody could make change for two hundred dollars, yet
the Champs Elysties were again gay with pedestrians and
carriages. All favorite amusements were resumed, but
almost all men being idle, their great resource was to as-
semble round the Hotel-de-Ville and force Lamartine to
make a speech to them.
On Saturday, March 4, all Paris crowded to the Boule-
vards to witness the funeral cortege of the victims. There
were neither military nor police to keep order; yet the
crowd was on its good behavior, and strict decorum was
maintained. There were about three hundred thousand
persons in the procession, and as many more on the side-
walks. As they marched, mourners and spectators all sang
the Chant of the Girondins (“ Mourir pour la Patrie”)
and the “ Marseillaise.”
Two things distinguished this revolution of February from
all other French revolutions before or after it, — the high
character and self-devotion of the men placed at the head124 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
of affairs, and the absence of prejudice against religion.
The revolution, so far from putting itself in antagonism with
religious feeling, everywhere appealed to it. The men who
invaded the Tuileries bowed before the crucifix in the
queen’s chamber. Priests who were known to be zealous
workers among the poor were treated as fathers. Cures
blessed the trees of liberty planted in their parishes. Prayers
for the Republic were offered at the altars, and in country
villages priests headed the men of their congregations who
marched up to the polls.ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE.CHAPTER VII.
LAMARTINE AND THE SECOND REPUBLIC.1
'THE Provisional Government hastily set up in France
1 on Feb. 24, 1S48, consisted at first of five members ;
but that number was afterwards enlarged. M. Dupin, who
had been President of the Chamber of Deputies, was made
President of the Council (or prime minister) ; but the real
head of the Government and Minister for Foreign Affairs
was Alphonse de Lamartine. He was a Christian believer,
a high-minded man, by birth an aristocrat, yet by sympathy
a man of the masses. “ He was full of sentimentalities of
vainglory and of personal vanity ; but no pilot ever guided
a ship of state so skilfully and with such absolute self-
devotion through an angry sea. For a brief while, just long
enough to effect this purpose, he was the idol of the popu-
lace.” With him were associated Cremieux, a Jew; Ledru-
Rollin, the historian, a Red Republican; Arago, the astron-
omer ; Hypolite Carnot, son of Lazare Carnot, Member
of the Directory, father of the future president; General
Casaignac, who was made governor of Algeria ; Garnier-
Pagfes, who a second time became, in 1870, member of a
Provisional Government for the defence of Paris; and
several others.
The downfall of Louis Philippe startled and astonished
even those who had brought it about. They had intended
reform, and they drew down revolution. They hoped
to effect a change of ministry: they were disconcerted
1 For the subject-matter of this chapter I am largely indebted to
Mrs. Oliphant’s article on Lamartine in “ Blackwood’s Magazine.”126 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
when they had dethroned a king. There were about
thirty thousand regular troops in Paris, besides the Na-
tional Guard and the mounted police, or Garde Muni-
cipale. No one had imagined that the Throne of the
Barricades would fall at the first assault. There were no
leaders anywhere in this revolution. The king’s party
had no leaders; the young princes seemed paralyzed.
The army had no leader; the commander-in-chief had
been changed three times in twenty-four hours. The in-
surgents had no leaders. On February 22 Odillon Barrot
was their hero, and on February 23 they hooted him.
The republicans, to their own amazement, were left
masters of the field of battle, and Lamartine was pushed to
the front as their chief man.
I may here pause in the historical narrative to say a few
words about the personal history of Lamartine, which, in-
deed, will include all that history has to say concerning
the Second Republic.
The love stories of the uncle and father of Alphonse de
Lamartine are so pathetic, and give us so vivid a picture
of family life before the First Revolution, that I will go
back a generation, and tell them as much as possible in
Lamartine’s own words.
His grandfather had had six children, — three daughters
and three sons. According to French custom, under the
old regime, the eldest son only was to marry, and the other
members of the Lamartine family proceeded as they grew
up to fulfil their appointed destinies. The second son
went into the Church, and rose to be a bishop. The third
son, M. le Chevalier, went into the army. The sisters
adopted the religious life, and thus all were provided for.
But strange to say, the eldest son, to whose happiness and
prosperity the rest were to be sacrificed, was the first rebel
in the family. He fell in love with a Mademoiselle de
Saint-Huruge ; but her dot was not considered by the elder
members of the family sufficient to justify the alliance.
The young man gave up his bride, and to the consternation
of his relatives announced that he would marry no otherLAMARTINE AND THE SECOND REPUBLIC. 127
woman. M. le Chevalier must marry and perpetuate the
ancestral line.
Lamartine says, —
“At. le Chevalier was the youngest in that generation of
our family. At sixteen he had entered the regiment in which
his father had served before him. His career was to grow old
in the modest position of a captain in the army (which posi-
tion he attained at an early age), to pass his few months of
leave, from time to time, in his father’s house, to gain the Cross
of St. Louis (which was the end of all ambitions to provin-
cial gentlemen), and then, when he grew old, being endowed
with a small provision from the State, or a still smaller rev-
enue of his own, he expected to vegetate in one of his
brothers’ old chateaux, having his rooms in the upper story,
to superintend the garden, to shoot with the cun!, to look after
the horses, to play with the children, to make up a game of
whist or tric-trac, — the born servant of every one, a domestic
slave, happy in his lot, beloved, and yet neglected by all. But
in the end his fate was very different. His elder brother,
having refused to marry, said to his father; ‘You must marry
the Chevalier.’ All the feelings of the family and the preju-
dices of habit rose up in the heart of the old nobleman
against this suggestion. Chevaliers, according to his notions,
were not intended to marry. My father was sent back to his
regiment, and his marrying was put off from year to year.”
Meantime, the idea of marriage having been put into
the Chevalier’s head, he chose for himself, and happily
his choice fell on a lady acceptable to his family. His sis-
ter was canoness in an aristocratic order, whose members
were permitted to receive visits from their brothers. It was
there that he wooed and won the lovely, saint-like mother
of Alphonse de Lamartine.
The elder brother, as he advanced in life, kept up a truly
affecting intercourse with Mademoiselle de Saint-Huruge.
She was beautiful even in old age, though her beauty was
dimmed by an expression of sadness. They met every
evening in Macon, at the house of a member of the family,
and each entertained till death a pure and constant friend-
ship for the other.
No wonder that when the Revolution decreed the aboli-128 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
tion of all rights of primogeniture, and ordered each
father’s fortune to be equally divided among his chil-
dren, that M. le Chevalier refused to take advantage of
this new arrangement, and left his share to the elder
brother, to whom he owed his domestic happiness. In
the end, all the property of the family came to the
poet; the aunts and uncles — the former of whom
had been driven from their convents — having made him
their heir.
Madame de Lamartine had received part of her educa-
tion from Madame de Genlis, and had associated in her
childhood with Louis Philippe and Madame Adelaide.
But though the influence of Madame de Genlis was prob-
ably not in favor of piety, Madame de Lamartine was sin-
cerely pious. In her son’s early education she seems • to
have been influenced by Madame de Genlis’ admiration
of Rousseau. Alphonse ran barefoot on the hills, with the
little peasant boys for company ; but at home he was swayed
by the discipline of love. He published nothing till he
was thirty years of age, though he wrote poetry from early
youth. His study was in the open air, under some grand
old oaks on the edge of a deep ravine. In his hands
French poetry became for the first time musical and de-
scriptive of nature. There was deep religious feeling, too,
in Lamartine’s verse, rather vague as to doctrine, but full
of genuine religious sentiment. As a Christian poet he
struck a chord which vibrated in many hearts, for the early
part of our century was characterized by faith and by en-
thusiasm. Scepticism was latent, but was soon to assert
itself in weary indifference. “ As yet, doubt sorrowed that
it doubted, and could feel the beauty of faith, even when
it disbelieved.”
From 1820 to 1824 Lamartine was a good deal in Italy;
after the death of an innocent Italian girl, which he has
celebrated in touching verse, he married an English lady,
and had one child, his beloved Julia. He was made a
member of the French Academy, and Charles X. had ap-
pointed him ambassador to Greece, when the RevolutionLAMARTINE AND THE SECOND REPUBLIC. 129
of 1830 occurred, and he refused to serve under King
Charles’s successor.
In 1832, partly for Julia’s health, he visited the Holy
Land and Eastern Europe. Poor little Julia died at
Beyrout. On the father’s return he published his “ Sou-
venirs of his Journey.” Books descriptive of Eastern
countries were then rare, and Lamartine’s was received
with enthusiasm.
In 1833 Lamartine began his political career by enter-
ing the Chamber of Deputies. Some one said of him
that he formed a party by himself, — a party of one.
He pleaded for the abolition of capital punishment,
for the amelioration of the poorer classes, for the eman-
cipation of slaves in the colonies, and for various
other social reforms; but he was never known as a
republican.
In 1847 he published his “ Histoire des Girondins,”
which was received by the public with deep interest and
applause. It is not always accurate in small particulars,
but it is one of the most fascinating books of history ever
written, and has had the good fortune to be singularly
well translated. Alexandre Dumas is said to have told its
author: “ You have elevated romance to the dignity of
history.”
When the revolution of February, 1848, broke out,
Lamartine, being unwell, did not make his way on the first
day through the crowds to the Chamber of Deputies, nor did
he go thither on the second, looking on the affair as an
emeute likely to be followed only by a change of ministry.
But when news was brought to him which made him feel it
was a very serious affair, he went at once to the Chamber.
On entering, he was seized upon by men of all parties, but
especially by republicans, who drew him into a side-room
and told him that the king had abdicated. He had always
advocated the regency of the Duchess of Orleans in the
event of Louis Philippe’s death, in place of that of the
Due de Nemours. The men who addressed him implored
him, as the most popular man in France, to put himself at
9130 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
the head of a movement to make the Duchess of Orleans
regent during her son’s minority, adding that France under
a woman and a child would soon drift into a republic.
Lamartine sat for some minutes at a table with his face
bowed on his hands. He was praying, he says, for light.
Then he arose, and after saying that he had never been a
republican, added that now he was for a republic, without
any intermediate regency, either of the duchess or of
Nemours. With acclamations, the party went back into the
Chamber to await events.
We know already how the duchess was received, and how
a mob broke into the Chamber. A provisional government
was demanded, in the midst of indescribable tumult; and by
the suffrages of a crowd of roughs quite as much as by the
action of the deputies, a provisional government of five
members (afterwards increased to seven) was voted in, the
names being written down with a pencil by Lamartine on
the spur of the moment. The five men thus nominated and
chosen to be rulers of France were Lamartine, Cremieux,
Ledru-Rollin, Garnier-Pagfes, and Arago.
Meantime in the Hotel-de-Ville the mob had set up
another provisional government under Socialistic leaders,
and the first thing the more genuine provisional government
had to do was to get rid of the others.
Lamartine says of himself that he felt his mission was to
preserve society, and very nobly he set himself to his task.
When he and his colleagues reached the Hotel-de-Ville,
where the mob was clamoring for Socialism and a repub-
lic, a compromise had to be effected; and thus Louis
Blanc, the Socialistic reformer, came into the Provisional
Government. It was growing night, and the announcement
of this new arrangement somewhat calmed the crowd;
but at midnight an attack was made on the Hotel-de-
Ville, and the new rulers had to defend themselves by
personal strength, setting their backs against the doors of
the Council Chamber, and repelling their assailants with
their own hands. But the Press and the telegraph were at
their command, and by morning the news of the ProvisionalLAMARTINE AND THE SECOND REPUBLIC. 131
Government was spread all over the provinces. “ The
mob,” says Lamartine, “ was in part composed of gal-
ley slaves who had no political ideas in their heads,
nor social principles in their hearts, and partly of that
scum which rises to the surface in popular commotions,
and floats between the fumes of intoxication and the thirst
for blood.”
Lamartine was not a great man, but it was lucky for
France, and for all Europe, that at this crisis he succeeded
in establishing a provisional government, and that he was
placed at its head. But for him, Paris might have had the
Commune in 1848, as she had it in 1871, but with no
great army collected at Versailles to bring it to subjection.
From such a fate France was saved by the energy and
enthusiastic patriotism of one man, to whom, it seems to
me, justice in history has hardly yet been done. “ Lamar-
tine was not republican enough for republicans; he lost at
last his prestige among the people, and from personal causes
the full sympathy of his friends ; and his star sank before the
rising sun of Louis Napoleon.” Mrs. Oliphant also says
of him, —
“ In the midst of his manifold literary labors there happened
to Lamartine such a chance as befalls few poets. He had it in
his power, once in his life, to do something greater than the
greatest lyric, more noble than any verse. At the crisis of the
Revolution of 1848, chance (to use the word without irrever-
ence) thrust him, and no other, into the place of master, and
held him for one supreme moment alone between France and
anarchy, — between, we might almost say, the world and another
terrible revolution. And then the sentimentalist proved him-
self a man. He confronted raving Paris, and subdued it. The
old noble French blood in his veins rose to the greatness of the
crisis. With a pardonable thrill of pride in a position so
strange to a writer and a man of thought, into which, without
any action of his own, he found himself forced, he describes how
he faced the tumultuous mob of Paris for seventy hours almost
without repose, without sleep, without food, when there was no
other man in France bold enough or wise enough to take that
supreme part, and guide that most aimless of revolutions to a
peaceful conclusion, — for the moment, at least. It was not132 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Lamartine’s fault that the Empire came after him. Long before
the Empire came, he had fallen from his momentary elevation,
and lost all influence with his country. But his downfall cannot
efface the fact that he did actually reign, and reign beneficently,
subduing and controlling the excited nation, saving men’s lives
and the balance of society.”
The seventy hours at the Hotel-de-Ville to which Mrs.
Oliphant alludes were passed by Lamartine in making ora-
tions, in sending off proclamations to the departments, in
endeavoring to calm the excited multitude and to secure
the triumph of the Republic without the effusion of blood.
The revolution he conducted was, if I may say so, the only
respectable revolution France has ever known. Nobody
expected it, nobody was prepared for it, nobody worked
for it; but the whole country acquiesced in it, and men of
all parties, seeing that it was an accomplished fact, gave in
their adhesion to the Second Republic.
There were five great questions that came up before the
Provisional Government for immediate solution, —
The relation of France to foreign powers.
The enlargement of the army.
The subsistence of working-men out of employment.
The property and safety of the exiled royal family.
And, above all, how to meet these expenses and the pay-
ment of interest on national bonds, due the middle of
March, with assets in the treasury of about twenty-five
cents in the dollar.
These questions were all met by the wonderful energy of
Lamartine and his colleagues, seconded by genuine patri-
otic efforts throughout France
Lamartine had taken the foreign relations of the new
Republic into his own hands; and so well did he manage
them that not one potentate of Europe attempted to inter-
fere with the internal affairs of France, or to dispute the
right of the French to establish a republic if they thought
proper. But although Lamartine’s policy was peace, he
thought France needed a large army both to keep down
communism and anarchy at home, and to show itself strongLAMARTINE AND THE SECOND REPUBLIC. 133
in the face of all foreign powers. The army of France in
January, 1848, had been about three hundred thousand
men, of whom one hundred thousand were in Algeria; by
May it was five hundred thousand, not including the Garde
Mobile, which was of Lamartine’s raising. It is well known
how fiercely boys and very young men fought when any
occasion for fighting was presented in the streets and at the
barricades | all business being stopped in Paris, thousands
of these were out of employment. Lamartine had them
enrolled into his new corps, the Garde Mobile. Their uni-
form at first was a red sash and a workman’s blouse. They
were proud of themselves and of their new position, and in
May, by dint of discipline, they were transformed into a fine
soldierly body of very young men, who several times ren-
dered important help to the Government in maintaining
the cause of order. The National Guard was broken
up until it could be reorganized, and so was the Garde
Municipale.
But how to feed the multitude? Two hundred thousand
mechanics alone were out of employment in Paris, besides
laborers, servants, clerks, etc. It was proposed to establish
national workshops in Louis Philippe’s pretty private plea-
sure-grounds, the Parc des Monceaux. The men applying
for work were enrolled in squads; each squad had its ban-
ner and its officers, and each man was paid on Saturday
night his week’s wages, at the rate of two francs a day, — the
highest wages in Paris at that time for an artisan. There
was no particular work for them to do, but the arrangement
kept them disciplined and out of mischief, though at an
enormous cost to the country. At the Palace of the Lux-
embourg Louis Blanc was permitted to hold a series of great
labor meetings,— a sort of Socialist convention, — and to
inveigh against “ capitalists " and “ bloated bondholders ” in
a style that was much more novel then than it is now. La-
martine greatly disapproved of these Luxembourg proceed-
ings ; but he argued that it was better to countenance them
than to throw Louis Blanc and his friends into open opposi-
tion to the Government. Louis Blanc was a charming writer,
/134 FRANCE 7N THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
whose views on social questions have made great progress
since his day. His brother Charles wrote a valuable book
on art. He himself wrote a “ History of the Revolution ”
and the “ History of Ten Years,” — that is, from 1830 to
1840. He bitterly hated Louis Philippe and the bourgeoisie,
and yet his book is fair and honest, and the work of a gen-
tleman. He was almost a dwarf, but his face was very
handsome, clean-shaved, with bright eyes and brown hair.
I may remark en passant that not one of the members
of the Provisional Government wore either a beard or a
moustache.
One of the first things the Provisional Government did
was to decree that the personal property of the Orleans
family should not be confiscated, but placed in the hands of
a receiver, who should pay the king and princes liberal allow-
ances till it became certain that their wealth would not be
spent in raising an army for the invasion of France.
Louis Philippe lived only two years after reaching Eng-
land. They were apparently not unhappy years to him.
He sat at the foot of his own table, and carved the joint
daily for his guests, children, and grandchildren. He dic-
tated his Memoirs, and talked with the greatest openness to
those who wished to converse with him.
The Due d’Aumale was head of the army in Algeria,
and governor-general of the colony, when the Revolution
broke out. Here is the address which he at once published
to his soldiers and the people, and with which the whole of
his after life has been consistent: —
Inhabitants of Algeria! Faithful to my duties as a citizen
and a soldier, I have remained at my post as long as I could
believe my presence would be useful in the service of my coun-
try. It can no longer be so. General Cavaignac is appointed
governor-general of Algeria, and until his arrival here, the
functions of governor-general ad interim will be discharged by
General Changarnier. Submissive to the national will, I de-
part ; but in my place of exile my best prayers and wishes shall
be for the prosperity and glory of France, which I should have
wished still longer to serve.
H. d’Ori.eans.LAMARTINE AND THE SECOND REPUBLIC. 135
The greatest problem which demanded solution from the
Provisional Government was how to make twenty-five cents
do the work of a dollar. The first Minister of Finance
appointed, threw up his portfolio in despair. Lamartine
refused to sanction any arbitrary means of raising money.
At last, by giving some especial privileges and protection to
the Bank of France, and by mortgaging the national for-
ests, a sufficient sum was provided for immediate needs.
The people, too, throughout the provinces, made it a point
of honor to come forward and pay their taxes before they
were due. The priests preached this as a duty, for the
priests were well disposed towards the Revolution of 1848.
Lamartine had put forth a proclamation assuring priests
and people that his Government was in sympathy with
religion.
In the Provisional Government itself there were two, if
not three, parties, — the party of order, headed by Lamar-
tine ; the Socialists, or labor party, headed by Louis Blanc ;
and the Red Republicans, or Anarchists, headed by Ledru-
Rollin. The latter was for adopting the policy of putting
out of office all men who had not been always republicans.
Lamartine, on the contrary, said that any man who loved
France and desired to serve her was not incapacitated from
doing so by previous political opinions.
Elections for a Constitutional Assembly, which was to
confirm or to repudiate the Provisional Government, were
held on March 24, and the new Assembly was to meet
early in May. Meantime all kinds of duties and anxieties
accumulated on Lamartine. The Polish, Hungarian, Span-
ish, German, and Italian exiles in Paris were all anxious
that he should espouse their causes against their own Gov-
ernments. He assured them that this was not the mis-
sion of the Second French Republic, whatever might have
been that of the First, and that the cause of European
liberty would lose, not gain, if France, with propagandist
fervor, embroiled herself with the monarchical piowers. A
deputation of Irishmen, under Smith O’Brien, waited upon
him to beg the assistance of fifty thousand French troops in136 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Ireland, “to rid her of the English.’’ Lamartine peremp-
torily refused, saying: “ When one is not united by blood
to a people, it is not allowable to interfere in its affairs with
the strong hand.” Smith O’Brien and his followers, deeply
mortified, repaired at once to Ledru-Rollin’s Red Republi-
can Club, where they were loudly applauded, and Lamartine
condemned.
Meantime there were disturbances everywhere. Men
out of employment, excited by club orators, were ready
for any violence. At Lyons they destroyed the hospitals
and orphan asylums, out of mere wantonness.
One afternoon Lamartine received news that the sol-
diers at the Invalides, dissatisfied with General Petit, their
commander, had dragged him to the street, placed him
on a cart, and were carrying him thus around Paris. On
foot he rushed to the rescue, trusting to his powers of
haranguing the multitude; but luckily the general had
been released before his arrival. There is but one step
from the sublime to the ridiculous. We smile at the spec-
tacle of the ruler of France rushing on foot, through dim
streets, after a cart he could not find. General Petit was
that officer of the Old Guard whom Napoleon had em-
braced when he took leave of his beloved corps at Fon-
tainebleau. Lamartine re-established him as commander
at the Invalides, and the mutiny was put down.
On the night of the first day of the Provisional Govern-
ment, a mob having demanded that the red flag of Com-
munism should be substituted for the tricolor, Lamartine
replied, —
“ Citizens ! neither I nor any member of the Government
will adopt the Drapeau Rouge. We would rather adopt that
other flag which is hoisted in a bombarded city to mark to
the enemy the hospitals of the wounded. I will tell you in
one word why I will oppose the red flag with the whole force
of patriotic determination. It is, citizens, because the tricolor
has made the tour of the world with the Republic and the
Empire, with your liberties and your glory; the red flag has
only made the tour of the Champ de Mars, dragged through
the blood of citizens.”LAMARTINE AND THE SECOND REPUBLIC. 137
Muskets in the crowd were here levelled at the speaker,
but were knocked up by the more peaceable of his
hearers.
There was soon great discontent throughout the depart-
ments because of the imposition of a land-tax; but as
Lamartine said truly, farmers would have found war or the
triumph of Red Republicanism more expensive still.
On March 17, about three weeks after the departure
of the king, a great Socialist demonstration was made in
Paris. Large columns of men marched to the Hotel-de-
Ville, singing the old revolutionary chant of “ Q'a ira.” Le-
dru-Rollin, in the fulness of his heart, seeing these one
hundred and twenty thousand men all marching with some
discipline, said to his colleagues in the Council Chamber:
“ Do you know that your popularity is nothing to mine ?
I have but to open this window and call upon these men,
and you would every one of you be turned into the street.
Do you wish me to try it?”
Upon this, Garnier-Pag£s, the Finance Minister, walked
up to Ledru-Rollin, and presenting a pistol, said : “ If you
make one step toward that window, it shall be your last.”
Ledru-Rollin paused a moment, and then sat down.
The object of the demonstration was to force the Pro-
visional Government to take measures for raising and
equalizing wages, and providing State employment for all
out of employ. The main body was refused admittance
into the Hotel-de-Ville, but a certain number of the
leaders were permitted to address the Provisional Govern-
ment. To Ledru-Rollin’s and Louis Blanc’s surprise, they
found that half of these leaders were men they had never
seen before, more radical radicals than themselves, — that
revolutionary scum that rose to the surface in the Reign
of Terror and the Commune.
A sense of common danger made Ledru-Rollin and
Louis Blanc unite with their colleagues in refusing the
demand of the deputation that the measures they advo-
cated should be put in force by immediate decrees. La-
martine harangued them ; so did Ledru-Rollin and Louis138 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Blanc ; and at last the disappointed multitude, with ven-
geance in their hearts, filed peaceably away.
A month later, April 15, another outbreak was planned.
The chief club leaders wished it to be headed by Ledru-
Rollin and Blanqui, — the latter a conspirator in Louis
Philippe’s time. But Ledru-Rollin refused to serve with
Blanqui, having discovered from documents in his office
(that of Minister of Justice) that Blanqui had once been
a Government spy. “ Well, then,” said the club leaders,
“ since you decline to be our chief, you shall to-morrow
share the fate of your colleagues.” Ledru-Rollin, after
a terrible night of vacillation, resolved to throw himself
on Lamartine’s generosity. He went to him at daybreak
and told him of the impending danger. At once Lamar-
tine sent him to call out the National Guard, while he
himself summoned the Garde Mobile. The National
Guard had been reorganized; but there were no regular
soldiers in Paris, — they had been sent away to satisfy the
people. The commander of the National Guard, how-
ever, refused to let his men be called out on the occasion;
and Lamartine, on hearing this, went to the Hotel-de-
Ville alone. But help came to him from an unexpected
quarter. General Changarnier, who had been appointed
ambassador to Berlin, called at Lamartine’s house to return
thanks for his appointment. Madame de Lamartine told
him of the danger that menaced her husband, and he
repaired at once to the Hotel-de-Ville. There he found
only about twelve hundred boys of the Garde Mobile to op-
pose the expected two hundred thousand insurgents. He
drew his Garde Mobile into the building, and prepared to
stand a siege. There from early morning till the next day
Lamartine remained with Marrast, the Mayor of Paris. He
says that he harangued the mob from thirty to forty times.
The other members of the Government remained in one
of the public offices. With much difficulty the National
Guard, whose organization was not yet complete, was
brought upon the scene. The procession of the insur-
gents was cut in two, the commander of the NationalLAMARTINE AND THE SECOND REPUBLIC. 139
Guard employing the same tactics as those which the
Duke of W ellington had used a week earlier, when dealing
in London with the Chartist procession. The result was
the complete discomfiture of the insurgents.
A few days afterwards the members of the Provisional
Government sat twelve hours, on thrones erected for them
under the Arch of Triumph, to see Gardes Mobiles, Na-1
tional Guards, troops of the line, and armed workmen,
file past them, all shouting for Lamartine and Order ! It
was probably the proudest moment of Lamartine’s life ; in
that flood-tide of his popularity he easily could have seized
supreme power.
All through the provinces disturbances went on. The
object of the Red Republicans had at first been to oppose
the election of the National Assembly. So long as France
remained under the provisional dictatorship of Lamartine
and his colleagues, and the regular troops were kept out
of Paris, they hoped to be able to seize supreme power
by a coup de main.
The National Assembly was, however, elected on Faster
Day, and proved to be largely conservative. The deputies
met May 4, — the anniversary of the meeting of the States-
General in 1789, fifty-nine years before. Its hall was
a temporary structure, erected in the courtyard of the
Palais Bourbon, the former place of meeting for the Cham-
ber of Deputies. There was no enthusiasm in the body
for the Republic, and evidently a hostile feeling towards the
Provisional Government, which it was disposed to think
too much allied with Red Republicanism.
Two days after the Assembly met, the Provisional Gov-
ernment resigned its powers. To Lamartine’s great cha-
grin, he stood, not first, but fourth, on a list of five men
chosen temporarily to conduct the government. Some
of his proceedings had made the Assembly fear (very
unjustly) that he shared the revolutionary enthusiasms of
Ledru-Rollin.
It was soon apparent that ultra-democracy in France
was not favored by the majority of Frenchmen. The140 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Socialists and Anarchists, finding that they could not form
a tyrant majority in the Assembly, began to conspire
against it. While a debate was going on ten days after
it assembled, an alarm was raised that a fierce crowd was
about to pour into its place of meeting. Lamartine
harangued the mob, but this time without effect. His
day was over. He was received with shouts of “ You
have played long enough upon the lyre ! A bas Lamar-
tine ! ” Ledru-Rollin tried to harangue in his turn, but
with no better effect. The hall was invaded, and Lamar-
tine, throwing up his arms, cried, “ All is lost! ”
Barbes, the man who led an emeate in 1839, and whose
life had been spared by Louis Philippe through the exer-
tions of Lamartine, led the insurgents. They demanded
two things, — a forced tax of a milliard (that is, a thousand
million) of francs, to be laid on the rich for the benefit of
the poor; and that whoever gave orders to call out the
National Guard against insurgents should be declared a
traitor. “ You are wrong, Barbes,” cried a voice from the
crowd; “ two hours’ sack of Paris is what we want.” After
this the president of the Assembly was pulled from his
chair, and a new provisional government was nominated of
fierce Red Republicans, — not red enough, however, for the
crowd, which demanded Socialists and Anarchists redder
still. By this time some battalions of the National Guard
had been called out. At sight of their bayonets the insur-
gents fled, but concentrated their forces on the Hotel-de-
Ville. This again they evacuated when cannon were
pointed against it, and the cause of order was won.
General Cavaignac, who had just come home from Algeria,
was made War Minister, and the clubs were closed. Louis
Blanc was sent into exile. The Orleans family, which had
been treated considerately by Lamartine, was forbidden to
return to France.
The Assembly was now dissolved, and a new Chamber of
Deputies was to be chosen in June. Among the candidates
for election was Prince Louis Napoleon. He had already,
in the days of Lamartine’s administration, visited Paris, andLAMARTINE AND THE SECOND REPUBLIC. 141
had replied to a polite request from the Provisional Govern-
ment that he would speedily leave the capital, that any
man who would disturb the Provisional Government was no
true friend to France. Now he professed to ask only to be
permitted to become a representative of the people, saying
that he had “not forgotten that Napoleon, before being the
first magistrate in France, was its first citizen.”
Then cries of “Vive l’ernpereur ! ” began to be heard.
Louis Napoleon’s earliest “ idea ” had been that France
needed an emperor whose throne should be based on uni-
versal suffrage. To this “idea” he added another, — that
it was his destiny to be the chosen emperor.
No one in these days can conceive the hold that the
memory of the First Napoleon had, in 184S, on the affec-
tions of the French people. That he put down anarchy
with an iron hand was by the Anarchists forgotten. He
was a son of the Revolution. His marches through Kurope
had scattered the seeds of revolutionary ideas. The heart
of France responded to such verses as B^ranger’s “ Grand’-
mhre.” In vain Lamartine represented the impolicy and
unfairness of proscribing the Orleans family while admitting
into France the head of the house of Bonaparte. Louis
Napoleon was elected deputy by four departments; but he
subsequently hesitated to take his seat, fearing, he said, that
he might be the cause of dissension in the Assembly.
The deputies from Paris were all Socialists, but those
from the departments were frequently men of note and
reputation. The country members were nearly all friends
to order and conservatism.
The first necessary measure was to get rid of the national
workshops. On June 20, one hundred and twenty thou-
sand workmen were being paid daily two francs each, only
two thousand of whom had anything to do, while fifty
thousand more were clamoring for admission.
Of course any measure to suppress the national work-
shops, or to send home those who had come up to Paris
for employment in them, was opposed by the workmen. It
was computed that among those employed, or rather paid,142 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
by the State for doing nothing, were twenty-five thousand
desperate men, ready for any fight, and that half this
number were ex-convicts. The Government had nominally
large forces at its command, but it was doubtful how far its
troops could be relied on.
On June 22, 1848, at nightfall the struggle began. By
morning half Paris was covered with barricades. It was
very hard to collect troops, but Cavaignac was a tried
soldier. He divided his little force into four parts. It
was not till the evening of the 23d that hostilities com-
menced, and at the same time General Cavaignac was
named by the Assembly dictator. This inspired confidence.
Cavaignac was well supported, and acted with the greatest
energy. The street-fighting was fiercer than any Paris had
ever seen, and no real success was gained by Cavaignac till
the evening of the 24th, after twenty-four hours of hard
fighting. That success was the storming of the church of
Sainte Genevihve (called also the Pantheon) and the destruc-
tion of its walls. But still the fight went on. Many gen-
erals were wounded. Cavaignac used his cannon freely, and
even his bombs. It was night on June 26 before the troops
could be pronounced victorious, and then they had not
stormed the most formidable of the barricades, — that of
the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Says Sir Archibald
Alison, —
“ But ere the attack on this barricade commenced, a sublime in-
stance of Christian heroism and devotion occurred, which shines
forth like a heavenly glory in the midst of these terrible scenes of
carnage. Monseigneur Affre, archbishop of Paris, horror-stricken
with the slaughter which for three days had been going on,
resolved to attempt a reconciliation between the contending
parties, or perish in the attempt. Having obtained leave from
General Cavaignac to repair to the headquarters of the insur-
gents, he set out, dressed in his pontifical robes, having the
cross in his hand, attended by his two chaplains, also in full
canonicals, and three intrepid members of the Assembly.
Deeply affected by this courageous act, which they knew was
almost certain death, the people, as he walked through the
streets, fell on their knees and besought him to desist; but heLAMARTINE AND THE SECOND REPUBLIC. 143
persisted, saying, ‘ It is my duty; a good shepherd giveth his life
for the sheep.’ At seven in the evening he arrived at the Place
de la Bastille, where the fire of musketry was extremely warm
on both sides. It ceased on either side at the august spectacle,
and the archbishop, bearing the cross aloft, advanced with his
two priests to the foot of the barricade. A single attendant,
bearing a green branch, preceded the prelate. The soldiers,
seeing him advance so close to those who had already slain
bearers of flags-of-truce, approached in order to give him succor
in case of need; the insurgents, on their side, descended the
barricade, and the redoubtable combatants stood close to each
other, exchanging looks of defiance. Suddenly a shot was heard.
Instantly the cry arose of ‘Treason! Treason!’ and the com-
batants, retreating on either side, began to exchange shots with
as much fury as ever. Undismayed by the storm of balls
which incessantly flew over his head from all quarters, the
prelate advanced slowly, attended by his chaplains, to the sum-
mit of the barricade. One of them had his hat pierced by
three balls, but the archbishop himself, almost by a miracle,
escaped while on the top. He had descended three steps on
the other side, when he was pierced through the loins by a shot
from a window. The insurgents, horror-struck, approached
him where he fell, stanched the wound, which at once was
seen to be mortal, and carried him to a neighboring hospital.
When told that he had only a few minutes to live, ‘Hod be
praised!’ he said, ‘and may He accept my life as an expiation
for my omissions during my episcopacy, and as an offering for
the salvation of this misguided people.’ With these words he
expired.”
As soon as the archbishop’s death was known, the insur-
gents made proposals to capitulate, on condition of a gen-
eral pardon. This Cavaignac refused, saying that they
must surrender unconditionally. The fight therefore lasted
until daybreak. Then the insurgents capitulated, and all
was over.
No one ever knew how many fell. Six generals were
killed or mortally wounded. Ten thousand bodies were
recognized and buried, and it is said that nearly as many
more were thrown unclaimed into the Seine. There were
fifteen thousand prisoners, of whom three thousand died of
jail-fever. Thousands were sent to Cayenne; thousands144 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
to the galleys. This terrible four days’ fight cost France
more lives than any battle of the Empire.
The insurrection being over, and Cavaignac dictator, the
next thing was for the Assembly to make a constitution.
This constitution was short-lived. A president was to be
chosen for four years, with re-election as often as might be
desired. He was to be elected by universal suffrage. He
was to have a salary of about one hundred and twenty-
five thousand dollars per annum, and he was to have
much the same powers as the President of the United
States.
There were two principal presidential candidates, —
Prince Louis Napoleon, who had taken his seat in the Assem-
bly ; and Cavaignac, who had the power of Government on his
side, and was sanguine of election. The prince proclaimed
in letters and placards his deep attachment to the Republic,
and denounced as his enemies and slanderers all those who
said he was not firmly resolved to maintain the constitution.
The result of the election showed Louis Napoleon to
have had five and a half millions of votes; Cavaignac one
and a half million ; Lamartine, who six months before had
been a popular idol, had nineteen thousand.
An early friend of Louis Napoleon, who seems to have
been willing to talk freely of the playmate of her childhood,
thus spoke of him to an English traveller.
“ He is,” she said, “ a strange being. His mind wants keep-
ing. A trifle close to his eyes hides from him large objects at
a distance. . . . The great progress in political knowledge
made by the higher classes in France from 1S15 to 184S is lost
on him. When we met in 1836, after three years’ separation, I
was struck by his backwardness in political knowledge. Up to
1848 he never had lived in France except as a child or a captive.
His opinions and feelings were those of the French masses from
1799 to 1812. Though these opinions had been modified in the
minds of the higher classes, they were, in 1848, those of the
multitude, who despise parliamentary government, despise
the pope, despise the priests, delight in profuse expenditure, de-
light in war, hold the Rhine to be our national frontier, and that it
is our duty to seize all that lies on the French side. The peopleLOUIS NAPOLEON.
( The Prim e President.)LAMARTINE AND THE SECOND REPUBLIC. 145
and he were of one mind. I have no doubt that the little he
may have heard, and the less that he attended to, from the per-
sons he saw between 1S48 and 1852 about liberty, self-govern-
ment, economy, the supremacy of the Assembly, respect for
foreign nations, and fidelity to treaties, appeared to him the
silliest talk imaginable. So it would have appeared to all in the
lower classes of France; so it would have appeared to the army,
which is drawn from those classes, and exaggerates their politi-
cal views.”
“ The prince president is romantic, impulsive, and bizarre,”
said one of his officials to the same English gentleman, “ indo-
lent, vain, good-natured, selfish, fearing and disliking his supe-
riors ; ... he loves to excite the astonishment of the populace.
As a child he liked best bad children, — as a man, bad men.”
But one good quality he had pre-eminently, — no man
was ever more grateful for kindness, or more indulgent to
his friends.
Such was the man, untried, uneducated in French politics,
covered with ridicule, and even of doubtful courage, whom
the voices of five and a half millions of French voters called
to the presidential chair. It was to the country Louis Na-
poleon had appealed, to the rural population of France as
against the dangerous classes in the great cities. Paris had
for sixty years been making revolutions for the country; now
it was the turn of the provincials, who said they were tired
of receiving a new Government by mail whenever it pleased
the Parisians to make one. Paris contained one hundred
and forty thousand Socialists, besides Anarchists and Red
Republicans. With these the rural population had no sym-
pathy. Louis Napoleon was not chosen by their votes, nor
by those of their sympathizers in other great cities. His
success was in the rural districts alone.
His election was a great disappointment to the Assembly,
and from the first moment the prince president and that
body were antagonistic to each other. The president
claimed to hold his powers from the people, and to be in
no way under the control of the Assembly ; the Assembly
was forever talking of deposing him, of imprisoning him at
Vincennes, and so on.
10146 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Immediately after his election the prince president found
it very difficult to form a cabinet. After being repulsed in
various quarters, he sent a confidential messenger to Lamar-
tine, asking him to meet him by night on horseback in a
dark alley in the Bois de Boulogne. After listening to his
rival’s appeal for assistance in this emergency, Lamartine
frankly told him that for various reasons he felt himself to
be not only the most useless, but the most dangerous minister
a new Government could select. He said, “ I should ruin
myself without serving you.” The prince seemed grieved.
“ With regard to popularity,” he answered, with a smile, " I
have enough for both of us.” “ I know it,” replied Lamar-
tine ; “ but having, as I think, given you unanswerable
reasons for my refusal, I give you my word of honor that if
by to-morrow you have not been able to win over and to
rally to you the men I will name, I will accept the post of
prime minister in default of others.”
Before morning the prince president had succeeded else-
where ; but he retained a sincere respect and regard for
Lamartine, who after this incident fades out of the page
of history. He lived a few years longer; but he was op-
pressed by pecuniary difficulties, from which neither his
literary industry, nor the assistance of the Government, nor
the subscriptions of his friends, seemed able to extricate
him. Several times Milly, the dear home of his childhood,
was put up for sale by his creditors. It was more than once
rescued on his behalf, but in the end was sold.
Lamartine was buried with national honors; but among
all the chances and changes that have distracted the atten-
tion of his countrymen from his career, he does not seem
to have received from the world or the French nation all
the honor, praise, and gratitude that his memory deserves.
Louis Napoleon, who had all his life dreamed of being
the French emperor, though he took care to repudiate such
an idea in all his public speeches, had not been president
of the Republic six weeks before he read a plan for a coup
d'etat to General Changarnier, who utterly refused to listen
to it.LAMARTINE AND THE SECOND REPUBLIC. 147
We need not here dwell on the struggles that went on
between the prince president and the Assembly, from De-
cember, 1848, to November, 1851. It is enough to say
that the Chamber, from being the governing power in
France, found itself reduced to a mere legislative body
much hampered by the mistrust and contempt of the Ex-
ecutive. Its members of course hated “ the Man at the
£lys6e,” or “ Celui-ci,” as they called him. The Socialists
hated the Assembly even more than they hated the president.
The army was all for him. The bourgeoisie were thankful
that under his rule they might at least find protection from
Socialism and anarchy.
From the election of Prince Louis to the coup d'etat in
December, 1851, there were four serious ententes in Paris,
and once the city was in a state of siege. It was estimated
that to put down the smallest of these revolts cost two hun-
dred thousand dollars.
Foreign nations were too busy with their own affairs in
1848 to have time to meddle with the Government of Louis
Napoleon, — indeed, Russia and Prussia were much obliged
to him for keeping out the Orleans family, whom they by
no means wished to see on the French throne.
One thing that Louis Napoleon did to gain favor with the
country party caused great indignation among genuine re-
publicans, and, indeed, throughout Europe. This was the
part he took against the Republic of Rome.
Pio Nono, having been elected pope in 1846, had started
on his career as a liberal pontiff and ruler; but before 1848
he had disappointed the expectations of all parties, and
had fled from Rome to Gaeta, where Ferdinand, king of
the Two Sicilies (commonly known as King Bomba) had
also taken refuge. Lamartine, at the time his power ceased,
had been fitting out a French army to lend help to the
Romans if they should be attacked by the Austrians, and if
need were, to protect the pope, who before his flight was
supposed to be opposed to Austrian domination. Louis
Napoleon ordered General Oudinot, who commanded the
French forces, to disembark his troops at Civita Vecchia,148 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
and either to occupy Rome peaceably, or to attack the rev-
olutionists. A battle was fought, and the French worsted;
but they ended by gaining the city and holding it, putting
down the Roman republicans, and handing the city over to
Austrian and papal vengeance on Pio Nono’s return.
The new president, anxious to strengthen his popularity
in the provinces, made several tours. Everywhere, as the
nephew of his uncle, he was received with wild enthusiasm.
He was not a man to captivate by his manners on public
occasions, neither was he a ready speaker; but he looked
his best on horseback, and above all, there was in his favor,
among the middle class of Frenchmen, a very potent feeling,
— the dread of change.
As a deputy, before his election by the country as its
president, he used to sit in the Chamber silent and alone,
pitied by some, and neglected by all. Silence, indeed, was
necessary to his success, for, “ silent and smoking, he matured
his plans.” One of the first things he did when he became
president was to attempt to get possession of all papers in
the archives concerning his conduct at Strasburg and
Boulogne.
There had been a new Assembly elected. It had few
of the old republican leaders in it, but the Left and the
Right and half the Centre were opposed to the prince
president. The Left in the French Chamber means the
Red Republicans; the Right, those members who are in
favor of monarchy; the Centre, the Moderates, who are will-
ing to accept any good government.
One of the objects of this Assembly, which foresaw that a
coup d'etat might be at hand, was to get command of a little
army for its own protection. It appointed as commander
of this force General Changarnier, with whom the prince
president had recently quarrelled, and designated four of
its members, whom it called qiazstors, to look into all mat-
ters relating to its safety.
The constitution was to be revised by this Assembly.
Nobody cared much about the constitution, which had not
had time to acquire any hold on the affections of the people,LAMARTINE AND THE SECOND REPUBLIC. 149
and Louis Napoleon had recently acquired popularity with
the turbulent part of the population of Paris by opposing a
measure calculated to restrict universal suffrage, and to pre-
vent tramps, aliens, and ex-convicts from voting at elections.
The prince president, who wanted, for his own purposes, as
large a popular vote as possible, was opposed to any restric-
tions on the suffrage.
Such was the condition of things on Nov. 26, 1851,
when Louis Napoleon summoned the principal generals and
colonels of the troops in and around Paris to meet him at
the ftlys^e. At this meeting they all swore to support the
president if called upon to do so, and never to tell of this
engagement. They kept the secret for five years.
Meantime the Assembly on its part was hatching a con-
spiracy to overturn the president and send him to a dun-
geon at Vincennes; while all who refused to support its
authority were to be declared guilty of treason.
The three men called the generals of the Army of Africa,
— namely, Cavaignac, Changarnier, and Lamoriciere, —
were opposed to the prince president. They were either
Republicans or Orleanists.
Thus the crisis approached. Each party was ready to
spring upon the other. Again France was to experience a
political convulsion, and the party that moved first would
gain the day.CHAPTER VIII.
THE COUP D’ETAT.
“ T N voting for Louis Napoleon,” says Alison, “ the
_L French rural population understood that it was
voting for an emperor and for the repression of the
clubs in Paris. It seemed to Frenchmen in the country
that they had only a choice between Jacobin rule by the
clubs, or Napoleonic rule by an emperor.” So, though
Louis Napoleon, when he presented himself as a presiden-
tial candidate, assured the electors, “ I am not so ambi-
tious as to dream of empire, of war, nor of subversive
theories; educated in free countries and in the school of
misfortune, I shall always remain faithful to the duties that
your suffrages impose on me,” public sentiment abroad and
at home, whether hostile or favorable, expected that he
would before long make himself virtually, if not in name, the
Emperor Napoleon. Indeed, the army was encouraged by
its officers to shout, “Vive l’empereur ! ” and “Vive Napo-
le'on! ” And General Changarnier, for disapproving of
these demonstrations, had been dismissed from his post as
military commander at the capital. He was forthwith, as
we have seen, appointed to a military command in the
confidence of the Assembly.
By the autumn of 1851 Louis Napoleon had fully made
up his mind as to his coup d'etat, and had arranged all its
details. He had five intimates, who were his counsellors,—
De Moray, De Maupas, De Persigny, Fleury, and General
Saint-Arnaud.
De Moray has always been reputed to have been the
half-brother of Louis Napoleon. In 1847 he lived luxuri-
ously in a small hotel in the Champs Elysdes, surroundedI
DUC DE MORXY.THE CO CP D'ETAT.
15 I
by rare and costly works of art. He had then never been
considered anything but a man of fashion ; but he proved
well fitted to keep secrets, to conduct plots, and to do the
cruellest things in a jocund, off-hand way.
Saint-Arnaud’s name had been originally Jacques Le Roy.
At one time, under the name of Florival, he had been an
actor in Paris at one of the suburban theatres. He had
served three times in the French army, and been twice
dismissed for conduct unbecoming an officer. His third
term of service for his country was in a foreign legion,
composed of dare-devils of all nations, who enrolled them-
selves in the army of Algeria. There his brilliant bravery
had a large share in securing the capture of Constantine.
He rose rapidly to be a general, was an excellent admin-
istrator, a cultivated and agreeable companion, perfectly
unscrupulous, and ready to assist in any scheme of what
he considered necessary cruelty. Fleury, who had been
sent to Africa to select a military chief fitted to carry out
the coup d'etat, found Saint-Arnaud the very man to suit
the purpose of his master. Saint-Arnaud was tall, thin,
and bony, with close-cropped hair. De Morny used to
laugh behind his back at the way he said le people souve-
rain, and said he knew as little about the sovereign people
as about the pronunciation. He spoke English well, for
he had lived for some years an exile in Leicester Square,
— the disreputable French quarter of London ; this accom-
plishment was of great service to him during the Crimean
War.
De Maupas had been a country prefect, and was eager
for promotion. Louis Napoleon converted him into his
Minister of Police.
Fleury was the simple-hearted and attached friend of his
master.
De Persigny, like Saint-Arnaud, had changed his name,
having begun life as Fialin.
These five plotted the coup d'etatp arranged all its de-
tails, and kept their own counsel.
1 De Maupas, Le Coup d’Etat.152 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
The generals and colonels in garrison in Paris had been
sounded, as we have seen, in reference to their allegiance
to the Great Emperor’s nephew, and by the close of 185 r
all things had been made ready for the proposed coup
d'etat.
A coup d'etat is much the same thing as a cotip de main,
— with this difference, that in the political coup de main it
is the mob that takes the initiative, in the coup d'etat the
Government; and the Government generally has the army
on its side.
Louis Napoleon and his five associates were about to do
the most audacious thing in modern history; but no man
can deny them the praise awarded to the unjust steward.
If the thing was to be done, or, in the- language of Victor
Hugo, if the crime was to be committed, it could not have
been more admirably planned or more skilfully executed.
The world, to all appearance, went on in its usual way.
The Assembly, on December 1, 1851, was busy discussing
the project of a railroad to Lyons. That evening M. de
Morny was at the Opdra Comique in company with General
Changarnier, and the prince president was doing the honors
as usual in his reception-room at the Elys^e. His visage
was as calm, his manners were as conciliatory and affable,
as usual. No symptoms of anything extraordinary were to
be seen, and an approaching municipal election in Paris
accounted for the arrival of several estafettes and couriers,
which from time to time called the prince president from
the room. When the company had taken leave, Saint-
Arnaud, Maupas, Morny, and a colonel on the staff went
with the prince president into his smoking-room, where the
duties of each were assigned to him. Everything was to
be done by clock-work. Exactly at the hour appointed,
all the African generals and several of their friends were
to be arrested. Exactly at the moment indicated, troops
were to move into position. At so many minutes past six
a. m. all the printing-offices were to be surrounded. Every
man who had in any way been prominent in politics since
the days of Louis Philippe was to be put under arrest.THE COUP D'ETAT.
153
By seven o’clock in the morning all this had been ac-
complished. The Parisians awoke to find their walls pla-
carded by proclamations signed by Prince Louis Napoleon
as President, De Horny as Minister of the Interior, De
Maupas as Prefect of Police, and Saint-Arnaud as Minister
of War.
These proclamations announced, —
I.	The dissolution of the Assembly.
II.	The restoration of universal suffrage.
III.	A general election on December 14.
IV.	The dissolution of the Council of State.
V.	That Paris was in a state of siege.
This last meant that any man might be arrested, without
warrant, at the pleasure of the police.
Another placard forbade any printer, on pain of death,
to print any placard not authorized by Government; and
death likewise was announced for any one who tore down
a Government placard.
Louis Napoleon followed this up by an appeal to the
people. He said he wished the people to judge between
the Assembly and himself. If France would not support
him, she must choose another president. In place of the
constitution of 1848 he proposed one that should make
the presidential term of office ten years; he also proposed
that the president’s cabinet should be of his own selection.
Louis Napoleon had entire confidence that all elections
by universal suffrage would be in his favor. He had just
made extensive tours in the provinces, and had been
received everywhere with enthusiasm.
Thus far I have given the historical outline of the story;
but if we look into Victor Hugo’s “ Histoire d’un Crime,”
and disentangle its facts from its hysterics, we may receive
from his personal narrative a vivid idea of what passed in
Paris from the night of Dec. 1, 1851, to the evening of
December 4, when all was over.
Roused early in the morning by members of the Assem-
bly, who came to announce the events of the night, Victor
Hugo, to whom genuine republicans who were not Social-154 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
ists looked as a leader, was, like all the rest of Paris, taken
completely by surprise. One of his visitors was a working-
man, a wood-carver ; of him Hugo eagerly asked : “ What
do the working-men — the people — say as they read the
placards?” He answered: “Some say one thing, some
another. The thing has been so done that they cannot
understand it. Men going to their work are reading the
placards. Not one in a hundred says anything, and those
who do, say generally, ‘ Good ! Universal suffrage is re-
established. The conservative majority in the Assembly is
got rid of, — that’s splendid ! Thiers is arrested, — better
still! Changarnier is in prison, — bravo ! ’ Beneath every
placard there are men placed to lead the approval. My
opinion is that the people will approve ! ”
At exactly six that morning, Cavaignac, Changarnier, La-
moricifere, Thiers, and all those who had lain down to sleep
as cabinet ministers of the prince president, were roused
from their beds by officers of cavalry, with orders to dress
quickly, for they were under arrest. Before each door a
hackney-coach was waiting, and an escort of two hundred
Lancers was in a street near by. Resistance seemed useless
in the face of such precautions, but Victor Hugo and his
friends were resolved upon a fight. They put their official
scarves as deputies into their pockets, and started forth to
see if they could raise the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. But
their friend the wood-carver had told them truly, — there
was neither sympathy nor enthusiasm in the streets for the
constitution that had fallen, the deputies who had been
placed under arrest, nor for violated political institutions.
In vain they appealed to the people in the name of the
law. The mob seemed to consider that provided it had
universal suffrage, and that the man of its choice were at
the head of affairs, it had better trust the safety of the
nation to one man than risk the uncertainties that might
attend the tyranny of many.
The frantic efforts made that day by Victor Hugo and a
few other deputies of the Left to rouse the populace are al-
most ludicrous. Victor Hugo, no doubt, was a brave man,THE COUP D'ZTAT.
155
though a very melodramatic one, and he seems to have
thought that if he could get the soldiers to shoot him, —
him, the greatest literary star of France since the death of
Voltaire, — the notoriety of his death might rouse the
population.
Here is one scene in his narrative. He and three of
his friends, finding that the Faubourg Saint-Antoine gave no
ear to their appeals, and for once was disinclined to fight,
decided to return home, and took seats in an omnibus which
passed them on the Place de la Bastille.
“ We were all glad to get in,” says Victor Hugo. “ I took it
much to heart that I had not that morning, when I saw a crowd
assembled round the Porte Saint-Martin, shouted ‘To arms!’
.	.	. The omnibus started. I was sitting at the end on the
left, my friend young Armand was beside me. As the omnibus
moved on, the crowd became more closely packed upon the
Boulevard. When we reached the narrow ascent near the Porte
Saint-Martin, a regiment of heavy cavalry met us. The men
were Cuirassiers. Their horses were in a trot, and their swords
were drawn. All of a sudden the regiment came to a halt.
Something was in their way. Their halt detained the om-
nibus. My heart was stirred. Close before me, a yard from
me, were Frenchmen turned into Mamelukes, citizen-supporters
of the Republic transformed into the mercenaries of a Second
Empire! From my seat I could almost put my hand upon them.
I could no longer bear the sight. I let down the glass, I put
my head out of the window, and looked steadily at the close
line of armed men. Then I shouted : ‘ Down with Louis Bona-
parte 1 Those who serve traitors are traitors 1 ’ The nearest
soldiers turned their faces towards me, and looked dazed with
astonishment. The rest did not stir. When I shouted, Armand
let down his glass and thrust half his body out of his window,
shaking his fist at the soldiers. He too cried out: ‘ Down with
all traitors 1 ’ Our example was contagious. ‘ Down with
traitors ! ’ cried my other two friends in the omnibus. ‘ Down
with the dictator! ’ cried a generous young man who sat beside
me. All the passengers in the omnibus, except this young man,
seemed to be filled with terror. ‘Hold your tongues!’ they
cried; ‘you will have us all massacred.’ The most frightened
of them let down his glass and shouted to the soldiers : ‘Vive
le Prince Napoldon 1 Vive 1’ empereur ! ’ The soldiers looked156 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
at us in solemn silence. A mounted policeman menaced us
with his drawn sword. The crowd seemed stupefied. . . .
The soldiers had no orders to act, so nothing came of it. The
regiment started at a gallop, so did the omnibus. As long as.
the Cuirassiers were passing, Armand and I, hanging half out
of our windows, continued to shout at them, 1 Down with the
dictator! ’ ”
This foolhardy and melodramatic performance was one of
many such scenes, calculated to turn tragedy into farce.
Meantime, from early morning the hall of the representa-
tives had been surrounded by soldiers with mortars and
cannon. As the deputies arrived they were allowed to pass
the gates, but were not permitted to enter their chamber.
Their president, or Speaker, M. Dupin, was appealed to. He
said he could do nothing; it was hopeless to resist such a
display of force. At last the representatives, becoming, as
the soldiers put it, “ noisy and troublesome,” were collared
and turned out into the street. One by one the most ex-
cited were arrested. The remainder decided to go to the
High Court of Justice and demand a warrant to depose and
arrest the prince president. But they could not find the
judges ; they had hidden themselves away. When at last they
succeeded in discovering the place where they were sitting,
the police followed closely on their track, and the judges
were forced to shut up their court and march off, under a
guard of soldiers.
The representatives then decided to go to the Mairie of
the Tenth Arrondissement, and there reorganize into a le-
gislative body. They were nearly all members belonging
to the Right, but they were as indignant as the Left at the
outrage.
They formed into a column, marching two and two
abreast; but the Left would not march with the Right, so
they proceeded in two parallel columns, one on each side
of the way. Arrived at the Mairie, they made Jules de Las-
teyrie, Lafayette’s grandson, president pro tempore, and pro-
ceeded to pass a decree deposing Louis Bonaparte. Scarcely
was this done when a battalion of cavalry arrived, and theTHE COUP D'E TA T.
157
legislators soon perceived that they were prisoners. After a
great deal of altercation with the soldiers, they were marched
off to a barrack-yard on the Quai d’Orsay.
When all this was reported to De Momy, he remarked :
“ It is well; but they are the last deputies who will be made
prisoners,” — meaning that any others would be shot.
It was half-past three when the deputies were locked into
the barrack-yard. The December day was cold and frosty,
the sky overcast. The first thing they did was to call the
roll. There were two hundred and twenty of them, out of
a total membership of seven hundred and fifty. Among
them were many of the best and most conservative men of
France. There was Jules Gr6vy, the future president (M.
Thiers was already in prison) ; Jules de Lasteyrie ; Sainte-
Beuve, the great critic; Berryer, the great lawyer; the
Due de Luynes, the richest man in France; and Odillon
Barrot, the popular idol at the commencement of the late
revolution. De Tocqueville was there, the great writer
on America; General Oudinot, and several other generals;
the Due de Broglie, great-grandson of Madame de Stael;
Eugene Sue, the novelist; Coquerel, the French Protes-
tant preacher; and M. de Rbmusat, the son of that lady
who has given us her experiences of the court of the
First Napoleon.
For two hours the deputies remained in the open air;
then they were transferred at dark to the third story of a
wing of the barracks. They found themselves in two long
halls, with low ceilings and dirty walls, used as the soldiers’
dormitories. They had no furniture but some wooden
benches. M. de Tocqueville was quite ill. The rooms
were bitterly cold. An hour or so later, three representa-
tives, who had demanded to share the fate of their col-
leagues, were brought in. One of these was the Marquis
de La Vallette, who had married Mrs. Welles, a very beau-
tiful and fascinating American lady.
Night came. Most of the prisoners had eaten nothing
since morning. A collection of five francs apiece was
taken up amongst them, and a cold collation was provided158 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
by a neighboring restaurant. They ate standing, with their
plates in their hands. “ Just like a supper at a ball,” re-
marked one of the younger ones. They had very few
drinking-glasses. Right and Left, having been reconciled
by this time, drank together. “ Equality and Fraternity ! ”
remarked a conservative nobleman as he drank with one
of the Red Republicans. “Ah,” was the answer, “but not
Liberty.” Eight more prisoners before long were added
to their number, and three were released, — one because
he was eighty, one because of his wife’s illness, and one
because he had been accidentally wounded. At last, sixty
mattresses were brought in, for two hundred and twenty-five
men. They had no blankets, and had to trust to their
great-coats to keep them from the cold. A few of them
went to sleep, but were roused at midnight by an order
that their quarters must be changed. They were taken
down by parties to all the voitures cellulaires (or Black
Marias) in Paris. Each deputy was put into a separate
cell, where he sat cramped and freezing for hours. It was
nearly seven a. m., December 3, before these prison-vans
were ready to start.
Some went to the great prison of Mazas, some to Vin-
cennes, some to Fort VaHrien. At Mazas they were
treated in all respects like criminals, except that they
were not allowed a daily walk, — a privilege the knaves and
malefactors obtained. Two deputies only were favored
with beds, — M. Thiers and another elderly man. M.
Gr6vy had none, nor the African generals, the ex-dictator
Cavaignac among them.
Such of the members of the Left as were not in prison
spent December 2, 3, and 4 in endeavoring to assemble
and reorganize the remains of the Assembly; but the police
followed them up too closely.	|
A few barricades were raised, and the first man killed on
one of them was named Baudin. He threw away his life
recklessly and to no purpose ; but it is the fashion among
advanced republicans to this day to decorate his grave
and to honor his memory with communistic speeches. HeTHE COUP D'PTAT.	159
was rather a fine young fellow, and might have lived to do
the State some service.
By the night of December 3 there was a good deal of
commotion in the city. Two days of disorganization, idle-
ness, and excitement had made workmen more inflamma-
ble than when they remained passive under the appeals
of Victor Hugo. The remainder of the story, so far as it
concerns the uprising and massacre in the streets of Paris,
I will borrow from the experience of an American eye-
witness ; but first I will tell what happened to the African
generals imprisoned at Mazas.
On the night of December 3 the station of the great rail-
road to the north was filled with soldiers. About six o’clock
the next morning two voitures cellulaires drove up, each
attended by a light carriage containing an especial agent
sent by the police. These vehicles, just as they were, were
rolled on to trucks, and the train moved out of the station.
There were eight cells in each voiture cellulaire; four were
occupied by prisoners, four by policemen. It was bitterly
cold, and in the second of the prison-vans the police, half
frozen, opened the doors of their cells and came out to
walk up and down and warm themselves. Then a voice
was heard from one of the prisoners. “ Ah, qa, it is
bitterly cold here. Could n’t one be allowed to re-light one’s
cigar? ” At this another voice called out: “ Tic ns ! is that
you, Lamoriciere? Good morning!” ‘‘Good morning,
Cavaignac,” replied the other. Then a third voice came from
the third cell. It was that of Changarnier. “ Messieurs
les Generaitx,” cried a fourth, “ do not forget that I am one
of you.” The speaker was a queestor of the Chamber of
Deputies, a man charged with the safety of the National
Assembly. The generals who had spoken, and Bedeau, who
was in the next van, were, with the exception of Bugeaud,
the four leading commanders in the French army. The
other four prisoners were Colonel Charras, General Le Flo,
Baze the queestor, and a deputy, Count Roger (du Nord).
At midnight they had been roused from sleep and ordered
to dress immediately. “ Are we going to be shot? ” askedl60 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Charras, but no answer was vouchsafed him. They were
put into the voitures cellulaires, each knowing nothing of
the presence of the others; even the police who were in
charge of them, had no idea what prisoners they had in
custody. After this recognition between the generals, they
were permitted to come out of their cells and walk up and
down the van to warm themselves, taking care, however,
that they were not seen at liberty by the special agents in
the carriages attending on each van.
On reaching Ham, the former prison of Louis Napo-
leon, Cavaignac, whom he had succeeded as ruler of
France, was put into his former chamber. “ Chassez
croissez,” said De Morny, when the report was made to
him.
December 4, the last day of the struggle, was by far the
most terrible. Louis Napoleon, in spite of many benefits
which France and the world owe him, will never be cleansed
from the stain that the outrages of that day have left upon
his memory. It may be said, however, that the details of
the coup d'etat were left to his subordinates, and that
probably both success and infamy are due in large part to
the flippant Morny.
It was a cold, drizzling day. Such barricades as had
been built were very slimly defended, and with no enthu-
siasm. The insurgents were short of ammunition, nor did
the troops attack them with much vigor. In fact, the sol-
diers were but few, for all were being concentrated on that
part of the Boulevard where strangers do their shopping
and eat ices at Tortoni’s. The programme for that day
was not fighting, but a massacre.
The American gentleman whose narrative I am about to
quote, says,—
“ On December 3 there was more excitement in the streets
than there had been on December 2. The secret societies had
got to work. The Reds were recovering from their astonish-
ment. Ex-members of the National Assembly had harangued
the multitude and circulated addresses calculated to rouse the
people to resistance. On the 4th there was not much stirring.THE COUP D'ETAT.
l6l
The shops were closed. I went into the heart of the city on
business, where I soon found myself in the midst of a panic-
stricken crowd. The residents were closing their doors and
barricading their windows. Some said the Faubourgs were
rising; some that the troops were approaching, with cannon.
“ Hearing there were barricades at the Porte Saint-Denis, I
pushed directly for the spot. The work was going on bravely.
Stagings had been torn from unfinished houses, iron railings
from the magnificent gateway; trees were cut down, street sheds
demolished; carts, carriages, and omnibuses were being trium-
phantly dragged from hiding-places to the monstrous pile.
There were not very many men at work, but those who were
engaged, labored like beavers. Blouses and broadcloth were
about equally mixed. A few men armed with cutlasses, mus-
kets, and pistols appeared to act as leaders ; soon a search was
made in neighboring houses for arms. I was surprised to see
how many boys were in the ranks of the insurgents. They
went to work as if insurrection were a frolic. I shuddered as I
thought how many of them would be shot or bayoneted before
night fell. The sentiments of the spectators seemed different.
Some said, ‘ Let them go ahead. They want to plunder and
kill:	they will soon be taught a good lesson.’ Others en-
couraged the barricade-makers. One man, hearing that I
was an American, said with a sigh, ‘ Ah, you live in a true
republic! ’
“ After remaining two hours at this barricade, and seeing no
fighting, I turned on to the Boulevard. There, troops were
advancing slowly, with loaded cannon. From time to time they
charged the people, who slipped out of the way by side streets,
as I did myself. Coming back on the Boulevard des Italiens, I
found the entire length of the Boulevards, from the Porte Saint-
Denis to the Madeleine, filled with troops in order of battle.
In the novelty and beauty of the scene I quite lost sight of
danger. At one time they chased away the crowd; but soon
sentinels were removed from the corners of the streets, and as
many spectators as thought proper pressed on to the sidewalks
of the Boulevard. . . . Opposite to me was the Seventh Lancers,
— a fine corps, recently arrived in Paris. Suddenly, at the upper
end of the line, the discharge of a cannon was heard, followed
by a blaze of musketry and a general charge. The spectators
on the Boulevard took to flight. They pitched into open doors,
or loudly demanded entrance at the closed ones. I was fortu-
nate enough to get into a neighboring carriage-way, through
the grated porte-cochere of which I could see what was going
ii162 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
on. The firing was tremendous. Volley after volley followed
so fast that it seemed like one continued peal of thunder.
Suddenly there was a louder and a nearer crash. The cavalry
in front of me wavered; and then, as if struck by a panic,
turned and rushed in disorder down the street, making the
ground tremble under their tread. What could have occurred ?
In a few minutes they came charging back, firing their pistols
on all sides. Then came a quick succession of orders: ‘Shut
all windows ! Keep out of sight! Open the blinds ! ’ etc. It
seemed that unexpected shots had been fired from some of the
windows on the soldiers, from which they had suffered so much
as to cause a recoil. The roll of firearms was now terrific.
Mortars and cannon were fired at short-range point-blank at
the suspicious houses, which were then carried by assault.
The rattle of small shot against windows and walls was in-
cessant. This, too, was in the finest part of the Boulevard.
Costly houses were completely riddled, their fronts were knocked
in, their floors pierced with balls. The windows throughout
the neighborhood were destroyed by the concussion of the can-
non. Of the hairbreadth escape of some of the inmates, and
of the general destruction of property, I need not speak. The
Government afterwards footed all the bills for the last. The
firing continued for more than an hour, and then receded to
more distant parts of the city; for the field of combat embraced
an area of several miles, and there were forty thousand troops
engaged in it. As soon as I could do so with safety, I left my
covert, and endeavored to see what had happened elsewhere.
But troops guarded every possible avenue, and fired on all
those who attempted to approach any interdicted spot. I no-
ticed some pools of blood, but the corpses had been removed;
in a cross-street I saw a well-dressed man gasping his life away
on a rude stretcher. Those around him told me he had six
balls in him. In the Rue Richelieu there was the corpse of a
young girl. Somebody had placed lighted candles at its head
and feet. When I reached the parts of the town removed
from the surveillance of the soldiers, I noticed a bitter feeling
among the better classes for the day’s work. The slaughter
had been amongst those of their own class, which was unusual.
The number slain was at first, of course, exaggerated, but it was
with no gratifying emotions that we could reduce it a few
hundreds. It was civil war, — fratricide. I reached home in-
dignant and mournful.”
Victor Hugo says of the massacre : “ There were no
combatants on the side of the people. There could not beTHE COUP D'£TAT
163
said to have been any mob, though the Boulevard was
crowded with spectators. Then, as the wounded and
terrified rushed into houses, the soldiers rushed in after
them.”
Tortoni’s was gutted ; the fashionable Baths of Jouvence
were torn to pieces; one hotel was demolished; twenty-
eight houses were so injured that they had next day to be
pulled down. Peaceful shopkeepers, dressmakers, and Eng-
lish strangers were among the slain, — an old man with an
umbrella, a young man with an opera-glass. In the house
where Jouvin sold gloves there was a pile of dead bodies.
The firing was over by four p. m. It has never been known
how many were massacred. Some said twenty-five hundred,
some made it five hundred, and almost every person killed
was, not a Red combatant, but an innocent victim.
Thus Louis Napoleon made himself master of Paris.
The army was all for him, the masses were apathetic, the
rural population was on his side. A few weeks later a ple-
biscite made him emperor.
The coup d'etat having succeeded, most Frenchmen
gave in their adhesion to its author. It remained only to
dispose of the prisoners. Without any preliminary investi-
gation, squads of them were shot, chiefly in the court-yard
of the Prefecture of Police. All deputies of the Left were
sent into exile, except some who were imprisoned in Alge-
rine fortresses or sent to Cayenne, — the French political
penal colony at that period.
Victor Hugo remained a fortnight in hiding, believing,
on the authority of Alexandre Dumas, that a price was set
upon his head. He gives some moving accounts of little
children whom he saw lying in their blood on the evening
of the massacre. His chief associates nearly all escaped
arrest, and got away from France in various disguises.
Their adventures are all of them very picturesque, and some
are very amusing.
Several of the eight prisoners at Ham suffered much from
dampness. Lamoriciere, indeed, contracted permanent
rheumatism during his imprisonment. He begged earnestly164 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
to be allowed to write to his wife, but was permitted to send
her only three words, without date : “ I am well.”
On the night of January 6, the commandant of the for-
tress, in full uniform, accompanied by a Government agent,
entered the sleeping-room of each prisoner, and ordered
him to rise and dress, as he was to be sent immediately into
exile under charge of two agents of police detailed to ac-
company him over the frontier. Nor was he to travel under
his own name, a travelling alias having been provided for
him. At the railroad station at Creil, Colonel Charras met
Changarnier. “ Tierts, General!" he cried, “is that you?
I am travelling under the name of Vincent.” “And I,” re-
plied Changarnier, “ am called Leblanc.” Each was placed
with his two police agents in a separate carriage. The lat-
ter were armed. Their orders were to treat their prisoners
with respect, but in case of necessity to shoot them.
The journey was made without incident until they reached
Valenciennes, a place very near the frontier line between
France and Belgium. There, as the coup d'etat had proved
a success, official zeal was in the ascendency. The police
commissioner of Valenciennes examined the passports. As
he was taking Leblanc’s into his hand, he recognized the
man before him. He started, and cried out: “ You are
General Changarnier ! ”	“ That is no affair of mine at
present,” said the general. At once the police agents in-
terposed, and assured the commissioner that the passports
were all in order. Nothing they could say would convince
him of the fact. The prefect and town authorities, proud of
their own sagacity in capturing State prisoners who were
endeavoring to escape from France, held them in custody
while they sent word of their exploit to Paris. They at
once received orders to put all the party on the train for
Belgium.
Charras was liberated at Brussels, Changarnier at Mons,
Lamoricifere was carried to Cologne, M. Baze to Aix-la-
Chapelle. They were not released at the same place nor at
the same time, Louis Nhpoleon having said that safety re-
quired that a space should be put between the generals.I
/
EUGENIE.CHAPTER IX.
THE EMPEROR’S MARRIAGE.
A PLEBISCITE — Louis Napoleon’s political panacea
— was ordered bee. 20, 1851, two weeks after the
coup d'etat, to say if the people of France approved or dis-
approved the usurpation of the prince president. The na-
tional approval as expressed in this plebiscite was overwhelm-
ing. Each peasant and artisan seemed to fancy he was
voting to revive the past glories of France, when expressing
his approval of a Prince Napoleon. The more thoughtful
voters, like M. de Montalembert, considered that the coup
d'etat was a crushing blow struck at Red Republican-
ism, Communism, the International Society, and disorder
generally.
For a while the prince president governed by decrees;
then a new legislative body was assembled. Its first duty
was to revise the constitution. The republican constitution
of 1850 was in the main re-adopted, but with one impor-
tant alteration. The prince president was to be turned
into the Emperor Napoleon III., and the throne was to be
hereditary in his family.
After the passage of this measure it was submitted by
another plebiscite to the people. The plebiscite is a univer-
sal suffrage vote of yes or no, in answer to some question put
by the Government to the nation. The question this time
was: Shall the prince president become emperor? There
were 7,800,000 ayes, and 224,000 noes.
When the news of this overwhelming success reached the
filys^e, Louis Napoleon sat so still and unmoved, smoking
his cigar, that his cousin, Madame Baiocchi, rushing up to166 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
him, shook him, and exclaimed : “ Is it possible that you
are made of stone? ”
Having thus secured his elevation by the almost univer-
sal consent of Frenchmen, the new emperor’s next step
was to insure his dynasty by a marriage that might prob-
ably give heirs to the throne. He chose the title Napoleon
III. because the son of the Great Napoleon had been
Napoleon II. for a few days after his father’s abdication at
Fontainebleau in i8r4. The next heir to the imperial
dignities (Lucien Bonaparte having refused anything of the
kind for himself or for his family) was Jerome Napoleon,
familiarly called Plon-Plon. He was the only son of Je-
rome Bonaparte and the Princess Catherine of Wurtemberg.
But Prince Napoleon, though clever, was wilful and eccen-
tric, and made a boast of being a Red Republican; more-
over, his father’s Baltimore marriage had made his legitimacy
more than doubtful, — at any rate, Louis Napoleon was by
no means desirous of passing on to him the succession to
the empire; and being now forty-four years old, he was
desirous of marrying as soon as possible.
When a boy, it had been proposed to marry him to his
cousin Mathilde, and something like an attachment had
sprung up between them ; but after his fiasco at Strasburg
he was no longer considered an eligible suitor either for
Princess Mathilde or another cousin who had been named
for him, a princess of Baden. Princess Mathilde was mar-
ried to the Russian banker, Prince Demidorff; but when
Louis Napoleon became prince president, he requested her
to preside at the Elys^e.
The new emperor, or his advisers, looked round at the
various marriageable princesses belonging to the smaller
courts of Germany. The sister of that Prince Leopold of
Hohenzollern whose selection for the throne of Spain led
afterwards to the Franco-Prussian war, was spoken of; but
the lady most seriously considered was the Princess Adelaide
of Hohenlohe. She was daughter of Queen Victoria’s half-
sister Feodora; and to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert,
as heads of the family, the matter was referred. A recentTHE EMPEROR'S MARRIAGE.
167
memoir-writer tells us of seeing the queen at Windsor
when the matter was under discussion. The queen and
her husband were apparently not averse to the alliance,
hesitating only on the grounds of religion and morals ; but
it is doubtful how far the new emperor went personally in
the affair. His inclination had for some time pointed to
the reigning beauty of Paris, Mademoiselle Eugdnie de
Montijo.
This young lady’s grandfather was Captain Fitzpatrick, of
a good old Scottish family, which had in past times married
with the Stuarts. Captain Fitzpatrick had been American
consul at a port in southern Spain. He had a particularly
charming daughter, who made a brilliant Spanish marriage,
her husband being the Count de Teba (or Marquis de
Montijo, for he bore both titles). The Montijos were
connected with the grandest ducal families in Spain and
Portugal, and even with the royal families of those nations.
The Count de Teba died while his two daughters were
young, and they were left under the guardianship of their
very charming mother. The elder married the Duke of
Alva; the younger became the Empress Euge'nie.
Eugenie was for some time at school in England at Clif-
ton. She was described by those who knew her there as
a pretty, sprightly little girl, much given to independence,
and something of a tomboy, — a character there is reason
to think she preserved until it was modified by the exigen-
cies of her position.
Mr. George Ticknor, of Boston, frequently mentioned
Madame de Teba to his friends as a singularly charming
woman. In 1818 he wrote home to a friend in America :
“ I knew Madame de Teba in Madrid, and from what I saw
of her there and at Malaga, I do not doubt she is the most
cultivated and interesting woman in Spain. Young, beautiful,
educated strictly by her mother, a Scotchwoman, — who for this
purpose carried her to London and kept her there six or seven
years, — possessing extraordinary talents, and giving an air of
originality to all she says and does, she unites in a most
bewitching manner the Andalusian grace and frankness to a168 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
French facility in her manners and a genuine English thorough-
ness in her knowledge and accomplishments. She knows the
chief modern languages well, and feels their different charac-
ters, and estimates their literature aright. She has the foreign
accomplishments of singing, painting, playing, etc., joined to the
natural one of dancing, in a high degree. In conversation she
is brilliant and original, yet with all this she is a true Spaniard,
and as full of Spanish feelings as she is of talent and culture.”
Washington Irving, in 1853, thirty-five years later, writing
to his nephew, speaks in equal praise of Madame de Teba.
“ I believe I told you,” he says, “ that I knew the grandfather
of the empress, old Mr. Fitzpatrick. In 1827 I was in the
house of his son-in-law, Count Teba, at Granada, a gallant,
intelligent gentleman, much cut up in the wars, having lost
an eye and been maimed in a leg and hand. Some years after,
in Madrid, I was invited to the house of his widow, Madame de
Montijo, one of the leaders of ton. She received me with the
warmth and eagerness of an old friend. She claimed me as
the friend of her late husband. She subsequently introduced
me to the little girls I had known in Granada, now fashionable
belles in Madrid.”
In some lines of Walter Savage Landor, Madame de
Montijo was addressed as a “ lode-star of her sex.”
The Marquis de Montijo had been an adherent of Joseph
Bonaparte while the latter was king of Spain, and his eye
had been put out at the battle of Salamanca. He tvas a
liberal in politics, and his house was always open to culti-
vated men.
Such was the ancestry of the beautiful young lady who,
tall, fair, and graceful, with hair like one of Titian’s beauties,
was travelling with her mother from capital to capital, after
the marriage of her sister to the Duke of Alva, and who
spent the winters of 1850, 1851, and 1853 in the French
capital. Mademoiselle Eugenie had conceived a romantic
admiration for the young prince who at Strasburg and
Boulogne had been so unfortunate. Her father had been
a stanch adherent of Bonaparte, and she is said to have
pleaded with her mother at one time to visit the prisoner
at Ham and to place her fortune at his disposal.THE EMPEROR'S MARRIAGE.
169
This circumstance, when confided to the prince presi-
dent, disposed him to be interested in the young lady. She
and her mother were often at the Elysde, at Fontainebleau,
and at Compiegne. Mademoiselle de Montijo was a superb
horsewoman, and riding was the emperor's especial personal
accomplishment. On one occasion they got lost together
in the forest at Compihgne, and then society began to make
remarks upon their intimacy.
The emperor was indeed most seriously in love with
Mademoiselle de Montijo. It is said, on the authority
of M. de Goncourt, that in one of their rides he asked her,
with strange frankness, if she had ever been in love with
any man. She answered with equal frankness, “ I may
have had fancies, sire, but I have never forgotten that I was
Mademoiselle de Montijo.” 1
Such a project of marriage was not approved by the em-
peror’s family, it was not favored by his ministers, and the
ladies of his court were all astir.
At a ball given on New Year’s Day, 1S53, by the emperor
at the Tuileries, the wife of a cabinet minister was rude and
insulting to Mademoiselle de Montijo. Seeing that she
looked troubled, the emperor inquired the cause; and
when he knew it, he said quietly : “ To-morrow no one
will dare to insult you again.” There is also a story, which
seems to rest on good authority, that a few weeks before
this, at Compiegne, he had placed a crown of oak-leaves on
her head, saying : “ I hope soon to replace it with a better
one.” 2 Like the Empress Josephine, she had had it pro-
phesied to her in her girlhood that she should one day wear
a crown.
The day after the occurrence at the ball at the Tuileries,
the Due de Morny waited on Madame de Montijo with a
letter from the emperor, formally requesting her daughter’s
hand.
The ladies, after this, removed to the Elys£e, which was
given to them, and preparations for the marriage went on
apace.
1	Pierre de Lano, La Cour de L’Empereur Napoleon III.
2	Jerrold, Life of Napoleon III.170 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
In less than a month afterwards Eugenie de Montijo was
empress of France.
Here is the emperor’s own official announcement of his
intended marriage : —
“ I accede to the wish so often manifested by my people in
announcing my marriage to you. The union which I am about
to contract is not in harmony with old political traditions, and in
this lies its advantage. France, by her successive revolutions,
has been widely sundered from the rest of Europe. A wise
Government should so rule as to bring her back within the
circle of ancient monarchies. But this result will be more
readily obtained by a frank and straightforward policy, by
a loyal intercourse, than by royal alliances, which often
create false security, and subordinate national to family inter-
ests. Moreover, past examples have left superstitious beliefs
in the popular mind. The people have not forgotten that for
sixty years foreign princesses have mounted the steps of the
throne only to see their race scattered and proscribed, either
by war or revolution. One woman alone appears to have
brought with her good fortune, and lives, more than the rest,
in the memory of the people; and this woman, the wife of
General Bonaparte, was not of royal blood. We must admit
this much, however. In 1810 the marriage of Napoleon I.
with Marie Louise was a great event. It was a bond for
the future, and a real gratification to the national pride. . . .
But when, in the face of ancient Europe, one is carried by
the force of a new principle to the level of the old dynasties,
it is not by affecting an ancient descent and endeavoring at
any price to enter the family of kings, that one compels recog-
nition. It is rather by remembering one’s origin; it is by
preserving one’s own character, and assuming frankly towards
Europe the position of a parvenu, — a glorious title when one
rises by the suffrages of a great people. Thus impelled, as I
have been, to part from the precedents that have been hitherto
followed, my marriage is only a private matter. It remained
for me to choose my wife. She who has become the object
of my choice is of lofty birth, French in heart and education
and by the memory of the blood shed by her father in the
cause of the Empire. She has, as a Spaniard, the advantage
of not having a family in France to whom it would be neces-
sary to give honors and dignities. Gifted with every quality
of the heart, she will be the ornament of the throne, as in the
hour of danger she would be one of its most courageous de-
fenders. A pious Catholic, she will address one prayer withTHE EMPEROR’S MARRIAGE.	171
me to Heaven for the happiness of France. Kindly and
good, she will show in the same position, I firmly believe,
the virtues of the Empress Josephine.”
The State coaches of the First Empire were regilded
for the occasion, the crown diamonds were drawn from
the hiding-place where they had lain since Louis Phi-
lippe’s time, and were reset for the lady who was to wear
them, while her apartments at the Tuileries were rapidly
prepared.
The emperor was radiant. He had followed his incli-
nation, and now that his choice was made, it seemed to
receive universal approval. The London “Times” said:
“ Mademoiselle de Montijo knows better the character of
France than any princess who could have been fetched
from a German principality. She combines by her birth
the energy of the Scottish and Spanish races, and if the
opinion we hold of her be correct, she is, as Napoleon
says, made not only to adorn the throne, but to defend
it in the hour of danger.”
The Municipal Council of Paris voted six hundred thou-
sand francs to buy her a diamond necklace as a wedding
present. Very gracefully she declined the necklace, but
accepted the money, with which she endowed an Orphan
Asylum.
The wedding-day was Jan. 29, 1853. Crowds lined
the streets as the bride and her cortege drove to the Tui-
leries, where they were received by the Grand Chamberlain
and other court dignitaries, who conducted the bride to the
first salon. There she was received by Prince Napoleon
and his sister, the Princess Mathilde, who introduced her
into the salon, where the emperor, with his uncle, King
Jerome, surrounded by a glittering throng of cardinals,
marshals, admirals, and great officers of State, stood ready
to receive her. Thence, at nine o’clock, she was led by the
emperor to the Salle des Mar^chaux and seated beside him
on a raised throne. The marriage contract was then read,
and signed by the bride and bridegroom and by all the
princes and princesses present.172 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
The bride wore a marvellous dress of Alengon point lace,
clasped with a diamond and sapphire girdle made for the
Empress Marie Louise, and she looked, said a beholder,
“ the imperial beauty of a poet’s vision.” The emperor
was in a general’s uniform. He wore the collar of the
Legion of Honor which his uncle the Great Emperor used
to wear. He wore also the collar of the Golden Fleece
that had once belonged to the Emperor Charles V.
The civil marriage being concluded, the imperial pair
and the wedding guests passed into the theatre, where a
cantata, composed by Auber for the occasion, was sung.
The empress, robed in lace and glittering in jewels, seemed,
says an eye-witness, to realize the picture presented of her-
self in the composer’s words : —
“ Espagne bien aimee,
Ou le ciel est vermeil,
C’est toi qui l’as formee
D’un rayon de soleil.”1
When the cantata had been sung, the Grand Master of the
Ceremonies conducted the bride, as yet only half married,
back to the filys£e.
The next morning all Paris was astir to see the wedding
procession pass to the cathedral of Notre Dame. Early
in the morning the emperor had repaired to the filys^e,
where, in the chapel, he and the empress had heard mass,
and after making their confession, had partaken of the Holy
Communion. There were two hundred thousand sight-
seers in Paris that day, in addition to the usual population.
The empress wore upon her golden hair the crown
that the First Napoleon had placed upon the head of Marie
Louise. The body of the church was filled with men, —
ambassadors, military and naval officers, and high officials.
Their wives were in the galleries. As the great doors of
1 Ah, beautiful Spain,
With thy skies ever bright,
Thou hast formed her for us
From a ray of sunlight.THE EMPEROR'S MARRIAGE.
173
the cathedral were opened to admit the bridal procession, a
broad path of light gleamed from the door up to the altar,
adding additional brilliancy to the glittering scene. Up the
long aisle the emperor led his bride, flashing with the light
of jewels, among them the unlucky regent diamond, which
glittered on her bosom. After the Spanish fashion, she
crossed her brow, her lips, her heart, her thumb, as she
knelt for the nuptial benediction. The ceremony over, the
archbishop conducted the married pair to the porch of
the cathedral, and they drove along the Quai to the
Tuileries.
The first favor the empress asked of her husband was
the pardon of more than four thousand unfortunate persons
still exiled or imprisoned for their share in the risings that
succeeded the coup d'etat.
When Washington Irving heard of the marriage, he wrote :
“ Louis Napoleon and Eugenie de Montijo, — Emperor and
Empress of France ! He whom I received as an exile at
my cottage on the Hudson, she whom at Granada I have
dandled on my knee ! The last I saw of Eugenie de Mon-
tijo, she and her gay circle had swept away a charming
young girl, beautiful and accomplished, my dear young
friend, into their career of fashionable dissipation. Now
Eugenie is on a throne, and the other a voluntary recluse
in a convent of one of the most rigorous Orders.” This
convent is near Biarritz, where the nuns take vows of silence
like the monks of La Trapped The empress when at
Biarritz never failed to visit her former friend, who was
permitted to converse with her.
The beautiful woman thus raised to the imperial throne 2
was a mixed character, — not so perfect as some have
represented her, but entirely to be acquitted of those
grave faults that envy or disappointed expectations have
attributed to her. Her character united kind-heartedness
with inconsideration, imprudence with austerity, ardent
feeling with great practical common-sense. Probably the
1	Saturday Review, 1885.
2	Pierre de Lano.174 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
emperor understood her very little at the time of his mar-
riage, and that she long remained to him an enigma may
have been one of her charms. With the impetuosity of
her disposition and the intrepidity that had characterized
her girlhood, she found it hard to submit to the restraints
of her position, and the emperor had occasion frequently
to remonstrate with her on her indifference to etiquette
and public opinion. It was not until after her visit to
Windsor in 1855 that she could be induced to establish
court rules at the Tuileries, and to prescribe for herself
and others, in public, a strict system of etiquette. But
in her private hours, among her early friends, in the circle
of ladies admitted to her intimacy, the empress was less
discreet. Her impressions were apt to run into extremes ;
she indulged in whims like other pretty women; yet she
was never carried by her romantic feelings or her enthu-
siasm beyond her power of self-control. Though careless
of etiquette in private life, whenever a great occasion came,
she could act with imperial dignity.
Although she often experienced ingratitude, she was
always generous. She was as ready to solicit favors and
pardons as was the Empress Josephine. Sometimes she
was even sorely embarrassed to find arguments in favor
of her proteges. “ Ah, mon Dieu ! ” she cried once, when
pleading for the pardon of a workman, “ how could he
be guilty? He has a wife and five children to support;
he could have had no time for conspiracy ! ”
As a wife she was devoted, not only to the public inter-
ests of her husband, but to his personal welfare. She was
constantly anxious lest he should suffer from overwork;
and her little select evening parties, which some people
found fault with, were instituted by her with the chief
object of amusing him.
Ben Jonson makes it a reproach against a lady of the
sixteenth century that she would not “suffer herself to be
admired.” No such reproach could be addressed to the
Empress Eugenie. Few women conscious of their power to
charm will fail to exercise it. In the case of an empress,THE EMPEROR'S MARRIAGE.
175
— young, lively, of an independent and adventurous spirit,
and very beautiful, — all who approached her thought better
of themselves from her apparent appreciation of their claims
to consideration; and, indeed, in her position was it not
the duty of the successor of Josephine to be gracious and
charming to everybody?
Unfortunately the ladies who most enjoyed the intimacy
of the Empress Eugenie were foreigners. She seems to
have felt a certain distrust of Frenchwomen ; and consider-
ing the ingratitude she often met with from those she
served, it is hardly surprising that she preferred the
intimacy of women who could not look to her for
favors.
One of the ladies most intimate with the empress was
the wife of Prince Richard Metternich, the Austrian ambas-
sador. This lady seems to have had personal and political
ends in view, and to have succeeded in inducing the em-
press to adopt and further them. That she was a dan-
gerous and false friend may be judged from a speech she
made when remonstrated with for countenancing and en-
couraging a project, favored by the empress, of making a
promenade in the forest of Fontainebleau with her court-
ladies in skirts which, like those in the old Scotch bal-
lad, should be “ kilted up to the knee.” “ You would not
have advised your own empress,” it was said to her, “ to
appear in such a garb.” “ Of course not,” replied the
ambassadress; “ but my empress is of royal birth, — a
real empress; while yours, ma chore, was Mademoiselle
de Montijo ! ”
Brought up in private life, not early trained to the self-ab-
negation demanded of princesses, the Empress Eugenie did
not bring into her new sphere all the aplomb and serious-
ness about little things which are early inculcated on ladies
brought up to the profession of royalty. The career for
which she had formed herself was that of a very charming
woman; and one secret of her fascination was the sincerity
of the interest she took in those around her. She loved
to study character, to see into men’s souls. She loved to176 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
be adored, while irresponsively she received men’s homage.
She especially liked the society of famous men, and when
she was to meet them, she took pains to inform herself
on the subjects about which they were most likely to
converse.
That Queen Victoria loves her as a sister and a friend, is
a testimony to her dignity and goodness; and we have her
husband’s own opinion of her, published on her fete-day,
Dec. 15, 1868, after nearly sixteen years of marriage. The
emperor had under his control a monthly magazine called
“ Le Dix D^cembre,” in which he often inserted articles
from his own pen. The manuscript of this, in his own hand-
writing, was found in 1870 in the sack of the Tuileries. He
omits all mention of his wife’s Scotch ancestry, neither does
he allude to her school-days in England. He speaks of
her as a member of one of the most distinguished families
in Spain, extols her father’s attachment to the house of
Bonaparte, and tells how she and her sister were placed at
the Sacr£ Cceur, near Paris, declaring that “ she acquired,
we may say, the French before the Spanish language.”
He goes on to speak of her, not as the leader of a giddy
circle of fashion in Madrid, as Washington Irving describes
her, but as the thoughtful, studious young girl, with a pre-
cocious taste for social problems and for the society of men
of letters ; and he adds that after her marriage her simple,
natural tastes did not disappear. “ After her visit to the
cholera patients at Amiens,” he says, “nothing seemed to
surprise her more than the applause that everywhere cele-
brated her courage. She seemed at last distressed by it. . . .
At Compi6gne,” he also tells us, “nothing can be more
attractive than five o’clock tea d I'imperatrice; though,”
he adds slyly, “ sometimes she is a little too fond of
argument.”
Assuredly she filled a difficult place, and filled it well;
but the court of the Second Empire was all spangles and
tinsel. It was composed of men and women all more or
less adventurers. It was the court of the nouveaux riches
and of a mushroom aristocracy. There were prizes to beTHE EMPEROR’S MARRIAGE.
177
won and pleasures to be enjoyed, and it was “ like as it was
in the days of Noe, until the flood came, and swept them
all away.”
In the midst of the crowd that composed this court the
emperor and the empress shine out as the best. Both
wanted to do their duty, as they understood it, to France.
Whether it was the emperor’s fault or his misfortune, is
still undecided ; but, with one or two exceptions, he was
able to attach to himself only keen-witted adventurers and
mediocre men. Among the women, not one who was really
superior rose above the crowd. The empress led a giddy
circle of married women, as in her youth, according to
Washington Irving, she had led a giddy circle of young
girls.
The two most able men among the emperor’s advisers
were his own kinsmen, — Count Walewski, who died in 1868,
and the Due de Morny, a man calm, polished, socially
amiable, and so clever that Guizot once said to him : “ My
dear Morny, you are the only man who could overturn the
Empire ; but you will never be foolish enough to do it.”
By his death, in 1S65, Louis Napoleon was bereft of his
ablest adviser.
Persigny, or Fialin, had been the close personal friend
of the emperor in his exile, and took a prominent part in
the abortive expedition to Boulogne. In his youth he had
led a disreputable life, and was not a man of great intellect,
but he was presumed to be devoted to his old comrade.
His friendship, however, had not always a happy effect upon
the fortunes of his master. In 1872 he made a miserable
end of his adventurous life, after having turned against the
emperor in his adversity.
Fleury was another personal friend of Louis Napoleon,
and was probably his best. The prince president had
distinguished him when he was only a subaltern in the
army. He had enlisted in the ranks, and had done good
service in Algeria. In the emperor’s last days of failing
health he loved to keep Fleury beside him ; but the em-
press was jealous of her husband’s friend, and used her
12178 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
influence to have him honorably exiled to St. Petersburg as
French ambassador. This post he occupied when the
Franco-Prussian war broke out, so that he could be of little
help to his master.
Saint-Arnaud had been made a marshal and minister of
war, in spite of having been twice turned out of the French
army.
M. Rouher had charge of the emperor’s financial con-
cerns, and Fould was a man who understood bureau-work,
and how to manipulate government machinery.
Whoever might be the emperor’s ministers, this little
clique of his personal adherents — De Morny, Persigny,
Saint-Arnaud, Fleury, Rouher, and Fould — were always
around their master, giving him their advice and sharing
(so far as he allowed any one to share) his intimate
councils.
The members of the Bonaparte family were an immense
expense to the emperor, and gave him no little trouble.
They were not the least thirsty among those who thronged
around the fountain of wealth and honor; and their im-
portunate demands upon the emperor’s bounty led to a
perpetual and reckless waste of money. The empress fre-
quently remonstrated with her husband in regard to his
lavish largesses and too generous expenditure. Contrary
to what has been generally supposed, she was herself or-
derly and methodical in her expenditures and accounts,
always carefully examining her bills, and though by the
emperor’s express desire she always expended the large
amount annually allowed her, she never exceeded that sum.
Unhappily, the revived imperialism of Louis Napoleon
was not, like Legitimacy, a cause, but to most persons who
supported it, it was a speculation. Adherents had there-
fore to be attracted to it by hopes of gain, and all services
had to be handsomely rewarded.
The emperor’s policy in the early years of his reign may
be said to have been twofold. He wanted to make France
increase in material prosperity, and he wished to have
money freely spent within her borders. He set on footTHE EMPEROR’S MARRIAGE.
179
all kinds of improvements in Paris, and all kinds of useful
enterprises in the provinces. Work was plenty ; money
flowed freely; the empire was everywhere popular. But
the government of France was the government of one
man; and if anything happened to that one man, where
would be the government? There seemed no need to
ask that question while France was prosperous and Paris
gay. France under the Second Empire was quieter than
she had been for any eighteen years since the Great Revo-
lution ; and for that she was grateful to Napoleon III.
His foreign policy was still more successful. “ The
Empire is peace,1' he had early proclaimed to be his
motto. At first the idea of a Napoleon on the throne
of France had greatly terrified the nations; but by degrees
it seemed as if he really meant to be the Napoleon of
Peace, as his uncle had been the Napoleon of War. He
took every opportunity of reiterating his desire to be on
good terms with his neighbors. With respect to England,
those who knew him best asserted earnestly that he had
always been in sympathy with the country that had shel-
tered him in exile. Count Walewski, whom he sent over
as ambassador to London, was very popular there. He
attended the funeral of the Duke of Wellington in his
official capacity, and in return for this courtesy England
restored to the French emperor his uncle’s will, which had
been laid up in Doctor’s Commons with other wills of per-
sons who had died on English soil. Russia was haughty
to the new emperor; but the other courts of Europe ac-
cepted him, and most of them did so with considerable
alacrity ; for was he not holding down Socialism and Inter-
nationalism, which they dreaded far more than Napole-
onism, and by which they were menaced in their own
lands ?
The great perplexity of the new emperor was his rela-
tion to Italy. He and his brother had taken the oaths
of a Carbonaro in that country, in 1831. It is not to
this day certain that his brother did not die by a Car-
bonaro’s knife, rather than by the measles. Be that180 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
as it may, Louis Napoleon knew that if he failed to keep
his promises as to the liberation of Italy, assassination
awaited him.
How he endeavored to reconcile his engagements as a
Carbonaro with his policy as the French emperor be-
longs less to the historical gossip of France than to that
of Italy. So too the history of the Crimean War seems
to belong par excellence to that of Russia. It was under-
taken by England and France as allies, joined afterwards by
a Sardinian army under General La Marmora, by the Turk-
ish troops under Omar Pasha, and by an Egyptian con-
tingent ; but as we are now engaged on the personal his-
tory of the emperor and empress, 1 will rather here tell
how Napoleon III., having formed a camp of one hundred
thousand soldiers at Boulogne, on the very ground where
his uncle had assembled his great army for the invasion
of England, decided to ascertain, through his ambassador
in London, if it would be agreeable to Prince Albert to
visit that camp and see the manoeuvres of his army. Find-
ing that the invitation would be acceptable to the prince,
he addressed him the following letter : —
July 3, 1854.
Mon Fr4:re,—Your Royal Highness knows that putting
in practice your own idea, and wishing to carry out to the end
the struggle with Russia that we have begun together, I have
decided to form an army between Boulogne and St. Omer.
I need not tell your Highness how pleased I should be to see
you, and how happy I should be to show you my soldiers.
I am convinced, moreover, that personal ties will strengthen
the union so happily established between two great nations.
I beg you to present my respectful homage to the queen, and
to receive this expression of the esteem and sincere affection
I have conceived for you.
With this, mon frlre, I pray God to have you in his holy
keeping.
Napoleon.
The prince accepted the invitation, addressing the em-
peror as “ Sire et mon frere.” The queen entirely approved
the visit, and Baron Stockmar predicted much advantageTHE EMPEROR'S MARRIAGE.
rSi
from it, “inasmuch,” he said, “as the good or evil destiny
of the present time will directly and chiefly depend upon
a rational, honorable, and resolute alliance between Eng-
land and France.”
Prince Albert met the emperor at Boulogne, Sept. 4,
1854. The Duke of Newcastle, who was in attendance
on Prince Albert, wrote to a friend that tears stood in the
emperor's eyes when he received his guest as he stepped
upon French soil; and the prince wrote that evening to
the queen : —
“The emperor has been very nervous, if we are to believe
those who stood near him and who know him well. He was
kindly and courteous, and does not look so old nor so pale as
his portraits make him, and is much gayer than he is gene-
rally represented. The visit cannot fail to be a source of great
gratification to him. ... I have had two long talks with him,
in which he spoke very sensibly about the war and the ques-
tions du jour. People here are sanguine about the results
of the expedition to the Crimea, and very sensitive about the
behavior of Admiral Sir Charles Napier.”
The prince adds in his letter, the same evening : —
“The emperor thaws more and more. This evening after
dinner I withdrew with him to his sitting-room for half an hour
before rejoining his guests, in order that he might smoke his
cigarette, — in which occupation, to his amazement, I could
not keep him company. He told me that one of the deepest
impressions ever made on him was, when having gone from
France to Rio Janeiro and thence to the United States, and
being recalled to Europe by the rumor of his mother's serious
illness, he arrived in London directly after King William’s
death, and saw you going to open parliament for the first
time.”
Subsequently the prince tells the queen, —
“ We discussed all topics of home and foreign policy, mate-
rial and personal, with the greatest frankness, and I can say
but good of what 1 heard. . . . He was brought up in the Ger-
man fashion in Germany,— a training which has developed
a German turn of mind. As to all modern political history, so
far as this is not Napoleonic, he is without information; so
that he wants many of the materials for accurate judgment.”182 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Dickens, who was at Boulogne on this occasion, thus
tells of Prince Albert’s arrival: —
“ The town looks like one immense flag, it is so decked out
with streamers; and as the royal yacht approached yesterday,
the whole range of the cliff-tops was lined with troops, and the
artillerymen, matches in hand, stood ready to fire the great
guns the moment she made the harbor, the sailors standing
up in the prow of the yacht, the prince, in a blazing uniform,
left alone on the deck for everybody to see, — a stupendous
silence, and then such an infernal blazing and banging as
never was heard. It was almost as fine a sight as one could
see, under a deep blue sky.”
While the guest of the emperor, Prince Albert expressed
to him the queen’s hope that they should see him in Eng-
land, and that she should make the acquaintance of the
empress.
The prince, an excellent judge of character, in a subse-
quent memorandum concerning his impressions, says, —
“ The emperor appeared quiet and indolent from constitu-
tion, not easily excited, but gay and humorous when at his
ease. His French is not without a little German accent,
and his pronunciation of German is better than of English.
. . . He recited a poem by Schiller on the advantages to man
of peace and war, which seemed to have made a deep impres-
sion upon him, and appeared to me to be not without signifi-
cance with reference to his own life. His court and household
are strictly kept and in good order, more English than French.
The gentlemen composing his entourage are not distinguished
by birth, manners, or education. He lives on a familiar foot-
ing with them, although they seemed afraid of him. The tone
was rather that of a garrison, with a good deal of smoking.
. . . He is very chilly, complains of rheumatism, and goes
early to bed, takes no pleasure in music, but is proud of his
horsemanship.”
Speaking again of the emperor’s lack of information
as to the history of politics, Prince Albert says : —
“ But he is remarkably modest in acknowledging these de-
fects, and in not pretending to know what he does not. All
that relates to Napoleonic politics he has at his finger’s ends.
He also appears to have thought much and deeply on politics,THE EMPEROR'S MARRIAGE.
IS3
yet more like an amateur politician, mixing many very sound
and very crude notions together. He admires English institu-
tions, and regrets the absence of an aristocracy in France, but
might not be willing to allow such an aristocracy to control his
own power, whilst he might wish to have the advantage of its
control over the pure democracy.”
The emperor closely questioned the prince about the
working of the English government and the queen’s rela-
tions to her ministers. Prince Albert writes, —
“ He said that he did not allow his ministers to meet or to dis-
cuss matters together ; that they transacted their business solely
with him. He seemed astonished when I told him that every
despatch went through the queen’s hands and was read by her, as
he only received extracts made from them, and indeed appeared
to have little time or inclination generally to read. When I ob-
served to him that the queen would not be content without seeing
the whole of the diplomatic correspondence, he replied that he
found a full compensation in having persons in his own employ
and confidence at the different posts of importance, who reported
solely to him. I could not but express my sense of the danger
of such an arrangement, to which no statesman, in England at
least, would submit.”
I have quoted this memorandum of Prince Albert’s, be-
cause it points out the perils which led to the downfall of
the Empire, — the emperor’s bad entourage; his personal
government, assisted only by private confidential relations
with irresponsible persons ; his mixture of crude and sen-
sible ideas of government; his indolence ; and his tendency
to let things slide out of his own hands.
“ Upon the whole,” concluded the prince, “my impression is
that neither in home nor foreign politics would the emperor
naturally take any violent step, but that he appears in distress
for means of governing, and is obliged to look about him from
day to day. Having deprived the people of any active partici-
pation in the government, and reduced them to the mere position
of spectators, they grow impatient, like a crowd at a display of
fireworks, whenever there is any cessation in the display. Still,
he appears the only man who has any hold on France, relying
on the name of Napoleon. He said to the Duke of Newcastle:184 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
‘ Former Governments have tried to reign by the support of one
million of the educated classes; I claim to lay hold of the other
twenty-nine.’ He is decidedly benevolent, and anxious for the
good of the people, but has, like all rulers before him, a bad
opinion of their political capacity.”
Strange to say, in the midst of war the Universal Expo-
sition of 1855 took place in Paris. The winter was horribly
severe, and the armies in the Crimea suffered terribly. The
emperor was extremely desirous to go himself to the seat
of war, but was urged by every one about him to remain at
home. All kinds of good reasons were put forward for this
advice, but probably not the one subsequently advanced by
one of his generals after the campaign of Italy in 1859.
“ It used to be said that the presence of the First Napo-
leon with his army was worth a reinforcement of forty
thousand men. The army now feels that the presence of
the Third Napoleon equals the loss of about the same
number.”
We have seen that Queen Victoria had expressed a wish
to welcome the emperor and empress at Windsor Castle.
It was on April 16, 1855, that the imperial pair reached
England, and were received by Prince Albert on board their
yacht. They met with a hearty national greeting on their
way to London. In London itself crowds lined the streets.
“It was,” says an eye-witness, “one bewildering triumph,
in which it was estimated that a million of people took
part.” The “ Times ” reporter noticed that as the emperor
passed his old residence in King Street, St. James’s, he
pointed it out to the empress as the place where he was liv-
ing when the events of 1848 summoned him to Paris.
“ Only seven years before,” observes his biographer, Mr.
Jerrold, “he was wont to stroll unnoticed, with his faithful
dog at his heels, from this house to the news-vendor’s stall
by the Burlington Arcade, to get the latest news from revo-
lutionary France ; now he was the guest of the English
people, on his way through cheering crowds to Windsor
Castle, where the queen was waiting in the vestibule to
receive him.” The same rooms were prepared for himTHE EMPEROR’S MARRIAGE.	1S5
that had been given to Louis Philippe and to the Emperor
Nicholas. Queen Victoria tells us in her diary,—
“ I cannot say what indescribable emotions filled me, — how
much all seemed like a wonderful dream. ... I advanced
and embraced the Emperor, .	.	. and then the very gentle,
graceful, and evidently nervous empress. We presented the
princes and our children (Vicky, with very alarmed eyes, making
very low courtesies). The emperor embraced Bertie, and then
he went upstairs, Albert leading the empress, who, in the most
engaging manner, refused to go first, but at length, with graceful
reluctance, did so, the emperor leading me and expressing his
great gratification in being here and seeing me, and admiring
Windsor.”
At dinner, on the day of his arrival, the new ruler of
France seems to have charmed the queen. “ He is,” she
records in her journa^, “ so very quiet. His /oice is low
and soft. Et il ne fait pas lies phrases."
When the war was talked about, the emperor spoke of
his wish to go out to the Crimea, and the queen noticed
that the empress was as eager as himself that he should go.
‘‘She sees no greater danger for him there," she adds,
“ than in Paris. She said she was seldom alarmed for him
except when he went out quite alone of a morning. . . .
She is full of courage and spirit, and yet so gentle, with
such innocence and enjouement, that the ensemble is most
charming. With all her great liveliness she has the prettiest
and most modest manner.”
The queen little guessed what commotion and excitement
had gone on before dinner in the private apartments of the
emperor and empress, when it was discovered that the case
containing all the beautiful toilet prepared for the occa-
sion had not arrived. The emperor suggested to his wife
to retire to rest on the plea of fatigue after the journey, but
she decided to borrow a blue-silk dress from one of her
ladies-in-waiting, in which, with only flowers in her hair,
she increased the queen’s impression of her simplicity and
modesty.
During the visit the emperor asked the queen where186 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Louis Philippe’s widow, Queen Marie Amalie, Was living.
She had been at Windsor Castle only a few days before, and
the queen had looked sorrowfully after her as she drove
away, with shabby post-horses, to her residence near Rich-
mond. The emperor begged her Majesty to express to
Louis Philippe’s widow his hope that she would not hesitate
to pass through France on any journey she might make to
Spain.
There was a review of the household troops, commanded
by Lord Cardigan, who had led the charge of the Light
Brigade at Balaclava, and who rode the same charger. The
emperor rode a fiery, beautiful chestnut, and his horseman-
ship was much admired. That evening there was a State
ball at Windsor Castle, and the queen danced a quadrille
with the emperor. The queen wrote that evening in her
journal: “ How strange to think that I — the granddaughter
of George III. — should dance with the Emperor Napoleon,
nephew of England’s greatest enemy, now my nearest and
most intimate ally, in the Waterloo Room, and that ally
living in this country only six years ago in exile, poor and
unthought of ! ”
She adds, speaking of the empress : “ Her manner is the
most perfect thing I have ever seen, so gentle and graceful
and kind, and the courtesy is charming, — so modest and
retiring withal.”
The next day came a council attended by the emperor,
Prince Albert, ministers, and diplomatists, which lasted so
very long that the queen herself knocked at the door and
reminded them that at four o’clock the emperor was to
be invested with the Order of the Garter.
After this ceremony was over, the emperor remarked to
the queen that he had now sworn fidelity to her Majesty,
and would carefully keep his oath.
At dinner that day the talk fell on assassination. The
emperor was shot at by a Carbonaro only a few days after
his return from Windsor, and four years later by Orsini.
Before leaving England the emperor attended a banquet
given to him by the Lord Mayor. At Windsor he read hisTHE EMPEROR'S MARRIAGE.	\ 87
speech (in English) to the queen and prince, who pro-
nounced it a very good one.
Next day the royalties went to see the Crystal Palace, at
Sydenham. There they were surrounded by sight-seeing
throngs, and in such a crowd there was every chance for a
pistol-shot from some French or Italian refugee. “ I own I
felt anxious,’' writes the queen; “ I felt as I walked, leaning
on the emperor’s arm, that I was possibly a protection to
him.”
Afterwards she writes, —
“ On all, this visit has left a permanent satisfactory impression.
It went off so well, — not a contre- temps j fine weather, everything
smiling, the nation enthusiastic and happy in the alliance of two
great countries whose enmity would be fatal. ... I am glad to
have known this extraordinary man, whom it is certainly not
possible not to like when you live with him, and not, even to a
considerable extent, to admire. ... I believe him capable of
kindness, affection, friendship, gratitude. I feel confidence in
him as regards the future. I think he is frank, means well to
us, and, as Stockmar says, that we have insured his sincerity
and good faith to us for the rest of his life.”
Nearly a year after this visit, when the emperor and
empress had been married about three years, the Prince
Imperial was born, March 16, 1856. A few hours after
his birth he was christened Napoleon Eugene Louis Jean
Joseph. Pope Pius IX. was his godfather, the Queen of
Sweden his godmother. For many hours the empress,
like her imperial predecessor Marie Louise, was danger-
ously ill.
The Crimeaji War had by that time virtually come to a
triumphant end. The emperor had at last an heir; all
things appeared to smile upon him. A general amnesty
was issued to all political offenders. The emperor became
godfather and the empress godmother to all legitimate
children born in France upon their son’s birthday, and fi-
nally the little prince had a public baptism at Notre Dame,
followed by a ball of extraordinary magnificence, given by
the city of Paris to the mother of the heir-apparent, at
the Hotel-de-Ville.188 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
The chief trouble that menaced the imperial throne at
this period was the extraordinary lavishness which the em-
peror’s entourage of speculative adventurers encouraged
him to incur in all directions; the recklessness of specula-
tion ; the general mania for gain that went on around him.
There had also been terrible inundations in France, and
a bad harvest. Many things also that disgusted and dis-
quieted the emperor were going on among the persons
who surrounded him, — persons in whom he had placed
confidence ; and it was one of his good qualities that he
was always slow to believe evil. Still, these things were
forced on his attention, and greatly disturbed him.
His little son was from the first his idol. Here is a letter
he wrote to Prince Albert, acknowledging Queen Victoria’s
congratulations : —
“ I have been greatly touched to learn that all your family
have shared my joy, and all my hope is that my son may re-
semble dear little Prince Arthur, and that he may have the rare
qualities of your children. The sympathy shown on the late
occasion by the English people is another bond between the two
countries, and I hope my son will inherit my feelings of true
friendship for the royal family of England, and of affectionate
esteem for the great English nation.”
A few months later, the future Emperor Frederick, then
recently engaged to the Princess Royal of England, visited
Paris. He was attended by Major Baron von Moltke, who
described the emperor, empress, and their court in letters
to his friends. “The empress,” he says, “ is of astonishing
beauty, with a slight, elegant figure, and dressing with much
taste and richness, but without ostentation. She is very
talkative and lively, — much more so than is usual with per-
sons occupying so high a position. The emperor impressed
me by a sort of immobility of features, and the almost ex-
tinguished look of his eyes.”
This look, by the way, was cultivated by the emperor.
When his early playfellow, Madame Cornu, saw him after
twelve years’ separation, her first exclamation was : “ Why !
what have you done to your eyes?”THE EMPEROR’S MARRIAGE.	189
“ The prominent characteristic of the emperor’s face,” con-
tinues Von Moltke, “is a friendly, good-natured smile which
has nothing Napoleonic about it. He mostly sits quietly with
his head on one side, and events have shown that this tranquil-
lity, which is very imposing to the restless French nation, is not
apathy, but a sign of a superior mind and a strong will. He is
an emperor, and not a king. . . . Affairs in France are not in
a normal condition, but it would be difficult to say how, under
present circumstances, they could be improved. . . . Napoleon
III. has nothing of the sombre sternness of his uncle, neither his
imperial demeanor nor his deliberate attitude. Fie is a quite
simple and somewhat small man, whose always tranquil coun-
tenance gives a strong impression of amiability. He never gets
angry, say the people round him. He is always polite. . . . He
suffers from a want of men of ability to uphold him. He cannot
make use of men of independent character, who insist on having
their own notions, as the direction of affairs of State must be
concentrated in his hands. Greater liberty ought to be con-
ceded in a regulated state of society, but in the present state of
France there must be a strong and single direction, which is,
besides, best adapted to the French character. Freedom of the
Press is for the present as impossible here as it would be at the
headquarters of an army in the field if the Press wished to dis-
cuss the measures taken by the general in command. Napoleon
has shown wisdom, firmness, self-confidence, but also modera-
tion and clemency; and though simple in his dress, he does not
forget that the French people like to see their sovereigns sur-
rounded by a brilliant court.”
Of the imperial baby in his nurse’s arms, on whom the
father looked with a face radiant with pride and joy, Von
Moltke remarks : “ Truly, he seems a strapping fellow.”
The little prince grew up a very promising lad. He was
his father’s idol. Louis Napoleon never could be brought
to give him any sterner reproof than “ Louis, don’t be fool-
ish, — ne faispas t/cs bitiscs." Discipline was left to his
mother, and it was popularly thought that she was much
less wrapped up in the child than his father was. His es-
pecial talent was for drawing and sculpture. Some of his
sketches, of which fac-similes are given in Jerrold’s “ Life of
Napoleon III., ” are very spirited, and when he could get a190 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
lump of wet clay to play with, he made busts of the persons
round him which were excellent likenesses.
The emperor’s rooms at the Tuileries were rather low
and dark, but he selected them because they communicated
with those of the empress in the Pavilion de Flore, by a
narrow winding staircase. Often in the day would she
come down to him, or he ascend to her.
His study was filled with Napoleonic relics, and littered
with political and historical papers. He kept a large room
with models of new inventions, which were a great delight
to him and to his son. He was fond of wood-turning, and
Th£lin and he would often make pretty rustic chairs for the
park at Saint-Cloud.
For some years before his overthrow he was growing very
feeble, and always carried a cane surmounted with a gold
eagle. Commonly too some chosen friend, generally Fleury,
gave him his arm, but he always walked in silence. In the
afternoon he would drive out, and sometimes horrify the
police by getting out of his carriage and walking alone in
distant quarters of the city.
On one occasion he had a difference of opinion with one
of his friends, who assured him that if he insisted on plant-
ing an open space in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine with
flowers, and protected it by no railing, the flowers would
very speedily be destroyed. His pleasure and exultation
were very great when he found he had been right, and that
not a flower had been plucked or broken.
The emperor was generally gay and ready to converse
at table, but he made it a rule never 'to criticise or dis-
cuss living persons himself, or allow others to do so in his
hearing.
There was much decorum at court so far as his influence
extended in the imperial circle, but there were plenty of
scandals outside of it; and as to money matters, even Per-
signy and Fleury — one the friend of the emperor for five-
and-twenty years, and the other devotedly attached to him
— could not restrain themselves from cheating him and
tricking him whenever they could.EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN.CHAPTER X.
MAXIMILIAN AND MEXICO.
AXIMILIAN, Archduke of Austria, was born the
same week that his cousin, the unfortunate son of
Napoleon and Marie Louise, had died. He grew to man-
hood handsome, well educated, accomplished, and enter-
prising. He had the great gift of always making himself
personally beloved. The navy was his profession, but his
great desire was to be made viceroy of the (then) Austrian
provinces of Italy. He felt sure that he could conciliate
the Italians, and a great Italian statesman is reported to
have said that it was well for Italian unity that his wish was
never granted. His ideas were all liberal, and opposed to
those of Metternich. . His family mistrusted his political
opinions, but the Italians, when brought into personal con-
tact with him, soon learned to love him. They saw a great
deal of him, for Trieste and Venice were at that period the
naval stations of the Austrian Empire. He was, therefore,
often in those places, and finally took up his residence in
an earthly paradise upon the Adriatic, created by himself
and called by him Miramar.
In June, 1857, when the Indian Mutiny was at its height,
though tidings of it had not yet reached the western
world, the Archduke Maximilian, whom the English
royal family had never met, arrived at Windsor, and was
hailed there as one who was soon to become a relative, for
1 Much of the material of this chapter is taken from Victor Tissot’s
book of travels in Austria; the chapter on Maximilian as archduke
and emperor I translated from advance-sheets, and it was published
in the “ Living Age ” under the title “ From Miramar to Queretaro.”
— E. W. L.192 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
he was engaged to King Leopold’s only daughter, the
Princess Charlotte of Belgium.
The queen and her husband were charmed with Maxi-
milian. “ He is a young prince,” writes Prince Albert,
“ of whom we hear nothing but good, and Charlotte’s alli-
ance with him will be one of the heart. May Heaven’s
blessing,” he adds, “ be upon a connection so happily
begun, and in it may they both find their life’s truest
happiness ! ”
The queen also wrote to her uncle Leopold,—
“The archduke is charming,— so clever, natural, kind, and
amiable; so English in his feelings and likings. With the ex-
ception of the mouth and chin, he is good looking, but I think
one does not the least care for that, he is so very kind, clever,
and pleasant. I wish you really joy, dearest uncle, at having
got such a husband for dear Charlotte. I am sure he will make
her happy, and do a great deal for Italy.”
Prince Albert crossed over to Belgium for the wedding,
and wrote to his wife : “ Charlotte’s whole being seems
to have been warmed and unfolded by the love that is
kindled in her heart. I have never seen so rapid a develop-
ment in the space of one year. She appears to be happy
and devoted to her husband with her whole soul, and eager
to make herself worthy of her present position.”
At the time of her marriage the princess had just entered
her seventeenth year. The wedding-day was made a little
family fete at Windsor, in spite of Prince Albert’s absence.
“ The younger children,” the queen writes to her husband,
“ are to have a half-holiday. Alice is to dine with us for
the first time, in the evening. We shall drink the arch-
duke’s and the archduchess’s healths, and I have ordered
wine for our servants, and grog for our sailors, to do the
same.”
Maximilian had been round the world in his frigate, the
“Novara; ’’ he had travelled into Greece and Asia Minor,
he had visited Spain, Portugal, and Sicily; he had been to
Egypt and the Holy Land. He loved the ocean like a trueMAXIMILIAN AND MEXICO.
193
sailor, and in 1856 he had taken up his residence at Trieste,
to be near its shores. He would frequently go out alone in
a light boat, even in rough weather, a dash of danger lending
excitement to a struggle with the wind and waves.
One day in a storm his light craft had been borne like a
feather round Cape Gignano. In a moment it lay at rest
under the lee of the land. Maximilian landed, and found
the spot so charming and the sea-view so superb that he
resolved to build a little villa there for fishing. He bought
the land at once, and began by setting out exotics, per-
suaded that the soil of such a spot would be favorable to
tropical vegetation. A year later he brought his young
bride to this favored spot, and with a golden wand trans-
formed his bachelor’s fishing-hut into the palace of an
emperor.
At this period of his life, Maxirtiilian (an author and a
poet) was greatly interested in architecture. He drew the
plans for an exquisite church (now one of the beauties of
Vienna), and draughted with his own hand those for the
grounds and castle of Miramar. The work was pushed on
rapidly, yet in 1859, when Austria was forced to give up
Lombardy, nothing at Miramar was complete except a
fancy farm-house on one of the heights of the property.
Maximilian, however, made his home there with his wife,
and they found it so delightful that when at length the
castle was ready for occupation, they lingered in the farm-
house, which they loved as their first home. It was a large
Swiss chalet, covered with vines and honeysuckle, surrounded
by groves of camellias and pyrus japonicas. How delicious
life must have been to the husband and wife in this solitude,
fragrant with flowers, vocal with the songs of birds, a glory
of greenness round the house, the blue sky overhead, the
glittering ocean at their feet, and holy love and loving
kindness everywhere around them !
Maximilian’s generosity rendered wealth indispensable to
his complete happiness, for he loved to surround himself
with artists, learned men, and men of letters. He paid
them every kind of attention in his power, and did not
*3194 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
omit those little gifts which are “ the beads on memory’s
rosary.’'
“ One feels how happy life must have been to husband
and wife in this new Paradise ! ” cries M. Victor Tissot.
“ Yet it was Paradise Lost before long, for alas ! in this, as
in the other Paradise, the Eve, the sweet young wife, was
tempted by ambition. She took the apple, ate, and gave it
to her husband.”
On April io, 1864, the Mexican deputies commissioned
to offer Maximilian the imperial crown, arrived at Miramar.
“ We come,” said Don Gutierrez de Estrada, “ to beseech
you to ascend the throne of Mexico, to which you have
been called by the voice of a people weary of anarchy and
civil war. We are assured you have the secret of conquer-
ing the hearts of all men, and excel in the rare knowledge
of the art of government.”
Maximilian replied that he was ready to accept the honor
offered him by the Mexican people, and that his govern-
ment would be both liberal and constitutional. “ I shall
prove, I trust,” he said, “that liberty may be made, com-
patible with law. I shall respect your liberties, and uphold
order at the same time.”
Don Gutierrez thanked the archduke in the name of
the Mexican nation, and then the new emperor swore upon
the Gospels to labor for the happiness and prosperity of his
people, and to protect their independent nationality. Don
Gutierrez was then embraced by Maximilian, who hung
around his neck the cross of the new Order of Guadeloupe,
of which he was the first member.
But this acceptance of the imperial crown of Mexico was
by no means a sudden thought with Maximilian. For eight
months he had been debating the matter in his own heart,
urged to acceptance of the crown by his wife, but dissuaded
by his family.
The history of the offer, connected as it is with one of
Napoleon III.’s schemes for extending French influence,
must be briefly told.
Before the Civil War broke out in America, it had alreadyMAXIMILIAN AND MEXICO.
195
entered the head of the emperor that he would like to
intermeddle in the affairs of Mexico. That unhappy
country, which the United States have been accused of
doing their best to keep in a chronic state of weakness,
turbulence, and revolution, had been left to recover itself
after the Mexican War, which had shorn away its fairest
provinces.
In 1853, Santa Aha, who had been president, dictator,
exile, and conspirator by turns for thirty years, was recalled
to Mexico, and a second time was made dictator. He
assumed the title of Serene Highness, and claimed the right
to nominate his successor. A popular revolution soon un-
seated him. Juarez, of Indian parentage, was at its head.
The clerical party was outraged by the confiscation of the
enormous possessions of the Church, and by the abolition of
the right of mortmain (J. e., wills made upon death-beds
were pronounced thenceforth invalid, so far as bequests to
the Church were concerned). Mexico is a country with
eighteen hundred miles of coast-line, but few harbors. It
had in i860 no railroads, and hardly any highroads of any
kind. Its provinces were semi-independent, its population
widely scattered, a large part of it was Indian, a still larger
portion consisted of half-breeds; pure-blooded Spaniards
were a small minority. The feeling that stood Mexico in lieu
of patriotism was a keen hatred and jealousy of foreigners.
Their very pride still keeps the Mexicans from believing
that there can be anything better than what they possess.
Perpetual revolutions had educated the people into habits
of lawlessness ; and as to dishonesty, rank itself was no
guarantee against petty larceny, while in the larger rascali-
ties ot peculation, bribe-taking, and political treachery, no
nation had ever such opportunities for exercising its na-
tional capacity, nor, apparently, did many Mexicans have
conscientious scruples as to its display.
Under these circumstances it is no wonder that foreign
bondholders complained loudly to their Governments, or
that in the general confusion all manner of wrongs to
Englishmen, Frenchmen, Austrians, and Spaniards calledI96 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
loudly for redress. That cry reached the French emperor’s
ears. He proposed to England and Spain that as Mexico
had at last got a government under Juarez, an interven-
tionary force should appear off her coast, composed of
English, French, and Spanish ships-of-war, and that Mexico
should be summoned to redress their common wrongs.
All this was harmless. The expedition was commanded
by the Spanish General Prim; but under the avowed object
of demanding a redress of grievances, the Emperor Napo-
leon concealed a more ambitious aim. The United States
were at war; all their resources were absorbed in civil
strife. The most sagacious statesmen could not foresee
that the end of that strife would be to make the country
more great, more rich, more formidable; and Napoleon
thought it was the very moment for attacking the Monroe
doctrine, and for making, as he said, “ the Latin race hold
equal sway with the Anglo-Saxon over the New World.”
If he meant by the “ Latin race ” the effete half-Indian,
Mexican and South American peoples, which were to be
set as rivals against the Anglo-Saxon race, represented by
Yankees, Southerners, men of the West, and the English in
Canada, he was widely wrong in his calculation; but it is
probable that “ Latin ” was his synonym for “ French ” in
this connection.
The Monroe doctrine, as all Americans know, took its
rise from certain words in a Presidential message of Mr.
Monroe in 1822, though they were inserted in the mes-
sage by Mr. Adams. They were to the effect that the
United States would disturb no nation or government at
present (i. <?., in 1822) existing on the North or South
American continent, but that they would oppose all at-
tempts by any European Government whatever to put down
any free institutions that were the choice of the people, or
to impose upon them any form of government against
their will.
Napoleon III. did not quite dare to fly in the face of
the Monroe doctrine, even though the United States were
embarrassed by civil war. There were plenty of MexicanMAXIMILIAN AND MEXICO.
197
exiles in Paris, among them the Don Gutierrez who offered
Maximilian the imperial crown. These men had secret
interviews with the emperor. Thus the way was paved for
Maximilian long before the time came to act, and possibly
before he heard of the matter; for there was a power be-
hind the throne that was urging his elevation on the French
emperor with all a woman’s persuasive powers.1
It was not until after the Empress Eugenie had been left
regent of France, during the campaign of Italy, in 1859,
that she took any part in politics ; but from that time her
influence was freely exercised, though she interested herself
chiefly in foreign affairs. She did not like Victor Em-
manuel, nor her husband’s policy as regarded Italy. She
dreaded the destruction of the pope’s power as a temporal
prince. Her sympathies were Austrian, and in conjunction
with her friends the Prince and Princess Metternich she
lost no opportunity of urging the establishment of Maxi-
milian and Carlotta on the imperial throne of Mexico.
She looked upon this as in some sort a compensation given
by France to the House of Hapsburg for its losses in
Italy. To her imagination, the expedition to Mexico
seemed like a romance. She saw two lovers seated upon
Montezuma’s throne, — the oldest throne in the New World,
— surrounded by the glories of the tropics. When there,
they would restore the privileges of the Catholic clergy, and
would curb the revolutionary aspirations of the mongrel
population of Mexico, — a population which, as a Spaniard,
she hated and despised. To this end she intrigued with all
her heart. Indeed, she and her friends the Metternichs
acted in the preliminary arrangements of the plan the part
of actual conspirators.
After the French and Spanish forces landed in Mexico,
accompanied by a few' Englishmen, Juarez offered to make
compensation for the wrongs complained of, and an agree-
ment w'as draw'll up and signed by General Prim and the
French and English commanders at a place called La
Soledad.
1 Pierre de Lano.igS FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
England and Spain, when the agreement was sent to Europe
for ratification, considered it satisfactory. France, having ul-
terior designs, repudiated it altogether. The Spaniards and
the English therefore withdrew their forces, and the French
remained to fight out the quarrel with Juarez alone.
Up to this time no allusion had been made as to any
change in the Mexican government; but now French
agents began to intrigue in favor of an empire and Maxi-
milian. A small assembly of Mexican notables was with
great difficulty convened in the city of Mexico, from which
Juarez was absent, being engaged in carrying on the war.
The only persons concerned in this assembly who took any
real interest in its objects were the clergy, who believed that
a prince of the House of Austria would be likely to restore to
them all their property and privileges.
There can be no doubt that such a government as Maxi-
milian would have established in Mexico would have been
a happy thing for that country and for civilization; but it is
equally certain that the Mexicans (meaning by that term the
great mass of the people) did not want such a government.
Above all, they did not want for their ruler a foreigner, backed
by a foreign potentate. The only raison d'etre for Maxi-
milian’s government in any Mexican’s mind was not that it
would bring order and peace into the country, but that it
might bring money from the coffers of the new emperor’s ally.
But when, after a while, the reverse of peace and order was
the result of this new government, and when the French
emperor declined to advance any more funds, nothing
kept any man true to Maximilian but the dread of what
the party of Juarez might do to him when the cause of the
emperor should be overthrown.
With this explanation we will go back to Miramar, where
Maximilian and Carlotta, unquestionably deceived by the
political manipulations of the French emperor, believed,
with joy and pride, that they were the choice of the Mexican
people, and that they had nothing to do but to go forth and
take possession of the promised land.
On April 13, 1S64, almost the darkest date during ourMAXIMILIAN AND MEXICO.
199
war for the cause of the Federal Union, the Archduke
Maximilian and his wife quitted the soil of Austria.
Early in the morning, in the port of Trieste and on the
road to Miramar, all were astir. Friends from all parts of the
Austrian Empire were hastening to bid farewell to the Arch-
duke whom they loved.
The “ Novara” and the French frigate “Themis” were
lying off Trieste, ready to start; and near them, riding at
anchor, were six steamships belonging to the Austrian
Lloyds, full of spectators.
At about one o’clock p. m. the emperor, with his wife
leaning on his arm, entered the town-hall of Trieste, where
about twenty deputations were assembled to offer him fare-
well addresses. Maximilian was much moved, and when
the burgomaster spoke of the grief that all the people of
the city would feel at his departure, he burst into tears.
He embraced the burgomaster, shook hands with those
about him, and whispered, as if to himself: “ Something
tells me that I shall never see this dear country more.”
His sensitive and poetic nature was very susceptible to sad
presentiments ; his book teems with them.
After the leave-taking, their Majesties entered the magni-
ficent barge prepared for their use by the city of Trieste ;
a salute of one hundred guns reverberated from the sides of
the mountain, while twenty thousand hats and handkerchiefs
waved a sad farewell.
Maximilian and Carlotta embarked on board the “ No-
vara,” which carried the Mexican flag. By four o’clock both
vessels were well down in the offing, and not till then did the
crowd separate. Those with telescopes had seen up to the
last moment a figure standing on the poop-deck, with its
face turned towards Miramar, and knew it for the form of
Maximilian.
The “ Novara ” touched at Jamaica. On May 28 it came
in sight of the shores of Mexico, and cast anchor in the har-
bor of Vera Cruz.
The emperor and empress had expected a public re-
ception. There was nothing of the kind. No welcome200 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
awaited them, — not even an official one. This was the
more extraordinary because the “Themis” had been sent
forward to announce the approach of the imperial party.
Their disappointment at the want of enthusiasm was great.
The French vice-admiral did his best to repair unfortunate
omissions. He gave orders for a show of festivity; but
it was plain to see, from the indifference of the people
in the streets, that they had no part or lot in the
demonstration.
After leaving the sea-coast, Maximilian proceeded to-
wards his capital in an old shabby English barouche, his
journey seeming rather like the expedition of an adventurer
than the progress of an emperor. Passing through Orizaba
and Puebla, the emperor and empress entered Mexico on
June 12. French agents had paid for flowers to be scat-
tered in their path, and a theatrical kind of procession
was prepared, which was not agreeable to either of them.
The only part of the population which hailed their com-
ing with delight were the descendants of the Aztecs, many
of whom appeared on the occasion in feather dresses
preserved in their families since the time of Montezuma.
In the evening there was a public performance at the
theatre in honor of the new sovereigns, but not half the
boxes were filled.
The palace of Chapultepec, which had been assigned them
as their residence, was destitute of comforts of any kind,
and was much more like a second-class hotel than a habita-
tion meet for princes. Yet even here, one of Maximilian’s
first cares was to lay out the grounds and to plant flowers.
He was advised to make an immediate journey through
his new dominions, in order to judge for himself of the
aspirations and resources of the people. But he found a
country broken down by war, without roads, without schools,
without agriculture. “ The only thing in this country which
is well organized, sire,” said a Mexican whom he was ques-
tioning about the state of things, “is robbery.”
There was thieving everywhere. The emperor’s palace,
and even his private apartments, were not spared. OneMAXIMILIAN AND MEXICO.
201
day, after a reception of officers high in military command,
his revolver, inlaid with gold and ivory, which had lain on a
table by his side, disappeared, and the empress missed two
watches, which had gone astray under the dexterous finger-
ing of her maids-of-honor. General Lopez, who was then
commandant of the palace, wishing to give the emperor a
proof of the accomplishments of his subjects in matters of
this kind, offered to steal off his writing-table, within two
hours, and without being noticed, any object agreed upon.
He said he believed he could even carry off the table, —
a joke at which the emperor laughed heartily.
When Maximilian returned to his capital, after a journey
of great peril, he ordered the construction of several high-
roads, granted lands and privileges to two or three railroad
companies, founded a good many schools, and set on foot a
Mexican Academy of Sciences. His own taste for natural
history was so great that he gave some foundation for the
charge made against him that he would frequently shut
himself up in his workroom to stuff birds. He devoted
great attention to improvements in agriculture, and planned
a manufacturing city, and a seaport on the Gulf of Mexico
which he intended to call Miramar.
His wife was an indefatigable helpmeet. She wrote all
his European correspondence, but resented the interference
of the French, and could be curt and energetic when the
occasion called for self-assertion.
An American gentleman who saw her at a court-ball at
this period thus describes her : “ She was imperial in every
look and action. The dignified and stately step so well
suited to her station, and with her perfectly natural, would
have seemed affectation in another. She did not seem re-
markably tall, except in comparison with others. Her
voice possessed a refinement peculiar to birth, education,
and superior natures.”
But while the emperor and empress were laboring for the
improvement of their realm, the Juarists were increasing in
strength, and banditti carried on their enterprises with
impunity up to the very gates of Mexico. Day after day202 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
the stage was robbed between Mexico and Jalapa. The
Marquis de Radepont, a quiet traveller, saved himself by
killing half-a-dozen highwaymen with his revolver; but the
Belgian ambassador, on his way to announce to their Im-
perial Majesties the accession of Leopold II., the brother of
Carlotta, was robbed of all his jewelry and money.
In consequence of these disorders the emperor signed,
on Oct. 3, 1865, in spite of the remonstrances of Marshal
Bazaine, the French general-in-chief in Mexico, an order
to the civil and military authorities to treat all armed gue-
rilla bands as brigands, and to apply to them the utmost
rigor , of martial law.
This was at once interpreted into permission to shoot all
prisoners; and three promising young Juarist generals who
had fallen into the hands of one of Maximilian’s command-
ers were shot immediately, leaving behind them pathetic
farewell letters to their friends. Maximilian did not foresee
that he was signing his own death-warrant when he put his
hand to this act of severity.
Juarez himself, with a body of his followers, had retreated
to the frontier, ready to pass over into Texas if the French
attacked him. But the French were too few and too scat-
tered to occupy a vast region of country where every in-
habited house was a refuge for their foes. Moreover, the
interest of Napoleon in the empire of Mexico was at an
end. He hated a long war at any time, and was always
ready to abandon an enterprise when he could not carry
out his projects by a coup de main. The war was extremely
unpopular in France. Financial ruin had come upon many
Frenchmen from the failure of the Mexican bonds nego-
tiated by the banker, Jecker, to pay interest to their bond-
holders. The Civil War in the United States was at an
end, and Mr. Seward was instructing the American ambas-
sador in Paris to threaten the Emperor Napoleon with
the enforcement of the doctrine of President Monroe.
He resolved to withdraw his troops from Mexico, and to
advance no more money to Maximilian. He wrote these
orders to Marshal Bazaine.MAXIMILIAN AND MEXICO.
203
Maximilian, who fully understood by this time the condi-
tion of Mexico, and foresaw all the dangers of his position
when the French troops should be withdrawn, sent the em-
press at this crisis to Europe to represent the situation of
affairs to the French emperor, and to remind him of his
promises.
She embarked hurriedly and like a private person on
board a French mail-steamer. Her stateroom was close to
the propeller. The noise, coupled with her great anxiety
and excitement, deprived her almost entirely of sleep dur-
ing the voyage. On landing, she hastened to Paris, went
to an hotel, and sent a message to the emperor, requesting
an interview. This the emperor declined. Carlotta then
hired a carriage and drove out to Saint-Cloud, where she
insisted on seeing him. Their interview was very painful.
At its close she exclaimed that she felt herself to blame,
being a daughter of the house of Orleans, for ever having
put faith in the Emperor Napoleon or his promises. Not-
withstanding this reproach, the emperor, who was soft-
hearted. pitied her extremely. She remained at Saint-
Cloud for some hours, and that evening, when surrounded
by the court circle, she threw back her head and begged for
water. The emperor hastened to bring it to her with his
own hand ; but she exclaimed that she would not take it
from him, for she knew he wished to poison her. It was
her first attack of mania. She was calmed, and the symp-
toms passed off, but continued at intervals to return.
From Paris she went to Rome, and there her mental
malady more and more declared itself. She refused to eat
anything but fruit, for fear of poison. Her first visit to the
pope was made while he was breakfasting, when she
snatched the cup of chocolate from his lips and swallowed
it eagerly, exclaiming : “ I am sure no one can have wished
to poison vou ! ” After several other manifestations of her
disordered brain at the Quirinal, steps were taken to for-
ward her to Miramar. On reaching that beloved place, she
grew more calm. She recovered for a time her interest in
music, painting, and literature. The Sclavic peasants around204 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
her considered her a saint. When she passed, they used to
kneel down on the highway. For years they refused to be-
lieve in Maximilian’s death. “ He will come back ! We
know he will come back ! ” was the cry of the Dalmatians,
who cherished his memory.
After a time Carlotta was removed to Belgium, where
she has been since secluded from the world, but tenderly
watched over by her relations. From time to time she
partially recovers her reason.
Matters in Mexico after her departure grew worse every
day. Bazaine had received orders to withdraw all French
troops from the country. He was directed to withhold
from Maximilian all French support, and in obedience to
these instructions he flung into the river Sequia and Lake
Texcoco1 all the guns and ammunition he could not
take away.
Prior to the withdrawal of the French troops, the French
Government made several efforts to induce Maximilian to
abdicate. The Marquis de Gallifet (of whom we shall hear
again in another chapter) was sent, with two other French
gentlemen, to urge him to leave Mexico. “ I know all the
difficulties of my position,” Maximilian replied, “ but I shall
not give up my post. A son of the house of Hapsburg
never retreats in the face of danger.” Nevertheless, after
receiving the first letters from his wife, Maximilian’s resolu-
tion was shaken. He hoped at least to return to Europe as
an emperor, and not a fugitive, and to lay aside his crown
of his own accord. With this view he set out for Orizaba,
where the “ Dandolo ” corvette was waiting to receive his
orders. On his way he was delayed some hours, because
the white mules that drew his carriage had been stolen.
At Orizaba he was attacked by malarious chills. There,
too, he received news of his wife’s insanity. Some of his
generals surrounded him, and prayed him not to abandon
his followers to the vengeance of their enemies. The
leaders of the clerical party also begged him, for the sake
1 Prince Salm-Salm, Diary in Mexico.MAXIMILIAN AND MEXICO.
205
of the Church, to return to Mexico, promising him the
support of the clergy throughout the country if he would
but give up liberal ideas, and support, at all costs, the
temporal prosperity of the Church.
Maximilian, on the strength of these assurances, went
back to his capital, protesting that he remained only for
the good of other people, and was influenced neither by
personal considerations nor political wishes of his own.
But Maximilian was not the man to contend with the
difficulties that beset him in Mexico. His very merits
were against him. As we read the sad history of his fail-
ure, we feel that in his hands the regeneration of Mexico
was hopeless. Men like John or Henry Lawrence, heroes
of the Indian Mutiny, accustomed to deal with semi-
savages, might perhaps have succeeded; but Maximilian
was the product of an advanced civilization, and all his
sentiments were of a super-refined character. He was no
general; his forces were kept scattered over an immense
area. He seems to have been no administrator. He was
accustomed to deal with Italians, — men of enthusiastic
natures and fanatical ideas. Mexicans had no enthusiasms;
and in place of patriotism there was a prevailing sentiment
of thorough aversion to the French and to the foreigners
they had brought with them. Maximilian had come to
Mexico witli all kinds of liberal projects for its civilization.
It was like forcing sanitary improvements on the inhabitants
of an Irish shanty, or catching a street gamin and im-
posing on him the restraints and amenities of high-class
culture.
The departure of the French troops left the way clear
for the party of Juarez. It rapidly gained strength, and
prepared to besiege the emperor in his capital. “ I cannot
bear to expose the city to danger,” said Maximilian, who,
in spite of being continually harassed and cruelly deceived
day after day, never failed in consideration for those about
him. He retired to Queretaro, where Generals Miramon,
Castillo, Mejia, Avellano, and Prince Salm-Salm had gath-
ered a little army of about eight thousand men.206 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Maximilian at Queretaro showed all his nobleness of
spirit, kindness of heart, and simplicity of life. During the
siege, which lasted over two months, he shared the fatigues
and privations of his common soldiers, and lived as they
did, on the flesh of mules, while his officers’ tables were
much better supplied. He exposed his person upon all
occasions, taking daily walks upon the bastions as tran-
quilly as he might have done in the green alleys of his
distant home. One day his eye fell upon six dead bodies
dangling from the branches of six trees. He turned away,
with intense emotion. They were the bodies of six of his
own couriers, who had fallen into the hands of the enemy.
He might have cut his way out of Queretaro at the head
of his cavalry, but he hesitated to abandon his foot-soldiers.
“ I will die sword in hand,” were now his daily words.
Every day his men brought in prisoners. Even when
such persons were suspected of being spies, Maximilian
would not order their execution. “No, no,” he said; “if
things go well, there is no need; if ill, I shall not have
their blood upon my soul.”
When the siege had lasted seventy days, provisions grew
so scarce that the only alternatives seemed a sortie or a
surrender. The sortie was decided on. On the night of
May 14, 1867, the seven thousand men still in Queretaro
were to break through the lines of the enemy and endeavor
to make their way to Vera Cruz. Singularly enough, the
Juarist general, Escobedo, had fixed on the 15 th of May
for his final assault.
Neither sortie nor assault took place. The treason of
General Lopez prevented the one, and rendered the other
unnecessary. Lopez, whom Maximilian had loaded with all
sorts of kindness, — Lopez, who called himself the most
devoted adherent of the emperor, — had sold the life of his
friend and benefactor for two thousand ounces of gold !
One year before, when Lopez had been at Puebla in
attendance on the empress, he had sent for his wife, who,
having made a hurried journey, was prematurely confined.
“ I cannot allow your son,” wrote Maximilian, “ to comeMAXIMILIAN AND MEXICO.
207
into the world in another man’s house. I send you the
enclosed sum. Purchase the house where your son was
born.”
Having kept up constant communication with the camp
of the besiegers, Lopez, on the morning of May 13, sent
a note to Escobedo, offering to deliver over to him the
convent of La Cruz, which was the emperor’s headquarters.
Escobedo accepted his proposals. About midnight Lopez
and the troops under his command went over to the en-
emy. The soldiers of Juarez quietly entered the town, and
surrounded the convent where the emperor and his staff
were sleeping.
At dawn Maximilian rose, dressed himself, woke Prince
Salm-Salm, and they went out together, with no arms but
their swords. As they reached the gates of the convent the
emperor perceived Juarist soldiers on guard, and turning to
his companion, cried, “ We are betrayed; here is the en-
emy ! ” At this moment Lopez, who had seen them come
into the court-yard, pointed out the emperor to Colonel
Rincon Gallardo, who was in command of the detachment
from the army of Juarez. Rincon was an honorable sol-
dier and kind-hearted. He said, loud enough to be heard
by his own men : “ They are citizens ; let them pass : they
are not soldiers.” The emperor was dressed in a black
frock-coat, but with military trousers and epaulettes. He
and Prince Salm-Salm then walked through the convent
gates and made their way in haste to the opposite quarter
of the city. The streets were silent and empty. Suddenly
a sharp fire of musketry was heard, mingled with Juarist
and Imperial war-cries. Miramon with his troops was hold-
ing one of the widest streets of Queretaro, w'hen a ball hit
him in the face. He fell, half blinded, and was taken
prisoner. Miramon was the son of a French father and a
Spanish mother, and was one of the very few generals on
either side who were of pure white blood.
The emperor, with Generals Mejia, Castillo, Avellano,
and Prince Salm-Salm, retired to a little hill which com-
manded the city. They had no artillery, no means of208 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
defending their position. They stood on the bare rock
where they had taken refuge, like shipwrecked sailors wait-
ing for the fatal rising of the tide. General Escobedo, a
coarse man, who had formerly been a muleteer, prepared
to charge up the hill with four battalions of infantry and a
strong party of cavalry.
“ Do not fire ; you will shed blood to no purpose,” said
the emperor to the little band of followers who surrounded
him. Then, in a low, sad voice, he ordered one of his
aides-de-camp to fasten a white handkerchief on the end
of a bayonet. The Juarists, who were ascending the hill,
came to a halt. Then, amid profound silence, the em-
peror came forward. He paused a moment as he stepped
out of the little group of his followers and looked around
him. Then he descended the hill with a firm step, fol-
lowed by several of his generals.
The Juarists saluted him by their party cry, “Viva la
libertad! ” They recognized the emperor. Maximilian
walked straight up to their commander, an ex-Federal
United States officer, who under the name of Corona was
in command of a party of Americans who had entered the
service of Juarez, and were called the Legion of Honor.
This legion was composed of fifty men. Some had worn
the blue, and some the gray. Each held rank in the Mex-
ican army as an officer.
“ General,” said Maximilian to Corona, “ both men and
fortune have betrayed me. There are widows and orphans
enough already in the world. Here is my sword.”
“ Sire,” said the general, forgetting that the man who ad-
dressed him was no longer emperor, “ keep your sword.”
He then proposed to Maximilian to mount a horse, and
escorted him, with the other prisoners, to the convent of
Santa Teresita.
There the emperor and his generals were shut up at once
in a dark cellar, and not only had to sleep upon the damp
earth floor, but were left to suffer from hunger. In a
few days, however, Princess Salm-Salm brought them some
relief. They were then transferred to the convent of LaMAXIMILIAN AND MEXICO.	209
Capuchina, and their friends obtained permission to send
them wine, clothes, and provisions.
Princess Salm-Salm, in the last act of this tragedy, showed
herself to be a brave and generous woman. When her hus-
band left the capital she had crossed the enemy’s lines in
order to get out of Mexico, but was twice in danger of
being shot by the soldiers of Diaz. She was accused of
supplying money to a troop of Austrian soldiers who, hav-
ing been captured, were confined at Chapultepec, and
she was imprisoned at Guadalupe. After a short deten-
tion, however, she obtained leave to quit Mexico for Eu-
rope ; but changing her route, she managed to rejoin her
husband at Queretaro. Thence, hiding by day and travel-
ling by night, she made her way back to San Luis de
Potosi, where Juarez had his headquarters. She threw
herself at his feet, and implored his mercy for the emperor;
but Juarez told her (not without some signs of compas-
sion) that he felt no inclination to spare his life, and
that if he were willing to do so, he would not be per-
mitted by his followers to show him any clemency.
When Maximilian heard of this brave enterprise on
his behalf, he could not refrain from tears.
The prisoners were three weeks at La Capuchina, in
complete uncertainty as to what would be done with them.
Indeed, the Juarists seemed much embarrassed by their
prize. On June 10 they were informed that Juarez had
sent an order to have them tried by a court-martial, which
would be held on the 12th of June.
“Where are you going to take me?” asked Maximilian
on that day of the officer who came to escort him. “ To
the court-martial,” was the reply. “Where is it held?”
said Maximilian. “ In the theatre.” “ Then I refuse to
accompany you. I will not be made a public spectacle
at a theatre. You may go alone.”
The officer, not being authorized to use force, went
away. The trial proceeded without the presence of the
prisoner. Generals Miramon and Mejia, however, were
dragged upon the stage where the court-martial was210 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
sitting. The play-house was crowded with spectators. It
was a tragedy with no admission-fee. The proceedings
lasted three days. The emperor was accused of usur-
pation, of instigating civil war, and of causing the death
of forty thousand patriots, hanged or shot in conseqence
of his order of October 3, intended to operate only against
armed bands of robbers.
On the morning of June 15, 1867, General Escobedo
presented himself in the prison, holding the sentence of
the court-martial in his hand. Maximilian, who could
guess his fate, said quietly: “ Read it, General; I am
ready to hear you.”
Maximilian, Miramon, and Mejia were condemned to
be shot.
“ I understand you,” said the emperor, with perfect
calmness. “ The law of October 3 was made to put down
robbers : this sentence is the work of murderers.”
Escobedo laid his hand on his revolver with a sudden
exclamation. Then, recovering himself, he said sarcasti-
cally : “ I suppose that a criminal must be allowed the
right to vilify his judges.”
Maximilian turned his back on him, and Escobedo left
the prison.
The execution had been ordered for the next morning,
but was put off till the 19th, by order of Juarez.
Meantime the English and Prussian ambassadors has-
tened to Juarez, hoping to obtain mercy for the late em-
peror. The French and Austrian courts, by telegraph,
implored the mediation of the United States. There was
no American minister at that time in Mexico, but Mr.
Seward sent telegraphic despatches to Juarez, pointing out
that the execution of Maximilian would rouse the feelings
of the civilized world against the Mexican Republic.
All was of no avail. The idea of foreign intervention in
the affairs of Mexico was so distasteful to the Mexicans
that these pleadings on the late emperor’s behalf by
foreign Governments only accelerated his fate.
During the night before his death, Maximilian askedMAXIMILIAN AND MEXICO.	211
his jailers for a pair of scissors. He was refused. Then
he implored one of them to cut off a lock of his hair.
When that was done, he wrote the following pathetic letter
to Carlotta : —
My eeloved Carlotta, — If God should permit you one
of these days to get well enough to read these lines, you will
know how sad has been my fate ever since your departure.
You took with you my happiness, my very life, and my good
fortune. Why did I not take your advice ? So many sad things
have taken place, so many unexpected catastrophes and un-
deserved misfortunes have fallen on me, that I have now lost
heart and hope, and look upon death as my good angel.
My death will be sharp and sudden, without pain. I shall fall
gloriously, like a soldier, like a conquered sovereign. . . .
If you cannot, dearest, bear up under your load of sorrow,
if God in His mercy soon reunites us by your death, I will
bless His fatherly hand, which now seems very heavy upon
me. Adieu, adieu !
Your poor Max.
He kissed this letter, folded into it the light silky lock
of his own hair, and placed it with other letters which he
had written to his mother and friends. They were all in
French, and written in a clear, firm, regular hand. His noble
nature shone in every line. They give the key to the irre-
sistible personal sympathy he inspired in all who knew him.
His enemies were aware of this, and no judge or general who
had ever known him sat on his court-martial.
As six o’clock was striking on the morning of June 19,
the door of the prison was unbarred. “ I am ready,” said
Maximilian.
As he stepped forth from the door of the convent, he
exclaimed : “ What a beautiful morning ! I have always
fancied I should like to die in sunshine, — on a summer
day.”
He entered the carriage in waiting. Miramon and Mejia
followed him, with the priest who attended them in their
last moments. They were escorted by a body of four
thousand men, and were driven to the same rocky height212 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
on which they had been captured, called the Cerro della
Campana. They sat upright in the carriage during the
drive, with proud smiles upon their faces. They were care-
fully dressed, as if for an occasion of festivity. The popu-
lation of the place was all abroad to see them pass, and
looked at them with silent pity and admiration. The
calmness and self-possession of the emperor, about to die,
touched even the most indifferent spectators. The women
freely shed tears.
Maximilian was a handsome, striking-looking man. His
beautiful light hair was parted by a straight line from his
forehead to the nape of his neck. His blue eyes were
clear and soft, with a beseeching look in them. His hands
were beautifully white, his fingers elegant and taper.
As they neared the place of execution, General Mejia
suddenly turned pale, covered his face, and with a sob
fell back in his place in the carriage. He had caught
sight of his wife, agonized, dishevelled, with her baby in
her arms, and all the appearance of a madwoman.
The party arrived at the foot of the little hill. The
emperor sprang out, brushed off some dust which had
settled on his clothes, and going up to the firing party,
gave each man an ounce of gold. “ Take good aim, my
friends,” he said. “ Do not, if possible, hit me in the
face, but shoot right at my heart.”
One of the soldiers wept. Maximilian went to him,
and putting his cigar-case, of silver filigree, into his hand,
said: “Keep that, my friend, in remembrance of me. It
was given to me by a prince more fortunate than I am
now.”
The non-commissioned officer then came near, and said
he hoped that he would forgive him. “ My good fellow,”
replied Maximilian, cheerfully, “ a soldier has but to obey
orders; his duty is to do his duty.”
Then, turning to Miramon and Mejia, he said : “ Let
me, true friends, embrace you for the last time ! ” He
did so, and then added-: “ In a few minutes we shall be
together in a better world.”MAXIMILIAN AND MEXICO.	213
Turning to Miramon, he said: “General, the bravest
man should have the place of honor. Take mine.”
Mejia being very much cast down by the sad spectacle
presented by his poor, distracted wife, Maximilian again
pressed his hands, saying: “ God will not abandon our
suffering survivors. For those who die unjustly, things
will be set right in another world.”
The drums began to beat. The end was near. Maxi-
milian stepped forward, mounted on a stone, and addressed
the spectators.
“ Mexicans ! men of my rank and of my race, who feel
as I feel, must either be the benefactors of the people over
whom they reign, or martyrs. It was no rash ambition of
my own that called me hither ; you, you yourselves, in-
vited me to accept your throne. Before dying, let me
tell you that with all the powers I possess I sought your
good. Mexicans ! may my blood be the last blood that
you shed ; may Mexico, the unhappy country of my adop-
tion, be happy when I am gone ! ”
As soon as he had resumed his place, a sergeant came
up to order Miramon and Mejia to turn round. As traitors,
they were to be shot in the back.
“ Farewell, dear friends,” said Maximilian, and crossing
his arms, he stood firm as a statue.
When the command was given : “ Shoulder arms ! ” a
murmur of protestation, accompanied by threats, rose
among part of the crowd, in which there were many In-
dians. Their national superstitions and traditions had
attached this simple people to the emperor. They had
a prophecy among them that one day a white man would
come over the seas to set them free, and many of them
looked for this savior in Maximilian.
The officers in command turned towards the crowd,
shaking their swords. Then came the words:	“ Take
aim ! Fire ! ”
“ Long live Mexico ! ” cried Miramon.
“ Carlotta ! Poor Carlotta ! ” exclaimed Maximilian.
When the smoke of the volley had cleared away, three214 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
corpses lay upon the earth. That of the emperor had
received five balls. The victims were placed in coffins
which lay ready near the place of execution, and, es-
corted as they had been before, were carried back to the
convent of the Capuchins.
“The emperor being dead, we will do all honor to the
corpse of the Archduke of Austria,” said Colonel Miguel
Palacios, to whom this care was given. The corpse was
embalmed, and the body placed in a vault.
The Russian ambassador, Baron Magnus, and the Ameri-
can commander of a United States vessel of war which
lay off Vera Cruz, in vain solicited the body of the late
emperor. The Austrian Vice-admiral Tegethoff (the
illustrious conqueror at Lissa) had to come and personally
demand it in November of the next year. He at the same
time obtained the release of the Austrian soldiers still re-
tained as prisoners, and of Prince Salm-Salm, lying under
sentence of death since the execution of the emperor.
As for the traitor Lopez, instead of the two thousand
ounces of gold that he expected, he got only seven thou-
sand dollars. His wife refused to live with him after his
treachery to Maximilian; and once when he went to see
General Rincon Gallardo to request his influence to get
himself restored to his former rank in the Mexican army,
which he had forfeited by his connection with the Im-
perial Government, the answer he received was : “ Colonel
Lopez, if I ever recommend you for any place, that place
will be under a tree, with a rope round your neck tied
to one Of its branches.”
Maximilian will live in history as a good man and a
martyred sovereign. Long after his death, the Indians in
Queretaro would not put up an adobe hut without inserting
in it a pebble from the hill on which he was executed.
On the very day of his death an order signed by him
was received in Europe, not for rifled cannon, not for
needle-guns, but for two thousand nightingales, which he
desired to have purchased in the Tyrol to add to the
attractions of his empire.EMPEROR NAPOLEON III.CHAPTER XI.
THE EMPEROR AND EMPRESS AT THE SUMMIT OF PROSPERITY.
THE visit paid by the Emperor Napoleon and the
Empress Eugenie to Queen Victoria at Windsor in
1856 was returned in 1857.
It was on the 18th of August that the queen, her husband,
the Prince of Wales, then a boy of fourteen, and the Prin-
cess Royal landed at Boulogne. The royal yacht had been
in sight since daybreak, the emperor anxiously watching it
from the shore; but it was two p. m. before it was moored
to the quai. There can be no better account of this visit
than that given by Queen Victoria. The following extracts
are taken from her journal: —
“ At last the bridge was adjusted, the emperor stepped across.
I met him half-way, and embraced him twice, after which he led
me on shore amid acclamations, salutes, and every sound of joy
and respect. The weather was perfect, the harbor crowded
with war-ships, the town and the heights were decorated with
gay colors.”
The delay in getting up to the wharf postponed the
queen’s entrance into Paris, and greatly disappointed the
crowds who waited for her coming. They were also disap-
pointed that the greatest lady in the world exhibited no
magnificence in costume. But the queen herself was
greatly impressed by her first view of Paris : —
“ The approaching twilight rather added to the beauty of the
scene; and it was still quite light enough when we passed down
the Boulevard de Strasbourg (the emperor’s own creation)
and along the Boulevards by the Porte Saint-Denis, the Made-
leine, the Place de la Concorde, and the Arch of Triumph, to
see the objects round us.”216 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
They drove through the Bois de Boulogne in the dusk to
the palace of Saint-Cloud ; but all the way was lined with
troops, and bands playing “God Save the Queen,” at inter-
vals. The queen was particularly impressed by the Zouaves,
“The friends,” she says (for the Crimean War was then in
progress), “of my dear Guards in the Crimea.”
The birth of the Prince Imperial being an event in pros-
pect, the empress was not allowed to fatigue herself, and first
met the queen on the latter’s arrival at Saint-Cloud. “ In
all the blaze of lamps and torches,” says the queen, “ amidst
the roar of cannon, and bands, and drums, and cheers, we
reached the palace. The empress, with Princess Mathilde
and the ladies, received us at the door, and took us up a
beautiful staircase, lined with magnificent soldiers. ... I
felt quite bewildered, but enchanted.”
At dinner General Canrobert, who was fresh from the
Crimea, was placed next to her Majesty, and gave her his
war experiences. Next day the royal party went to the Ex-
position Universelle, then going on in Paris, and afterwards,
while the queen was receiving the ambassadors, the emperor
drove the Prince of Wales through the streets of Paris; he
afterwards took his older guests sight-seeing in his capital.
“ As we crossed the Pont de Change,” writes the queen,
“ the emperor said, pointing to the Conciergerie, 1 That is
where I was in prison.’ ” He alluded to the time when he
was brought from Strasburg to Paris, before being shipped
for Rio Janeiro. “ Strange,” continues the queen, “ to be
driving with us as emperor through the streets of Paris in
triumph ! ”
They visited Versailles (where the queen sketched), and
afterwards went to the Grand Opera. They saw Paris illu-
minated that night as they drove back to Saint-Cloud, the
emperor and Prince Albert recalling old German songs;
and the queen says : “ The ernperor seems very fond of
his old recollections of Germany. There is much that is
German, and very little — nothing, in fact — markedly
French in his character.”
One day all the royal party went out in a hack carriage,A T THE SUMMIT OF PROSPERITY.
217
with what the queen calls “common bonnets and veils,”
and drove incognito round Paris. Sometimes they talked
politics, sometimes they seem to have joked and laughed
with childish glee and enjoyment; and one night the em-
peror took the queen by torchlight to see the tomb cf his
great uncle at the Invalides. A guard of old warriors who
had served under Napoleon, with Santini, his valet at St.
Helena, at their head, escorted the queen of England to the
chapel where stood Napoleon’s coffin, not yet entombed,
with the sword of Austerlitz lying upon it. The band in
the chapel was playing “ God Save the Queen,” while without
raged a sudden thunder-storm.
The mornings were devoted to quiet pleasures and sight-
seeing, the evenings to operas, state dinners, and state balls.
The great ball given on this occasion in the galleries of
Versailles was talked of in Paris for years after. “ The
empress,” says the queen, “met us at the top of the stair-
case, looking like a fairy-queen or nymph, in a white dress
trimmed with bunches of grass and diamonds, a beautiful
tour lie corsage of diamonds round the top of her dress, and
all en riviere; the same round her waist, and a correspond-
ing headdress, and her Spanish and Portuguese orders. The
emperor said when she appeared : ‘ Cornme tu es belle ! ’ ”
Next day, as the emperor drove the queen in an open
carriage, they talked of the Orleans family, whose feelings
had been greatly hurt by a recent sequestration of their
property. The emperor tried to make excuses for this act, —
excuses that seemed to the queen but tame, — and then he
drove to the chapel built over the house where the Duke of
Orleans had died on the Avenue de Neuilly. The emperor
bought her two of the medals sold on the spot, one of which
bore the likeness of the Comte de Paris, with an inscription
calling him the hope of France.
The visit ended after eight delightful days, and the em-
peror escorted his guests back to Boulogne.
Prince Albert, the queen confesses, was not so much car-
ried away by the fascinations of their new friend as herself;
but the empress secured his entire commendation.218 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
The queen and the emperor continued to correspond,
and subsequently met several times, at Osborne House or at
Cherbourg.
I have told at some length of this visit, because it seemed
tome to mark the culminating point of Napoleon III.’s suc-
cessful career; not only was he fully admitted into the inner
circle of European sovereigns, but his place there was con-
firmed by the personal friendship and alliance of the greatest
among them.
In 1867 there was another Universal Exposition held in
Paris; and this was also a time of great outward glory and
triumph for the emperor, surrounded as he was by European
emperors, crown princes, and kings; but Queen Victoria
was then a sorrowing widow, and decay was threatening
Napoleon’s apparent prosperity.
It was in 1867 that the emperor and empress received
the czar, the sultan, the Crown Prince of Prussia, Princess
Alice of Hesse Darmstadt, and many other crowned heads
and celebrities. It was a year of fetes and international
courtesies. But in Paris itself there was a strange feeling
of insecurity,—a fearful looking for something, society
knew not what. “ It seemed,” said one who breathed the
rarefied air in which lived the upper circles of society,
“ as if the air were charged with electricity; as if the
shadows of coming events were being darkly cast over
the joyous city.”
One of the most remarkable sights of that gay time of
hollowness and brilliancy was the review given in honor of
the Emperor of Russia, on June 6. No less than sixty
thousand French troops, of all arms of the service, filed past
the three grand-stands on the race-course of the Bois de
Boulogne. On the central stand sat the Empress Eug6nie,
with the Prince Imperial, the Crown Princess of Prussia,
her sister, Princess Alice, and the Grand Duchess of Leuch-
tenberg. Before this stand, on horseback on one side, sat
the Grand Duke Vladimir, the Czarevitch (the present Czar
of Russia;, the Crown Prince of Prussia (since the lamented
Emperor Frederick), Prince Gortschakoff (the RussianAT THE SUMMIT OF PROSPERITY.
219
prime minister), Count Bismarck, and an English noble-
man ; on the other side were the Due de Leuchtenberg,
the Duke of Mecklenburg, and the Prince of Hesse Darm-
stadt ; while in the centre of them all rode the czar, with
Napoleon III. on one hand, and on the other the king of
Prussia.1
How little could any of those who looked upon that
throng of royal personages imagine what in little more
than two years was coming on them all !
The emperor was fond of literature, and when drawn
into a literary discussion, his half-closed eyes would gleam
with sudden light, and his criticisms would be both witty
and valuable. During his later years, harassed by sick-
ness and perplexities of all kinds, his greatest pleasure was
to shut himself up in his study, and there work upon his
“ Life of Caesar.” He wrote it entirely himself, though he
had many learned men in France and Germany employed
in looking up references and making extracts for him. The
book was considered a work of genuine merit. To its au-
thor it was a labor of love. He threw into it all his experi-
ence of life, all his theories, all his Napoleonic convictions;
for in C®sar and Napoleon he found many parallels.
He hoped to be admitted as a literary man into the French
Academy, and he meant to base his claim upon this book.
I have said nothing of the cares that oppressed the em-
peror in connection with the war in the Crimea, which was
prolonged far beyond his expectations; of the campaign in
Italy, broken short off by threats of intervention made by
the king of Prussia, and followed by feelings of disappoint-
ment and revenge on the part of the Italians ; of the inter-
vention of the emperor in 1866, after the battle of Sadowa,
to check the triumphant march of the Prussian army
through Austria ; nor of the bombs of Orsini, which led to
a rupture of the friendliness between France and England,
breaking up the cordial relations which existed between the
two courts in 1S57, and reviving that panic about French
invasion which seems periodically to attack Englishmen
1 Blackwood’s Magazine.220 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
ever since the great scare in the days of Bonaparte. These
subjects belong rather to historical reminiscences of Eng-
land, Italy, or Germany; but the emperor had anxieties
besides in France, and often found it hard to regulate with
discretion even the ways of his own household.
The empress, who after she had governed France as
regent in 1S59, during her husband’s absence in the Italian
war, had been admitted to councils of state, by no means
approved either her husband’s domestic or foreign policy.
We have seen that her influence was strongly exerted to
bring about the unfortunate attempt to give an emperor
and empress to Mexico; but on two other points that she
had at heart she failed. She could not persuade her hus-
band to undertake the reconstruction of the kingdom of
Poland, nor to assist Queen Isabella of Spain when her
subjects, exasperated at last by her excesses, drove her
over the French frontier. The empress disliked many of
the coterie who enjoyed her husband’s intimacy, especially
his cousin, Prince Napoleon. She resented the prince’s
opposition to her marriage; she disliked his manners,
his political opinions, his aggressive opposition to all the
offices of religion; and she succeeded in detaching him
from the emperor’s confidence, and in hindering his taking
part in public affairs. To his wife — the Princess Clotilde
— she was deeply attached ; but that did not serve to recon-
cile her to the prince, her husband. Both ladies were op-
posed to any diminution of the pope’s temporal power in
Italy; but the private circle of the friends of the empress
was too gay for the chastened nature of the Princess Clo-
tilde, and by degrees her intimacy with the empress became
less close and affectionate than it had been in the early
days of her unhappy marriage.
An episode in the private life of the palace, in 1859,
created considerable friction in Paris, and provoked remon-
strances from the emperor’s ministers.1 This was the ad-
mission to the circle of intimates who surrounded the
empress of the mesmerist and medium Home. This man
' Pierre de Lano.AT THE SUMMIT OF PROSPERITY.
221
gave himself out to be an American; but many persons sus-
pected that his native land was Germany, and some said he
was a secret agent of that court, which had emissaries all
over France, in search of useful information. The empress,
having heard of Home’s strange feats of table-turning and
spirit-rapping in fashionable salons of the capital, was eager
to witness his performances. The women in the high society
of Paris were greatly excited about them. Spiritualism was
the fad of the season, and the empress caught the infection.
The emperor, who was present at many of the exhibitions at
the Tuileries, was also, it is said, much impressed by some
of them, especially by a mysterious invisible hand laid firmly
on his shoulder, and by an icy breath that passed over his
face. But although the emperor, always indulgent to his
wife, resisted at first the advice of his counsellors to get rid
of Home, he was forced at last to put an end to the
seances at the Tuileries, Fontainebleau, and Biarritz. The
spirits “ summoned ” had had the imprudence to obtrude
upon him their own views of his policy. When the alliance
with Italy and a probable war with Austria were under dis-
cussion in the cabinet, the spirit-inspired pencil at the
Tuileries scrawled these words : “ The emperor should de-
clare war and deliver Italy from the Austrians.” Not long
afterwards, the vulgar presumption of Home, who had ac-
companied the court to Biarritz, provoked the emperor,
and caused him to give ear to the earnest remonstrances of
his Minister for Foreign Affairs. He gave orders that Home
should appear at the Tuileries no more.
Home died not long after in Germany, forgotten by the
world of fashion, but leaving behind him a little circle of
ardent believers.
The story of the emperor’s later life seems to me to be
one full of pathos and of pain. It is the record of a man
who knew himself to be slowly dying, whose physical
strength was ebbing day by day, but who was bearing up
under the vain hope of accomplishing the impossible.
One admires his extreme patience, his uncomplaining
perseverance, as he tried to roll the stone of Sisyphus, yet222 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
with unspoken misgivings in his heart that it would escape
from him and crush the hopes of his life, as it rolled back
out of his hands.
“ Poor emperor ! ” says the eye-witness who beheld him
in his hour of triumph, before the grand-stand, in 1867, at
the great review. “ He was a friend to all, and he fell
through his friends. He was very true to England, what-
ever he may have been to other countries; but England
failed him, unfortunately in Denmark, fortunately in Mexico,
and fatally in 1870.” 1
It seems, too, as if the world forgets now — what as-
suredly must be remembered hereafter in history — that it
was he who relieved Europe from the treaties of Vienna,
and asserted the claims of nationalities; that he brought
about the resurrection of Italy; that through his policy we
have a solution satisfactory to the world in general of the
question of the pope’s power as a temporal prince in Italy;
that he was the builder of modern Paris, the promoter of
agriculture, the railroad king of France, the peasant’s and
the workman’s friend.
In early life he had been an adventurer; but a kind heart
gave him gracious manners. He was grateful, faithful, and
generous ; terribly prodigal of money, and the victim of the
needy men by whom he was surrounded. It seems as if,
in spite of his coup d'etat (which, subtracting its massacres,
may have been a measure of self-preservation), he deserves
better of the world and of France than to have his mem-
ory spurned and spat upon, as men do now.
He gave France eighteen years of pre-eminent pros-
perity ; he left her, to be sure, in ruins. In his fall he
utterly obliterated the prestige of the name of Bonaparte.
No Bonaparte, probably, will ever again awaken the enthu-
siasm of the French people, — an enthusiasm which Napo-
leon III. relied on, justly at first, and fatally afterwards,
when a generation had arisen in France, from whom the
feeling had passed away.
The emperor’s malady, which was slowly sapping his
1 Blackwood’s Magazine,AT THE SUMMIT OF PROSPERITY.	223
strength, is said to be the most painful one that flesh is
heir to. Every movement was pain to him. Absolute
rest was what he needed, but cares pressed hard upon him
on every side. He must die, and leave his empire in the
hands of a woman and a child. His government had been
wholly personal. He could not transmit his power, such
as it was, to any other person, — least of all could he place
it in feeble hands. There were no props to his throne.
No Bismarck or Cavour stood beside him, to whom he
might confide his wife and son, and feel that though his
hand no longer held the helm, the ship would sail straight
on the course he had laid down for her. The men about
him were third and fourth rate men, — all of them enor-
mously his own inferiors. They cheated and deceived and
plundered him ; and he knew it in a measure, though not
as he knew it after his downfall.
The emperor said once : “There is but one Bonapartist
among us, and that is Fleury. The empress is a Legitimist,
I am a Socialist, and Prince Napoleon a Republican.” As
he contemplated the future, it seems to have occurred to
him that the only thing that could be done was to teach
France to govern herself, — to change his despotic authority
into a constitutional government. He might live long
enough, he thought, to make the new plan work, and if, by
a successful war with Germany, a war impending and per-
haps inevitable, he could gain brilliant military glory; if
he could restore to France that frontier of the Rhine which
had been wrested from her by Europe after the downfall of
his uncle, — his dynasty would be covered with glory, and
all might go on right for a few years, till his boy should be
old enough to replace him.
Both these expedients he tried. In 1869 he announced
that he was about to grant France liberal institutions. He
put the empress forward whenever it was possible, and he
made up his mind that as war with Germany was sure t.o
come, the sooner it came, the better, that he might reap its
fruits while some measure of life and strength was left him.
Long before, Prince Albert had assured him that his policy,224 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
which made his ministers mere heads of bureaux, which
never called them together for common action as members
of one cabinet, which compelled each to report only to his
master, who took on trust the accuracy of the reports made
to him, was a very dangerous mode of governing. It was
indeed very unlike his uncle’s practice, though it might have
been theoretically his system. Both uncle and nephew
came into power by a coup d'etat, — the one on the 18th
Brumaire (Nov. 9, 1799), the other on Dec. 2, 1851. Both
were undoubtedly the real choice of the people; both
really desired the prosperity of France : but the younger
man was more genuine, more kindly, more human than the
elder one. The uncle surrounded himself with “ mighty
men, men of renown,” — great marshals, great diplomatists,
great statesmen. Louis Napoleon had not one man about
him whom he could trust, either for honesty, ability, or
personal devotion, unless, indeed, we except Count Walewski.
All his life he had cherished his early ideas of the liberation
of Italy, which he accomplished; of the resurrection of
Poland, which he never found himself in a position to at-
tempt ; of the rectification of the frontier of France, which
he in part accomplished by the attainment of Nice and
Savoy; and, finally, his dream included the restoration to
France of self-government, with order reconciled to liberty.
As early as January, 1867, the emperor was consulting,
not only his friends, but his political opponents as to his
scheme of transforming despotism into a parliamentary
'government. He wrote thus to M. fCmile Ollivier, a leader
of the liberal party in France : 1 —
“ Believe me, lam not pausing through indecision, nor through
a vain infatuation as to my prerogatives ; but my fear is of part-
ing in this country, which is shaken by so many conflicting
passions, with the means of re-establishing moral order, which
is the essential basis of liberty. My embarrassment on the
subject of a law of the Press is not how to find the power of re-
pression, but how to define in a law what deserves repression.
The most dangerous articles may escape repression, while the
1 Pierre di Lano.AT THE SUMMIT OF PROSPERITY.
225
most insignificant may provoke prosecution. This has always
been the difficulty. Nevertheless, in order to strike the public
mind by decisive measures, I should like to effect at one stroke
what has been called the crowning of the edifice. I should like
to do this at once and forever; for it is important to me, and it
is above all important to the country. . . I wish to advance
firmly in a straight line, without oscillating to the right or left.
You see that I have spoken to you with perfect frankness.”
We also see in this letter one of Louis Napoleon’s char-
acteristics, — a fondness for taking people by surprise.
Nearly everything he did was a surprise to the public, and
yet it had long been maturing in his own mind.
The next time M. Ollivier saw the emperor he was told
of his intention to grant the right of holding political meet-
ings ; the responsibility of cabinet ministers to the Chamber;
and the almost entire freedom of the Press. The emperor
added, with a smile : “ I am making considerable conces-
sions, and if my government immediately succeeded that of
the First Empire, this would be acknowledged; but since I
came after parliamentary governments, my concessions will
be considered small.”
The emperor's experiment was a failure. The moment
restraint was taken off, and the French had liberty of speech
and freedom of the Press, they became like boys released
from school and its strict discipline. The brutal excesses
of language in the Parisian newspapers, the fierceness of
their attacks upon the Government, and the shamelessness
of their slander, alarmed the emperor and the best of his
personal adherents, who had been by no means supporters
of his policy. But though the experiment gave signs of
never being likely to succeed, and no one seemed pleased
with the new system, the emperor persevered. He refused
to withdraw his reforms ; he declined to make what children
call “an Indian gift ” to his people : but the effect of the
divided counsels by which he was embarrassed was that
these reforms were accepted by the public merely as experi-
ments, to be tried during good behavior, and not as the
basis of a new system definitively entered upon.
iS226 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
All through the year 1869 the difficulties of the course
which the emperor adopted grew greater and greater.
The emancipated Press was rampant. It knew no pity and
no decency. Its articles on the emperor’s failing health
(which he insisted upon reading) were cruel in the extreme.
Terrible anxieties for the future must have haunted him. If
his project for self-government in France must prove a
failure, when he was dead, what then ? Could a child and a
woman govern as he had done by a despotic will ? He had
done so in his days of health and strength; but events now
seemed to intimate that his government had been a failure
rather than a success.
Lord Palmerston, writing from Paris in Charles X.’s time,
said: “ Bonaparte in the last years of his reign crushed
every one else, both in politics and war. He allowed no
one to think and act but himself.”
Somewhat the same remark could be applied to the Third
Napoleon. But Napoleon I. was a great administrator as
well as a great general; his activity was inexhaustible, he
corresponded with everybody, he looked after everything,
he knew whether he was well or ill served; and his mode
of obtaining power did not hinder his availing himself of
the best talent in France. The case of his nephew was the
reverse of this. His highest quality was his tenacity of
purpose, and his disposition was inclined to kindly tolerance,
even of pecuniary greed and slipshod service. He could
rouse himself to great exertion ; but in the later days of Im-
perialism, pain and his decaying physical powers had ren-
dered him inert; moreover, in his general habits he had
always been indolent and pleasure-loving. In carrying out
the coup d'etat nine tenths of the public men in France had
been subjected to humiliations and indignities, by which
they were permanently outraged, and a host of co-conspira-
tors and adventurers had acquired claims upon the emperor
that it was not safe to disregard. Places and money were
distributed among them with reckless profusion, and many
a shady money transaction, throwing discredit on some men
high in favor with the emperor, was passed over, to avoid
exposure.A T THE SUMMIT OF PROSPERITY.
227
On the other hand, the emperor improved Paris till he
made it the most beautiful city in the world. It was his
aim to open wide streets through the old crowded quarters
where revolution hid itself, hatching plots and crimes. He
provided fresh air and drainage. He turned the Bois de
Boulogne from a mere wild wood into the magnificent
pleasure-ground of a great city. He completed the Louvre,
and demolished the straggling, hideous buildings which dis-
figured the Carrousel in Louis Philippe’s time. The work-
ing population, which his improvements drove out of the
Faubourg Saint Antoine emigrated to high and healthy
quarters in Montmartre and Belleville, where a beautiful
park was laid out for them. No part of Paris escaped these
improvements, though it took immense sums to complete
them. But while their good results will be permanent, their
immediate effect was to raise rents and make the increased
cost of living burdensome to people of small incomes. The
work brought also into Paris an enormous population of
masons, carpenters, and day-laborers, — a population which
was a good deal like the monster in the fairy tale, which
had to be fed each day with the best; for if once it became
hungry or dissatisfied, it might devour the man of science
who had brought it into being.
Still, the French are ungrateful to Napoleon III. when
they forget how much they are indebted to him for the ex-
tension of their commerce, the growth of their railroads, the
improvement of their cities, and above all for his attention
to sanitary science and to agriculture.
When he came to the throne, every traveller through
France was struck by the poor breeds of swine, sheep, and
cattle; the slovenly system of cultivation, the wide waste
lands, the poor implements for farming, and the want of
drainage. In his exile the emperor had lived much with
English landowners, and he endeavored more than any-
thing else to improve agriculture. He spent great sums of
money himself in model farms for the purpose of showing
how things could be done. But while commercial, agricul-
tural, and manufacturing prosperity increased in France,228 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
so also did the cost of living; and the cry, “ Put money in
thy purse ! ” found its echo in the hearts of all men in all
classes of society. Speculation of every kind ran rampant,
and by the year 1869 the cost of the improvements in Paris
alone became greater than France could patiently bear.
Personally, Louis Napoleon had strong sympathy with the
working-classes, and was always seeking to benefit them.
He favored co-operative societies ; he was planning, when
he fell, a system of state annuities to disabled or to aged
workmen. He abolished passports between France and
England, and also the French workman’s character-book,
or livret, which by law he had been compelled to have
always at hand.
In the midst of the emperor’s other perplexities, there
came, during the first days of 1870, a most damaging oc-
currence connected with his own family, — an occurrence
with which the emperor had no more to do than Louis
Philippe had had with the Praslin murder; but it helped to
impair the remaining prestige which clung to the name of
Bonaparte.
Prince Pierre Bonaparte, grandson of Lucien, was a dis-
solute and irregular character. His cousin, the emperor,
had repeatedly paid his debts and given him, as he did to
every one connected with the name of Bonaparte, large
sums of money. At last Prince Pierre’s conduct grew
so bad that this help ceased. Then he threatened his
cousin ; but the emperor would not even buy an estate he
owned in Corsica. Prince Pierre went back, therefore, to
the cradle of his family, and there got into a fierce quarrel
with an opposition member of the Chamber of Deputies.
The deputy, like a true Corsican, nourished revenge. He
waited till he went up to Paris, and there laid his grie-
vances against the emperor’s cousin before his fellow de-
puties of the opposition. They at once made it a party
affair. On Jan. 2, 1870, — the day the reformed Chamber of
Deputies was opened, — two journalists of Paris, M. de Tour-
vielle and M. Victor Noir, went armed to Pierre Bonaparte’s
house at Auteuil to carry him a challenge. They found theAT THE SUMMIT OF PROSPERITY.
229
prince in a room where he kept a curious collection of
weapons. He was a coarse man, with an ungovernable
temper. High words were exchanged. Victor Noir
slapped the prince in the face, and the prince, seizing a
pistol, shot him dead. He then turned on M. de Tour-
vielle; but the latter had time to draw a sword from his
sword-cane, and stood armed. Victor Noir’s funeral was
made the occasion of an immense republican demonstra-
tion, and M. Rochefort reviled the emperor and all his
family in the newspaper he edited, “ La Lanterne,” calling
upon Frenchmen to make an end of the Bonapartes.
Prince Pierre was tried for murder, and acquitted ;
Rochefort was tried for seditious libel, and condemned.
It was an ominous opening for the new Chamber. The
emperor had been most anxious that it should contain no
deputies violently opposed to his new policy, and the elec-
tions had been scandalously manipulated in the interest of
his dynasty.
Thiers complained bitterly to an Englishman, who visited
him, of the undisguised tampering with voters in this elec-
tion. He said, —
“ The Government pretends to believe in a Chamber elected
by universal suffrage, and yet dares not trust the votes of the
electors ; but mark my words, this tampering with an election
is for the last time. What will succeed the Empire, I know not.
God grant it may not be our country’s ruin ! But the state of
things under which we live cannot last long. It is incumbent
on honest men to lay before the emperor the state of the coun-
try, which his ministers do their best to keep from him. For a
long time I kept silent, — it was no use to knock one’s head
against a wall; but now we have revolution staring us in the
face, as the alternative with the Empire.”
As the little man said this, we are told that the fire in his
eyes gleamed through his spectacles ; and as he walked about
the room, he seemed to grow taller and taller.1
The new constitutional ministry, into whose hands the
1 Blackwood’s Magazine.230 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
emperor proposed to resign despotic power and to rule
thenceforward as constitutional sovereign, had for its chief
M. Emile Ollivier; Marshal Le Boeuf (made marshal on the
field of Magenta) was the Minister of War.
The debates in the Chamber were all stormy. The oppo-
sition might not be numerous, but it was fierce and deter-
mined. It scoffed at the idea of France being free when
elections were tampered with to sustain the Government;
and finally things came to such a pass that the emperor re-
solved to play again his trump-card, and to call a plebiscite
to say whether the French people approved of him and
wished to continue his dynasty. They were to vote simply
Yes or No.
There was not such open tampering this time with the vote
as there had been in the election of the deputies, but all
kinds of Government influences were brought to bear on
prefects, maires, and other official personages, especially in
the villages. The result was that 7,250,000 Frenchmen
voted Yes, and one and a half million, No. But to the
emperor’s intense surprise and mortification, and in spite
of all precautions, there were 42,000 Noes from the
army. It was a terrible discovery to the emperor that
there was disaffection among his soldiers. Promotion,
many men believed, had for some years been distributed
through favoritism. The men had little confidence in their
officers, the officers complained loudly of their men. A
dashing exploit in Algeria made up for irregularities of dis-
cipline. Even the staff officers were deficient in geography,
and the stories that afterwards came to light of the way in
which the War Department collected worthless stores, while
serviceable ones existed only on paper, seem almost in-
credible. Yet when war was declared, fimile Ollivier
said that he went into it with a light heart, and Marshal Le
Bceuf was reported to have told the emperor that he would
not find so much as one button missing on his soldiers’
gaiters.
The discovery that the army was not to be depended on,
and needed a war of glory to put it in good humor with itselfAT THE SUMMIT OF PROSPERITY.
231
and with its emperor, decided Napoleon III. to enter pre-
cipitately into the Franco-Prussian war while he still had
health enough to share in it. Besides this, a struggle with
Germany was inevitable, and he dared not leave it to his
successor. Then, too, if successful, — and he never doubted
of success, — all opposition at home would be crushed, and
the prestige of his dynasty would be doubled, especially if
he could, by a brilliant campaign, give France the frontier of
the Rhine, at least to the borders of Belgium. This would
indeed be a glorious crowning of his reign.
He believed in himself, he believed in his star, he be-
lieved in his own generalship, he believed that his army
was ready (though his army and navy never had been ready
for any previous campaign), and he believed, truly enough,
that the prospect of glory, aggrandizement, and success
would be popular in France.
Spain was at that time in want of a king. Several princes
were proposed, and the most acceptable one would have
been the Due de Montpensier; but Napoleon III., who
dreaded the rivalry of the Orleans family, gave the Spaniards
to understand that he would never consent to see a prince
of that family upon the Spanish throne. Then the Spaniards
took the matter into their own hands, and possibly stimulated
by a wish to make a choice disagreeable to the French em-
peror, selected a prince of the Prussian royal family, Prince
Leopold of Hohenzollern. The Emperor Napoleon ob-
jected at once. To have Prussia on the eastern frontier of
France, and Prussian influence beyond the Pyrenees, was
worse in his eyes than the selection of Montpensier; and it
was certainly a matter for diplomatic consideration. M.
Benedetti, the French minister at Berlin, was instructed to
take a very haughty tone with the king of Prussia, and to
say that if he permitted Prince Leopold to accept the
Spanish crown, it would be a cause of war between France
and Prussia. The king of Prussia replied substantially that
he would not be threatened, and would leave Prince Leo-
pold to do as he pleased. Prompted, however, no doubt,
by his sovereign, Prince Leopold declined the Spanish232 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
throne. This was intimated to M. Benedetti, and here the
matter might have come to an end. But the Emperor
Napoleon, anxious for a casus belli, chose to think that
the king of Prussia, in making his announcement to his
ambassador, had not been sufficiently civil.
A cabinet council was held at the Tuileries. The em-
press was now admitted to cabinet councils, that she might
be prepared for a regency that before long might arrive.
She and Marshal Le Bceuf were vehement for war. The
populace, proud of their fine army, shouted with one voice,
“ A Berlin ! ” and on July 15, r870, war was declared.
Let us relieve the sad closing of this chapter, which
began so auspiciously with the emperor and empress in
the height of their prosperity, by telling of an expedition
in which the glory of the empress as a royal lady
culminated.
The Suez Canal being completed, its opening was to be
made an international affair of great importance. The
work was the work of French engineers, led by M. Ferdi-
nand de Lesseps, in every way a most remarkable man.
England looked coldly on the enterprise. To use the
vulgar phrase both literally and metaphorically, she “ took
no stock ” in the Suez Canal, and she sent no royal person-
age, nor other representative to the opening ceremonies;
the only Englishman of official rank who was present was
an admiral, whose flag-ship was in the harbor of Port Said.
The Emperor Napoleon was wholly unable to leave
France at a time so critical; but he sent his fair young
empress in his stead. He stayed at Saint-Cloud, and took
advantage of her absence to submit to a severe surgical
operation. The empress went first to Constantinople,
where Sultan Abdul Aziz gave a beautiful fete in her
honor, at which she appeared, lovely and all glorious, in
amber satin and diamonds. She afterwards proceeded to
Egypt as the guest of the khedive, entering Port Said
Nov. 16, 1869, and returning to Paris on the 5th of
December.
The opening of the canal across the isthmus of Suez,EMPRESS EUCEXIF,A T THE SUMMIT OF PROSPERITY.
which was in a manner to unite the Eastern with the
Western world, caused the eyes of all Christendom to be
fixed on Egypt, — the venerable great-grandmother of civi-
lization. The great work had been completed, in spite of
Lord Palmerston’s sincere conviction, which he lost no
opportunity of proclaiming to the world, that it was impos-
sible to connect the Red Sea with the Mediterranean.
The sea-level, he said, was not the same in the two seas,
so that the embankments could not be sustained, and drift-
sands from the desert would fill the work up rapidly from
day to day. Ismail Pasha, the khedive of Egypt, had
made the tour of Europe, inviting everybody to the open-
ing, from kings and kaisers, empresses and queens, down to
members of chambers of commerce and marine insurance
companies. Great numbers were to be present, and the
Empress Eugenie was to be the Cleopatra of the occasion,
But suddenly the khedive was threatened with a serious dis-
appointment : the sultan, his suzerain, wanted to join in the
festivities; and if he were present, he must be the chief
personage, the khedive would be thrust into a vassal's
place, and all his glory, all his pleasure in his fete, would be
gone.
The ancient Egyptians, whose attention was much ab-
sorbed in waterworks and means of irrigation, had, as far
back as the days of Sesostris, conceived the idea of communi-
cation between the Nile and the Red Sea. Traces of the
canal that they attempted still remain. Pharaoh Necho, in
the days of the Prophet Jeremiah, revived the project.
Darius and one of the Ptolemies completed the work, but
when Egypt sank back into semi-barbarism, the canal was
neglected and forgotten. It does not appear, however, that
the Pharaohs ever thought of connecting the Red Sea with
the Mediterranean. The canal of Sesostris and of Pharaoh
Necho was a purely local affair, affecting Egyptian com-
merce alone.
Some modern Egyptian engineers seem first to have
conceived the project of a Suez canal; but the man who
accomplished it was the engineer and statesman, M. de234 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Lesseps. In spite of all manner of discouragements, he
brought the canal to completion, supported throughout by
the influence and authority of the khedive. The first
thing to be done was to supply the laborers and the new
town of Ismai'lia with drinking water, by means of a narrow
freshwater canal from the Nile. Till then all fresh water
had been brought in tanks from Cairo. Next, a town —
called Port Said, after the khedive who had first favored
the plan of the canal — was‘built on the Mediterranean.
The canal was to run a straight southerly course to Suez.
At Ismai'lia, the new city, it would connect with the rail-
road to Cairo; between Port Said and Ismailia it would
pass through two swampy lakes.
In seven years Port Said became a town of ten thousand
inhabitants. The total length of the canal is about ninety
miles, but more than half of it passes through the lakes, which
had to be dredged. The width of the canal is a little over
one hundred yards, its depth twenty-six feet. About sixty
millions of dollars were expended on its construction and
the preliminary works that it entailed, — these last all
tending to the benefit and prosperity of Egypt.
The grand opening took place Nov. 16, r86ci. The
sultan was not present; he had been persuaded out of
his fancy to see the sight, and the khedive was left in peace
as master of ceremonies. The Emperor Francis Joseph of
Austria was there in his yacht, and the Empress Eugenie,
the “ bright particular star ” of the occasion, was on
board the French war-steamer “ L’Aigle.” As “ L’Aigle ”
steamed slowly into the crowded port, all the bands
played, —
“ Partant pour la Syrie,
Le brave et jeune Dunois,”
the air of which had been composed by Queen Hortense,
the mother of the emperor, so that it was dignified during
his reign into a national air.
That afternoon there was a religious ceremony, which
all the crowned heads and other great personages wereAT THE SUMMIT OF PROSPERITY. 235
expected to attend. Two of the sovereigns or heirs-apparent
present were Roman Catholics, one was a Protestant, and
one a Mohammedan. The Crescent and the Cross for the
first time overshadowed worshippers joining in one com-
mon prayer. The empress appeared, leaning on the arm
of the Emperor of Austria. She wore a short pale gray
silk, with deep white Brussels lace arranged in paniers and
flounces. Her hat and veil were black, and round her
throat was a black velvet ribbon. The Mohammedan
pontiff who officiated on the occasion was understood to be
a man of extraordinary sanctity, brought from a great dis-
tance to lend solemnity to the occasion. He was followed
by the chaplain of the empress, a stout, handsome Hun-
garian prelate named M. Bauer.1
Even up to the morning of November 17, when the passage
of the fleet was to be made through the canal, there were
persons at Port Said who doubted if it would get through.
The ships-of-war had been directed to enter the canal
first, and there was to be between each ship an interval of
a quarter of an hour. They were ordered to steam at the
rate of five miles an hour. “ L’Aigle ” entered first. “ La
Pelouse,” another French ship, had the greatest draught of
water; namely, eighteen or nineteen feet.
The scenery from the Suez Canal was not interesting.
Lakes, then undrained, stretched upon either side; the
banks of the canal being the only land visible. But as even-
ing fell, and the sun sank, a rich purple light, with its warm
tones, overspread everything, until the moon rose, touching
the waters with her silvery sheen. Before this, however,
the foremost ships in the procession had safely reached
Ismailia. There the khedive had erected a new palace in
which to review his guests. They numbered about six
thousand, and the behavior of many of them did little credit
to civilization.
The khedive had arranged an exhibition of Arab horse-
manship and of throwing the jereed; but the sand was so
1 Blackwood’s Magazine.236 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
deep that the horses could not show themselves to advan-
tage. The empress, wearing a large leghorn hat and yellow
veil, rode on a camel; and when an Italian in the crowd
shouted to her roughly, “ Lean back, or you will fall off,
heels over head,” the graceful dignity with which she
smiled, and accepted the advice, won the hearts of all
beholders.
That night a great ball was given by the khedive in his
new palace. “ It was impossible,” says an English gentle-
man, “ to overrate the gracious influence of the empress’s
presence. The occasion, great as it was, would have
lost its romance if she had not been there. She it was
who raised the spirit of chivalry, subdued the spirit of
strife, enmity, and intrigue among rival men, and over
commerce, science, and avarice spread the gauzy hues
of poetry.”
Alas ! poor empress. Ten months later, she was hurrying
as a fugitive on board an English yacht on her way into
exile, having passed through anxieties and griefs that had
streaked her hair with gray. Even in the midst of her
personal triumphs in the East, there were clouds on
the horizon of her life which she could see darkening
and increasing. A few days before the fetes of the open-
ing of the canal, she writes to her husband, who, though
unfit for exertion, had gone into Paris on some state
occasion, —
“ I was very anxious about you yesterday, thinking of you in
Paris without me; but I see by your telegram that everything
passed off well. When we observe other nations, we can better
perceive the injustice of our own. I think, however, in spite of
all, that you must not be discouraged, but continue in the course
you have inaugurated. It is right to keep faith touching con-
cessions that have been granted. I hope that your speech to
the Chamber will be in this spirit. The more strength may be
wanted in the future, the more important it is to prove to the
country that we act upon ideas, and not only on expedients.
I speak thus while far away, and ignorant of what has passed
since my departure, but I am thoroughly convinced that strengthA T THE SUMMIT OF PROSPERITY.
237
lies in the orderly sequence of ideas. I do not like surprises,
and I am persuaded that a coup d'ltat cannot be made twice in
one reign. I am talking in the dark, and to one already of my
opinion, and who knows more than I can know ; but I must say
something, if only to prove, what you know, that my heart is
with you both, and that if in calm days my spirit loves to roam
in space, it is with you both I love to be in times of care or
trouble.”CHAPTER XII.
PARIS IN 1870: JULY, AUGUST, AND SEPTEMBER.
AS soon as relations became “ strained ” between
France and Germany, according to the term used
in diplomacy, the king of Prussia ordered home all his
subjects who had found employment in France, especially
those in Alsace and Lorraine.1 Long before this, those
provinces had been overrun with photographers, pedlers,
and travelling workmen, commissioned to make themselves
fully acquainted with the roads, the by-paths, the resources
of the villages, and the character of the rural officials. In
the case of France, however, though all the reports con-
cerning military stores looked well on paper, the old guns
mounted on the frontier fortresses were worthless, and the
organization of the army was so imperfect that scarcely
more than two hundred thousand troops could be sent to
defend the French frontier from Switzerland to Luxem-
burg ; while Germany, with an army that could be mobi-
lized in eleven days, was ready by the 1st of August to
pour five hundred thousand men across the Rhine. The
emperor placed great reliance on his mitrailleuses, — a new
engine of war that would fire a volley of musketry at once,
but which, though horribly murderous, has not proved
of great value in actual warfare. Towards the Rhine were
hurried soldiers, recruits, cannon, horses, artillery, ammu-
nition, wagons full of biscuit and all manner of munitions
of war. The roads between Strasburg and Belfort were
blocked up, and in the disorder nobody seemed to know
what should be done. Every one was trying to get
1 Erckmann-Chatrian, La Plebiscite.PARIS IN 1870.
239
orders. The telegraph lines were reserved for the Gov-
ernment. Quartermasters were roaming about in search of
their depots, colonels were looking for their regiments,
generals for their brigades or divisions. There were
loud outcries for salt, sugar, coffee, bacon, and bridles.
Maps of Germany as far as the shores of the Baltic were
being issued to soldiers who, alas ! were never to pass
their own frontier. But while this was the situation near
the seat of war, in other parts of France the scene was
different, especially in Brest and other seaports. These
towns were crowded with soldiers and sailors; the streets
were filled with half-drunken recruits bawling patriotic
sentiments in tipsy songs. And now, for the first time
since the Empire came into existence, might be heard the
unaccustomed strains of the “ Marseillaise.” It had been
long suppressed in France; but when war became immi-
nent, it was encouraged for the purpose of exciting military
ardor.
Every day in the provincial towns the war fever grew
fiercer. The bugle sounded incessantly in the streets
of any place where there were troops in garrison. Regi-
ment followed regiment on its way into Paris, changing
quarters or marching to depots to receive equipments.
Orderlies galloped madly about, and heavy ammunition
wagons lumbered noisily over the pavements. Everybody
shouted “ A Berlin,” and took up the chorus of the “ Mar-
seillaise.” The post-offices and telegraph-offices were
crowded with soldiers openly dictating their messages to
patient officials who put them into shape, and it was said
that nearly every telegram contained the words, “ Please
send me . . .” Alas, poor fellows! it is probable that
nothing sent them in reply was ever received.1
Parisians or residents in Paris all believed at that time
in the prestige of the French army; only here and there
a German exile muttered in his beard something about
Sadowa.
On July 27 all Paris assembled on the Boulevards to see
1 I am indebted for much in this chapter to a private journal.240 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
the Garde Impfiriale take its departure for the frontier.
This Imperial Guard was a choice corps created by Na-
poleon III. at the outset of the Crimean War. It was a
force numbering nominally twenty thousand infantry and
three thousand cavalry. It was a very popular corps, and
the war with Germany was popular; consequently the
march from its barracks to the railroad station was one
continued triumph. At every halt the Parisians pressed
into the ranks with gifts of money, wine, and cigars.
“Vive l’armife ! ” shouted the multitude. “A Berlin!”
responded the troops; and now and then, as the bands
struck up the “ Marseillaise,” the population and the troops
burst out in chorus with the solemn, spirit-stirring words.
At the head of this brilliant host rode Marshal Le Bceuf,
who was minister of war and military tutor to the Prince
Imperial. After the departure of the main body of the
corps, large detachments of cavalry and artillery which be-
longed to it were expected to follow; but they remained
behind in the provinces, because Lyons, Marseilles, and
Algeria, all centres of the revolutionary spirit, could not,
it was found, be left without armed protection. Therefore
only a portion of the crack corps of the French army went
forward to the frontier, — a fact never suspected by the
public until events, a few weeks later, made it known.
Paris was jubilant. The theatres especially became
centres of patriotic demonstrations. At the Grand Opera
House, Auber’s “ Massaniello ” (called in- France the
“ Muette de Portici ”) was announced. For many years its
performance had been interdicted under the Second Em-
pire, the story being one of heroic revolt. The time had
come, however, when its ardent patriotism entitled it to
resuscitation. Faure, the most remarkable baritone singer
of the period, suddenly, at the beginning of the second
act, which opens with a chorus of fishermen inciting each
other to resist oppression, appeared upon the stage bear-
ing the French flag. The chorus ranged themselves to
right and left as he strode forward and waved the tricolor
above the footlights. The house broke into wild uproar,PARIS IN 1870.	241
cheer after cheer rose for the flag, for the singer, for
France.
“ The violence of the applause,” says one who was present,
“continued until all were breathless; then a sudden silence
preceded the great event of the evening. In clear, firm tones,
Faure launched forth the first notes of the ‘ Marseillaise; ’ and
as the first verse ended, he bounded forward, and unfurling the
flag to its full length and breadth, he waved it high above his
head as he electrified the audience with the cry, ‘ Aux armes,
citoyens ! ’ and subsequently, when in the last verse he sank
upon one knee, and folding the standard to his heart, raised
his eyes towards heaven, he drew all hearts with him ; tears
flowed, hand grasped hand, and deeply solemn was the intona-
tion of the volunteer chorus following the call to arms! . .
“ The month of July was drawing to a close when the emperor
took his departure for Metz, where he was to assume the post
of generalissimo. With him went gayly the young Prince
Imperial, then fourteen years old. Their starting-point was
the small rustic summer-house in the park of Saint-Cloud, the
termination of a miniature branch railroad connecting with the
great lines of travel. There the father and son parted from
the empress, who removed the same day to the Tuileries, where
she administered the imperial government under the title of
empress-regent.
“ It would have been injudicious for the emperor at this
time to risk a public departure from Paris. The Parisians
were so full of confidence and enthusiasm that he might have
received an inconvenient ovation in advance.”
Skirmishing had been going on along the frontier be-
tween the French and German outposts since July 21.
On August 2 the campaign began in earnest. After
luncheon on that day, the emperor and the Prince Imperial
set out by rail from Metz, and returned to Metz to dinner,
having invaded German territory and opened the war.
They had alighted at Forbach, and proceeded thence to
make a reconnaissance into the enemy’s territory near
Saarbriick, — a small town of two thousand inhabitants,
where, strange to say, an International Peace Congress had
held its session not many months before. This place had
an ordinary frontier garrison, and lay two and a half miles
16242 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
beyond the boundary of France. General Frossard, under
the emperor’s direction and supervision, led on his men
to attack the place. The first gun was fired by the Prince
Imperial, who here, as his father’s telegram that night
reported to the empress, received his “ baptism of fire.”
The garrison returned the fire, and then, having lost two
officers and seventy-two men, it retired, leaving the French
in possession of the heights above the town. Poor Prince
Imperial! Some harsh lines concerning his first exploit
were published in the London “ Spectator : ” —
“ ‘ How jolly, papa ! how funny !
How the blue men tumble about!
Huzza ! there’s a fellow’s head off,—
How the dark red blood spouts out!
And look, what a jolly bonfire ! —
Wants nothing but colored light I
Oh, papa, burn a lot of cities,
And burn the next one at night! ’
“ ‘ Yes, child, it is operatic ;
But don’t forget, in your glee,
That for your sake this play is playing,
That you may be worthy of me.
They baptized you in Jordan water, —
Baptized as a Christian, I mean,—
But you come of the race of Caesar,
And thus have their baptisms been.
Baptized in true Caesar fashion,
Remember, through all your years,
That the font was a burning city,
And the water was widows’ tears.’ ”
When these lines were written, how little could any man
have foreseen the fate of the poor lad, lying bloody and
stark on a hillside of South Africa, deserted by his com-
rades, and above all by a degenerate descendant of Sir
Walter Raleigh, who should have risked his life to defend
his charge !
The day after the attack on Saarbrtick compact masses of
Germans were moving across the frontier into France, and
on the next day (August 4), a division of MacMahon’s army
corps was surprised at Wissembourg, while their comman-PARIS IN 1S70.
243
der was at Metz in conference with the emperor. The
French troops were cut to pieces, and the fugitives spread
themselves all over the country. The battle had been
fought on ground covered with vineyards, and the move-
ments of the French cavalry had been impeded by the
vines. In this battle the French were without artillery', but
they took eight cannon from the enemy. The Prussians,
however, being speedily reinforced, recovered their advan-
tage and gained a complete victory. Wissembourg, a small
town in Alsace, was bombarded and set on fire. There
seemed no officer among the defeated French to restore
order. They had never anticipated such a rout, and were,
especially the cavalry, utterly demoralized.
The French army was divided into seven army corps, the
German into twelve. Each German army corps was greatly
stronger in men, and incomparably better officered and
equipped, than the French. The Germans began the war
with nearly a million men; the French with little more than
two hundred thousand on the frontier, though their army
was five hundred thousand strong on the official records.
The habit of the War Office had been to let rich men who
were drawn for the conscription pay four hundred francs
for a substitute, which substitute was seldom purchased, the
money going into the pockets of dishonest officials.
The two hundred thousand French were stretched in a
thin line from Belgium to the mountains of Dauphin^. A
German army corps could break this line at almost any
point ; and throughout the whole campaign the French suf-
fered from the lack of reliable information as to the move-
ments of the enemy.
On August 6, two days after the defeat at Wissembourg,
the battle of Worth, or Reichshofen, was fought between
the German corps (Tarmee under the Prussian Crown
Prince and the corps of MacMahon, which was completely
defeated, and only enabled to leave the field of battle in
retreat rather than rout, by brilliant charges of cavalry.
The French lost six mitrailleuses, thirty guns, and four
thousand unwounded prisoners. On the same day the Ger-244 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
man reserves retook Saarbriick, and put to flight General
Frossard’s division. After these reverses Napoleon III.
proposed to retreat on Paris and to cover the capital. This
also was the counsel of MacMahon; but the empress-re-
gent opposed it strongly, considering it a movement that
must prove fatal to the dynasty. She even refused to re-
ceive back her son. And indeed it did not seem unlikely
that the good people of Paris, who ten days before had
cheered clamorously their beloved emperor, might have
torn him in pieces, had he come back to them after such
a succession of disasters.
On the 7th of August, the very day after the battle of
Worth, while MacMahon was retreating before the victorious
army of the Prussian Crown Prince, the Parisians were made
victims of an extraordinary deception. A great battle was
reported, in which the Crown Prince had been made pris-
oner, together with twenty-six thousand of his men.
All Paris turned into the streets to exult over this vic-
tory ; every one rushed in the direction of the Bourse,
where details of the great victory were said to have been
posted. In every street, from every house, people were
summoned to hang out flags and banners. An excited
crowd filled up the Bourse, many men clinging to the
railings, all shouting, singing, and embracing each other.
No one for a long time had any clear idea what the rejoic-
ing was about, yet the crowd went on shouting and singing
choruses, waving hats, and reiterating the “ Marseillaise.”
The carriage of Madame Marie Sasse, the prima donna,
who was on her way to a rehearsal at the Grand Opera
House, was stopped, and she was requested to sing the
“Marseillaise.” She stood up on the seat of her carriage
and complied at once. “ There was profound silence,”
wrote a gentleman who was in the crowd, “ when she gave
the first notes of the ' Marseillaise ; ’ but all Paris seemed to
take up the chorus after each stanza. There was uproarious
applause. The last verse was even more moving than when
Faure had sung it, on account of the novelty of the sur-
roundings and the spontaneous feeling of the people. TherePARIS IN 1870.
245
were real tears in the singer’s eyes, and her voice trembled
with genuine emotion as she came to the thrilling appeal to
Liberte.”
At the same moment Capoul also was singing the “ Mar-
seillaise ” in another street, and in the Rue Richelieu the
mob, having stopped a beer cart and borrowed some glasses
from a restaurant, were drinking healths to the army and
the emperor.
“All this time,” says the American, who mingled in the
crowd and shouted with the rest in his excitement, “it never
occurred to me to doubt the accuracy of the news that had so
stirred up Paris; for the newspapers on the preceding days had
prepared us to expect something of the kind. All at once, upon
the Boulevard, I was aware of a violent altercation going on be-
tween a respectable-looking man and a number of infuriated
bystanders. He seemed to be insisting that the whole story of
the victory was untrue, and that despatches had been received
announcing heavy disasters. I saw that unlucky citizen hustled
about, and finally collared and led off by a policeman, the peo-
ple pursuing him with cries of 1 Prussian ! ’ But some time later
in the day some persons in a cab drove down the Boulevards
with a white banner, inscribed : The author of the false
news is arrested! This, however, was not the case, for the
news was never traced to any person.”
The mob as soon as it began to believe that it had been
the victim of some stockjobbing operators, rushed to the
Bourse, determined to pull everything to pieces; but the
military were there beforehand, and it had to content
itself with requiring all householders to pull down the
flags which two hours before it had insisted must be hung
out.
The Parisians were not easily appeased after this cruel
deception, and took their revenge by spreading damaging
reports about the Government of the regency, especially
accusing the ministers of basely suppressing bulletins from
the army, that they might gamble on the stock-exchange.
The chief of the cabinet, fimile Ollivier, was very nearly
mobbed; but he pacified the people by a speech made
from the balcony of his residence. He was at the time246 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
really unaware that more than one defeat had been
sustained.
Hour after hour alarming reports kept coming in; and
at last, on August 9, the fatal news of three successive de-
feats was posted all over the city. Soon an ominous mes-
sage, sent by Napoleon III., revealed the full horror of the
situation : “ Hasten preparations for the defence of Paris.”
The greatest dismay prevailed. The Chambers were
summoned to an evening session. The legislators were
guarded by cavalry from the mob which surged round the
Chamber. Ollivier and his cabinet were forced to resign,
and a new cabinet was hastily installed in office, calling
itself the Ministry of National Defence. Its head was
Count Montauban, a man seventy-five years old, who had
gained the title of Count Palikao by his notorious cam-
paign in China in i860, when he sacked the summer pal-
ace at Pekin. M. Thiers had pronounced him far more of
a soldier than a statesman. He was in command of the
fourth army corps at Lyons when summoned by the em-
press-regent to take up the reins of government; but in
the course of the unvaried succession of misfortunes which
made up the history of the French arms during the month
of August, the public statements of Palikao proved as un-
reliable as those of his predecessor. His favorite way of
meeting inquiries was to say oracularly : “ If Paris knew
what I know, the city would be illuminated.”
Confidence increased after the empress-regent had pro-
claimed a levee en masse. There were no arms for those
who responded to the call, and most of them had to be
sent back to their homes; but it was considered certain
that the mere idea of a general call to arms would intimi-
date the Prussians. Indeed, there was a popular delusion,
shared even by foreigners, that the Prussian soldiery, on
their march to Paris, would be cut to pieces by the peas-
antry. The conduct of the peasantry proved exactly the
reverse of belligerent. The penalties inflicted by the in-
vaders for irregular warfare, and the profits made by indi-
viduals who remained neutral, were cleverly calculated toPARIS IN mo.
247
render the peasantry, not only harmless, but actually useful
to the enemy.
Meantime the French were rapidly evacuating Alsace,
and preparing to make their stand on the Moselle. Gen-
eral Failly’s corps of thirty thousand men, which had failed
to come up in time to help MacMahon at Worth, were in
full retreat, without exchanging a shot with the enemy.
The Germans continued to march steadily on. The
country was systematically requisitioned for supplies. The
maire or other high official of each village was informed
twenty-four hours beforehand how many men he was ex-
pected to provide with rations ; namely, to each man daily,
lb. bread, 1 lb. meat, ] lb. coffee, five cigars, or their
equivalent in tobacco, a pint of wine or a quart of beer,
and horse feed. If these demands were not complied
with, he was assured that the village would be set on fire ;
and after a few examples had been made, the villagers
became so intimidated that they furnished all that was
required of them.
Here is a description of one night's work done by a
Prussian general. It is taken from a work by Erckmann-
Chatrian;1 but those graphic writers took all their descrip-
tions from the mouths of Alsatian peasants who had been
eye-witnesses of the scenes which they described : —
“ The first thing the Prussian commander did on entering
his chamber in a cottage where he had quarters for the night,
was to make three or four soldiers turn out every article of furni-
ture. Then he spread out on the floor an enormous map of the
country. He took off his boots and lay down on the map flat on
his stomach. Then he called in six or seven officers, all captains
or lieutenants. Each man pulled out a small map. The gen-
eral called to one of them by name: 1 Have you got the road
from here to Metting ? ’	‘ Yes, General.’ ‘ Name all the places
between here and there.’ Then the officer, without hesitation,
told the names of all the villages, farms, streams, bridges, and
woods, the turnings of the roads, the very cow-paths. The
general followed him on the large map with his finger. ‘ That's
1 La Plebiscite.248 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
all right. Take twenty men and go as far as St. Jean by such
a road. You will reconnoitre. If you want any assistance,
send me word.’ And so on, one by one, to all the others.”
Such was the system and order of the Germans; while
the French, full of amazement at their own' defeat, unled,
unofficered, and disorganized, are thus described by Ed-
mond About as he saw them entering Saverne after the
disastrous day at Worth.
“There were cuirassiers,” he says, “without cuirasses, fusi-
leers without guns, horsemen on foot, and infantry on horse-
back. The roads taken by the army in its flight were blocked
by trains of wagons loaded with provisions and clothing, and
the woods were filled with stragglers wandering about in a pur-
poseless way. Among the spoils of that day which fell into
the hands of the Prussians were several railroad freight-cars
loaded with Paris confectionery; and two days after the battle
it was easier to obtain a hundredweight of bonbons at Forbach
than a loaf of bread.”
All this happened in one week, from August 2 to August
6. During this week the emperor stayed at Metz, having
been implored by his generals to keep away from the army.
A week later, Strasburg was besieged. MacMahon, the
remnants of whose corps had been driven out of Alsace by
the Crown Prince, was endeavoring to effect a juncture with
the army corps of De Failly.
The object of the emperor and Marshal MacMahon was
to concentrate as large a force as possible before the very
strongly fortified city of Metz. But as soon as they reached
Metz the armies of General Steinmetz and Prince Frederic
Charles, two hundred and fifty thousand strong, began to
close in upon them. There seemed no safety but in fur-
ther retreat. The emperor wanted to give up Lorraine,
and to concentrate all his forces in an intrenched camp
at Chalons; but advices from Paris warned him that a re-
volt would break out in the capital if he did so. He
therefore resigned his position as commander-in-chief to
Marshal Bazaine. He was coldly received in the camp atPARIS IN WO.
249
Chalons, and his presence with several thousand men as a
body-guard was an impediment to military operations. He
was therefore virtually dropped out of the army, and from
August 18, when this news was known in Paris, hi's author-
ity in France was practically at an end. On the same day
(August 18) Bazaine’s army was driven into Metz after the
battle of Gravelotte, at which battle the French, though
defeated, distinguished themselves by their bravery. Ba-
zaine had one hundred and seventy thousand men with
him when he retired behind the walls of Metz. Here he
was closely besieged till October 27, when he surrendered.
The news that reached Paris of these events (just one
month after the emperor had signed the declaration of war)
not only resulted in his practical deposition, but caused a
notoriously anti-Bonapartist general to be appointed mili-
tary governor of the capital. Imperialism remained an
empty name. France was without one ally, nor had the
emperor one friend. Meantime Palikao, to appease the
irritation of the public, continued to announce victory after
victory. Of all his fantastic inventions, the most fantastic
was one published immediately after Bazaine had shut him-
self up with his army in Metz. A despatch was published,
and universally accepted with confidence and enthusiasm,
announcing that three German army corps had been over-
thrown at the Quarries of Jaumont. There are no quarries
at Jaumont, there were no Prussians anywhere near the
spot, and none had been defeated; but the Parisians were
well satisfied.
After the first panic caused by the despatch that Paris
must prepare for defence, means were taken for provisioning
the city. Cltmient Duvernois, an ex-radical, an ex-Bona-
partist, and one of the members of the Ministry of Defence,
gave ignorant and reckless orders for supplies, which, in
spite of the gravity of the situation, amused the Parisians
immensely.
Droves of cattle passed all day along the Boulevards,
going to be pastured in the Bois de Boulogne, where they
were tended by Gardes Mobiles from the rural districts.2SO FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
The cattle, the camps, and the fortifications attracted crowds
of curious spectators.
The tap of the drum was wellnigh incessant in the city;
and while the enemy was drawing near, and bloody defeats
followed each other in rapid succession, the Parisians seemed
chiefly stimulated to write fresh libels in the newspapers,
and to amuse each other with caricatures and satires.
Among other foolish measures was that of ordering all
firemen from the departments up to Paris. They remained in
the city a week, and were then sent home. In their absurd
and heavy uniforms, and with nothing whatever to do, the
poor country fellows presented a miserable appearance as
they sat in rows along the curbstones of the avenues, with
their helmets glittering in the August sun, “looking,” as
some one remarked, “ like so many rare beetles on exhibi-
tion,” the spectacle being all the more ludicrous from the
extreme dejection of the innocent heroes.
Troops were always on the move. The Gardes Mobiles,
formed into companies, were not wanted anywhere. Being
too raw as yet for active service, they were transferred from
one barrack to another, and were drilled in the open streets
and in the public squares. The forts absorbed a number of
them; others were employed as shepherds and drovers.
The surplus was billeted on the citizens.
Towards the end of August there began to be a notion
that the city was full of spies, and all suspected persons
were called Prussians. The mania for spy-hunting became
general, and was frequently very inconvenient to Americans
and Englishmen. Germans in Paris, many of whom had
intermarried with the French, naturally found themselves in
a most unhappy situation. At first they were strictly for-
bidden to leave Paris; then suddenly they were ordered
away, on three days’ notice, under penalty of being treated
as prisoners of war.
This decree affected eighty thousand persons in France,
nearly all of whom were connected by family ties or busi-
ness relations with the country of their adoption. The
outcry raised by the English and German Press about thisPARIS IN 1870.
251
summary expulsion procured some modification of the
order, — not, however, without a protest from the radicals,
who clamored for the rigor of the law. Mr. Washburne,
the American minister, the only foreign ambassador who
remained in Paris during the siege, had accepted the charge
of these unhappy Germans, and heart-breaking scenes took
place daily at the American Legation.
Soon after the defeats in the first week in August, Mr.
Washburne had his last interview with the Empress
Eugenie.
“She had evidently,” he says, “passed a sleepless and agi-
tated night, and was in great distress of mind. She at once
began to speak of the terrible news she had received, and the
effect it would have on the French people. I suggested to her
that the news might not be quite so bad as was reported (alas !
it was far worse), and that the consequences might in the end
be far better than present circumstances indicated. I spoke to
her about the first battle of Bull Run, and the defeat that the
Union army had there suffered, which had only stimulated
the country to greater exertions. She replied : ‘ I only wish the
French in these respects were like you Americans; but I am
afraid they will get too much discouraged, and give up too
soon.’ ” 1
All this time the “Figaro” was publishing articles that
held out hopes of victory and flattered the self-confidence
of the Parisians. Marshals MacMahon and Bazaine were
represented as leading the enemy craftily into a snare, and
the illusion was kept up that the Germans would be cut
to pieces by the peasantry “ before they could lay their
sacrilegious hands,” said Victor Hugo, “ upon the Mecca
of civilization.” Instead of this, the Crown Prince’s army
was marching in pursuit of MacMahon’s forces through
the great plains of Champagne. MacMahon had some
design of turning back, uniting with another army corps,
and attacking the Prussians in the rear, thus hemming in
part of their army between himself and the troops of
Bazaine in Metz; but he seems to have been really in
1 Recollections of a Minister to France.252 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
the position of a pawn driven about a chess-board by an
experienced player.
Continually retreating, the emperor, who was with Mac-
Mahon’s army, at last found himself at Sedan, safe, as he
hoped, for a brief breathing space, from the attacks of the
two Prussian army corps which were following in his rear.
He had been warned repeatedly that he must not return
to Paris without a victory. “ The language of reason,”
he remarked, “ is no longer understood at the capital.”
On Aug. 30, T870, the retreating French were concen-
trated, or rather massed, under the walls of Sedan,1 in a
valley commonly called the Sink of Givonne. The army
consisted of twenty-nine brigades, fifteen divisions, and
four corps d'armee, numbering ninety thousand men.
“ It was there,” says Victor Hugo, “ no one could guess what
for, without order, without discipline, a mere crowd of men,
waiting, as it seemed, to be seized by an immensely powerful
hand. It seemed to be under no particular anxiety. The men
who composed it knew, or thought they knew, that the enemy
was far away. Calculating four leagues as a day’s march, they
believed the Germans to be at three days’ distance. The com-
manders, however, towards nightfall, made some preparations for
safety. The whole army formed a sort of horse-shoe, its point
turning towards Sedan. This disposition proved that its chiefs
believed themselves in safety. The valley was one of those
which the Emperor Napoleon used to call a ‘bowl,’ and which
Admiral Van Tromp designated by a less polite name. No place
could have been better calculated to shut in an army. Its very
numbers were against it. Once in, if the way out were blocked,
it could never leave it again. Some of the generals, — General
Wimpfen among them — saw this, and were uneasy; but the
little court around the emperor was confident of safety. ‘ At
worst,’ they said, ‘ we can always reach the Belgian frontier.’
The commonest military precautions were neglected. The army
slept soundly on the night of August 31. At the worst they
believed themselves to have a line of retreat open to Mdzi&res,
a town on the frontier of Belgium. No cavalry reconnois-
sance was made that night; the guards were not doubled. The
French believed themselves more than forty miles from the
1 Victor Hugo, Choses vues.PARIS IN 1S70.
253
German army. They behaved as if they thought that army
unconcentrated and ill-informed, attempting vaguely several
things at once, and incapable of converging on one point,
namely, Sedan. They thought they knew that the column under
the Prince of Saxony was marching upon Chalons, and that the
Crown Prince of Prussia was marching upon Metz.
“But that night, while the French army, in fancied security,
was sleeping- at Sedan, this is what was passing among the
enemy.
“ By a quarter to two A. M. the army of the Prince of Saxony
was on its march eastward, with orders not to fire a shot till five
o’clock, and to make as little noise as possible. They marched
without baggage of any kind. At the same hour another divi-
sion of the Prussian army marched, with equal noiselessness,
from another direction, on Sedan, while the Wiirtemburgers
secured the road to Mdzi&res, thereby cutting off the possi-
bility of a retreat into Belgium.
“ At the same moment, namely, five o’clock, — on all the hills
around Sedan, at all points of the compass, appeared a dense,
dark mass of German troops, with their commanders and artil-
lery. Not one sound had been heard by the French army,
not even an order. Two hundred and fifty thousand men
were in a circle on the heights round the Sink of Givonne.
They had come as stealthily and as silently as serpents. They
were there when the sun rose, and the French army were
prisoners.”
The battle was one of artillery. The German guns
commanded every part of the crowded valley. Indeed,
the fight was simply a massacre. There was no hope for
the French, though they fought bravely. Their best
troops, the Garde Imperiale, were with Bazaine at Metz.
Marshal MacMahon was wounded very early in the day.
The command passed first to General Ducrot, who was
also disabled, and afterwards to Wimpfen, a brave Afri-
can general who had hurried from Algeria just in time
to take part in this disastrous day. He told the em-
peror that the only hope was for the troops to cut
their way out of the valley; but the army was too closely
crowded, too disorganized, to make this practicable. One
Zouave regiment accomplished this feat, and reached
Belgium.254 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
That night — the night of September i —an aide-de-
camp of the Emperor Napoleon carried this note to the
camp of the king of Prussia : —
Monsieur mon Fr^re, — Not having been able to die in
midst of my troops, it only remains for me to place my sword
in the hands of your Majesty.
I am your Majesty’s good brother,
Napoleon.
The king of Prussia replied,—
Monsieur mon Fr£re,— Regretting the circumstances un-
der which we meet, I accept the sword of your Majesty, and I
invite you to designate one of your officers, provided with full
powers, to treat for the capitulation of the army which has so
bravely fought under your command. On my side I have
named General von Moltke for that purpose.
I am your Majesty’s good brother,
William.
Before Sedan, Sept, i, 1870.
“The next morning early, a carriage containing four French
officers drove out from Sedan, and came into the German lines.
The carriage had an escort of only three horsemen. When it
had reached the Germans, one of its occupants put out his head
and asked, in German, for Count von Bismarck ? The Ger-
mans replied that he was at Donchdry. Thither the carriage
dashed away. It contained the French emperor.”
With Napoleon III. fell not only his own reputation
as a ruler, but the glory of his uncle and the prestige of
his name.
The fallen emperor and Bismarck met in a little house
upon the banks of the Meuse. Chairs were brought
out, and they talked in the open air. It was a glorious
autumn morning. The emperor looked care-worn, as
well he might. He wished to see the king of Prussia
before the articles of capitulation were drawn up: but
King William declined the interview. When the capit-
ulation was signed, however, he drove over to visit thePARIS IN 1810.	255
captive emperor at a chateau where the latter had taken
refuge.
Their interview was private; only the two sovereigns
were present. The French emperor afterwards expressed
to the Crown Prince of Prussia his deep sense of the
courtesy shown him. He was desirous of passing as
unnoticed as possible through French territory, where, in-
deed, exasperation against him, as the first cause of the
misfortunes of France, was so great that his life would
have been in peril. The next day he proceeded to the
beautiful palace at Cassel called Wilhelmshohe, or Wil-
liam’s Rest. It had been built at ruinous expense by
Jerome Bonaparte while king of Westphalia, and was then
called Napoleon’s Rest.
Every consideration that the German royal family could
show their former friend and gracious host was shown to
Louis Napoleon. This told against him with the French.
Was the man who had led them into such misfortunes
to be honored and comforted while they were suffering
the consequences of his selfishness, recklessness, negli-
gence, and incapacity ?
Thus eighty thousand men capitulated at Sedan, and
were marched as prisoners into Germany; one hundred
and seventy-five thousand French soldiers remained shut
up in Metz, besides a few thousands more in Strasburg,
Phalsbourg, Toul, and Belfort. But the road was open to
Paris, and thither the various German armies marched,
leaving the Landwehr, which could not be ordered to
serve beyond the limits of Germany, to hold Alsace and
Lorraine, already considered a part of the Fatherland.
The Prussians did not reach Paris till September 19, two
weeks after the surrender at Sedan, — which seemed rather
a lull in the military operations of a war in which so
much had occurred during one short month.CHAPTER XIII.
THE SIEGE OF PARIS.
THOUGH the surrender of the emperor and his army
at Sedan took place on September 2, nothing what-
ever was known of it by the Parisian public until the even-
ing of September 4, when a reporter arrived at the office of
the “Gaulois” with a Belgian newspaper in his pocket.
The “Gaulois’' dared not be the first sheet to publish the
news of such a disaster; but despatches had already
reached the Government, and by degrees rumors of what
had happened crept through the streets of the capital.
No one knew any details of the calamity, but every one
soon understood that something terrible had occurred.
The Legislative Assembly held a midnight session; but
nothing was determined on until the morning, when the
Empire was voted out, and a Republic voted in.
It was a beautiful Sunday morning. Every Parisian was
in the street, and, wonderful to say, all faces seemed to ex-
press satisfaction. The loss of an army, the surrender of
the emperor, the national disgrace, the prospect of a siege,
the advance of the Prussians, — were things apparently
forgotten. Paris was charmed to have got rid of so unlucky
a ruler, — the emperor for whom more than seven mil-
lions of Frenchmen had passed a vote of confidence a few
months before. He seemed to have no longer a single friend,
or rather he had one : in the Assembly an elderly deputy
stood up in his place and boldly said that he had taken
an oath to be faithful to the Emperor Napoleon, and did
not think himself absolved from it by his misfortunes.JULES SIMON.THE SIEGE OF PARIS.
25 7
It was almost in a moment, almost without a breath of
opposition, that on the morning of Sept. 5, 1870, the Em-
pire was voted at an end, and a Republic put in its place.
The duty of governing was at once confided to seven
men, called the Committee of Defence. Of these, Arago,
Cr^mieux, and Gamier-Pages had been members of the
Provisional Government in 1848, while L£on Gambetta,
Jules Favre, Jules Ferry, and Jules Simon afterwards dis-
tinguished themselves. Rochefort, the insurrectionist,
made but one step from prison to the council board, and
was admitted among the new rulers. But the two chief
men in the Committee of Defence were Jules Favre and
Gambetta.
Gambetta, who before that time had been little known,
was from the South of France, and of Italian origin. He
was a man full of enthusiasm, vehement, irascible, and im-
pulsive. The day came when these qualities, tempered and
refined, did good service to France, when he also proved
himself one of those great men in history who are capable
of supreme self-sacrifice. At present he was untried.
Jules Favre was respected for his unstained reputation and
perfect integrity, his disinterestedness and civic virtues, as
also for his fluency of speech. In person he was a small,
thin man, with a head that was said to resemble the popular
portraits of General Jackson.
General Jules Trochu, who was confirmed as military
commander of Paris, had written a book, previous to the
war, regarding the inefficiency of the French army; he
had been therefore no favorite with the emperor. His
chief defect, it was said, was that he talked so well that he
was fond of talking, and too readily admitted many to his
confidence.
The Council of Regency had in the night melted away.
A mob was surging round the Tuileries. Where had the
empress-regent fled?
When disasters had followed fast upon one another, the
empress had in her bewilderment found it hard to realize
that the end of the empire was at hand. Bazaine was the
17258 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
man whom she relied on. She had no great liking for
Marshal MacMahon, and she does not appear to have been
conscious that all was lost till, on the night of September
4, she found M. Conti, the emperor’s secretary, busy
destroying his private papers. To bum them was impossi-
ble ; they were torn into small bits and put in a bath-tub,
then hot water was poured over them, which reduced them
to pulp. Vast quantities, however, remained undestroyed,
some of them compromising to their writers.
When the truth of the situation broke upon the empress,
she was very much frightened. Her dread was that she
might be torn in pieces by a mob that would invade
the Tuileries. In a fortnight her fair face had become
haggard, and white streaks showed themselves in her
beautiful hair.
It is safest in such cases to trust foreigners rather than
subjects. Two foreigners occupied themselves with plans
for the empress’s personal safety. The first idea was that
if flight became inevitable, she should take refuge with the
Sisters of the Sacr6 Cceur, in their convent in the Rue
Picpus; and arrangements had been made for this
contingency.
The life of the empress was strange and piteous during
her last days upon the throne. She was up every morning
by seven, and heard mass. Her dress was black cashmere,
with a white linen collar and cuffs. All day she was the
victim of every person who claimed an audience, all talking,
protesting, gesticulating, and generally begging. The day
the false rumor arrived that the Prussians had been de-
feated at the Quarries of Jaumont she flew down to the
guard-room, where the soldiers off duty were lounging on
their beds, waving the telegram over her head.
The news of the capitulation at Sedan and of the decree
deposing the emperor, roused the Parisian populace. By
one o’clock on September 5 the mob began to threaten
the Tuileries. Then the Italian ambassador, Signor Nigra,
and the Austrian ambassador, Prince Richard Metternich,
insisted that the empress must seek a place of safety. AsTHE SIEGE OF PARIS.
259
it was impossible to reach the- street from the Tuileries,
they made their way through the long galleries of the
Louvre, and gained the entrance opposite the parish
church of Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois.1 The street was
blocked with people uttering cries against the emperor.
A gamin recognized the fugitives, and shouted, “ Here
comes the empress ! ” De Nigra gave him a kick, and
asked him how he dared to cry: “Vive l’Empereur?” At
this the crowd turned upon the boy, and in the confusion
the empress and her lady-in-waiting were put into a
cab, driven, it is said, by Gamble, the emperor’s faithful
English coachman. If this were so, the empress did not
recognize him, for after proceeding a little way, she and
Madame le Breton, her companion, finding they had but
three francs between them, and dreading an altercation
with the cabman if this were not enough to pay their fare,
got out, and proceeded on foot to the house of the
American dentist, Dr. Thomas Evans. There they had to
wait till admitted to his operating-room. The doctor’s
amazement when he saw them was great; he had not been
aware of what was passing at the Tuileries, but he took his
hat, and went out to collect information. Soon he returned
to tell the empress that she had not escaped a moment too
soon.
His wife was at Deauville, a fashionable watering-place in
Normandy. The doctor placed her wardrobe at the dis-
posal of the empress, who had saved nothing of her own but
a few jewels. It is said she owned three hundred dresses,
and her collection of fans, laces, etc., was probably unique.
Her own servants had begun to pillage her wardrobe before
she left the Tuileries. It is said that she would have gone
forth on horseback and have put herself at the head of the
troops, but that no riding-habit had been left her, except a
gay green-and-gold hunting dress worn by her at Fontaine-
bleau. That morning no servant in the Tuileries could be
found to bring her breakfast to her chamber.
The next day Dr. Evans, in his own carriage, took her
1 Temple Bar, 1SS3.260 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
safely out of Paris, in the character of a lady of unsound
mind whom he and Madame le Breton were conveying to
friends in the country. Two days later they reached Deau-
ville after several narrow escapes, the empress, on one occa-
sion, having nearly betrayed herself by an effort to stop a
man who was cruelly beating his horse.
There were two English yachts lying at Deauville. On
board of one of these Dr. Evans went. It belonged to
Sir John Burgoyne, grandson of the General Burgoyne who
surrendered at Saratoga. Sir John, with his wife, was on a
pleasure cruise. His yacht, the “Gazelle,” was very small,
only forty-five tons’ burden, and carried a crew of six men.
As soon as Sir John Burgoyne had satisfied himself that
it was really the empress who was thus thrown on his pro-
tection, he placed himself and his yacht at her disposal,
insisting, however, that she must not come on board till
nearly midnight, when he would meet her on the quai.
It was fortunate that he made this arrangement, for, after
dark, a police agent and a Russian spy came on board and
searched every corner of the little vessel. When at last
they departed, Sir John went on to the quai, and shortly
afterwards met two ladies, and a gentleman who carried a
hand-bag. One of the ladies stepped up to him and said,
“ I believe you are the English gentleman who will take me
to England. I am the empress.” She then burst into
tears. On reaching the yacht, her first eager demand was
for newspapers. Happily Lady Burgoyne could tell her
that the Prince Imperial was safe in England; from the
English papers she also learned particulars of the disaster at
Sedan, of the proclamation of the Republic in the Corps
L6gislatif at Paris, and of the treatment of the emperor.
It was an anxious time for all on board the “ Gazelle,”
for the tide would not serve to leave the harbor till seven
o’clock the next morning, and Deauville was wildly riotous
all night. At last they worked out of the harbor and were
at sea ; but a tempest was raging in the Channel, and so
violent was it that at half-past one the next morning the
great English ironclad “ Captain,” commanded by SirTHE SIEGE OF PARIS.
26l
Hugh Burgoyne, Sir John’s cousin, went down, with all on
board, not far from where the little “ Gazelle ” was battling
with the gale. The “ Gazelle ” had a terrible passage, ship-
ping tremendous seas. She danced and rolled like a cork;
but the ladies were brave, and were encouraged by Lady
Burgoyne’s composure. “ There was no affectation of cour-
age in Lady Burgoyne,” said the empress afterwards; “ she
simply acted as if nothing were the matter.”
After about eighteen hours of this stormy passage the
“ Gazelle ” was safe at anchor off Ryde, in the Isle of
Wight. The empress was anxious that no one should know
she was in England ; but Sir John told her it was his duty to
inform the Foreign Office immediately. An answer was at
once returned by Lord Granville, assuring the empress of
welcome and protection; but he added in a postscript to
Sir John: “Don’t you think you may have been imposed
upon ? ”
The fact was that the Foreign Office had already re-
ceived news of the escape of the empress by way of Ostend,
under the charge of two English gentlemen, who had been
themselves deceived. The ladies they had assisted to leave
Paris were Princess Clotilde and an attendant.
After the emperor’s release from Wilhelmshohe he re-
ceived Sir John Burgoyne at Chiselhurst, and thanked him,
with tears in his eyes, for his care of the empress, adding
that no sailors but the English could have got across the
Channel on such a night in so small a craft.
After peace had been signed between Prussia and France,
the emkeror landed at Dover, where he was touched by the
kindly and respectful reception he met with from the Eng-
lish people. The next day he was visited by Lord Malmes-
bury, an old friend in the days of his youth, before he
entered on his life of adventure. Lord Malmesbury says :
“ He came into the room alone to meet me, with that remark-
able smile that could light up his dark countenance. I confess I
never was more moved. His quiet and calm dignity, and ab-
sence of all nervousness or irritability, were grand examples of
moral courage. All the past rushed to my memory. He must262 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
have seen what I felt, for he said: ‘A la guerre comme a la
guerre. It is very good of you to come to see me.’ In a quiet,
natural way he then praised the kindness of the Germans at
Wilhelmshohe, nor did a single plaint escape him during our
conversation. He said he had been deceived as to the force
and preparation of his armies, but without mentioning names,
nor did he abuse anybody, till I mentioned Trochu, who had
abandoned the empress, whom he had sworn to defend. Dur-
ing half an hour he conversed with me as in the best days of
his life, with dignity and resignation, but when I saw him again
he was much more depressed. He was grieving at the destruc-
tion of Paris, and at the anarchy prevailing over France, far
more than he had done over his own misfortunes. That the
Communists should have committed such horrors in the pres-
ence of their enemies, the Prussians, seemed to him the very
acme of humiliation and national infamy.”
On Jan. 9, 1873, he died at Chiselhurst, in the presence of
the empress, who never left him, released from the storms
of a fitful existence and from intense physical suffering.
Let us return now to Paris and the Committee of Defence,
its new Republican Government. Though the people of
Paris, in the excitement consequent on the proclamation of
a Republic, seemed to have forgotten the Prussians, the
prospect of their speedy arrival stared the Government in
the face. It was a Government, not of France, but of Paris.
France had had no voice in making this new Republic, nor
was it at all likely that it would be popular in the Provinces ;
but meanwhile work of every kind was pressing on its
hands. The fortifications of Paris were unmanned, and,
indeed, were not even completed, and there were hardly
any soldiers in the capital.
The first thing to be done was to bring provisions into
the city. Cattle, grain, salt, hay, preserved meats, in short,
everything edible that could be imagined, poured in so long
as the railroads remained open. All public buildings be-
came storehouses, but affairs were conducted with such
recklessness and disorder that the live-stock suffered terribly,
and half the hay was wasted. As to troops, General Vinoy
arrived with twenty thousand soldiers, who had been sta-THE SIEGE OF PARIS.
263
tioned between Belgium and Sedan. They had never fought
the Prussians, but were impatient of discipline and utterly
demoralized. Stragglers and fugitives from Sedan came in
also, but these were still less to be depended on. The
National Guard had never enjoyed the favor of the em-
peror, and had been suffered to fall to pieces. It was now
reorganized and armed as well as the Government was able.
There was a body of Mobiles who had been sent away from
the army by Marshal MacMahon because they were so in-
subordinate that he did not know what to do with them.
Ninety thousand Mobiles came up from the Provinces be-
fore the gates of Paris closed, — excellent material for sol-
diers, but wholly uninstructed, — and finally about ten
thousand sailors arrived from Brest, who were kept in strict
discipline by their officers, and were the most reliable part
of the garrison.
The male population of Paris remained in the city, almost
to a man, except those known to the police as thieves or
ex-convicts, who were all sent away. Women and children
also were removed, if their husbands and fathers could afford
it, to places of safety.
Around the city was a wall twelve yards high, forming a
polygonal inclosure. At each corner of the polygon was a
bastion, in which were stationed the big guns. The wall
connecting the bastions is called a curtain. The bastions
protected the curtains, and were themselves protected by
sixteen detached forts, built on all the eminences around
Paris. The most celebrated of these forts lies to the west
of Paris, between it and Versailles, and is called Fort Val6-
rien. It is erected on a steep hill long called Mont Cal-
vaire, from which is a magnificent view of the city. This
steep and stony hill for several centuries used to be as-
cended by pilgrims on their knees ; the mount, where once
stood an altar of the Druids, became a consecrated place
long before the Revolution.
Louis Philippe, in 1841, had planned the fortifications of
Paris, but in his time they had been only partially con-
structed. Even in 1S70, as I have said, they were not com-264 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
plete. When the siege became imminent, the first thing
to be done was to put them in good order; but for a week
the working-men in Paris were so intoxicated with the idea
of having a republic that they could not be made to do
steady work upon anything. It was also considered neces-
sary to cut down all trees and to destroy all villages between
the forts and the walls of the city, so that they might afford
no shelter to the Prussians. The poor inhabitants of these
villages flocked into Paris, bringing with them carts piled
with their household goods, their wives and children peep-
ing out aghast between the chairs and beds. The beautiful
trees in the Bois de Boulogne were cut down; the deer and
the swans and other wild fowl on the lakes (long the pets
of the Parisian holiday makers) were shot by parties of
Mobiles sent out for that purpose.
No military man believed that Paris, defended by uncom-
pleted fortifications, could withstand a direct attack from
the Prussians; no one dreamed of a blockade, for it was
thought that it would take a million and a quarter of men
to invest the city, and the Prussians were known not to have
that number for the purpose. The idea was that the enemy
would choose some point, would attack it with all his forces,
would lose probably thirty thousand men, and would take
the city. But Bismarck and King William and Von Moltke
had no idea of losing thirty thousand men. They were
certain that there would be risings and disturbances in Paris.
They believed that their forces might even be called in to
save respectable Parisians from the outrages of the Reds.
They knew that rural France, having little love for Paris or
the Republic, was not likely to accept the Government
formed without its own consent, nor march to the assistance
of the capital. Even should the provincial population bestir
itself, the troops it could send would be only raw levies, and
there was no great leader to animate or to direct popular
enthusiasm.
It was quite true that the respectable classes in Paris had
as much to fear from the Reds as from the Prussians. The
mob of Paris was wild for a commune.THE SIEGE OF PARIS.	265
It is not always known what is meant by a commune,
and I may be pardoned if I pause to define it here.
In feudal times cities all over Europe won for themselves
charters. By these charters they acquired the right to
govern themselves; that is, the burghers elected their own
mayor and their council or aldermen, and this body govern-
ing the community was called the commune. When the
feudal system fell in France, and all power was centralized
in the king, city governments were established by royal
edict only. Paris, for instance, was governed by the
Prefect of the Seine, — he had under him the maires of
twenty Arrondissements; and thus it was in every French
city. All public offices in France were in the gift of
the Throne.
To Americans, who have mayors and city councils in
every city, municipal taxation, municipal elections, and
municipal laws, a commune appears the best mode of city
government. But if we can imagine one of our large cities
possessing the same power over the United States that Paris
wields over France, we shall take a different view of the
matter. Paris governed by a commune, that commune
being elected by a mob and aspiring to give laws to France,
might well indeed have alarmed all Frenchmen. We may
judge of its feeling towards the Provinces from the indig-
nation expressed by Parisian Communists when during the
Commune, Lyons and some other cities talked of setting
up communes of their own.
In olden times, in France, Italy, and Germany (as in
Great Britain at the present day), it was not the mob, but
the burghers, whose interests depended upon the prosperity
of their city, who voted in municipal elections. France had
established universal suffrage, and the restless “ men of
Belleville,” — the “white blouses,” — were liable in any
time of excitement to be joined by roughs from other cities,
and by all working-men out of employment. These appre-
hensions of the respectable citizens of Paris were horribly
realized in 1871. The new Republic, meantime, was not
Red, not Communistic, not Socialistic, but Republican.266 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
During the Revolution of 1848 there had been little
intoxication in Paris; but in the twenty-two years that
followed, the French had learned to drink absinthe and
to frequent such places as “ L’Assommoir.” All accounts
speak of the drunkenness in France during the Franco-
Prussian war.
Meantime, during the two weeks that preceded the
arrival of the Prussians, the streets of Paris were crowded
with men in every variety of uniform, — francs-tireurs in
their Opera Comique costume, cuirassiers, artillerymen,
lancers, regulars. National Guards, and Mobiles. Car-
riages were mixed up with heavy wagons loaded some-
times with worthless household goods, sometimes with
supplies. Peasants’ carts were seen in the midst of fright-
ened flocks of sheep driven by bewildered shepherds.
Everybody was in some one’s way. All was confusion,
excitement, — and exhilaration.
Till September 19 the railways continued to run. Then
the fifty-one gates of Paris were closed, the railroad en-
trances were walled up, and the following notice appeared
upon the walls : —
“ Citizens ! The last lines which connected Paris with France
and Europe were cut yesterday evening. Paris is left to her-
self. She has now only her own courage and her own resources
to rely on. Europe, which has received so much enlightenment
from this great city, and has always felt a certain jealousy of
her glory, now abandons her. But Paris, we are persuaded,
will prove that she has not ceased to be the most solid ram-
part of French independence.”
To hold out was the determination of all classes; but
the very next day the Reds put forth a manifesto demand-
ing a commune, the dismissal of the police, the seques-
tration of the property of all rich or influential men,
and a public declaration that the king of Prussia would
not be treated with so long as his armies occupied one
foot of French soil. “ Nothing less than these things,”
said the document, “will satisfy the people.”THE SIEGE OF PARIS.
267
Here we see the usual assumption of the Parisian Com-
munists that they are “ the people.” They have always
assumed that thirty-two millions of Frenchmen outside the
walls of Paris counted for nothing.
As the Prussian armies passed to the southward of Paris
to take possession of Versailles, an attack, authorized by
General Trochu and by General Ducrot (who had escaped
from Sedan), was made upon the German columns. The
Zouaves, who had come back to Paris under General
Vinoy, demoralized by the disasters of their comrades,
were the first to break and run. The poor little Mobiles
stood firm and did their duty.
The official report said : “ Some of our soldiers took to
flight with regrettable haste,” — a phrase which became a
great joke among the Parisians.
That night the Reds breathed fire and fury against the
Government, “ and the respectable part of Paris,” says
M. de Sarcey, the great dramatic critic, “ saw themselves
between two dangers. It would be hard to say which of
them they dreaded most. They hated the Prussians very
much, but they feared the men of Belleville more.”
Meantime Jules Favre, who had been appointed Minis-
ter for Foreign Affairs, had procured a safe-conduct from
the Prussians, and had gone out to see Count Bismarck
and King William, who had their headquarters at Baron
Rothschild’s beautiful country seat of Ferrieres. His ob-
ject was to obtain an armistice, that a National Assembly
might be convoked which would consider the terms of
peace with the Prussians.
The Chancellor of North Germany declared that he did
not recognize the Committee of Defence, represented by
Julus Favre, as a legitimate government of France compe-
tent to offer or to consider terms of peace. He treated
M. Favre with the greatest haughtiness, utterly refusing any
armistice, but at the close of their first interview he con-
sented to see him again the next day.
“I was,” says Jules Favre, “at the Chiteau de Ferrieres by
eleven a. m., but Count Bismarck did not leave the king's apart-268 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
ments before twelve. I then gathered from him the conditions
that he demanded for an armistice. They were written in Ger-
man, and he read them over to me. He desired to occupy, as
a guarantee, Strasburg, Toul, and Phalsbourg;1 and as I had
the day before named Paris as the place for the meeting of the
Assembly, he wished in that case to have possession of some
fort commanding the city. He named Fort Valdrien. Here I
interrupted him. ‘You had better ask for Paris at once,’ I said.
‘How can a French Assembly be expected to deliberate when
covered by your guns ? I hardly know whether I dare to in-
form my Government that you have made such a proposal.’
Tours was then named as a place for the Assembly. ‘But,’
said Bismarck, ‘ Strasburg must be surrendered. It is about to
fall into our hands. All I ask is that the garrison shall consti-
tute themselves prisoners of war.’ At this I could restrain
myself no longer. I sprang to my feet and said : ‘ Count Bis-
marck, you forget you are speaking to a Frenchman ! To
sacrifice an heroic garrison which has won our admiration and
that of the whole world, would be an act of cowardice. Nor
will I even promise to mention that you ever made such a
demand.’ He answered that he had not meant to wound my
feelings, he was acting in conformity with the laws of war ;
but he would see what the king said about the matter. He
returned in a quarter of an hour, and said that his master
accepted my proposal as to Tours, but insisted on the sur-
render of the garrison of Strasburg.”
At this, the negotiation was broken off, Jules Favre con-
cluding by saying that “ the inhabitants of Paris were
resolved on making any sacrifices, and that their heroism
might change the current of events.”
The publication of this account of the interview with
Bismarck produced through Paris a shiver of indignation.
For a moment all parties were united, the very Reds cry-
ing out that there must be no more parties, only French-
men ; and a slight success in a skirmish in one of the
suburbs of Paris roused enthusiasm to its height in a few
hours.
The National Guard now did duty as police, and was
also placed on guard on the ramparts. Each man received
1 Places still holding out against the Germans.THE SIEGE OF PARIS.
269
thirty sous a day. The Guard was divided into the Old
Battalions and the New. The Old Battalions were com-
posed almost entirely of gentlemen and bourgeois, who re-
turned their pay to the Government; the New Battalions,
which were fresh levies of working-men, preferred in gen-
eral a franc and a half a day for doing nothing, to higher
wages for making shoes, guns, and uniforms. In vain the
Government put forth proclamations assuring the people
that the man who made a chassepot rifle was more of a
patriot than he who carried one.
All through September the weather was delightful, and
mounting guard upon the ramparts was like taking a pleas-
ant stroll. The Mobiles occupied the forts outside of Paris,
and were forbidden to come into the city in uniform. Of
course there was much hunting for Prussian spies, and
many people were arrested and maltreated, though only
one genuine spy seems to have been found. The French
in any popular excitement seem to have treachery upon
the brain. One phase of their mania was the belief that
any light seen moving in the upper stories of a house was
a signal to the Prussians ; and sometimes a whole district
was disturbed because some quiet student had sat reading
late at night with a green shade over his lamp, or a
mother had been nursing a sick child.
As October went on, it became a sore trial to the Pa-
risians to be cut off from all outside news. Not a letter nor
a newspaper crossed the lines. Even the agents of Foreign
Governments, and Mr. Washburne, the only foreign ambas-
sador in Paris, were prohibited from hearing from their
Governments, unless all communications were read by
Bismarck before being forwarded to them. One great
source of suffering to the men in Paris who had sent
away their families was the knowledge that they must be
in want of money. No one had anticipated a prolonged
blockade.
Before the gates had been closed, two elderly members
of the Committee of Defence — Cr^mieux and Garnier-
Pagfes — had been sent out to govern the Provinces.270 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
M. Thiers was visiting all the capitals of Europe, as a sort
of ambassador-at-large, to enlist foreign diplomatic sympa-
thy, and in October it was resolved to send out M. Gam-
betta, in the hope that he might organize a National Assem-
bly, or perhaps induce the Southern Provinces (where he
had great influence) to make a demonstration for the relief
of the capital. Provincial France had long chafed under
the idea that its government was made and unmade by the
Parisians, and there was no great sympathy in the Provinces
for Paris in her struggle with the Prussians, until it was
shown how nobly the city and its inhabitants bore the
hardships of the siege.
Small sorties continued to be made during October,
chiefly with a view of accustoming raw troops to stand fire.
On October 28, came news of the surrender of Bazaine at
Metz to the Prussians with his army (including officers) of
nearly one hundred and ninety thousand men. The uni-
versal cry was “ Treachery ! ” The same day that the Prus-
sians forwarded this news into Paris, a small body of German
troops was worsted in a sortie beyond St. Denis. These two
events roused the turbulent part of the population of Paris
almost to frenzy, and resulted in a rising called the entente
of October 31.
The disorderly classes living in the suburbs of Belleville
and Montmartre (which have taken the place of the old
Faubourg Saint-Antoine), assuming “The Commune ” for
their war-cry, were led on by such men as Ledru-Rollin,
Blanqui, and Fdlix Pyat.
“The party of the Commune,” says M. de Sarcey, “was
composed partly of charlatans, partly of dupes, — that is,
the real members of the Commune as a party. The rank
and file were simply roughs, ready for any mischief, and,
we may add, for any plunder.”
On the morning of October 31, a great crowd of these
men assembled before the Hotel-de-Ville, then the seat of
government. General Trochu, Jules Favre, the Maire of
Paris, and even Rochefort, who was a member of the Com-
mittee of Defence, harangued them for hours without pro-THE SIEGE OF PARIS.
271
ducing any impression. The days were passed when the
mob of Paris could be controlled by a harangue. Finally,
the crowd made its way into the Hotel-de-Ville, and en-
deavored to force the Committee of Defence to issue a
proclamation which would convene the citizens to vote for
a commune. The windows of the Hutel-de-Yille were
flung open, in spite of the efforts of the members of the
Government, and lists of the proposed Communistic rulers
were flung out to the mob.
Meantime the members of the existing Government were
imprisoned in their council chamber, and threatened by
armed men. Jules Favre sat quietly in his chair; Jules
Simon sketched upon his blotting-paper; rifles were pointed
at General Trochu. “ Escape, General ! ” cried some one
in the crowd. " I am a soldier, Citizen,” he answered,
“ and my duty is to die at my post.” One member of the
Committee managed, however to escape, and summoned
the National Guard to the assistance of his colleagues.
It was eight o’clock in the evening when the troops
arrived. At sight of their guns and bayonets the populace,
grown weary of its day’s excitement, melted away. Before
daylight, order was restored. “Thus,” says an American
then in Paris, “ in twelve hours Paris had one Republican
Government taken prisoner, another set up, and the first
restored.”
So peace, after a fashion, returned; but Count Bismarck,
learning of these events, was strengthened in his determi-
nation to keep Paris shut up within her gates till the fac-
tions in the city, in the coming days of famine and distress,
should destroy one another.
M. Thiers had almost concluded an agreement for an
armistice of thirty days, during which Paris was to be fed,
while an election should be held all over France for a
National Assembly; but after the disorders of October 31,
Count Bismarck refused to hear of any food being sup-
plied to Paris, negotiations were broken off, and the war
went on.
Up to this time bread in Paris had been sufficient for its272 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
needs, and not too dear. Wine was plenty, but meat was
growing scarce. Horses were requisitioned for food. It
was the upper classes who ate horse-flesh and queer ani-
mals out of the Jardin des Plantes; the working-classes
would not touch such things till driven to eat them by
absolute famine.
Butter rose to five dollars a pound, cabbages were sold
by the leaf. Early in the siege, eggs were three dollars a
dozen, and milk soon became unattainable. “ Poor little
babies died like flies,” says an eye-witness. Fuel, too, was
growing very scarce and very dear. The women supported
their privations bravely, but it is terrible to think what
must have been the sufferings of mothers deprived of whole-
some food for their little children. The firmness and self-
sacrifice of the bourgeoisie were above all praise.
All kinds of meats were eaten. Mule was said to be
delicious, — far superior to beef. Antelope cost eighteen
francs a pound, but was not as good as stewed rabbit •
elephant’s trunk was eight dollars a pound, it being es-
teemed a delicacy. Bear, kangaroo, ostrich, yak, etc.,
varied the bill of fare for those who could afford to eat
them.
Men of wealth who had lost everything, took their mis-
fortunes cheerfully. While the worst qualities of the
Parisians came out in some classes, the best traits of the
French character shone forth in others. A great deal of
charity was dispensed, both public and private, and on the
whole, the very poorest class was but little the worse for
the privations of the siege.
The houses left empty by their owners were made over
to the refugees from the villages, and many amusing stories
are told of their embarrassment when surrounded by objects
of art, and articles of furniture whose use was unknown to
them.
At first the theatres were closed, and some of them were
turned into military hospitals; but by the beginning of
November it was thought better to reopen them. At one
theatre, Victor Hugo’s “ Les Chatiments ” was recited, —THE SIEGE OF PARIS.
273
that bitterest arraignment of Napoleon III. and the Second
Empire; at another. Beethoven and Mendelssohn were
played, with apologies for their being Germans.
The hospital parts of the theatres were railed off, and in
the corridors ballet-girls, actors, and sisters of charity
mingled together.
Victor Hugo was in Paris during the siege, but he lent
his name to no party or demonstration. The recitation of
his verses at the theatre afforded him great delight, but the
triumph was short-lived. The attraction of “ Les Chati-
rnents ” soon died away.
The most popular places of resort for idle men were the
clubs. On November 21, one of these was visited by our
American observer. He says, —
“ The hall was filled to suffocation. Every man present had
a pipe or cigar in his mouth. It was a sulphurous place, a
Pandemonium, a Zoological Garden, a Pantomime, a Comedy,
a Backwoods Fourth of July, and a Donnybrook Fair, all
combined. Women too were there, the fiercest in the place.
Orators roared, and fingers were shaken. One speech was on
the infringement of the liberties of the citizen because soldiers
were made to march left or right according to the will of their
officers. Another considered that the sluggards who went on
hospital service with red crosses on their caps were no better
than cowards. Then they discovered a spy (as they supposed)
in their midst, and time was consumed in hustling him out.
Lastly an orator concluded his speech with awful blasphemy,
wishing that he were a Titan, and could drive a dagger into the
Christian’s God.”
The most terrible suffering in Paris during the siege was
probably mental, suffering from the want of news; but by
the middle of November the balloon and pigeon postal
service was organized. Balloons were manufactured in
Paris, and sent out whenever the wind was favorable. It
was found necessary, however, to send them off by night,
lest they should be fired into by the Germans. A balloon
generally carried one or two passengers, and was sent up
from one of the now empty railroad stations. It also gen-
erally took five small cages, each containing thirty-six
iS274 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
pigeons. These pigeons were of various colors, and all
named. They were expected to return soon to their homes,
unless cold, fog, a hawk, or a Prussian bullet should stop
them on the way. Each would bring back a small quill
fastened by threads to one of its tail-feathers and containing
a minute square of flexible, waterproof paper, on which had
been photographed messages in characters so small as to
be deciphered only by a microscope. Some of these would
be official despatches, some private messages. One pigeon
would carry as much as, printed in ordinary type, would fill
one sheet of a newspaper. The Parisians looked upon the
pigeons with a kind of veneration ; when one, drooping and
weary, alighted on some roof, a crowd would collect and
watch it anxiously. Sometimes they were caught by the
Germans, and sent back into Paris with false news.
On November 15 a pigeon brought a despatch saying
that the South of France had raised an army for the relief
of Paris, and that it was in motion under an old general
with the romantic name of Aurelles des Paladines, that
it had driven the Prussians out of Orleans, and was coming
on with all speed to the capital. The Parisians were eager
to make a sortie and to join this relieving army. General
Trochu was not so eager, having no great confidence in
his francs-tireurs, his National Guard, and his Mobiles.
They numbered in all four hundred thousand men; but
eighty thousand serviceable soldiers would have been worth
far more.
On November 28, however, the sortie was made; and
had the expected army been at hand, it might have been
successful. The Parisians crossed the Marne, and fought
the Prussians so desperately that in two days they had lost
more men than in the battles at Gravelotte. But on the
third day an order was given to return to Paris; the Gov-
ernment had received reliable information that the Army
of the Loire (under Aurelles des Paladines) had met with
a reverse, and would form no junction with the Parisian
forces.
By the end of November cannon had been cast in theTHE SIEGE OF PARIS.
275
beleaguered city, paid for, not by the Government, but
by individual subscription. These guns were subsequently
to play a tragic part in the history of the city. Some
carried farther than the Prussian guns. All of them had
names. The favorite was called Josephine, and was a
great pet with the people.
Christmas Day of that sad year arrived at last, and
New Year’s Day, the great and joyful fete-day in all
French families. A few confectioners kept their stores
open, and a few boxes of bonbons were sold ; but pres-
ents of potatoes, or small packages of coffee, were by this
time more acceptable gifts. Nothing was plenty in Paris
but champagne and Colman’s mustard. The rows upon
rows of the last-named article in the otherwise empty
windows of the grocers reminded Englishmen and Ameri-
cans of Grumio’s cruel offer to poor Katherine of the mus-
tard without the beef, since she could not have the beef
with the mustard.
Here is the bill-of-fare of a dinner given at a French
restaurant upon that Christmas Day : —
Soup from horse meat.
Mince of cat.
Shoulder of dog with tomato sauce.
Jugged cat with mushrooms.
Roast donkey and potatoes.
Rat, peas, and celery.
Mice on toast.
Plum pudding.
One remarkable feature of the siege was that every-
body’s appetite increased enormously. Thinking about
food stimulated the craving for it, and by New Year’s Day
there were serious apprehensions of famine. The reckless
waste of bread and breadstufifs in the earlier days of the
siege was now repented of. Flour had to be eked out with
all sorts of things, and the bread eaten during the last
weeks of the siege was a black and sticky mixture made
up of almost anything but flour. All Paris was rationed.
Poor mothers, leaving sick children at home, stood for2]6 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
hours in the streets, in the bitter cold, to obtain a ration
of horseflesh, or a few ounces of this unnutritious bread.
After news came of the retreat of the Army of the
Loire, great discouragement crept over the garrison. The
Mobiles from the country, who had never expected to be
shut up in Paris for months, began to pine for their
families and villages. What might not be happening to
them ? and they far away !
Every day there was a panic of some kind in the be-
leaguered city, — some rumor, true or false, to stir men’s
souls. Besides this, the garrison had for months been idle,
and was consumed with ennui. Among the prevailing
complaints was one that General Trochu was too pious !
They might have said of him with truth, that, though
brave and determined when once in action, he was want-
ing in decision. The garrison in Paris had no general
who could stir their hearts, — no leader of men. General
Trochu, and the rulers under him, waited to be moved by
public opinion. They were ready to do what the masses
would dictate, but seemed not to be able to lead them.
In a besieged city the population generally bends to the
will of one man; in this case it was one man, or a small
body of men, who bent to the will of the people.
The winter of 1871 was the coldest that had been
known for twenty years. Fuel and warm clothing grew
scarce. The Rothschilds distributed $20,000 worth of
winter garments among the suffering; and others followed
their example, till there was no warm clothing left to buy ;
but the suffering in every home was intense, and at last
soldiers were brought in frozen from the ramparts. There
was of course no gas, and the city was dimly lighted by
petroleum. Very great zeal was shown throughout Paris
for hospital service. French military hospitals and the
service connected with them are called “ ambulances.”
“We were all full of recollections,” says M. de Sarcey,
“ of the exertions made on both sides in the American
Civil War. Our model hospital was formed on the Amer-
ican plan.”THE SIEGE OF PARIS.
2 77
The American Sanitary Commission had sent out speci-
mens of hospital appliances to the Exposition Universelle
of 1867. These had remained in Paris, and the hospital
under canvas, when set up, excited great admiration.
Everything was for use; nothing for show. “ The four
great medicines that we recognize,” said the American sur-
geon in charge, “ are fresh air, hot and cold water, opium,
and quinine.”
Among the bravest and most active litter-bearers were
the Christian Brothers,—men not priests, but vowed to
poverty, celibacy, and the work of education. “ They
advanced wherever bullets fell,” says M. de Sarcey, “to
pick up the dead or wounded; recoiling from no task,
however laborious or distasteful; never complaining of
their food, drinking only water; and after their stretcher-
work was done, returning to their humble vocation of
teachers, without dreaming that they had played the part
of heroes.”
Before Bazaine surrendered at Metz, eager hopes had
been entertained that the army raised in the South by
Chanzy and Gambetta might unite with his one hundred
and seventy-two thousand soldiers in Metz, and march to
the relief of Paris; but to this day no one knows pre-
cisely why Bazaine took no steps in furtherance of this
plan, but, instead, surrendered ignominiously to the Ger-
mans. It is supposed that being attached to the em-
peror, and dreading a Republic, he declined to fight for
France if it was to benefit “ the rabble Government of
Paris,” as he called the Committee of Public Defence.
He seems to have thought that the Germans, after tak-
ing Paris, would make peace, exacting Alsace and Lorraine,
and then restore the emperor.
Nothing could have been braver or more brilliant than
the efforts of Chanzy and Gambetta on the Loire. At one
time they were actually near compelling the Prussians to
raise the siege of Paris; for two hundred and fifty thou-
sand men was a small army to invest so large a city. But
the one hundred and fifty thousand German soldiers who278 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
were besieging Metz were enabled by Bazaine’s surrender
to reinforce the troops beleaguering the capital.
Gambetta seems to have been at that time the only man
in France who showed himself to be a true leader of men,
and amidst numerous disadvantages he did nobly. He and
Chanzy died twelve years later, within a week of each
other.
From September 19, when the siege began, up to Decem-
ber 27, the Parisian soldiers, four hundred thousand in
number (such as they were) had never, except in occasional
sorties, encountered the Prussians, nor had any shot from
Prussian guns entered their city. On the night of Decem-
ber 2 7 the bombardment began. It commenced by clear-
ing what was called the Plateau d’Avron, to the east of
Paris. The weather was intensely cold, the earth as hard
as iron and as slippery as glass. The French do not rough
their horses even in ordinary times, and slipperiness is a
public calamity in a French city. The troops, stationed
with little shelter on the Plateau d’Avron, had no notion
that the Germans had been preparing masked batteries.
The first shells that fell among them produced inde-
scribable confusion. The men rushed to their own guns
to reply, but their balls fell short about five hundred
yards. It became evident that the Plateau d’Avron must
be abandoned, and that night, in the cold and the darkness,
together with the slippery condition of the ground, which
was worst of all, General Trochu superintended the re-
moval of all the cannon. The Prussian batteries were
admirably placed and admirably served.
But tremendous as the bombardment was (sometimes a
shell every two minutes), it is astonishing how little real
damage it did to the city. The streets were wide, the open
spaces numerous, the houses solidly built, with large court-
yards. In the middle of January, when the extreme cold
moderated, hundreds of people would assemble in the Place
de la Concorde, looking skyward. A black object would
appear, with a small bright spot in it, and making a graceful
curve in the air, with a whizzing, humming sound, wouldTHE SIEGE OF PARIS.
279
drop suddenly, with a resounding boom, in some distant
quarter of the city. Then the spectators, greatly interested
in the sight, waited for another. The shells, which the Pari-
sians called “ obus,” were like an old-fashioned sugar-loaf,
and weighed sometimes one hundred and fifty pounds. But
though, by reason of the great distance of the Prussian bat-
teries, the damage was by no means in proportion to the
number of shells sent into the city, many of them struck
public buildings, hospitals, and orphan asylums, in spite of
the Red Cross flags displayed above them.
By January 19, when the siege had lasted four months,
and the bombardment three weeks, the end seemed to be
drawing near. Another sortie was attempted ; but there was a
dense fog, the usual accompaniment of a January thaw, and
its only result was the loss of some very valuable lives.
Then General Trochu asked for an armistice of two days
to bury the dead; but his real object was that Jules Favre
might enter the Prussian lines and endeavor to negotiate.
Before this took place, however, Trochu himself resigned
his post as military governor. He had sworn that under
him Paris should never capitulate. General Vinoy took his
command.
The moment the Government of Defence was known to
be in extreme difficulty, the Communists issued procla-
mations and provoked risings. The Hotel-de-Ville was
again attacked. In this rising famished women took a
prominent part. Twenty-six people were killed in the
emeute, and only twenty-eight by that day’s bombardment.
On January 23 Jules Favre went out to Versailles. Paris
was hushed. It was not known that negotiations were going
on, but all felt that the end was near at hand. No one,
however, dared to say the word “ capitulate,” though some
of the papers admitted that by February 3 there would not
be a mouthful of bread in the city.
On January 27 the Parisians learned their fate. The fol-
lowing announcement appeared in the official journal:
“So long as the Government could count on an army of relief,
it was their duty to neglect nothing that could conduce to the28o FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
prolongation of the defence of Paris. At present our armies,
though still in existence, have been driven back by the fortune
of war. .	.	. Under these circumstances the Government
has been absolutely compelled to negotiate. We have reason to
believe that the principle of national sovereignty will be kept
intact by the speedy calling of an Assembly; that during the
armistice the German army will occupy our forts; that we shall
preserve intact our National Guards and one division of our
army; and that none of our soldiers will be conveyed beyond
our frontier as prisoners of war.”
The result was so inevitable that it did not spread the
grief and consternation we have known in many modern
cases of surrender. Those who suffered most from the
sorrow of defeat were not the Red brawlers of Belleville, who
cried loudest that they had been betrayed, but the honest,
steady-going bourgeoisie, who for love of their country
had for four months borne the burden and distress of
resistance.
During the four months of siege sixty-five thousand per-
sons perished in Paris: ten thousand died in hospitals,
three thousand were killed in battle, sixty-six hundred
were destroyed by small-pox, and as many by bronchitis
and pneumonia. The babies, who died chiefly for want
of proper food, numbered three thousand,—just as many
as the soldiers who fell in battle.
Two sad weeks passed, the Parisians meanwhile waiting
for the meeting of a National Assembly. During those
weeks the blockade of Paris continued, and the arrival of
provisions was frequently retarded at the Prussian out-
posts ; nor were provision-carts safe when they had passed
beyond the Prussian lines, for there were many turbulent
Parisians lying in wait to rob them. All Paris was eager
for fresh fish and for white bread. The moment the gates
were opened, twenty-five thousand persons poured out of
the city, most of whom were in a state of anxiety and
uncertainty where to find their families.
At last peace was made. One of its conditions was that
the Germans were to occupy two of the forts that com-THE SIEGE OF PARIS.
28l
manded Paris until that city paid two hundred millions of
francs (§40,000,000) as its ransom. It was also stipulated
that the Prussian army was to make a triumphal entry into
the city, not going farther, however, than the Place de la
Concorde.
This took place March 1, 1871, but was witnessed by
none of the respectable Parisians, although the German
soldiers were surrounded by a hooting crowd, whom they
seemed to regard with little attention.
Thus ended the siege of Paris, and the day afterwards
the homeward march of the Germans was begun.CHAPTER XIV.
THE PRUSSIANS IN FRANCE,
HE Prussian army was more than two weeks on the
road from Sedan to Paris and Versailles, and it was
just one month after the French emperor surrendered
before the king of Prussia made his headquarters in the
beautiful city which seems to enshrine the memory of
Louis XIV.
On Sunday, September 18, a scouting party of three Uhlans
made their appearance at the gates of Versailles. They
had in fact lost their way, and stumbled unawares upon the
city; however, they rode boldly up to the gate, demanded
admittance, and presented themselves at the mairie, bring-
ing terror and dismay to the inhabitants. When the
maire presented himself at their summons, they demanded
on what terms Versailles would surrender ? He replied
that he could not treat with private soldiers, but must see
their officers. “ Oh, our officers are close at hand,” they
replied; “ they are waiting with a large force in yonder
woods. If you come to the gate, they will meet you there.”
The maire assented, and the audacious Uhlans galloped
safely away. Let us hope that at their firesides in the
far-off Fatherland they still laugh over this unparalleled
adventure.
A few hours later, news was received at Versailles that
fighting was going on towards the south of Paris between
French troops and the Prussians; and all the inhabitants,
including foreign residents, were busy in preparing sup-
plies for the field-hospitals, — lint, bandages, water-cans,
and pillows stuffed with torn paper. Before long, eightTHE PRUSSIANS IN FRANCE.
283
Prussians and an officer entered the city. They were thus
described by one who saw them as they dashed up to the
mairie through an excited crowd : —
“They were small men. They had light hair, but were very
thick-set. They looked very tired, and were covered with dust
and with torn clothes; but they had good horses. They wore
the Prussian helmet and spike, and were well armed, with a
sabre on one side and on the other a huge horse-pistol two feet
long, while they carried carbines in their hands, all ready to
shoot if occasion offered. But all the French soldiers had left
Versailles, except a few National Guards. The inhabitants
looked very sad; the women were crying, and the men looked
as if they would like to. We walked on, when suddenly we saw
a troop of horsemen come through an arch that spanned one of
the main roads; behind came more, and more, and more. The
first were fifty Uhlans. These fellows were in blue, on horse-
back, very handsome. Then came some men with silver
death’s-heads and crossbones on their caps; then hundreds and
hundreds of mounted fellows with needle-guns and sabres; then
three regiments of infantry, marching in superb time. Every
five hundred men had a drum corps and fifes playing in perfect
unison. You could almost feel the ground shake with the
steady thud of their march as they tramped on. The men
looked dirty and tired, but were fat, and many of them were
laughing. Looking down the road as far as possible, we could
still see helmets, spikes, and guns all leaning exactly the same
way, and glittering in the sunshine. All the officers looked like
gentlemen, with great whiskers, and jolly, fat faces. None of
the men talked, much less sang, as the French do. When
these had passed, there came a splendid band of sixty pieces,
playing beautifully, and then regiment after regiment of cav-
alry (not carrying as much, nearly, as the French cavalry do).
Their horses were in excellent order, many of them very hand-
some. Lots of the soldiers were smoking great German pipes.
“This was the army of the Crown Prince, less than a third
of those that entered the city. They passed through Versailles,
only stopping to repair the roads torn up by the peasantry.
Next came artillery and baggage-wagons, and carts of ammu-
nition; more infantry, more bands, fifty pontoons on carts;
more cavalry; then hundreds of soldiers on peasants’ carts,
which they had requisitioned as they passed through the coun-
try; then ambulances and carts, full of wounded, who were
brought to the Hotel des Reservoirs and to the Palace. They284 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
began to pass at half-past one, and were passing three hours ;
and I saw just as many more going by another road, where they
passed till seven in the evening. There seemed, at times, to be
a hunting corps, for every man would have a fat hare or rabbit,
or hens, ducks, pheasants, or partridges slung on his back.
One man I saw with a live sheep, full grown, over his shoulders.
“ Only four regiments of infantry, one of cavalry, and four
batteries of artillery remained in Versailles that night. They
camped upon the Place d’Armes, lit fires, and cooked. Every-
thing was remarkable for neatness; the cannon and powder-
carts were arranged in order in a circle, horses all fastened
inside the circle, soldiers all sleeping round it. They took off
their knapsacks, stacked their guns, put their helmets on the
top of their bayonets, unrolled their great-coats, and lay down,
still wearing sword and pistols, with their guns at arm’s length.
Thus they pass the night, rain or shine (they have no tents) and
they look as hardy and strong as lions.
“ By the time the Prussians were fairly in their quarters the
inhabitants of Versailles seemed to take heart and to be much
less frightened. Many French peasants could talk German,
and conversed freely with the Prussians, interpreting what they
said to an eager crowd. The soldiers seemed to be well fed;
we saw them dining on bread and cheese, butter, sausages, and
wine. In the evening they were very jolly. Fires flickered all
around; the soldiers sat singing and smoking. Some milked
cows that they had stolen, and some were cooking game. The
formal way in which everything was done was very curious.
At the gate of every house where officers were quartered were
two sentries, and every time an officer passed, these men were
obliged to go through five movements with their guns. On all
the doors of all the houses the names of the officers stationed
there were marked in chalk, and a field-telegraph line in the
streets connected every such house with the mairie."
This account of the entry of the Prussians into Versailles
is from the private letter of a very young man, with the
eye of an artist and a keen love of music and fine horses.
The letter was seen by the editor of the “ Nation,” who
requested leave to publish it. The writer says further, —
“ I got up at seven on the morning of September 20, and went
down to the Place d’Armes. It was filled with Prussian soldiers;
some were sleeping, some were cooking, some eating, someTHE PRUSSIANS IN FRANCE.
28s
grooming horses, some washing cannon, and all were smoking.
There were but two tents, belonging to high officers. One of
these was dressing in the open air before his tent. A guard
paced up and down with a drawn sword. When I got there, he
was brushing his hair and putting on his cravat, while a little
French boy held a looking-glass for him. He had a bright red
shirt on, and riding-boots up to his hips, and silver spurs. I
saw his horse brought up, a beautiful, great black one. His
coat was covered all over with decorations, and he had a very
brilliant sword. In the other tent there were two officers writ-
ing. They had about fifty bottles of claret and champagne
stacked up beside them, and a guard set over it.
“ In a little while all was bustle, but no confusion. All the
cannon and powder-carts were ranged in numerical order; the
horses the same; and every bucket and every pot was num-
bered like the cart to which it belonged. Soon as the bugles
sounded, every man jumped, and knew what he had to do.
There was ringing and rattling of chains, and the horses were
fastened to the cannon, the soldiers gobbled their last mouth-
fuls, strapped on their knapsacks, and in a few minutes every-
thing was in motion, officers giving their orders; the horses
neighed, the line was formed, and off they went.
“That afternoon we saw some French peasants brought in;
they had fired on the men who were stealing their carts, horses,
and cows, and were to be shot. It was very sorrowful. We
heard afterwards that the Crown Prince had pardoned them.
Some noble-looking Zouave prisoners1 were also brought in,
and the crowd cheered them.
“About one p.m. a squad of Uhlans, with long lances and
black-and-white flags came in; then came other men leading
horses, all very handsome, belonging to the Crown Prince.
Then came the royal baggage, cart after cart, mostly painted
purple, with a great gold crown; but some carts had once been
French. One of the bands had a brass drum, with the imperial
eagle and 3d Zouaves painted on it. They showed it to the
bystanders and laughed. We found that the Crown Prince
was to be received at the prefecture,— a handsome building
with a large court in front, and a black-and-gilt grille, such
as they have round the palace and park. We went there at
once. A guard of honor was drawn up in front, and a full
band on each side of the gate. The Crown Prince was sur-
1 Possibly some of the men who had shown “ regrettable haste ’’
the day before.286 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
rounded by a splendid staff. He is quite handsome, with
large bushy beard and moustache. He was dressed like his
officers, and wore a cap such as they all wear, with a scarlet
band; but he had lots of decorations and a splendid diamond
star. They all had most beautiful horses, and the effect was
very kingly. The bands played, and the troops presented arms.
The prince rode in first, then all followed him into the court-
yard. They took possession, and the gates were closed. The
next day the prince left to join the king at Ferriferes. The
palace is appropriated to the Prussian wounded.”
By September 23 the Prussians had completed their in-
vestment of Paris. They were only two hundred and fifty
thousand men, but, disciplined as we can see they were by
the letter I have quoted, they were more than a match for
the four hundred thousand disorganized and undisciplined
crowd within the walls of the capital, who called themselves
soldiers.
Strasburg surrendered on the very day that the Crown
Prince of Prussia and his brilliant suite entered Versailles.
Strasburg is the capital city of Alsace, and is considered
the central point in the defence of the Rhine frontier. It
has a glorious cathedral, and a library unsurpassed in its col-
lection of historical documents of antiquity. It is an arch-
bishopric, and had always been defended by a large garrison.
With Paris, Lyons, Bordeaux, Marseilles, and Rouen, it had
stood foremast among French cities. It contained, when
invested, twenty thousand fighting men, and it was besieged
at first by a corps of about sixty thousand. Its investment
was one of the first acts of the Germans on entering France.
Strasburg made an heroic resistance for six weeks, and sur-
rendered on the day when Jules Favre was assuring Count
Bismarck that France would never repay the sendees of its
heroic garrison by consenting to give them up as prisoners
of war. Before its surrender it suffered six days’ bombard-
ment. A bombardment is far more destructive to a small
town than to a city of “ magnificent distances ” like Paris.
By September 9, a week after Sedan, ninety-eight Prussian
rifled cannon and forty mortars were placed in position andTHE PRUSSIANS IN PRANCE.
287
directed against the walls of Strasburg, while forty other
pieces were to bombard the citadel. By September 12 the
defences of the city were laid in ruins. Two weeks after,
it surrendered. The Mobiles and National Guards, being
Alsatians, were sent to their homes; the remaining five
thousand men, who were regular soldiers, were marched
as prisoners of war into Germany. Hardly a house in
Strasburg remained untouched by shells. The ordinary
provisions were exhausted. The only thing eatable, of
which there was abundance, was Strasburg pie, pate tie foie
gras, — the year’s production of that delicacy having been
stored in Strasburg for exportation.
The famous library was greatly injured, but the cathedral
was not materially hurt. A German who had been in Ham-
burg during the time of the great fire, assured an English
reporter that the scene of desolation in that city on the
morning after the conflagration was less heart-rending than
that presented by the ruined quarters of Strasburg when
the Prussian conquerors marched in. And yet the in-
habitants, had General Ulrich been willing, would have
still fought on.
Metz capitulated one month after Strasburg, Oct. 27,
1870. Three marshals of France, six thousand officers, and
one hundred and seventy-three thousand men surrendered
to the Germans. Many were entirely demoralized; but the
Garde Imp^riale, a body of picked troops, was faithful to
the last.
“ That a vast army which had given ample proof of military
worth in the two great battles of Gravelotte, and which more-
over possessed the support of the most important stronghold
in France, should have permitted a scarcely superior enemy to
hem it in and to detain it for weeks, making no earnest attempt
to escape, and finally, at the conqueror’s bidding, should have
laid down its arms without striking a blow, would before the
event,” says an English military authority, “ have seemed im-
possible. It set the investing force free to crush the new-made
Army of the Loire, and it occurred in the nick of time to prevent
the raising of the siege of Paris, which the Germans had in
contemplation.”288 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Smaller places held out nobly, — Phalsbourg in Alsace,
and Thionville and Toul, but above all Belfort. Garibaldi
was there with a considerable body of Italians and a
contingent of two hundred well-armed Greeks. There
was great jealousy of Garibaldi and his Italians in the
Southern army, and their outrageous conduct towards
priests and churches set against them the women and the
peasantry.
Belfort never surrendered. But the army under Bour-
baki, called the Army of the East, nearly a hundred thou-
sand strong, suffered horribly in the latter days of the
struggle. It was not included in the armistice made at
the close of January, 1871, between Bismarck and Jules
Favre, for Favre was in total ignorance of its position.
Bourbaki attempted suicide. His soldiers, shoeless, tent-
less, and unprovided with provisions, pushed into the defiles
of the Jura in the depths of one of the coldest winters
ever known in Europe, hoping to escape into Switzerland.
Eighty thousand men made their way over the mountains ;
fifteen thousand were made prisoners. A few escaped to
their homes. A correspondent who saw them after they
reached safety, said, —
“In all of them, pinched features and a slouching gait told
of gnawing hunger, while their hollow voices told of nights spent
on snow and frozen ground. Some had tied bits of wood under
their bare feet to keep them from the stones. For weeks none
had washed, or changed their clothes. Their hands were black
as Africans’. For three days neither food nor fodder had been
served out to them, and before that they had only got one four-
pound loaf among eight men.”
While men were thus suffering in the mountains, an
event of the greatest political importance was taking place
at Versailles. On January 19, a week before the capitula-
tion of Paris, the king of Prussia received a deputation
from the German Reichstag, offering him the imperial
crown of Germany.
The Federal States of the German Empire up to the closeTHE PRUSSIANS IN FRANCE.
289
of the last century were three hundred and sixty ; many of
these were only free cities or extremely small duchies or
principalities. There was a German emperor and a Ger-
man Diet. The latter met always at Frankfort. The em-
peror might be of any family or of any religion. His
successor was elected during his lifetime, to be ready in
case of accident, and was called King of the Romans. The
emperor was at first chosen by the princes at large, but in
process of time the choice was made over to nine princes,
called electors. After 1438, all emperors of Germany were
of the house of Hapsburg, the royal family of Austria.
This was not law, but custom. In the days of Napoleon I.
the old German Empire was broken up. The title of Em-
peror of Germany was discontinued, though he who would
have borne it still held an imperial title as Emperor of
Austria. The small German princes were mediatized; that
is, pensioned, and reduced from sovereign princes to the
condition of mere nobles. In place of three hundred and
sixty States there remained thirty-six States, composing the
German Confederation. A new German Federal Constitu-
tion was formed ; the States agreed to defend one another,
to do nothing to injure one another, and to abstain from
making war upon one another. There were practically
seventeen votes in the Diet, some of the larger States hav-
ing several, and many of the smaller States uniting in the
possession of one.
This Constitution also was swept away in 1866, after the
brilliant campaign of Sadowa.
The great desire of patriotic Germans was to consolidate
Germany, — to make her strong ; and while Prussia, as-
sisted by all the North German States and by Bavaria,
Baden, Wurtemberg, and Darmstadt, was fighting France, a
new Federal Constitution was formed.
The king of Prussia was chosen German emperor, and
the imperial crown was to be hereditary in his family.
There is a Diet, or Federal Congress, composed of two
Houses, the Upper House being limited to sovereign
princes or their representatives, the other, called the Reichs
19290 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
tag, being really the governing power of the nation. Each
State is entitled also to its own legislature.
In the Reichstag, Prussia has nearly two thirds of the
votes; and its power is much greater than that of our Con-
gress at Washington. The emperor can veto its decisions
only when they affect changes in the constitution. The Diet
can dethrone any emperor if he is considered incapable of
governing, or supposed to be dangerous to the Fatherland.
Practically the power of Prussia seems boundless in the
federation; she enforces her military system on all Ger-
many, and the smaller States submit to her, for the sake of
strength and unity.
On Jan. 18, 1871, a deputation of fifty members of the
Reichstag came to the king of Prussia’s headquarters at
Versailles to implore him to accept the imperial crown of
Germany. The world's attention was engrossed by the
campaign which was then drawing to a close, and the offer-
ing of the imperial crown to the Prussian sovereign formed
only a dramatic episode in the history of the war. Fortu-
nately, as the deputies passed Paris, shivering in their furs,
while transported in carriages of all descriptions, the Pa-
risians made no sortie to intercept them, and they reached
Versailles in safety.
The French seemed perfectly indifferent on the occasion.
“ Do as you like,” seemed to be the feeling. “ Have an
empire if you think proper. It is no concern of ours. We
are glad to have got rid of our own.”
The day on which the deputies offered their great gift to
King William was clear and bright. Before the prefecture
at Versailles was planted the Prussian royal standard, — a
black cross on a ground of gold and purple. Round the
gateway stood all the Prussian soldiers who were off duty,
waiting to see the deputies pass in. There was no music,
but shots boomed from Paris from time to time. There
was to be thenceforward one Germany, and one flag for the
land of so many princes, who all waived their claims in
favor of the greatest among them, — he who now stood
conqueror in a foreign land.THE PRUSSIANS IN FRANCE.
291
The chief room of the prefecture was filled with men in
bright uniforms, with helmets, ribbons, and decorations of
all kinds. The king stood near the fireplace, surrounded
by princes and generals. The president of the North Ger-
man Confederation appointed to address him had once be-
fore, in 1849, offered the imperial crown to a Prussian
king, who had declined it. Since then events had ripened.
This time the king accepted what his countrymen desired
he should receive from them. But he declined to assume
the title of emperor until the South German people should
express their acquiescence, as the South German princes
had already done.
We may contrast the conduct of the Prussian king with
the unwisdom of the French emperor. Both Napoleon
III. and the Emperor William governed as autocrats; but
with what different men they surrounded themselves, and
how differently they were served in their hour of need !
Yet Napoleon III. was lavish of rewards to his adherents,
while the Emperor William was, to an excessive degree,
chary of recompense. He seemed to feel that each man
owed his all to his kaiser and his country, and that when
he had given all, he could only say, in the words of Scrip-
ture : “ I have but done that it was my duty to do.”
When Jules Favre went to Versailles to negotiate with
the German emperor and his chancellor for the surrender
of Paris, he was accompanied, on his second and subse-
quent visits, by a young officer of ordnance, Count d’He-
risson, who attended him as a sort of aide-de-camp. Nothing
could be less alike than the two men: Jules Favre, of the
upper middle class in life, deeply sorrowful, oppressed by his
responsibility, and profoundly conscious of his situation ; and
the young man whose birth placed him in the ranks of the
jcunesse done, pleased to find himself in plenty and in good
society, and allowing his spirits to rise with even more than
national buoyancy, when, for a moment, the pressure of
trouble was removed. D’Herisson published an account of
his experience while at the Prussian headquarters, which
gives so vivid a picture of Count Bismarck, the great chan-292 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
cellor of the German Empire, that I here venture to repeat
some parts of his narrative. He says, —
“ On January 23 I received a summons from Jules Favre.
He seized me by both hands, and asked me to carry, early the
next morning, a despatch to M. de Bismarck, and to get it into
his hands before daybreak. No one was to know of this de-
spatch except the German officer bearing a flag of truce, to
whom I was to give it with my own hand. ‘ Then all is over ? ’
I said to Jules Favre. ‘Yes,’he answered, ‘we have only bread
enough for a few more days. God only knows what the people
of Paris may do to us when we are forced to let them know the
truth. We must do our best to guard against the disastrous
consequences of their strong feeling of patriotism. The Gov-
ernment does not intend to rid itself of its responsibilities, but
its first duty is to provide bread for the capital.’
“With some difficulty,” continued d’Herisson, “ I reached
Sevres, and the next morning before daybreak gave Jules
Favre’s letter to the Prussian officer. I sent back an express
to Jules Favre with the news, and then went to Baron Roth-
schild’s desolated villa at Suresnes to wait the answer. Two
hours later, came a message from the French officer command-
ing the nearest outpost to say that a flag of truce had brought
word that M. de Bismarck would see M. Jules Favre, and that
a carriage would be in waiting on the left bank of the Seine
to take him to headquarters.”
This knowledge of the negotiation at the French outposts
was a disclosure that Jules Favre had desired to avoid.
“ When I brought Jules Favre the news,” continues
d’Herisson, “ he was greatly moved. His hands trembled
so that he could hardly break the seal of the letter.”
Seeing that news of what was passing would most cer-
tainly be brought in from the outposts, it seemed best that
the French Minister for Foreign Affairs should start at once
for the interview. There was in the courtyard a coupe with
a handsome horse, once belonging to Napoleon III., and
driven by one of his former coachmen. Jules Favre at once
got into it, with his son-in-law and M. d’Hdrisson. They
passed with some difficulty through the Bois de Boulogne,
the roads having been torn up and trees felled in every
direction. On reaching a French outpost Jules Favre,THE PRUSSIANS IN FRANCE.
293
afraid of being recognized, concealed his face. Their only
means of crossing the Seine at Sevres was to take a small
boat which had served General Burnside a few days before.
But the Prussians had been making a target of it ever
since, and it was riddled with bullets. Having bailed it out,
however, with an old saucepan, they stuffed their handker-
chiefs into the worst leaks, and crossed the Seine in safety.
In a miserable old carriage, attended by a Prussian escort,
Jules Favre was borne away to his terrible interview with
Bismarck, leaving d’H^risson behind. Favre did not come
back for many hours. His first words to his aide-de-camp
were : “ Oh, my dear fellow, I was wrong to go without you.
What have I not suffered? ”
He had been taken at once to a very modest house in
Versailles, where Bismarck had his quarters. After the first
salutations Jules Favre said that he came to renew the ne-
gotiations broken off at Ferrieres. Here Bismarck inter-
rupted him, saying : “ The situation is changed. If you
are still going to say, ‘ Not an inch, not a stone,’ as you
did at Ferriferes, we may break off at once. My time is
valuable, and yours too.” Then suddenly he added:
“ Your hair has grown much grayer than it was at Ferrieres.”
Jules Favre replied that that was due to anxiety and the
cares of government. The chancellor answered that the
Government of Paris had put off a long time asking for
peace, and that he had been on the eve of making an ar-
rangement with an envoy from Napoleon III. He then
explained that it would be easy for him to bring back the
emperor and to force France to receive him; that Napo-
leon could collect an army of a hundred thousand men
among the French prisoners of war in Germany, etc.; and
he added : “ After all, why should I treat with you ? Why
should I give your irregular Republic an appearance of
legality by signing an armistice with its representative?
What are you but rebels ? Your emperor if he came back
would have the right to shoot every one of you.”
“ But if he came back,” cried Jules Favre, “ all would be
civil war and anarchy.”294 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
“ Are you so sure of that? ” said the chancellor. “ Any-
how, a civil war in France could not affect Germany.”
“ But, M. le Comte, are you not afraid of reducing us to
despair, of exasperating our resistance? ”
“ Your resistance ! ” cried Bismarck. “Are you proud
of your resistance? If General Trochu were a German, I
would have him shot this evening. You have no right, for
the sake of mere military vainglory, to risk the lives of two
millions of people. The railroad tracks have been torn up,
and if we cannot lay them down again in two days, we know
that a hundred thousand people in Paris will die of famine.
Don’t talk of resistance, it is criminal.”
Jules Favre, put entirely out of countenance by Bis-
marck’s tone, merely insisted that in pity to France there
should be no question of subjecting her to the ignominy of
being again made over to her deposed emperor. Before
parting, Bismarck requested him to write down such con-
ditions of peace as seemed to him reasonable, in order
that they might discuss them the next day.1
When that day came, the chancellor, having had inter-
views with his sovereign and Von Moltke, submitted his own
propositions. They were seven in number : —
I.	An armistice for twenty-one days.
II.	Disarmament o£ the French army, to remain in Paris as
prisoners of war.
III.	The soldiers to give up arms and banners; officers to
keep their swords.
IV.	The armistice to extend all over France.
V.	Paris to pay indemnity, and give up its forts to the
Prussians.
VI.	The Germans not to enter Paris during the armistice.
VII.	Elections to be held throughout France for a National
Assembly charged to consider conditions of peace.
Some slight modifications were made in these hard terms,
which were signed Jan. 28, 1871.
1 My copy of d’Herisson’s book has a pencil note at this place,written
by a friend then at Versailles: “ Bismarck rode after Jules Favre when
he set out on his return, and thrust into his carriage an enormous
sausage.”THE PRUSSIANS IN FRANCE.
295
As aide-de-camp and secretary to the French minister,
d’Hdrisson was present at all the interviews between Bis-
marck and his principal. When the terms proposed by
Germany were reported by Jules Favre to the Committee
of Defence, they were thought less severe than had been
feared.
The next morning Favre and d’Herisson were at Versailles
by dawn. Bismarck, who was an early riser, soon appeared,
and took the minister and his aide-de-camp to his study.
There the two men talked, and the secretary took notes of
the conversation.
Bismarck and Favre presented a great contrast. Bis-
marck was then fifty-five years of age; Jules Favre was six
years older. Bismarck wore the uniform of a colonel of
White Cuirassiers, — a white coat, a white cap, and yellow
trimmings. He seemed like a colossus, with his square
shoulders and his mighty strength. Jules Favre, on the
contrary, was tall and thin, bowed down by a sense of his
position, wearing a black frock-coat that had become too
wide for him, with his white hair resting on its collar. He
was especially urgent that the National Guard in Paris
should retain its arms. He consented to the disarmament
of the Mobiles and the army, but he said it would be im-
possible to disarm the National Guard. At length Bismarck
yielded this point, but with superior sagacity remarked : “ So
be it. But believe me you are doing a foolish thing.
Sooner or later you will be sorry you did not disarm
those unquiet spirits. Their arms will be turned against
you.”
When the question was raised concerning the indem-
nity to be paid by Paris, Bismarck said, laughing, that Paris
was so great a lady, it would be an indignity to ask of her
less than a milliard of francs (§200,000,000). The ran-
som was finally settled at two hundred millions of francs
(§40,000,000).
“ The dinner-hour having arrived, the chancellor invited us,’’
says d'H^risson, “ to take seats at his table. Jules Favre, who
wanted to write out carefully the notes I had taken, begged to296 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
have his dinner sent up to him ; so I alone followed the chan-
cellor to the dining-room, where about a dozen military and civil
functionaries were assembled, but all were in uniform. The
chancellor, who sat at the head of the table, placed me on his
right. There was plenty of massive silver, belonging evidently
to a travelling case. The only deficiency was in light, the table
being illuminated by only two wax candles stuck’ in empty wine-
bottles. This was the only evidence of a time of war.”
As soon as the chancellor was seated, he began to eat
with a good appetite, talking all the time, and drinking al-
ternately beer and champagne from a great silver goblet
marked with his initials. The conversation was in French.
Suddenly the chancellor remembered having met M.
d’Herisson eight years before at the Princess Mentzichoffs ;
and their relations became those of two gentlemen who re-
cognize each other in good society.
The Parisians thought that d’Hdrisson had been far too
lively on this occasion; but he feels sure that his sprightly
talk and free participation in the good things of the table,
formed a favorable contrast to the deep depression of Jules
Favre at the same board the day before. “ M. de Bis-
marck,” he says, “ is not at all like the conventional states-
man. He is not solemn. He is very gay, and even when
discussing the gravest questions often makes jokes, though
under his playful sallies gleam the lion’s claws.”
They talked of hunting. The chancellor related anec-
dotes of his own prowess, and by the time they returned to
Jules Favre, the French aide-de-camp and the Prussian prime
minister were on the best terms with each other. But
before long the chancellor gave a specimen of the violence
of his displeasure. “Three times,” says d’H^risson, “I saw
him angry, — once a propos of Garibaldi; once when speak-
ing of the resistance of St. Quentin, an unwalled town,
which he said should have submitted at once; and once it
was my own fault.”
On the table stood a saucer with three choice cigars.
The chancellor took it up and offered it to Jules Favre,
who replied that he never smoked ; “ There you are wrong,”THE PRUSSIANS IN FRANCE.
29 7
said Bismarck ; “ when a conversation is about to take place
which may lead to differences of opinion, it is better to
smoke. The cigar between a man’s lips, which he must not
let fall, controls his physical impatience. It soothes him
imperceptibly. He grows more conciliatory’. He is more
disposed to make concessions. And diplomacy is made up
of reciprocal concessions. You who don’t smoke have one
advantage over me, — you are more on the alert. But I have
an advantage over you, — you will be more likely than I
shall be to lose your self control and give way to sudden
impressions.”
The negotiation was resumed very quietly. With aston-
ishing frankness the chancellor said simply and plainly what
he wanted. He went straight to his point, bewildering
Jules Favre, a lawyer by profession, who was accustomed to
diplomatic circumlocutions, and was not prepared for such
imperious openness.
The chancellor spoke French admirably, “ making use,”
says d’H^risson “ of strong and choice expressions, and
never seeming at a loss for a word.” But when the subject
of Garibaldi and his army came up, his eyes began to flash,
and he seemed to curb himself with difficulty. “ I intend,”
he said, “ to leave him and his followers out of the armistice.
He is not one of your own people. You can very well leave
him to me. Our army opposed to him is about equal to
his. Let them fight it out between them.” Jules Favre
replied that this was impossible; for though France had not
asked Garibaldi for his services, and had in the first instance
refused them, circumstances had made him general-in-
chief of a large corps d'armee composed almost entirely of
Frenchmen, and to abandon him would be indefensible.
Then the anger of the chancellor blazed forth against
Garibaldi. “ I want to parade him through the streets of
Berlin,” he cried, “ with a placard on his back : ‘ This is
Gratitude ! ’ ”
Here d’Herisson interrupted his burst of anger by picking
up the saucer from the table and holding it to his breast as
beggars do at the church-doors. The chancellor caught298 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
his idea after a moment. He laughed, and Garibaldi, with
his corps d'armee, was included in the armistice.
It was necessary, however, that a French general should
come out to Versailles the next day and confer with
Count von Moltke with regard to some military details.
The old general who was chosen for that service was
furious at the appointment, and behaved with such rude-
ness that Bismarck requested that a man more courteous
might replace him.
In the course of the conversation Bismarck, who was al-
ways breaking off upon side topics, replied to an observation
made by Jules Favre about the love of France for a repub-
lic, by saying: “Are you so sure of that?—for I don’t
think so. Before treating with you, we naturally made it
our business to obtain good information as to the state of
public feeling in your country; and notwithstanding this
unhappy war, which was forced by France upon Napoleon
III., and notwithstanding the disasters of your armies,
nothing would be easier, believe me, than to re-establish
the emperor. I will not say that his restoration would have
been hailed by acclamations in Paris, but it would have been
submitted to by the country. A plebiscite would have done
the rest.”
Jules Favre protested. “ Oh, you will become more in-
clined to monarchy as you grow older,” cried the chancellor.
“ Look at me. I began my public life by being a liberal;
and now, by force of reason, by the teachings of experience,
and by an increased knowledge of mankind, I have learned,
loving my country, wishing her good and her greatness, to
become a conservative, — an upholder of authority. My
emperor converted me. My gratitude to him, my respect-
ful affection, date from the far-off time when he alone sup-
ported me. If I am to-day the man you see me, if I have
rendered any service to my country, I owe it all, as I am
pleased to acknowledge, to the emperor.”
That night, as Jules Favre was returning to Paris to obtain
from his colleagues the ratification of the armistice, Bis-
marck proposed that firing should cease at midnight. JulesTHE PRUSSIANS IN FRANCE.	299
Favre assented, but asked as a courtesy that Paris might
fire the last shot.
That night the terms of capitulation were signed by all
the members of the Committee of Defence. It is strange
how the baptismal name of Jules predominated among them,
—	Jules Favre, Jules Ferry, Jules Simon, Jules Trochu.
Trochu, however, did not sign, having resigned his post that
he might not be called upon to do so.
A few changes in the articles as at first drawn up were
made. The Prussians did not insist, as Bismarck had done
at first, that the cannon in the bastions should be hurled
down, and regiments were permitted to retain their colors,
though Von Moltke objected strongly to such concessions.
They were granted, however, by the emperor, when the
matter was referred to him, but in words more insulting
than a refusal. “ Tell the envoy of the French Government,”
he said, “ that we have trophies enough and standards
enough taken from French armies, and have no need of
those of the army of Paris.’'
Then, the capitulation being signed, the armistice
began. General elections were at once held all over
France, and the National Assembly met at Bordeaux. A
Provisional Government, with M. Thiers at its head, was
appointed, and peace was concluded. Alsace and Lorraine
were given up to Germany, with the exception of the strong-
hold of Belfort, which had never surrendered. The German
army was to enter Paris, but to go no farther than the Place
de la Concorde; and besides the two hundred millions of
francs exacted from Paris, France was to pay five milliards,
that is, five thousand millions, of francs, as a war indemnity,
—	a thousand millions of dollars. Germany was to retain
certain forts in France, and her troops in them were to be
rationed by the French until this money was paid.
It was paid in an incredibly short time, chiefly by the
help of the great Jewish banking-houses; and the last
of the Germans retired to their own soil in Septem-
ber, 1872.
But on March 13, 1871, the German army around Paris,300 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
after remaining a few hours in the capital, marched away
towards home.
The Assembly at Bordeaux proceeded at once to transfer
itself to the late Prussian headquarters at Versailles; but on
March 18 a great rising, called the Commune, broke out in
Paris, which lasted rather more than nine weeks, with a
continued succession of horrors.CHAPTER XV.
THE COMMUNE.
HE story of the Commune is piteous, disheartening,
shameful, and terrible. It seems as if during three
months of 1871 “human nature,’’ as Carlyle says of it in
his “French Revolution,” “had thrown off all formulas,
and come out human ! ” It is the story of those whom
the French call “the people,”—we “the mob,” or “the
populace,” — let loose upon society, and society in its
turn mercilessly avenging itself for its wrongs.
By March 12, 1871, the Prussian soldiers had quitted the
environs of Paris, and were in full march for their homes.
Two of the detached forts, however, remained eighteen
months longer in their hands. On March 20 the National
Assembly was to begin its session at Versailles. The Prov-
inces were very mistrustful of Paris, and the assembling of
the deputies at Versailles was of itself a proof of the want
of national confidence in the Parisians.
When it was made known that the German army was to
enter Paris, the National Guard of Belleville and Mont-
martre stole cannon from the fortifications, and placed
them in position in their own quarter on the heights, so
that they could fire into the city.
On March 18 General Vinoy, who had succeeded Trochu
as military commander of Paris, demanded that these can-
non should be given back to the city. Many of them had
been purchased by subscription during the siege, but they
were not the property of the men of Belleville and Mont-
martre, but of the whole National Guard. A regiment of
the line was ordered to take possession of them, and they302 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
did so. But immediately after, the soldiers fraternized with
the National Guard of Belleville, and surrendered their
prize. An officer of chasseurs had been killed, and General
Lecomte twice ordered his men to fire on the insurgents.1
They refused to obey him. “ General Lecomte is right,”
said a gentleman who was standing in a crowd of angry
men at a street-corner near the scene of action. He was
seized at once, and was soon recognized as General Clement
Thomas, formerly commander of the National Guard of
Paris. He had done gallant service during the siege; but
that consideration had no weight with the insurgents.
General Lecomte had been already arrested. “ We will
put you with him,” cried the mob, — “ you, who dare to speak
in defence of such a scoundrel.” Both the unfortunate
generals were immediately imprisoned.
At four p. m. they were brought forth by about one hun-
dred insurgent National Guards; Lecomte’s hands were
tied, those of General Thomas were free. They were
marched to an empty house, where a mock trial took
place. No rescue was attempted, though soldiers of the
line stood by. The two prisoners were then conducted to
a walled enclosure at the end of the street. As soon as
the party halted, an officer of the National Guard seized
General Thomas by the collar and shook him violently,
holding a revolver to his head, and crying out, “ Confess
that you have betrayed the Republic ! ” The general
shrugged his shoulders. The officer retired. The report
of twenty muskets rent the air, and General Thomas fell,
face downward. They ordered Lecomte to step over his
body, and to take his place against the wall. Another
report succeeded, and the butchery was over.
By evening the National Guard had taken possession of
the Hotel-de-Ville, and the outer Boulevards were crowded
by men shouting that they had made a revolution. On
this day the insurgents assumed the name of “ F£ddr£s,” or
Federals, denoting their project of converting the com-
munistic cities of France into a Federal Republic.
1 Leighton, Paris under the Commune.THE COMMUNE.
303
In vain the Government put forth proclamations calling
on all good citizens, and on the Old National Guard, to
put down insurrection and maintain order and the Republic.
The Old Battalions of the National Guard, about twenty
thousand strong, had been composed chiefly of tradesmen
and gentlemen; these, as soon as the siege was over,
had for the most part left the city. Bismarck’s proposi-
tion to Jules Favre had been to leave the Old National
Guard its arms, that it might preserve order, but to take
advantage of the occasion to disarm the New Battalions.
As we have seen, all were permitted to retain their arms;
but the chancellor told Jules Favre he would live to repent
having obtained the concession.
The friends of order, in spite of the Government’s procla-
mations, could with difficulty be roused to action. There
were two parties in Paris, — the Passives, and the Actives;
and the latter party increased in strength from day to day.
Indeed, it was hard for peaceful citizens to know under
whom they were to range themselves. The Government
had left the city. One or two of its members were still in
Paris, but the rest had rushed off to Versailles, protected by
an army forty thousand strong, under General Vinoy.
A species of Government had, however, formed itself by
the morning of March 19 at the Hotel-de-Ville. It called
itself the Central Committee of the National Guard, and
issued proclamations on white paper (white paper being
reserved in Paris for proclamations of the Government).
It called upon all citizens in their sections at once to elect
a commune. This proclamation was signed by twenty
citizens, only one of whom, M. Assy, had ever been heard
of in Paris. Some months before, he had headed a strike,
killed a policeman, and had been condemned to the galleys
for murder. The men who thus constituted themselves a
Government, were all members of the International, — that
secret association, formed in all countries, for the abolition
of property and patriotism, religion and the family, rulers,
armies, upper classes, and every species of refinement.
Another proclamation decreed that the people of Paris,304 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
whether it pleased them or not, must on Wednesday, March
22, elect a commune.
In a former chapter I have tried to explain the nature
of a commune. Victor Hugo wrote his opinion of it,
when the idea of a commune was first started, after the
fall of Louis Philippe in 184S. His words read like a
prophecy:—
“ It would tear down the tricolor, and set up the red flag of de-
struction ; it would make penny-pieces out of the Column of
the Place Vendome; it would hurl down the statue of Napo-
leon, and set up that of Marat in its place ; it would suppress the
Acad^mie, the ficole Polytechnique, and the Legion of Honor.
To the grand motto of ‘ Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity,’ it
would add the words, ‘or death.’ It would bring about a
general bankruptcy. It would ruin the rich without enriching
the poor. It would destroy labor, which gives each of us
his bread. It would abolish property, and break up the fam-
ily. It would march about with the heads of the proscribed
on pikes, fill the prisons with the suspected, and empty them
by massacre. It would convert France into a country of
gloom. It would destroy liberty, stifle the arts, silence thought,
and deny God. It would supply work for two things fatal
to prosperity,—the press that prints assignats, and the guil-
lotine. In a word, it would do in cold blood what the men
of x793 did in the ravings of fever; and after the great hor-
rors which our fathers saw, we should have the horrible in
every form that is low and base.”
The party of the Commune has been divided into three
classes, — the rascals, the dupes, and the enthusiasts. The
latter in the last hours of the Commune (which lasted
seventy-three days) put forth in a manifesto their theory
of government; to wit, that every city in France should
have absolute power to govern itself, should levy its own
taxes, make its own laws, provide its own soldiers, see to
its own schools, elect its own judges, and make within
its corporate limits whatever changes of government it
pleased. These Communistic cities were to be federated
into a Republic. It was not clear how those Frenchmen
were to be governed who did not live in cities; possi-THE COMMUNE.
305
bly each city was to have territory attached to it, as in
Italy in the Middle Ages.
The weather during March of the year 1871 was very
fine, and fine weather is always favorable to disturbances
and revolutions.
The very few men of note still left in Paris desirous of
putting an end to disorder without the shedding of blood,
proposed to go out to Versailles and negotiate with M.
Thiers, the provisional president, and the members of his
Government. They were the twelve deputies of the De-
partment of the Seine, in which Paris is situated, headed
by Louis Blanc, and the maires, with their assistants, from
the twenty arrondissements. They proposed to urge on
the Government of Versailles the policy of giving the
Parisians the right to elect what in England would be
called a Lord Mayor, and likewise a city council;
also to give the National Guard the right to elect its
officers.
This deputation went out to Versailles on the 20th of
March, — two days before the proposed election for mem-
bers of a commune. On the 21st, while all Paris was
awaiting anxiously the outcome of the mission, there was
a great “ order” demonstration in the streets, and hopes of
peace and concord were exchanged on all sides. The
next day, the order demonstration, which had seemed so
popular, was repeated, when a massacre took place on the
Place Vendome and the Rue de la Paix. Nurses, children,
and other quiet spectators were killed, as also old gentle-
men and reporters for the newspapers. One of the victims
was a partner in the great banking house of Hottinguer,
well known to American travellers.
The most popular man at that moment in Paris seemed
to be Admiral Seisset, who had commanded the brigade of
sailors which did good sendee in the siege. He went out
to Versailles to unite his efforts to those of the maires and
the deputies in favor of giving Paris municipal rights; but
M. Thiers and his ministers were firm in their refusal.
When this was known in Paris, great was the fury and
20306 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
indignation of the people. In vain had Louis Blanc en-
treated the Assembly at Versailles to approve conciliatory
measures; and when that body utterly refused to make
terms with a Parisian mob, M. C16menceau said, as he
quitted their chamber : “ May the responsibility for what
may happen, rest upon your heads.”
The mission to Versailles having been productive of no
results, the election for a commune was held. The ex-
tremest men were chosen in every quarter of the city, and
formed what was called the Council of the Commune. It
held its sittings in the Hotel-de-Ville, and consisted at first
of eighty members, seventy of whom had never been heard
of in Paris before. Its numbers dwindled rapidly, from
various causes, especially in the latter days of the Commune.
Among them were Poles, Italians, and even Germans; two
of the eighty claimed to be Americans.
The first act of the Council of the Commune was to take
possession of the Hotel-de-Ville and to celebrate the in-
auguration of the new government by a brilliant banquet;
its first decree was that no tenant need pay any back rent
from October, 1870, to April, 1871, — the time during which
the siege had lasted. It lost no time in inviting Garibaldi
to assume the command of the National Guard. This
Garibaldi declined at once, saying that a commandant of
the National Guard, a commander-in-chief of Paris, and
an executive committee could not act together. “ What
Paris needs,” he said, “ is an honest dictator, who will
choose honest men to act under him. If you should have
the good fortune to find a Washington, France will re-
cover from shipwreck, and in a short time be grander
than ever.”
On April 3 the civil war broke out, — Paris against
Versailles; the army under the National Assembly against
the National Guard under the Commune. The Prussians,
from the two forts which they still held, looked grimly on.
At the bridge of Courbevoie, near Neuilly, where the
body of Napoleon had been landed thirty years before, a
flag of truce was met by two National Guards. Its bearerTHE COMMUNE
30 7
was a distinguished surgeon, Dr. Pasquier. After a brief
parley, one of the National Guards blew out the doc-
tor’s brains. When news of this outrage was brought to
General Vinoy, he commanded the guns of Fort VaHrien
to be turned upon the city.
At five a. m. the next morning five columns of Federals
marched out to take the fort. They were under the com-
mand of three generals, Bergeret, Duval, and Eudes. With
Bergeret rode Lullier, who had been a naval officer, and
Flourens, the popular favorite among the members of the
Commune. The three divisions marched in full confi-
dence that the soldiers under Vinoy would fraternize with
them. They were wholly mistaken; the guns of Fort
VaHrien crashed into the midst of their columns, and
almost at the same time Flourens, in a hand-to-hand
struggle, was slain.
Flourens had begun life with every prospect of being a
distinguished scientist. His father had been perpetual
secretary of the Academy of Sciences and a professor in
the College de France, in which his son succeeded him
when he was barely twenty-one. His first lecture, on the
“ History of Man,” created a great impression ; but in 1864
he resigned his professorship, and thenceforward devoted
all his energies to the cause of the oppressed. In Crete
he fought against the Turks. He was always conspiring
when at home in Paris; even when the Prussians were at
its gates, he could not refrain. He was the darling of the
Belleville population, whom in times of distress and trial he
fed, clothed, and comforted. Sometimes he was in prison,
sometimes in exile. “ He was a madman, but a hero, and
towards the poor and the afflicted as gentle as a sister of
charity,” said one who knew him.
Of the three generals who led the attack on Mont
VaHrien, Duval was captured and shot; Eudes and Ber-
geret got back to Paris in safety. But the latter, in com-
pany with Lullier, was at once sent to prison by the
Central Committee, and a decree was issued that Paris
should be covered with barricades. As the insurgents308 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
had plenty of leisure, these barricades were strong and
symmetrical, though many of them were injudiciously
placed.
Whilst the fight of the 4th of April was going on with-
out the gates, the Central Committee was occupied in issu-
ing decrees, by which Thiers, Favre, Simon, — in short, all
the legitimate ministers, — were summoned to give them-
selves up to the Commune to be tried for their offences,
or else all their property in Paris would be confiscated or
destroyed.
The failure of the expedition under Bergeret made the
Parisians furiously angry. In less than a week some of the
best-known priests in Paris were arrested as hostages. The
churches were all closed after the morning services on
Easter Day; the arms were cut off from the crosses, and
red flags were hung up in their stead. No one could be
buried with Christian decency, or married with the Church’s
blessing.
“The motto of the Commune soon became fraternity
of that sort,” said a resident in Paris, “which means arrest
each other.” Before the Commune had been established
two weeks, many of its leading members, besides Lullier and
Bergeret, had found their way to prison.
A personage who rose to great importance at this
period was General Cluseret. He called himself an
American, but he had had many aliases, and it is not
known in what country he was born. At one time he had
been a captain in the Chasseurs d’Afrique, but was con-
victed of dishonesty in the purchase of horses, and dis-
missed from the army. Then he came to the United
States, and entered the service of the Union, by which he
became a naturalized citizen. He got into trouble, however,
over a flock of sheep which mysteriously disappeared while
he had charge of them. Next he enlisted in the Papal
Zouaves. After the Commune he escaped from Paris, and
the Fenians chose him for their general. In their ser-
vice he came very near capturing Chester Castle. The
Fenians, however, soon accused him of being a traitor.THE COMMUNE.
309
Again he escaped, fearing a secret dagger, and was
thought to have found refuge in a religious community.
Subsequently he served the Turks; and lastly, during
the presidency of M. Grevy, at a time of great dissatis-
faction in France, he was elected a deputy from one of
the Southern cities.
By April 7, Cluseret had, as some one expresses it,
“ swallowed up the Commune.” He became for three
weeks absolute dictator; after which time he found himself
in prison at Mazas, occupying the very cell to which he had
sent Bergeret.
Cluseret was a soldier of experience ; but Bergeret had
been a bookseller’s assistant, and his highest military rank
had been that of a sergeant in the National Guard. He
could not ride on horseback, and he drove out from Paris
to the fight in which Flourens was killed.
The official title of Cluseret and others, who were heads
of the War Office during the Commune, was War Delegate,
the committee refusing to recognize the usual title of Min-
ister of War.
Probably the best general the Commune had was a Pole
named Dombrowski, an adventurer who came into France
with Garibaldi. He was not only a good strategist, but
a dare-devil for intrepidity. Some said he had fought
for Polish liberty, others, that he had fought against it;
at any rate, he was an advanced Anarchist, though in
military matters he was a strict disciplinarian, and kept
his men of all nations in better order than any other
commander.
When, after the first attack of the Communist forces on
those of the Versailles Government, the guns of Fort Vale-
rien opened on Paris, the second bombardment began. It
was far more destructive than that of the Prussians, the
guns from the forts being so much nearer to the centre of
the city. The shells of the Versaillais fell on friend and foe
alike, on women and on children, on homes, on churches,
and on public buildings. Three shots struck the Arch of
Triumph, which the Prussians had spared.310 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Such scenes as the following one, related by an American,
might be seen daily : —
“Two National Guards passed me, bearing a litter between
them. ‘ Oh, you can look if you like,’ cried one; so I drew
back the checked curtain. On a mattress was stretched a
woman decently dressed, with a child of two or three years ly-
ing on her breast. They both looked very pale. One of the
woman’s arms was hanging down; her hand had been carried
away. ‘Where are they wounded?’ I asked. ‘Wounded!
they are dead,’ was the reply. ‘They are the wife and child of
the velocipede-maker in the Avenue de Wagram. If you will
go and break the news to him, you will do us a kindness.’ ”
The velocipede-maker may have been — probably was —
a good, peaceable citizen, with no sympathy for disorder or
anarchy; but doubtless from the moment that news was
broken to him, he became a furious Communist.
By order of General Cluseret every man in Paris was to
be forced to bear arms for the Commune. His neighbors
were expected to see that he did so, and to arrest him
at once if he seemed anxious to decline. “ Thus, every
man walking along the street was liable to have the first
Federal who passed him, seize him by the collar and say:
‘ Come along, and be killed on behalf of my municipal
independence.’ ”
It would be hardly possible to follow the details of the
fighting, the arrests, the bombardment, or even the changes
that took place among those high in office in the Council
of the Commune during the seventy-three days that its
power lasted ; the state of things in Paris will be best
exhibited by detached sketches of what individuals saw
and experienced during those dreadful days.
Here is the narrative of an English lady who was compelled
to visit Paris on Easter Sunday, April 9, while it was under
the administration of Cluseret.1
The streets she found for the most part silent and empty.
There were a few omnibuses, filled with N ational Guards and
men en blouse, and heavy ammunition-wagons under the
1 A Catholic lady in “ Red ” Paris. London Spectator, April, 1S71
(Living Age, May 13, 1S71).THE COMMUNE.
31 I
disorderly escort of men in motley uniforms, with guns and
bayonets. Here and there were groups of “ patriots ”
seated on the curbstones, playing pitch-farthing, known in
France by the name of “ bouchon.” Their guns were rest-
ing quietly against the wall behind them, with, in many in-
stances, a loaf of bread stuck on the bayonet. The sky
was gray, the wind piercingly cold. The swarming life of
Paris was hushed. There was no movement, and scarcely
any sound. The shop-windows were shut, many were
boarded up; from a few hung shabby red flags, but the
very buildings looked dead. She says, —
“ I felt bewildered. I could see no traces of the siege, and
all my previous ideas of a revolution were dispersed. I passed
several churches, not then closed, and being a Catholic, I en-
tered the Madeleine. The precious articles on the altar had
been removed by the priests, but except the words 1 Liberty,’
‘Fgality,’ ‘Fraternity,’ deeply cut in the stone over the great
door, the church had not, so far, been desecrated. I went also
to mass at Notre Dame des Victoires; but before telling my
cabman to drive me there, I hesitated, believing it to be in a bad
part of the city. ‘Thereare no bad parts,’ he said, ‘except to-
wards the Arch of Triumph and Neuilly. The rest of Paris is
as quiet as a bird’s nest.’ The church was very full of men as
well as women. It was a solemn, devout crowd ; every woman
wore a plain black dress, every face was anxious, grave, and
grieved, but none looked frightened. As the aged priest who
officiated read the first words of the Gospel for the day, ‘ Be
not afraid, ye seek Jesus who was crucified,’ the bombardment
recommenced with a fearful roar, shaking the heavy leathern
curtain over the church door, and rattling the glass in the great
painted windows. I started, but got used to it after a while,
and paid no more attention to it than did others. While I was
in church, the citizen patriot who was my cab-driver, had
brought me three newspapers, one of them the journal edited by
M. Rochefort, which said that it was earnestly to be hoped that
the ‘ old assassin ’ M. Thiers would soon be disposed of ; that
all men of heart were earnestly demanding more blood, and that
blood must be given them. I also learned that the Commune
would erect a statue to Robespierre out of the statues of kings,
which were to be melted down for that purpose. In the Rue
Saint-Honor<5 I met a lady whom 1 knew, returning from the312 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
flower-market with flowers in her hands. ‘ Then no one,’ I said,
pointing to these blossoms, ‘need be afraid in Paris?’ ‘No
woman,’ she answered, ‘ except of shells ; but the men are all
afraid, and in danger. They are suspected of wanting to get
away, but they will be made to stay and to fight for the
Commune.’
“ Indeed, profound gravity seemed expressed on all men’s
faces, and as a body, the patriots looked to me cold, tired, bored,
and hungry, to say nothing of dirty, which they looked, to a
man. I had expressed a wish to see a barricade, so we turned
into a small street apparently closed in by a neatly built wall
with holes in it, through which I saw the mouths of cannon.
About this wall men were swarming both in and out of uniform.
They were all armed, and two or three were members of the
Commune, with red sashes and pistols stuck in them, after the
fashion of the theatre. As I looked out of my cab window,
longing to see more, a cheerful young woman, with a pretty,
wan infant in her arms, encouraged me to alight, and a young
man to whom she was talking, a clean, trim, fair young fellow,
with a military look, stepped forward and saluted me. He
seemed pleased at my admiration of the barricade, and having
handed a tin can to the young woman, invited me to come in-
side. Thence I beheld the Place Vendfime. I had seen it last
on Aug. 15, 1868, on the emperor’s fete-dav, filled with the
glittering Imperial troops. I saw it again, a wide, empty waste,
bounded by four symmetrical barricades, dotted with slouching
figures whose clothes and arms seemed to encumber them. . . .
I thanked my friend for his politeness, and returned to my
carriage. The young woman smiled at me, as much as to say:
‘ Is he not a fine fellow ? ’ I thought he was ; and there may be
other fine fellows as much out of place in the ruffianly mass with
which they are associated.
“ In the Rue de Rivoli I saw a regiment marching out to
engage the enemy. Among them were some villanous-looking
faces. They passed with little tramp and a good deal of shuffle,
— shabby, wretched, silent. I did not hear a laugh or an
oath ; I did not see a violent gesture, and hardly a smile, that
day. The roistering, roaring, terrible ‘ Reds,’ as I saw them,
were weary, dull men, doing ill-directed work with plodding
indifference.
“ I visited a lady of world-wide reputation, who gave me a
history of the past months in Paris so brilliantly and epigram-
matically that I was infinitely amused, and carried away the
drollest impressions of L’Empire Cluseret; but her mannerTHE COMMUNE.
313
changed when I asked her what I should say to her friends in
England. ‘ Tell them,’ she said, ‘ to fear everything, and to hope
very little. We are a degraded people; we deserve what we
have got.’
“ In the street I bought some daffodils from a woman who
was tying them up in bunches. As she put them into my hand,
her face seemed full of horror. Seeing probably an answering
sympathy in my face, she whispered : ‘ It is said that they have
shot the archbishop.’ I did not believe it, and I was right.
He was arrested, but his doom was delayed for six weeks.
That night the churches were all closed. There were no
evening services that Easter day.
“ I may add that I saw but one bonnet rouge, which I had
supposed would be the revolutionary headdress. It was worn
by an ill-looking ruffian, who sat with his back to the Quai, his
legs straddled across the foot-walk, his drunken head fallen
forward on his naked, hairy breast, a broken pipe between his
knees, his doubled fists upon the stones at either side of
him.”
In the story of Louis Napoleon’s abortive attempt at
Boulogne to incite France against Louis Philippe’s Govern-
ment, we were much indebted to the narrative of Count
Joseph Orsi, one of the Italians who from his earliest days
had attended on his fortunes. The same gentleman has
given us an account of his own experiences during the
days of the Commune : —
“One could not help being struck by the contrasts presented
at that time in Paris itself: destruction and death raging in
some quarters, cannon levelling its beautiful environs, while at
the same moment one could see its fashionable Boulevards
crowded with well-dressed people loitering and smiling as if
nothing were going on. The cafes, indeed, were ordered to
close their doors at midnight, but behind closed shutters went
on gambling, drinking, and debauchery. After spending a
riotous night, fast men and women considered it a joke to drive
out to the Arch of Triumph and see how the fight was going
on.”
The troops at Versailles, reinforced by the prisoners of
war who had been returned from Prussia, began, by the 9th
of April, to make active assaults on such forts as were held314 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
by the Federals. Confusion and despair began to reign
in the Council of the Commune. Unsuccessful in open
warfare, the managing committee tried to check the ad-
vance of the Versaillais by deeds of violence and retalia-
tion. They arrested numerous hostages, and the same
night the palace of the archbishop was pillaged. The pre-
fect of police, Raoul Rigault, issued a decree that every one
suspected of being a reactionnaire (that is, a partisan of the
National Assembly) should be at once arrested. The de-
livery of letters was suspended, gas was cut off, and with
the exception of a few places where lamp-posts were sup-
plied with petroleum, Paris was in darkness.
The Commune also issued a decree that while all men
under sixty must enter its army, women, children, and aged
men could obtain passes to leave the city at the prefecture
of police for two francs a head. The prefecture was be-
sieged by persons striving to get these passes, many of
whom camped out for forty-eight hours while waiting their
turn.
In the midst of this confused pressure on the prefect of
police, Count Orsi took the resolution of visiting him. As
a known adherent of the former dynasty and a personal
friend of the late emperor, he did not feel himself safe. He
therefore took the bull by the horns, and went to call on
the terrible Raoul Rigault in his stronghold. He did not see
him, however; but after struggling for three hours in the
crowd of poor creatures who were waiting to pay their two
francs and receive a passport, he was admitted to the pres-
ence of his secretary, Terre. Ferrd was writing as his
visitor was shown in, and, waving his pen, made him stand
where he could see him. When he learned his name, he
said, —
“Your opinions are well known to us. We also know that
you have taken no active part against us. We fight for what
we believe to be just and fair. We do not kill for the pleasure
of killing, but we must attain our end, and we shall, at any cost.
I recommend you to keep quiet. As you are an Italian, you
shall not be molested. However, I must tell you that you haveTHE COMMUNE.
315
taken a very bold step in calling on me in this place. Your
visit might have taken a different turn. You may go. Your
frank declaration has saved you.”
On Easter Sunday, as the English lady to whom allusion
has been made, was leaving Paris, the population in the
neighborhood of the Place de Greve was amusing itself by
a public burning of the guillotine. It was brought forth
and placed beneath a statue of Voltaire, where it was con-
sumed amid wild shouts of enthusiasm.
The Freemasons and trades unions sent deputies to
Versailles to endeavor to negotiate between the contending
parties. M. Thiers promised amnesty to all Communists
who should lay down their arms, except to those concerned
in the deaths of Generals Lecomte and Thomas, and he
was also willing to give pay to National Guards till trade
and order should be restored ; but no persuasions would
induce him to confer on Paris municipal rights that were
not given to other cities. On the 12th of May the Com-
mune issued the following decree : —
“ Whereas, the imperial column in the Place Vendome is a
monument of barbarism, a symbol of brute force and of false
glory, an encouragement to the military spirit, a denial of inter-
national rights, a permanent insult offered to the conquered by
the conquerors, a perpetual conspiracy against one of the great
principles of the French Republic,—namely, Fraternity,—
the Commune decrees thus : The column of the Place Ven-
dome shall be destroyed.”
Four days later, this decree was carried into effect. Its
execution was intrusted to the painter Courbet, who was one
of the members of the Commune. He was a man who, up
to the age of fifty, had taken no part in politics, but had
been wholly devoted to art. His most celebrated pictures
are the “ Combat des Cerfs ” and the “ Dame au Perro-
quet.” He was a delightful companion, beloved by artists,
and a personal friend of Cluseret, who had caused his name
to be put upon the list of the members of the Commune.
The column of the Place Vendome was one hundred and316 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
thirty-five feet high. It was on the model of Trajan’s
column at Rome, but one twelfth larger. It was erected by
Napoleon I. to celebrate the victories of the Grand Army in
the campaign of 1805. He had caused it to be cast from
cannon taken from the enemy. When erected, it was sur-
mounted by a statue of Napoleon in his imperial robes;
this, at the Restoration, gave place to a white flag. Under
Louis Philippe, Napoleon was replaced, but in his cocked
hat and his redingote; but Louis Napoleon restored the
imperial statue.
“On May 16,” says Count Orsi, “a crowd collected at the
barricades which separated the Place Vendome from the Rue
de la Paix and the Rue Castiglione. To the Place Vendome
itself only a few persons had been admitted by tickets. At the
four corners of the square were placed military bands. Ropes
were fastened to the upper part of the column, and worked by
capstans. The monument fell with a tremendous crash, causing
everything for a few moments to disappear in a blinding cloud
of dust. To complete the disgrace of this savage act, the Com-
mune advertised for tenders for the purchase of the column,
which was to be sold in four separate lots. This injudicious
and anti-national measure inspired the regular army at Versailles
with a spirit of revenge, which led them on entering Paris to
lose all self-possession, so that they dealt with the insurrection
brutally and without discrimination.”
It would be curious to trace the history of the various
members of the Council of the Commune. A few have
been already alluded to ; but the majority came forth out of
obscurity, and their fate is as obscure. Eight were profes-
sional journalists. Among these were Rochefort, Arnould,
and Vermorel. Arnould was probably the most moderate
man in the Commune, and Vermorel was one of the very
few who, when the Commune was at its last gasp, neither
deserted nor disgraced it. He sprang on a barricade, cry-
ing : “ I am here, not to fight, but to die ! ” and was shot
down. Four were military men, of whom one was General
Eudes, a draper’s assistant, and one had been a private in
the army of Africa. Five were genuine working-men,
three of whom were fierce, ignorant cobblers from Belle-THE COMMUNE.
317
ville; the other two were Assy, a machinist, and Thiez, a
silver-chaser, — one of the few honest men in the Council.
Three were not Frenchmen, although generals; namely,
Dombrowski, La Cecilia, and Dacosta, besides Cluseret, who
claimed American citizenship. Rochefort was the son of a
marquis who had been forced to write for bread. Deles-
chuze was an ex-convict. Blanqui had spent two thirds of
his life in prison, having been engaged from his youth up
in conspiracy. He was also at one period a Government
spy. Raoul Rigault also had been a spy and an informer
from his boyhood. Mdgy and Assy were under sentence
for murder. Jourde was a medical student, one of the best
men in the Commune, and faithful to his trust as its finance
minister. Flourens, the scientist, a genuine enthusiast, we
have seen was killed in the first skirmish with the Yersaillais.
F61ix Pyat was an arch conspirator, but a very spirited
and agreeable writer. He was elected in 1888 a deputy
under the Government of the Third Republic. Lullier had
been a naval officer, but was dismissed the sendee for
insubordination.
To such men (the best of them wholly without experi-
ence in the art of government) were confided the destinies
of Paris, and, as they hoped, of France ; but their number
dwindled from time to time, till hardly more than fifty were
left around the Council Board, when about two weeks be-
fore the downfall of the Commune twenty-two of this
remainder resigned, — some because they could not but
foresee the coming crash, others because they would no
longer take part in the violence and tyranny of their col-
leagues. In seven weeks the Commune had four succes-
sive heads of the War Department. General Eudes was
the first: his rule lasted four days. Then came Cluseret;
the Empire Cluseret lasted three weeks. Then Cluseret
was imprisoned, and Rossel was in office for nine days,
when he resigned. On May 9 Deleschuze, the ex-convict,
became head of military affairs. He was killed two weeks
later, when the Commune fell. Cluseret was deposed
April 30, — some said for ill-success, some because he was3 IS FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
a traitor and had communications with the enemy, but
probably because he made himself unpopular by an order
requiring his officers to put no more embroidery and gold
lace on their uniforms than their rank entitled them to.
Rossel, who succeeded Cluseret, was a real soldier, who
tried in vain to organize the defence and to put expe-
rienced military men in command as subordinate generals.
To do this he had to choose three out of five from men
who were not Frenchmen. Dombrowski and Wroblewski
were Poles, and General La Cecilia was an Italian. On
May 9, after nine days of official life, he resigned, in the
following extraordinary letter: —
Citizens, Members of the Commune :
Having been charged by you with the War Department, I
feel myself no longer capable of bearing the responsibility of
a command where every one deliberates and nobody obeys.
When it was necessary to organize the artillery, the command-
ant of artillery deliberated, hut nothing was done. After a
month’s revolution, that service is carried on by only a very
small number of volunteers. On my nomination to the minis-
try I wanted to further the search for arms, the requisition for
horses, the pursuit of refractory citizens. I asked help of the
Commune; the Commune deliberated, but passed no resolu-
tions. Later the Central Committee came and offered its ser-
vices to the War Department. I accepted them in the most
decisive manner, and delivered up to its members all the docu-
ments I had concerning its organization. Since then the Cen-
tral Committee has been deliberating, and has done nothing.
During this time the enemy multiplied his audacious attacks
upon Fort Issy; had I had the smallest military force at my
command, I would have punished him for it. The garrison,
badly commanded, took to flight. The officers deliberated,
and sent away from the fort Captain Dumont, an energetic man
who had been ordered to command them. Still deliberating,
they evacuated the fort, after having stupidly talked of blowing
it up, — as difficult a thing for them to do as to defend it. . . .
My predecessor was wrong to remain, as he did, three weeks
in such an absurd position. Enlightened by his example, and
knowing that the strength of a revolutionist consists only in the
clearness of his position, I have but two alternatives, — either
to break the chains which impede my actions, or to retire.THE COMMUXE.
319
I will not break my chains, because those chains are you and
your weakness. I will not touch the sovereignty of the
people.
I retire, and have the honor to beg for a cell at Mazas.
Rossel.
He did not obtain the cell at Mazas. He escaped
from the vengeance of his colleagues, and was supposed
to be in England or Switzerland, while in reality he had
never quitted Paris. He was arrested two weeks after
the fall of the Commune, disguised as a railroad employee.
He was examined at the Luxembourg, and then taken,
handcuffed, to Versailles, where he was shot at Satory,
though M. Thiers, the president, made vain efforts to save
him.
The members of the Commune, who by the first week
in May were reduced to fifty-three, met in the Hotel-de-
Ville in a vast room once hung with the portraits of sove-
reigns. The canvas of these pictures had been cut out,
but the empty frames still hung upon the walls; while at
one end of the chamber was a statue of the Republic
dressed in red flags, and bearing the inscription, “ War to
Tyrants.”
Reporters were not admitted, and spectators could be
brought in only by favor of some member. The mem-
bers sat upon ' red-velvet chairs, each girt with his red
scarf of office, trimmed with heavy bullion fringe. The
chairs were placed round a long table, on which was sta-
tionery for the members’ use, cara/cs of water, and sugar
for eau sucree. It was an awe-inspiring assembly ; “ for the
men who talked, held a city of two millions of inhabitants
in their hands, and were free to put into practice any or
all of the amazing theories that might come into their
heads. Their speeches, however, were brief; they were
not wordy, as they might have been if reporters had been
present. Most of them wore uniforms profusely deco-
rated with gold lace,” and, says an Englishman who saw
them in their seats, “ one had only to look in their faces
to judge the whole truth in connection with the Com-320 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
mune, — its causes, its prospects, and its signification. A
citizen whom I had heard of as most hotly in favor of
Press freedom, proposed in my hearing that all journals
in Paris should be suppressed save those that were edited
by members of the Council of the Commune. That there
were three or four earnest men among them, no one can
dispute; but as to the rest, I can only say that if they were
zealous patriots devoted to their country’s good, they did
not, when I saw them, look like it.” 1
In the first week of May the Commune decreed the
destruction of M. Thiers’s beautiful home in the Rue St.
Georges. The house was filled with objects of art and
with documents of historical interest which he had gathered
while writing his History of the Revolution, the Consulate,
and the First Empire.
The Commune had removed some of these precious
things, and sold them to dealers, from whom many were
afterwards recovered; but the mob which assembled to
execute the decree of destruction, was eager to consume
everything that was left. In the courtyard were scattered
books and pictures waiting to feed the flames. “ The men
busy at the work looked,” says an Englishman,'2 “ like de-
mons in the red flame. I turned away, thinking not of the
man of politics, but of the historian, of the house where he
had thought and worked, of the books that he had treas-
ured on his shelves, of the favorite chair that had been
burned upon his hearthstone. I thought of all the dumb
witnesses of a long and laborious life dispersed, of all the
memories those rooms contained destroyed.”
On the 16th of May, the day of the destruction of the
column in the Place Vendome, a great patriotic concert
was given in the palace of the Tuileries, which was
thronged; but “ by that date, discord and despair were
in the Council of the Commune, and its most respectable
members had sent in their resignation. Versailles every-
where was gaining ground; the Fort of Vauves was taken,
1	Cornhill Magazine, 1871.
2	Leighton, Paris under the Commune.THE COMMUNE.
321
that of Mont Rouge had been dismantled, and breaches
were opened in the city walls. The leaders of the insur-
rection lost their senses, and gave way to every species
of madness and folly. The army of Versailles soon entered
the city from different points. The fight was desperate,
the carnage frightful. Dombrowski, the only general of
ability, was killed early in the struggle. Barricades were
in almost every street. Prisoners on both sides were shot
without mercy. The Communists set fire to the Tuileries,
the Hotel-de-Ville, the Ministry of Finance, the Palace
of the Legion of Honor.
The rest of the story is all blood and horror. The most
pathetic part of it is the murder of the hostages, which took
place on the morning of May 24, and which cannot be told
in this chapter. The desperate leaders of the Commune
had determined that if they must perish, Paris itself should
be their funeral pyre.
It was General Eudes who organized the band of incen-
diaries called “ ptTroleuses ” and gave out the petroleum.
It was Ftilix Pyat, it was said, who laid a train of gun-
powder to blow up the Invalides, while another member of
the Commune served out explosives.
On the night of May 24, the Hotel-de-Ville was in flames.
The smoke, at times a deep red, enveloped everything; the
air was laden with the nauseous odors of petroleum. The
Tuileries, the Palace of the Legion of Honor, the Ministry
of War, and the Treasury were flaming like the craters of a
great volcano.
We have heard much of petroleuses. They appear to
have worked among private houses in the more open
parts of the city. Here is a picture of one seen by an
Englishman : —
“ She walked with a rapid step under the shadow of a wall.
She was poorly dressed, her age was between forty and fifty; her
head was bound with a red-checked handkerchief, from which
fell meshes of coarse, uncombed hair. Her face was red, her eyes
blurred, and she moved with her eyes bent down to the ground.
Her right hand was in her pocket; in the other she held one of
21322 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
the high, narrow tin cans in which milk is carried in Paris, but
which now contained petroleum. The street seemed deserted.
She stopped and consulted a dirty bit of paper which she held
in her hand, paused a moment before the grated entrance to a
cellar, and then went on her way steadily, without haste. An
hour after, that house was burning to the ground. Sometimes
these wretched women led little children by the hand, who were
carrying bottles of petroleum. There was a veritable army of
these incendiaries, composed mainly of the dregs of society.
This army had its chiefs, and each detachment was charged
with firing a quarter.”
The orders for the conflagration of public edifices bore
the stamp of the Commune and that of the Central Com-
mittee of the National Guard; also the seal of the war dele-
gate. For private houses less ceremony was used. Small
tickets of the size of postage-stamps were pasted on the
walls of the doomed houses, with the letters, B. P. B. (Bon
Pour Bruler"). Some of these tickets were square, others
oval, with a Bacchante’s head upon them. A petroleuse was
to receive ten francs for every house which she set on fire.
All the sewers beneath Paris had been strewn with tor-
pedoes, bombs, and inflammable materials, connected with
electric wires. “The reactionary quarters shall be blown
up,” was the announced intention of the Commune. Merci-
fully, these arrangements had not been completed when the
Versailles troops obtained the mastery. Almost the first
thing done was to send sappers and miners underground
to cut the wires that connected electric currents with in-
flammable material in all parts of the city. The catacombs
that underlie the eastern part of Paris were included in the
incendiary arrangement.
When Paris was at last in safety, and the Commune sub-
dued, would that it had been only the guilty on whom the
great and awful vengeance fell!MONSEIGNE UR DARBOi
{Archbishop of Paris.)CHAFfER XVI.
THE HOSTAGES.
BOUT once in every seventy or eighty years some
exceptionally moving tragedy stirs the heart of the
civilized world. The tragedy of our own century is the
execution of the hostages in Paris, May 24 and 26, 1871.
At one o’clock on the morning of April 6, three weeks
after the proclamation of the Commune, a body of the
National Guard was drawn up on the sidewalk in the neigh-
borhood of the Madeleine. A door suddenly opened and
a man came hastily out, followed by two National Guards
shouting to their comrades. The man was arrested at once,
making no resistance. It was the Abb6 Duguerry, cure of
the Madeleine,1 — the first of the so-called hostages arrested
in retaliation for the summary execution of General Duval,
who had commanded one of the three columns that marched
out of Paris the day before to attack the Versaillais.
Both the cure of the Madeleine and his vicaire, the AbW
Lamazou, were that night arrested. The latter, who escaped
death as a hostage, published an account of his experiences ;
but he died not long after of heart disease, brought on by
his excitement and suffering during the Commune.
The same night Monseigneur Darboy, the archbishop of
Paris, his chaplain, and eight other priests, were arrested.
One was a missionary just returned from China, another was
the Abbe Crozes, the admirable chaplain (aumonier) of the
prison of La Roquette, — a man whose deeds of charity
would form a noble chapter of Christian biography.
1 Curi in France means rector ; what we mean by a curate or as-
sistant minister is there called vicaire.324 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
When Archbishop Darboy was brought before the no-
torious “delegate,” Raoul Rigault, he began to speak, say-
ing, “My children — ” “Citizen,” interrupted Rigault,
“you are not here before children, — we are men!”
This sally was heartily applauded in the publications of
the Commune.
As it would not be possible to sketch the lives and deaths
of all these victims of revolutionary violence, it may be well
to select the history of the youngest among them, Paul
Seigneret.1 His father was a professor in the high school
at Lyons. Paul was bom in 1S45, and was therefore twenty-
six years old when he met death, as a hostage, at the
hands of the Commune. His home had been a happy and
pious one, and he had a beloved brother Charles, to whom
he clung with the most tender devotion. Charles expected
to be a priest; Paul was destined for the army, but he
earnestly wished that he too might enter the ministry.
Lamartine’s “Jocelyn” had made a deep impression on him,
but his father having objected to his reading it, he laid it
aside unfinished; what he had read, however, remained
rooted in his memory.
When Paul was eighteen, his father gave his sanction
to his entering the priesthood; he thought him too deli-
cate, however, to lead the life of a country pastor, and
desired him, before he made up his mind as to his voca-
tion, to accept a position offered him as tutor in a family
in Brittany.
Present duties being sanctified, not hampered, by higher
hopes and aspirations, Paul gained the love and confidence
of the family in which he taught, and also of the neighbor-
ing peasantry. “ He was,” says the lady whose children he
instructed, “ like a good angel sent among us to do good
and to give pleasure.”
When his time of probation was passed, he decided to
enter a convent at Solesmes, and by submitting himself
to convent rules, make sure of his vocation. But before
making any final choice, we find from his letters that “ if
1 Memoir of Paul Seigneret, abridged in the “ Monthly Packet.”THE HOSTAGES.	325
France were invaded,” he claimed “the right to do his
duty as a citizen and a son.”
He entered the convent at Solesmes, first as a postulant,
then as a novice. “ The Holy Gospels,” said his superior,
“ Saint Paul’s Epistles, and the Psalms were his favorite
studies, — the food on which his piety was chiefly nourished.
He also sought Christ in history.”
Still, he was not entirely satisfied with life in a convent;
he wished to be more actively employed in doing good.
He therefore became a student for the regular ministry,—
a Seminarist of Saint-Sulpice. But when the Prussian armies
were advancing on Paris, he offered himself for hospital ser-
vice, as did also his brother.
In a moment of passionate enthusiasm, speaking to that
dear brother of the dangers awaiting those who had to seek
and tend the wounded on the field of battle, he cried : “Do
you think God may this year grant me the grace of yielding
up my life to Him as a sacrifice ? For to fall, an expiatory
sacrifice beneath the righteous condemnation that hangs
over France, would be to die for Him.”
The war being over, he returned to the Seminary, March
15, 1871. On March 18 the Commune was declared, and
Lecomte and Thomas were murdered ; shortly after this the
Seminary was invaded, the students were dispersed, and the
priests in charge made prisoners. Most of the young men thus
turned out into the streets left Paris. Paul at first intended
to remain ; but thinking that his family would be anxious
about him, he applied for a pass, intending to go to Lyons.
At the prefecture of police he and a fellow-student found a
dense crowd waiting to pay two francs for permission to get
away. They were shown into a room where a man in a
major’s uniform sat at a table covered with glasses and
empty bottles, with a woman beside him. When he heard
what they wanted, he broke into a volley of abuse, and as-
sured them that the only pass he would give them was a pass
to prison. Accordingly, Paul and his companion soon found
themselves in the prison connected with the prefecture.
The cells were so crowded that they were confined in a326 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
corridor with six Jesuit fathers and some of their servants
and lay brethren. A sort of community life was at once
organized, with daily service and an hour for meditation.
Paul esteemed it a privilege to enjoy the conversation of the
elder and more learned priests. He conversed with them
about the Bible, philosophy, and literature. “ He was
ready,” says a companion who was saved, “to meet a
martyr’s death; but there was one horror he prayed to
be spared, — that of being torn in pieces by a mob.”
On May 13, a turnkey announced to the priests that they
were to leave the prefecture. “I fear,” he said, “that
you are to be taken to Mazas. I am not sure, but a man
cannot have such good prisoners as you are in his charge
without taking some interest in them.”
On being brought forth from their corridor, they found
themselves in a crowd of priests (hostages like themselves)
who were being sent to Mazas. The youth of the Seminary
students at once attracted attention, and the Vicar-General,
Monseigneur Surat, said : “ I can understand that priests
and old men should be here, gentlemen, but not that you,
mere Seminarists, should be forced to share the troubles of
your ecclesiastical superiors.”
The transfer to Mazas was in the voitiires cellulaires.
They were so low and narrow that every jolt threw the
occupant against the sides or roof. In one of these cells
the venerable and infirm archbishop had been transferred
to Mazas a short time before.
Each prisoner on reaching Mazas was shut up in a tiny
cell. Paul wrote (for they were allowed writing materials) :
“ I have a nice little cell, with a bit of blue sky above it, to
which my thoughts fly, and a hammock, so that it is possible
for me to sleep again. I hardly dare to tell you I am happy,
and am trusting myself in God’s hands, for I am anxious about
you, and anxious for our poor France. I have my great com-
fort, — work. I have already written an essay on Saint Paul,
which I have been some time meditating. I am expecting a
Bible, and with that I think I could defy weariness for years.
A few days ago I discovered that one of my friends was next
to me. We bid each other good night and good morning byTHE HOSTAGES.	327
rapping against the wall, and this would make us less lonely,
were we oppressed by solitude.”
At the close of this letter he adds, —
“ I have at last received the dear Bible. You should have
seen how I seized and kissed it 1 Now the Commune may leave
me here to moulder, if it will! ”
On Sunday, May 21, the Versailles army began to make
its way into Paris, and the Commune, seeing its fantastic
and terrible power about to pass away, tried to startle the
world by its excesses. Orders were sent at once to Mazas
to send the archbishop, the priests, Senator Bonjean, sus-
pected spies, and sergcnts de ville to that part of the prison
of La Roquette reserved for condemned criminals. Paul
and his friend the other Seminarist were of the number.
Before the gates of La Roquette they found a fierce crowd
shouting insults and curses. Many were women and chil-
dren. “ Here they come ! ” the mob yelled. “ Down with
the priests ! shoot them ! kill them ! ” Paul preserved his
composure, and looked on with a smile of serene hope
upon his face. “ The scene was like that horror from which
he had prayed to be saved. His terror was gone. His
prayer had been answered.”
The prisoners on reaching La Roquette were first passed
into a hall, where they found the archbishop and several
priests. The former was calm, but he was ill, and his fea-
tures bore marks of acute suffering. After an hour’s delay
the prisoners were locked into separate cells, from which
real malefactors had been removed to make room for them.
In the next cell to Paul was the Abb6 Planchet. By stand-
ing at the window they could hear each other’s voices. The
abbd could read Thomas k Kempis to his fellow prisoner, and
they daily recited together the litany for the dying.
One of the imprisoned priests was a missionary lately
returned from China; and when they met at the hours al-
lowed for fresh air in the courtyard, Paul was eager to hear
his accounts of the martyrdom and steadfastness of Chinese
converts. “ M. Paul,” said an old soldier who was one of328 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
the hostages, “ seemed to look on martyrdom as a privilege,
regretting only the pain it would cause his family.”
On Wednesday, May 24, the execution of the archbishop
and five others took place. Paul saw them pass by his
window; one of the escort shook his gun at him, and
pointing it at the archbishop, gave him to understand what
they were going to do.
The next day, Thursday, May 25, the order came.
“ Citizens,” said the messenger who brought it, “ pay at-
tention, and answer when your names are called. Fifteen
of you are wanted.” As each was named, he stepped out of
the ranks and took his place in the death-row. Paul Sei-
gneret was one of them. He seemed perfectly calm, and
gently pressed the hand of his Seminary friend who was not
summoned.
In the courtyard they were joined by thirty-five ex-
policemen, so-called hostages like themselves. The execu-
tion was to take place in the Rue Haxo, at the farthest
extremity of Belleville, and the march was made on foot,
so that the victims were exposed to all the insults of the
populace. It has been said that when they reached the
Rue Haxo, where they were placed against a wall, Paul was
thrown down while attempting to defend an aged priest,
and was maltreated by the crowd; but this account was
not confirmed when, four days later, the bodies were taken
from the trench into which they had been thrown : Paul’s
showed no sign of violence. His eyes were closed, his face
was calm. His cassock was pierced with balls and stained
with blood. He is buried at Saint-Sulpice.
His father received the news of his death calmly. He
wrote : “ Let us bear our poor child’s death as much like
Christians and as much like men as we can. May his
blood, joined to that of so many other innocent victims,
finally appease the justice of God.” But when, shortly
afterwards, Charles died of an illness brought on by exces-
sive fatigue in serving the ambulances, the father sank un-
der the double stroke, and died fifteen days after his last
remaining son.THE HOSTAGES.
329
From the death of the youngest and the humblest of
these ecclesiastical hostages, we will turn now to that of the
venerable archbishop, and to his experiences during the
forty-eight hours that he passed at La Roquette, after hav-
ing been transferred to it from Mazas.
With studied cruelty and insolence, a cell of the worst
description was assigned to the chief of the clergy in
France. It had been commonly appropriated to murderers
on the eve of their execution. There was barely standing-
room in it beside the filthy and squalid bed. The beds and
cells of the other priests were at least clean, but this treat-
ment of the archbishop had been ordered by the Commune.
On the morning of May 23 the prisoners had been per-
mitted to breathe fresh air in a narrow paved courtyard ; but
the archbishop was too weak and ill for exercise ; he lay half
fainting on his bed. In addition to his other sufferings he
was faint from hunger, for the advance of the Versailles
troops had cut off the Commune’s supplies, and the hostages
were of course the last persons they wished to care for.
Pere Olivariet (shot three days later in the same party as
Paul Seignerel, in the Rue Haxo) had had some cake and
chocolate sent him before he left Mazas; with these he fed
the old man by mouthfuls. This was all the nourishment
the archbishop had during the two days he spent at La
Roquette. Mr. Washburne, the American minister, had
with difficulty obtained permission to send him a small
quantity of strengthening wine during his stay at Mazas.
Rut a greater boon than earthly food or drink was brought
him by Pere Olivariet, who had received while at Mazas,
in a common pasteboard box, some of the consecrated
wafers used by the Roman Catholic Church in holy com-
munion ; and he had it in his power to give the archbishop
the highest consolation that could have been offered him.
It had been intended to execute the hostages on the 23d ;
but the director of the prison, endeavoring to evade the hor-
rible task of delivering up his prisoners, pronounced the
first order he received informal.
The accursed 24th of May dawned, brilliant and beauti-330 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
ful. The archbishop went down in the early morning to
obtain the breath of fresh air allowed him. Judge Bonjean,
who had never professed himself a believer, came up to
him and prayed him for his blessing, saying that he had
seen the truth, as it were on the right hand of Death, and
he too was about to depart in the true faith of a Christian.
By this time the insurgents held little more of Paris than
the heights of Belleville, Pere la Chaise, and the neighbor-
hood of La Roquette, which is not far from the Place de
la Bastille. The Communal Government had quitted the
Hotel-de-Ville and taken refuge not far from La Roquette,
in the Maine of the Eleventh Arrondissement.
At six in the morning of May 24th,1 a second order came
to the director of the prison to deliver up all hostages in
his hands. He remonstrated, saying he could not act upon
an order to deliver up prisoners who were not named.
Finally, a compromise was effected ; six were to be chosen.
The commander of the firing party asked for the prison
register. The names of the hostages were not there. Then
the list from Mazas was demanded. The director could
not find it. At last, after long searching, they discovered
it themselves. Genton, the man in command, sat down
to pick out his six victims. He wrote Darboy, Bonjean,
Jecker, Allard, Clerc, Ducoudray. Then he paused, rubbed
out Jecker, and put in Duguerrey. Darboy, as we know,
was the archbishop; Bonjean, judge of the Court of Ap-
peals ; Allard, head-chaplain to the hospitals, who had been
unwearied in his services to the wounded; Clerc and
Ducoudray were Jesuit fathers; Duguerrey was pastor of
the Madeleine. Jecker was a banker who had negotiated
Mexican loans for the Government. The next day the Com-
mune made a present of him to Genton, who, after trying
in vain to get a few hundred thousand francs out of him for
his ransom, shot him, assisted by four others, one of whom
was Ferre, and flung his body into the cellar of a half-built
house upon the heights of Belleville.
1 Macmillan’s Magazine, 1873.THE HOSTAGES.
331
When the order drawn up by Genton had been ap-
proved at headquarters, the director of the prison had no
resource but to deliver up his prisoners.
Another man, wearing a scarf of office, had now joined
the party. He was very impatient, and accused the others
roundly of a want of revolutionary spirit. He landed
afterwards in New York, where his fellow-Communists gave
him a public reception.
One of the warders of the prison, Henrion by name,
made some attempt to expostulate with the Vengeurs de
Flourcns, who had been told off for the execution. “ What
would you have? ” was the answer. “ Killing is not at all
amusing. We were killing this morning at the Prefecture
of Police. But they say this is reprisal. The Versaillais
have been killing our generals.”
Soon Henrion was called upon to open the fourth corri-
dor. “ I must go and get the keys,” he answered. He
had them in his hand at the moment. He went rapidly
away, flung the keys into a heap of filth, and rushed out
of the prison. By means of a twenty-franc gold piece that
he had with him, he passed out of the gates of Paris, and
sought refuge with the Bavarians at Vincennes.
Meantime another bunch of keys was found, and the ex-
ecutioners, led by Ferrtl, Lolive, and Mdgy, — that member
of the Commune whom none of them seemed to know, —
hurried upstairs. In the crowd were gamins and women,
National Guards, Garibaldians, and others, but chiefly the
Vengeurs de Flourcns, a corps of which an Englishman
who served the Commune said : “ They were to a man all
blackguards.”
Up the prison stairs they swarmed, shouting threats and
curses, especially against the archbishop, who was errone-
ously believed by the populace of Paris to have had provi-
sions hidden in the vaults of Notre Dame and in his palace
during the siege. A turnkey was ordered to summon the
six prisoners; but when he found whom he was to call,
he refused, and the officer in command had to call them
himself.332 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
The archbishop’s name was first. He came out of his
cell at once, wearing his purple cassock. Then Gaspard
Duguerrey was summoned. He was eighty years old.
He did not answer immediately, and was called a second
time. Next, L6on Ducoudray was called, — a Jesuit father,
head of a college, a tall, fine- looking man. He came
forth with a proud smile. Alexis Clerc, also a Jesuit father,
stepped forth briskly, almost gayly. Then came Michel
Allard, the hospital chaplain, — a gentle, kindly-looking
man. The three weeks before his arrest had been spent
by him in attending upon the wounded of the Commune.
Finally the judge, Senator Louis Bonjean, was called. “ In
a moment,” he replied; “ I am putting my coat on.” At
this, one of the leaders seized him. “ You will want no
coat where you are going,” he cried ; “come as you are.”
The only one of the party who seemed to tremble was
the aged cure of the Madeleine; but his nervous tremor
soon passed off, and he was calm like the others. As they
went down the winding stairs, the archbishop (being first)
stepped rapidly before the rest, and turning at the bottom,
raised his hand and pronounced the absolution. After this
there was silence among the prisoners. “ The chaplain
Allard alone,” said one of the Commune, “ kept on mut-
tering something.” He was reciting, half aloud, the service
for the dying.
Pfere Ducoudray had his breviary in his hand. He gave
it, as he passed, to the concierge of the prison. The captain
of the firing party snatched it, and flung it on the fire.
When the spot was reached where the shooting was to
take place, the archbishop addressed some words of pity
and forgiveness to the murderers. Two of the firing party
knelt at his feet; but he had not time to bless them before,
with threats and blows, they were forced to rise, and the
archbishop was ordered to go and place himself against
the wall.
But here, when the bitterness of death was almost passed,
occurred a difficulty. Two of the leaders wanted to have
the execution in a little inner courtyard, shut in by blankTHE HOSTAGES.
333
walls. So the procession was again formed, marched
through long passages and up stairways, and halted while
keys were searched for, before it came to the spot. On
the way, a man crept up to the archbishop, uttering blas-
phemies into his ear. The good man’s mild look of reproof
and pain so moved one of the sub-officers that he drove
the man off, saying : “ We are here to shoot these men,
not to insult them.”
The six victims were at last placed in a line, with their
backs to the wall. As Ferrti was giving the order to fire,
the archbishop raised his right hand in order to give, as his
last act, his episcopal blessing. As he did so, Lolive
exclaimed: “That’s your benediction is it?—now take
mine ! ” and shot the old man through the body with a
revolver. All were shot dead at once, save M. Bonjean.
There is now a marble slab in the little court inscribed
with their names, and headed : “ Respect this place, which
witnessed the death of noble men and martyrs.” The
warder, Henrion, was put in charge of the place, and
planted it with beds of flowers.
The execution over, the leaders searched the cells of
their victims. In most of them they found nothing; in
two were worn cassocks, and in the archbishop’s was his
pastoral ring. One of the party said the amethyst in it was
a diamond ; another contradicted him, and said it was an
emerald. The bodies lay unburied until two o’clock in the
morning, when four or five of those who had shot them
despoiled them, one hanging the archbishop’s chain and
cross about his own neck, another appropriating his silver
shoe-buckles. Then they loaded the bodies on a hand-
barrow and carried them to an open trench dug in P6re la
Chaise. There, four days later, when the Versaillais had
full possession of the city, they were found. The arch-
bishop and the Abb6 Duguerrey were taken to the arch-
bishop’s house with a guard of honor, and are buried at
Notre Dame. The two Jesuit fathers were buried in their
own cemetery, and Judge Bonjean and the hospital chap-
lain sleep in honored graves in Pere la Chaise.334 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
After these executions a large number of so-called “ hos-
tages,”— ecclesiastics, soldiers of the line, sergents de ville,
and police agents remained shut up in La Roquette. It
was Saturday, May 27, the day before Whit Sunday. Says
the Abb6 Lamazou, —
“ It was a few minutes past three, and I was kneeling in my
cell saying my prayers for the day, when I heard bolts rattling
in the corridor. We were no longer locked in with keys. Sud-
denly the door of my cell was thrown open, and a voice cried:
‘Courage! our time has come.’ ‘Yes, courage!’ I answered.
‘ God’s will be done.’ I had on my ecclesiastical habit, and
went out into the corridor. There I found a mixed crowd of
prisoners, priests, soldiers, and National Guards. The priests
and the National Guards seemed resigned to their fate, but the
soldiers, who had fought the Prussians, could not believe it
was intended to shoot them. Suddenly a voice, loud as a trum-
pet, rose above the din. ‘Friends,’ it cried, ‘hearken to a man
who desires to save you. These wretches of the Commune
have killed more than enough people. Don’t let yourselves be
murdered ! Join me. Let us resist. Sooner than give you up
I will die with you!’ The speaker was Poiret, one of the
warders of the prison. He had been horrified by what had
been done already, and when ordered by his superiors to give
up the prisoners in his corridor to a yelling crowd, he had
shut the doors on the third story behind him, and was advis-
ing us, at the risk of his own life, to organize resistance.”
The abb6 joined him with, “ Don’t let us be shot, my
friends ; let us defend ourselves. Trust in God; he is on
our side ! ”
But many hesitated. “ Resistance is mere madness,”
they said; and a soldier shouted, “ They don’t want to kill
us ; they want the priests ! Don’t let us lose our lives
defending them ! ”
“The sergents de ville in the story below you,” cried
Poiret, “ are going to defend themselves. They are mak-
ing a barricade across the door of their corridor. We have
no arms, but we have courage. Don’t let us be shot down
by the rabble.”
It was proposed to make a hole in the floor, and so toTHE HOSTAGES.
335
communicate with the sergents de ville. The prisoners
armed themselves with boards and iron torn from their bed-
steads, and in five minutes had made an opening through
the floor. A non-commissioned officer from below climbed
through it, and arranged with Poiret the plan of defence.
By this time the inner courtyard of the prison was in-
vaded by a rough and squalid crowd, come to take a hand
in whatever murder or mischief might be done. The be-
sieged put mattresses before their windows for protection.
The man who led the mob was one Pasquier, a murderer
who had been in a condemned cell in La Roquette till let
out by the general jail-delivery of the Commune.
Two barricades were built like that on the floor below.
Pasquier and some of his followers had burst open the outer
door, and were endeavoring to burn both the prison and
the prisoners. “ Never fear,” cried a corporal who had
superintended the hasty erection of the barricades ; “ I put
nothing combustible into them. They can’t burn floor
tiles and wire mattresses. Bring all the water you can.”
The crowd continued to shout threats. The battery
from Pere la Chaise, they cried, was coming; and often
a voice would shout, “ Soldiers of the Loire, surrender !
We will not hurt you. We will set you at liberty ! ” A
few soldiers trusted this promise, and as soon as they got
into the crowd were massacred.
In the midst of the tumult came a sudden lull; the be-
sieged could see that something strange had taken place.
The crowd had been informed that the Government, alarmed
by the advance of the Versailles troops, had abandoned its
headquarters at the mairie of the Eleventh Arrondissement,
and had gone to Belleville. Amazed and confused by this
intelligence, the mob followed its leaders. Only a few
minutes before it left, two guns and a mortar had been
brought to fire on the prison; they were now dragged away
in the wake of the Government.
The criminal prisoners at La Roquette were in a state
of great excitement. They had been liberated, and such
weapons as could be found were put into their hands; but336 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
they were not inclined either to kill their fellow-captives or
to fight for the Commune. They hastily made off, shout-
ing, “ Vive la Commune ! Vive la R^publique ! ”
By this time the prison director and his officials had
disappeared. The prison doors were open. Then came
another danger : soldiers of the Commune, fleeing from the
vengeance of the Versaillais, might seek refuge in the prison.
With much difficulty the Abbe Lamazou persuaded Poiret
and some other warders who had stood with him, to close
the gates till the arrival of troops from Versailles. It was
still more difficult, now that a way was open to escape, to
persuade his fellow-captives to remain in prison. Some
priests would not take his advice, among them Monseigneur
Surat, the vicar-general. He had secured a suit of citizen’s
clothes, and hoped to escape in safety. In vain the Abbe
Lamazou called out to him, “ To go is certain death; to
stay is possible safety.” He was killed most cruelly,
together with two priests and a layman.
At eleven o’clock at night, firing seemed to cease in the
city, but outside of the prison the maddened crowd con-
tinued all night howling insults and curses. Hours seemed
ages to the anxious and now famished captives, shut up in
the great building. The barricade of the Rue de la Ro-
quette was near them, still defended by insurgents; but in
the early dawn it was abandoned, and shortly after, a bat-
talion of marines took possession of La Roquette. The
resistance of the prisoners, which had seemed at first so
desperate, had proved successful.
Innumerable other anecdotes have found their way into
print concerning the last hours of the Commune; but I
will rather tell of M£gy, the member of the Council who,
in his scarf of office, animated the party that slew the arch-
bishop and his five companions.
He reached New York in 1878, and, as I said, was re-
ceived with an ovation by a colony of escaped Communists
who had settled on our shores. A reporter connected with
the New York “World ” called upon M6gy, and here is his
account of the interview : —THE HOSTAGES.
337
I was born in Paris, in 1844,’ said the ex-member of the
Commune, lighting a cigar; ‘ I went through a primary school,
and learned but little. I was apprenticed to a machinist.
When I was twenty I found work on the Suez Canal. I was
already a member of a secret society organized against the
Empire, with Blanqui at its head. In 1866 1 came back to
Paris, and persuaded all my fellow-workmen in the establish-
ment where I was employed to become conspirators. We
waited for a good opportunity to commence an insurrection.
Some of us wanted to begin when Pierre Bonaparte murdered
Victor Noir; but it was put off till February 7, when about three
thousand of us rushed into the streets, began raising barri-
cades, and proclaimed a Republic. The next day two thousand
republicans were arrested. On February 11 six police agents
came to my house at a quarter past five in the morning. I had
a pistol, and when the first one entered my room to arrest me,
I shot him dead. You should have seen how the others scam-
pered downstairs. I am glad I killed him. But five minutes
after, I was overpowered, bound, and taken to prison. I was
condemned to twenty years in New Caledonia, with hard labor.
I was sent to Toulon, but before my embarkation the Republic
was proclaimed, and a decree of the Government set me at lib-
erty. I came to Paris, and was named a member of the Munici-
pal Council. In October, 1870, during the siege, an order was
passed for my arrest because I endeavored to deprive General
Trochu of his command. I hid myself, enlisted under a false
name, and fought the Prussians. Then I went to the South of
France, and waited to see what would happen. I was there
when the Commune was proclaimed. I arrested the prefect of
Marseilles on my own responsibility, and put myself in his
place. I was prefect of Marseilles for eight days. Early in
April 1 made my way to Paris, was made a general, and put in
charge of Fort Issy.1 When Fort Issy fell, 1 was made com-
mander-in-chief on the left bank of the Seine. I ordered the
Palace of the Legion of Honor to be set on fire ; I defended
the barricades on the Boulevard of Magenta; and when I left
them on May 24, I found that Ferre and Deleschuze had given
orders to shoot the hostages because the troops of Thiers had
shot eight of our officers.’
“ ‘ Did you approve that order ? ’ ” asked the “ World’s ” re-
porter.
1 General Rossel gave his opinion of the officers in command at
Fort Issy in his letter to the Commune.
22338 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
“ ‘ Yes ; why not? Of course I approved it. I went at once
to La Roquette, to be present at the execution. We were one
hundred and fifty men, but one hundred and twenty of them
slunk away, and only thirty remained for the work we came for.’
“ ‘ And what did you do ? ’
•“31a foi! I don’t particularly care to say what I did; it
might injure me here where I have got work. We called out
the men we came to shoot, and we shot them as that kind of
thing is generally done. We took them down into a court-
yard, put them against a wall, and gave the order to fire ; that
was all.’
“ After a minute’s silence,. Megy added: ‘ It was all M.
Thiers’ fault. We offered to give him up the hostages if he
would give us Blanqui; but he refused, and so we shot them.
After the execution I fought to the last. I escaped from Paris
in a coal-cart, and went to Geneva. I have had work in
London and in Birmingham, and now I have got work in New
York.’ ”
He went on to affirm that there was a large colony
of Communists in that city; that America needed revo-
lutionizing as much as France; that Cardinal McCloskey
might find himself in the same position as Monseigneur
Darboy; and so on.
I have quoted this interview with M£gy at some length,
because it shows the Communists painted by one of their
own number. Before the reporter left him, he chanced
to pronounce the name of Mr. Washburne. “ Washburne
is a liar and a cur,” cried M£gy, angrily. “ Before the
Commune ended, some of our people asked him what the
Versailles Government would do with us if we surrendered
or were conquered. ‘ I assure you,’ he said, ‘ you would
be shot.’ During the siege of Paris, Washburne was a Ger-
man spy. He is a villanous old rascal.”
In studying the history of the Commune, it is desirable
to remember dates. The whole affair lasted seventy-three
days. On March 18 the guns on Montmartre were taken by
the populace, Generals Lecomte and Thomas were shot, and
the Commune was proclaimed. Military operations were
begun April 4. On April 9 Fort Valtirien began to throw
shells into Paris. From that day forward, the VersaillesTHE HOSTAGES.
339
troops continued to advance, taking possession one by one
of the forts and the positions of the Federals. On Sunday,
May 21, the Versailles troops began to enter Paris, and
fought their way steadily from street to street till Sunday,
May 2 7, when all was over. The hostages were not hos-
tages in the true sense of the word; they had not been
given up in pledge for the performance of any promise.
They were persons seized for purposes of intimidation and
retaliation, as in 1826 the Turks seized the most prominent
Christians in Scio.
During the last five days of the Commune, Dombrowski,
its only general with military capacity, was killed, — it is
supposed, by one of his own men. The Tuileries, the
Hotel-de-Ville, and numerous other buildings were fired,
the Dominican Brothers were massacred, and the executions
in the Rue Haxo took place, besides others in other parts
of Belleville and at the Prefecture. One of the most
diabolical pieces of destruction attempted was that of the
Grand Livre.
The Grand Livre is the book kept in the French Treas-
ury in which are inscribed the names and accounts of all
those who hold Government securities; and as the French
Government is the proprietor of all railroads, telegraph
systems, and many other things that in England and the
United States are left to private enterprise, the loss of the
Grand Livre would have involved thousands upon thou-
sands of families in ruin. For a man to have his name
on the Grand Livre is to constitute him what is called
a rentier, rentes being the French word for dividends from
the public funds.
The Grand Livre is kept at the Ministry of Finance ;
that building Ferrd ordered to be summarily destroyed,
uttering the words, “ Flambez Finances.” The building was
accordingly set on fire the day before the Commune fell;
and for some days after, it was thought throughout all
France that the Grand Livre had perished. By heroic
exertions some of it was saved, the officials in charge of
it rushing into the flames and rescuing that portion of it340 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
which contained the names of living property-holders,
while they let the records of past generations burn.
There was in existence a duplicate copy of the Grand
Livre, though this was known only to the higher officials
of the Treasury. It was kept in a sort of register’s office
not far from the Tuileries, and was in the care of a
M. Chazal. When the Tuileries and the Treasury were
on fire, the object of M. Chazal and of all who knew of
the precious duplicate was to save it, in case the build-
ing in which it was deposited should share in the
conflagration.
Of course the Grand Livre is of vast bulk. This copy
was contained in great bundles of loose sheets. Luckily
these papers were in stout oaken boxes on the ground-
floor of a detached building opening on a courtyard. The
Versailles troops had reached the spot, and ninety sappers
and miners, with seven brave firemen, were at work with
water-buckets attempting to save the main building, which
was blazing fiercely when M. Chazal arrived. Already the
detached building in which the precious duplicate was
stored was on fire. There was no place to which he could
safely remove the precious papers, no means of transport
to carry them away.
During the siege orders had been given to have large
piles of sand placed in the courtyards of all public build-
ings, to smother shells should any fall there. There were
three of these sand-piles lying in the yard of this record
office. In them deep trenches were rapidly dug, and the
boxes were buried. Then the pile was covered with all
the incombustible rubbish that could be collected; and
had the Grand Livre been really destroyed, as for some
days it was believed to have been, every Government
creditor would have found his interests safe, through the
exertions of M. Chazal and the intrepid band who worked
under him.
In somewhat the same manner the gold and silver in
the vaults of the Bank of France were saved from pillage.
The narrow staircase leading to the vaults, down whichTHE HOSTAGES.	341
only one man could pass at a time, was by order of the
directors filled up with sand during the siege.
Though my readers may be weary of sad tales of mas-
sacre, that of the Dominicans of Arceuil remains to be
told. Their convent was in the suburbs of Paris; it had
been turned by them into a hospital during the siege, and
it continued to be so used during the Commune. After
the fall of Fort Issy, the insurgent troops made their head-
quarters not far from the convent. They were com-
manded by a general of some ability, but of ferocious
character, named Serizier. He was in the habit of saying,
as he looked from his window into the garden of the Do-
minicans, “Those rascals ought to be roasted alive.” On
May 1 7 the roof of the building in which he lived caught
fire. The Dominicans tucked up their gowns and did
their best to put it out. When all was over, they were
ordered to wait upon the general. They supposed that they
were going to be thanked for their exertions, and were
amazed at finding themselves accused of having set the
building on fire as a signal to the Versaillais. The next
morning a battalion of Communist soldiers surrounded
their convent. The prior, his monks, pupils, and servants,
were arrested and marched to a casemate of a neighboring
fort. Their convent was stripped of everything. The
building, however, was saved by a ruse on the part of an
officer of the Commune, one of the better class. They
were two days without food, and were then driven into
Paris like a flock of sheep, their black-and-white dress
exposing them to all the insults and ribaldry of the excited
multitude; for the Versaillais were in Paris, and hope,
among those who knew the situation, was drawing to an end.
That night the Dominicans were confined in a prison on
the Avenue d’ltalie, where a friend of Serizier’s (known as
Bobeche) was instructed what to do with them. During
the morning, however, Bobeche went to a drinking saloon,
and while there the man he left in charge received orders
to send the priests to work on a barricade. He affected
to misunderstand the order, and sent, instead, fifteen Na-342 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
tional Guards imprisoned for insubordination. When Bo-
beche came back, half-drunk, he was furious. “ What!
was the blood of priests to be spared, and that of patriots
imperilled at a post of danger?” Before long the order
was repeated. “ We will tend your wounded, General,”
said the prior, “ we will go after them under fire, but we
will not do the work of soldiers for you.” At this, sol-
diers were called out to shoot the Dominicans. They
were reluctant to obey, and Serizier dared not risk dis-
obedience. The fathers were remanded to prison, but
were soon called out one by one. Some volunteers had
been found willing to do the shooting, among them two
women, the fiercest of the band. As the fathers came
into the street, all were shot at, but some were un-
touched ; and soon succeeded a dreadful scene. Round
and round the open square, and up side streets, they were
hunted. Four of the twenty escaped. Men laughed and
women clapped their hands at seeing the priests run.
Then Serizier went back to the prison, and was making
preparations to shoot the remaining prisoners, who were
laymen, when one of his subordinates leaned over him
and whispered that the troops of Versailles were at hand.
He dropped his papers and made off. The troops came
on, and picked up the bodies of the dead Dominicans.
Serizier was not arrested till some months after, when the
wife of one of his victims, who had dogged him constantly
after her husband’s death, discovered him in disguise and
gave him up to justice.
The Prefecture of Police, which stands upon an island in
the Seine, in the heart of Paris, had in those days a small
prison in its main building, and an annex for women.
These prisons were full of prisoners, — rfactionnaires, as
they were called in the last days of the struggle.
On May 26, as has been said, nothing remained for the
Commune to do but mischief. Raoul Rigault was busy,
with his corps of Vcngetirs de Flourens, getting through as
many executions as possible ; Felix Pyat was organizing
underground explosions, Ferre, the destruction of publicTHE HOSTAGES.
343
buildings. A gentleman 1 confined in the women’s part of
the Prefecture, chancing to look down from a high window
on the offices of the main building, saw beneath him eight
men in the uniform of the Commune, one of them wearing
much gold lace, who were saturating the window-frames
with something from a bottle, and bedaubing other wood-
work with mops dipped in a bucket that he presumed con-
tained petroleum. Their caps were pulled low over their
eyes, as if they did not wish to be recognized. At last he
saw the officer strike a match and apply it to the wood-
work, which caught fire immediately. Then rose fright-
ful shrieks from the prisons both of the men and the
women, for many others had seen what was going on.
An earnest appeal to a turnkey to go to the director of
the prison and represent to him that all his prisoners would
be burned, was met by the answer that he did not take
orders from prisoners. But all turnkeys were not Com-
munists, though Communist officials were set over them.
Some of them took advantage of the confusion to look into
the cells, and speak hope and comfort to the prisoners.
But as the flames caught the great wooden porch of the
Prefecture, the screams of the women were heart-rending;
They even disturbed Ferrd, who sent orders “ to stop their
squalling.” One warder, Braquond, ventured to remon-
strate. “ Bah ! ” said Ferre, “ they are only women be-
longing to gendarmes and sergents de ville; we shall be well
rid of them.” Then Braquond resolved to organize a
revolt, and save the prisoners. He ran to the corridor, and
with a voice of authority ordered all the cell-doors to be
opened, thus releasing four hundred prisoners. Braquond
put himself at their head and led them on. But when they
reached the outer gate, they were just in time to witness the
departure of the last Vcngettr de Flourens. Ferrd had just
received news that the troops of Versailles were close at
hand, and he and his subordinates fled, leaving the prisoners
to shift for themselves.
But though delivered from the Commune, not only was
1 Le Figaro.344 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
the Prefecture and all in it in peril, but every building and
every life upon the island. Quantities of ammunition had
been stored in the Prefecture; if that caught fire, the
“ Cite ” (as that part of Paris is called) and all its inhabitants
would be blown into the air. The citizens of the quarter,
the turnkeys, and the prisoners had nothing but their hands
with which to fight the flames. In the midst of the fire
they began to carry out the gunpowder. They had to
make all speed, yet to be very careful. One train of
powder escaping from a barrel, one sack of cartridges, with
a rent in it, falling on the pavement, where sparks were
dropping about, might have destroyed the whole “ Cite.”
There was a brave, stout woman, mistress of a coal and
wood yard, named Madame Saint-Chely. She was a native
of Auvergne, whence all porters and water-carriers in Paris
come. With her sleeves tucked up, and her hair flying,
she kept carrying out sack after sack of cartridges, un-
daunted, though her clothes caught fire. Bending beneath
the weight upon her back, she emptied them into the
basin of the fountain that stands in the middle of the Place,
then rushed back for more, while the flames poured from
the windows of the upper story. Her activity and cheerful-
ness animated every one.
There was also a barber named Labois, who distinguished
himself by his courage and activity in rolling barrels of
powder out of the cellar of the prefecture, and plunging
them into the Seine.
When several tons of powder and twenty millions of cart-
ridges had been carried out, danger from that source was
over. The next thing was to fight the flames. Then they
discovered that all the fire-engines had been sent away.
Every basin, pitcher, bucket, or saucepan on the island was
put into requisition. Surrounded by the Seine, they had
plenty of water. All worked with a will. At last an engine
came, sent in to their help from Rambouillet.
One part of the Prefecture, whose burning caused innu-
merable sparks, was the depot for lost property. It con-
tained, among other things twenty thousand umbrellas.THE HOSTAGES.
345
It was above all things desirable to remove the straw
bedding of the prisoners, stored by day in one large room,
and while those busy with powder and cartridges worked
below, Pierre Braquond, the turnkey, took this task upon
himself, assisted by some of his late prisoners.
The difficulty of escaping from the island was great,
for the insuigents would fire on fugitives from the right
bank of the river, the Versailles troops from the left. A
warder, at the risk of his life, crept to the water’s edge
opposite to the Versaillais, and waved a white handkerchief.
As soon as he was seen, the troops ceased firing. Every
moment it was expected that the roof of the prison would
fall in, when suddenly the reservoir on the top of the build-
ing gave way, and the flames were checked by a rush of water.
Braquond had said to Judge Bonjean a few days before he
was sent from the Prefecture to Mazas, “ I can stay here
no longer. I am going to escape to Versailles.” M. Bon-
jean replied : “ As a magistrate I command you to remain ;
as a prisoner I implore you. What would become of those
under your care if the friends of the Commune were set
over them?”
The Ministry of Marine (that is, the Navy Department) is
situated in the Rue Saint-Florentin, near the Rue Royale
and the Place de la Concorde, — the most beautiful part
of the city. The officer who held it for the Commune was
Colonel Brunei, an excellent middle-aged man, far too good
for his associations. There was no stain of any kind on
his past life, but he had been disappointed when peace
was made with the Germans, and had joined the Commune
in a moment of patriotic enthusiasm. Once in its service,
there was no way to escape.
On May 23 the Versaillais were gaining every' moment.
There was a man named Matillion, charged by the Central
Committee to do anything or to bum anything to prevent
their advance. That night, when houses that he had set on
fire were blazing in the Rue Royale (he had had petroleum
pumped upon them by fire-engines), there was a fierce
orgy held by the light of the flames before the Church of346 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
the Madeleine. A wild, demon-like dance was led by
three women who had done duty all day as petroleuses, —
Florence, Aurore, and Marie. Marie had been publicly
thanked at the Hotel-de-Ville for sending a cannon-
ball through one of the statues before the Chamber of
Deputies.
Three battalions of Communist soldiers stationed in the
Ministry of Marine, which had been converted into a hos-
pital, took advantage of the fact that the general attention
was fixed upon this orgy to quit their post and steal away,
leaving the Ministry undefended. It was eleven at night;
Colonel Brunei was sending to the Central Committee for
fresh soldiers and fresh orders, when a paper was given him.
He read it, turned pale, and sent for the doctor. “ The
Central Committee,” he said, “ orders me to blow up this
building immediately.” “ But my wounded ? ” cried the doc-
tor. There were one hundred and seven wounded soldiers of
the Commune in the hospital. There was no place to which
they could be moved, and no means of transportation.
Colonel Brunei sent an orderly to represent the case to the
Committee. All he could obtain was a detail of National
Guards to assist in carrying away the wounded, together
with a positive order to burn down the building. As the
sick men were being very slowly carried out, a party arrived,
commanded by a drunken officer, and carrying buckets of
coal-oil and other combustibles, which they scattered about
the rooms. By this time the fires of the Versaillais gleamed
through the trees in the Champs £lys6es. The Rue Royale,
near at hand, was in flames. Across the Seine, the Rue de
Lille was burning. The Ministry of Finance and the palace
of the Tuileries seemed a sea of flame. In the Ministry of
Marine were two clerks, long attached to that branch of the
Government service, who had been requested by Admiral
Pothereau, the Minister for Naval Affairs, to remain at their
post and endeavor to protect the papers and property.
Their names were Gablin and Le Sage. M. Le Sage had
his wife with him in the building. These men resolved
to save the Ministry, or perish. While Le Sage, who wasTHE HOSTAGES.
347
expert in gymnastics, set out to see if he could reach the
general in command of the Versaillais, Gablin turned all his
energies to prevent the impending conflagration. Putting
on an air of haste and terror, he rushed into the room
where the soldiers were refreshing themselves, and cried out
lustily that the Versaillais were upon them, but that if they
followed him, he would save them. Under pretence of
showing them a secret passage, he led them into a chamber
and locked the door. Then he turned his attention to
their commander. He represented to him that the Ver-
saillais were close at hand, and promised him safety and a
handsome reward if he would not set fire to the building.
“ But I have my orders ! ” objected the half-tipsy officer.
“ I have the order you had better obey,” replied Gablin,
pointing a pistol at his head. “ Now, shall I fire, or shall
I reward you?” The officer gave in. He helped M.
Gablin to pour the buckets of coal-oil into the gutters in the
courtyard, to clear away the powder, and to drench the
floors with water. Then Gablin took him to a chamber,
gave him plain clothes, and locked him in. He fell asleep
upon the bed in a moment.
Le Sage meanwhile had made his way over the roofs of
neighboring houses, and then descended to the Champs
Elys^es. He was arrested several times by sentries, but at
last made his way to General Douai. The general heard
his story, and then put a paper into his hand, saying, “ The
Ministry of Marine is already ours.” Admiral Pothereau
himself, at three o’clock in the morning, was looking towards
his old offices and residence from the Champs filysees. He
remarked to an aide-de-camp and to another officer : “All
looks very quiet. Suppose we go and reconnoitre, and
see how near we can approach my official home.” They
held their swords in their hands, and, followed by three
gendarmes, cautiously drew near the Ministry. They met
with no opposition, and finally walked in. “ Where’s Le
Sage? ” was the admiral’s first question. “ He is out looking
for you, M. le Ministre,” cried Le Sage’s wife, shedding
tears of anxiety.348 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Thus the Ministry of Marine was captured by the min-
ister ; but the building itself and all its valuable documents
had been preserved by the fidelity of two young men.
As for the Communist officer, when he came to himself
he sincerely repented his connection with the Commune.
He was pardoned, became a respectable citizen, and found
a true Inend in M. Gablin.CHAPTER XVII.
THE GREAT REVENGE.
THE Commune cost Paris fourteen thousand lives. Eight
thousand persons were executed ; six thousand were
killed in open fight. Before the siege Paris had contained
two million and a quarter of inhabitants : she had not half
that number during the Commune, notwithstanding the
multitude of small proprietors and peasants who had flocked
thither from devastated homes.
Monday, May 29, found the city in the hands of the Ver-
saillais. The Provisional Government and its Parliament
were victorious. The army, defeated at Sedan, had con-
quered its insurgent countrymen. All that remained of the
Commune was wreck and devastation. The Tuileries, the
Column of the Place Vendome, the Treasury, the Palace of
the Legion of Honor, and the Hotel-de-Yille, or City
Hall, were destroyed, besides two theatres, the Law Courts,
or Palais de Justice, the offices of the Council of State
and the Court of Accounts, the State Safe Deposit (Caisse
des Depots et de Consignations), the Library of the Louvre,
the manufactory of Gobelin’s tapestry, the Prefecture of
Police, eight whole streets, and innumerable scattered
private houses. The vengeance of the soldiers as they
made their way from street to street, from barricade to bar-
ricade, was savage and indiscriminate. Every man arrested
whose hands were black with powder was carried to a street
corner or a courtyard, and summarily shot. Of course many
wholly innocent persons perished, for the troops of the
Commune had been of two kinds, — the National Guard
and the Volunteers. Most of the latter w'ere devils incarnate.350 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Among them were the Vengeurs de Flourens, who were
foremost in executions, and bands called by such names as
Les Enjants du P'ere Duchene and Les Enfants Perdus.
The National Guards were of three classes, — genuine Com-
munists, workmen whose pay was their only resource for
the support of their families, and pressed men, forced to
fight, of whom there were a great many.
I have before me three narratives written by gentlemen
who either suffered or participated in the Great Revenge.
One was a resident in Paris who had taken no part either
for or against the Commune; one had served it on compul-
sion as a soldier; and one was an officer of the Versailles
army, who on May 21 led his troops through a breach into
the city, and fought on till May 27, when all was over.
It seems to me that such accounts of personal experience
in troubled times give a far more vivid picture of events
than a mere formal narration. I therefore quote them in
this chapter in preference to telling the story in my own
words.
The first is by Count Joseph Orsi,1 whose visit to Raoul
Rigault’s office at the Prefecture of Police has already
been told. He was left unmolested by the Commune, most
probably because in early life he had been a member of
those secret societies in Italy to which Louis Napoleon
himself belonged. He says, —
“On May 22 Paris was entering the last stage of its death
struggle. The army of Versailles had entered it from four dif-
ferent points. The fight was desperate. Barricades were
erected in almost every street. Prisoners on both sides were
shot in scores at the street-corners. Three of the largest houses
in the Rue Royale, where I lived, were on fire. Soldiers of the
regular army were beginning to appear in our quarter, and early
on Thursday, May 25, I heard the bell of my apartment ring
violently. I opened it, and found myself face to face with twelve
voltigeurs of the Versailles army, commanded by a lieutenant,
who ordered the soldiers to search the house and shoot anyone
wearing a uniform. He told me that he must occupy my draw-
ing-room, which looked on the Rue Royale, for the purpose of
1 Published in Fraser’s Magazine, 1S79.THE GREAT REVENGE.
35 1
firing on the insurgents, who were holding a barricade where
the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore joins the Rue Royale. My
wife was seated on her sofa. He ordered her to leave the room.
She resisted, and was removed by force. The soldiers then
began firing on the insurgents from the windows. The insur-
gents had possession of the upper floors of some houses facing
mine, and fired with such effect that the soldiers were driven
from their position. The officer withdrew his men from the
drawing-room and asked for a map of Paris, for he did not know
exactly where he was. I made a friend of him by pointing to
my pictures, every one of which proved me to be a friend and
follower of the emperor. He asked me if I had any wine to
give his men, who had had nothing to eat or drink since the
previous night. While they were partaking of bread and wine
in the kitchen, and I was talking with the officer in the dining-
room, a shot fired from across the street struck the officer on
the temple. He fell as if struck dead. His soldiers rushed in
and seized me. They were about to shoot me on the spot, when
luckily my servant, with water and vinegar, brought the officer
to his senses, so that he could raise his hand and make a sign
to the soldiers, who had me fast by both my arms, to keep quiet.
By God’s mercy the officer had only been stunned. He had
been hit, not by a bullet, but by a piece of brick forced out of
the wall by a shot. I was released, but the soldiers were far
from satisfied, believing their officer had accepted this explana-
tion only to spare my life. They left my house at nightfall, and
afterwards the fire of the insurgents became so hot that the
front wall of the house fell in, and everything I had was smashed
to pieces.
The next morning, May 26, as I was searching for some
valuable papers among the ruins, two men in plain clothes en-
tered and ordered me to follow them to the Prefecture of Police,
temporarily located on the Quai d’Orsay. As Paris was by this
time completely under military rule I was examined by an officer.
I told him that, not knowing for what purpose I was wanted, I
had left my papers at home, and was sent under charge of two
men to fetch them. I was also given to understand that I had
better make any arrangements I thought necessary for my wife,
which led me to think it probable I should be shot or impris-
oned. It was a reign of terror of a new kind, of which I could
never have expected to be a victim. As we were crossing the
Place de la Concorde we saw half a dozen soldiers who had
seized four Federals on the barricade close by. A struggle was
going on for life or death. The soldiers, having at last the352 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
upper hand, strove to drag the Federals to the wall of the Min-
istry of Marine to be shot. The poor wretches were imploring
for mercy, and refused to stand erect. Seeing this, the soldiers
shot them one after the other as they lay upon the ground.
“ I was finally disposed of, in company with other prisoners,
in some large stables and carriage houses. Some of us were in
/.lain clothes, some in uniform. We were all packed together
so closely that there was not even the possibility of lying down
upon the stones. Bread and water alone were given us. On the
approach of night we were shut in like cattle, with the intima-
tion that any attempt to revolt or escape would be followed by
instant execution.
“The next morning, May 27, at dawn, ten soldiers, with an
officer at their head, began calling by name eight or ten prison-
ers at a time from one of our places of confinement, and they
were dragged away, God knows where. Utter dejection and
despair were depicted on the face of every man, especially on
those who had been seized on the barricades or in uniform.
That afternoon I was called out, being part of a batch of nine
prisoners, mostly in plain clothes. On that day rain fell inces-
santly. We thought as we marched through the mud and drizzle
that we were going to be shot en masse without any further
trial; but on reaching the Champ de Mars, our escort was or-
dered to take us to the barracks that are near it. There our
names were taken down by an officer, and we were locked up in
a room where seven other prisoners had already been confined.
It would be too horrible to relate the filth and closeness of that
place, which might have held seven or eight people, and we
were sixteen ! There was a board fitted between two walls
where seven people could lie. This was appropriated before we
got there. We were forced to stand up or to lie down on the
stones, which were damp and inexpressibly dirty. We remained
thus for two days. On the 29th the door opened at seven A. m.
Eight soldiers were drawn up outside. The sergeant called out
one of the prisoners named Lefevre, who wore a National
Guard’s uniform. The poor fellow stepped out between the two
lines of soldiers, and the door closed on him. He was taken
before the colonel, who was instructed to examine the prisoners,
and had the discretionary power of ordering them to be shot on
the spot, or of sending them to Versailles to appear before the
superior commission, by whom they were either set at liberty or
sentenced to transportation. Poor Lefevre was not heard of
again. We thought we heard a brisk volley of musketry in the
Urge courtyard, but we had been so accustomed to such noisesTHE GREAT REVENGE.
353
that it did not attract general attention. Later in the day an-
other prisoner was called out in the same manner, and he came
back no more; this time the noise of the discharge was distinct,
and made us alive to the imminence of our fate. On the third
prisoner being called out, he refused to go. Two soldiers had
to take him by force. He fought desperately for his life. The
door was shut. We had not long to wait; the discharge of
musketry re-echoed in our cell, and caused within it such a scene
of despair as baffles description.
“ Next day four men were taken out and executed, which re-
duced our number to nine. By this time we had recovered from
the shots and heeded little what was going to take place, as
every one of us had bidden adieu to this world and made his
peace with God.
“On May 31 our door was opened again. Twelve soldiers
were drawn up before it. We were all ordered out. We thought
we were going to be shot cn masse, to make quicker work of us.
To my amazement, we saw a large column of about four hun-
dred prisoners, four abreast, between two lines of grenadiers.
Evidently we were intended to form the last contingent to it.
The soldiers having been drawn up in two long lines on both
sides of the column, an officer drew his sword, and standing up
on a wine-hogshead, shouted : ‘ Soldiers, load arms.’ This being
done, he added: ‘ Fire on any prisoner who attempts to revolt
or escape.’
“ We then took the road to the Western Railroad, where we
were put into cattle vans and goods vans, with scarcely room to
breathe, and reached Versailles about six p. m. A detachment
of soldiers escorted us to Satory. The column marched in to
the artillery depot, and the gates were closed. 1 happened to
be the right-hand man of the four last prisoners in the column,
so that I stood only three or four yards from the officer in com-
mand of the place, who stood looking at the prisoners, with his
arms folded and his officers beside him. I saw him staring at
me, which I attributed to my being the best-dressed man of the
party. Presently he walked slowly up to me, and measuring
me from head to foot with what I took to be a diabolical sneer,
cried, 1 Ho ! Ho ! the ribbon of the Legion of Honor! You
got it, I suppose, on the barricades 1’ With that I felt a sharp
pull at my coat. Quick as thought, I brought my hand down,
and caught his firmly as he was trying to tear the ribbon from
my breast. In my agitated state of mind I had not been aware
I was wearing a coat that had it on. ‘ You may shoot me, Cap-
tain,’ I said, ‘but you shall not wrest that ribbon from me.’
23354 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
‘Where did you get it?’ 1 The prince president of the Republic,
Louis Napoleon, gave it me.’ ‘When?’ ‘On September 23,
1853.’	‘ How is it, then, that you were arrested ? Was it on a
barricade?’ ‘No, Captain, in my own apartment. It is not
likely I should fight for the Commune after having been a de-
voted friend of the emperor for forty years.’ ‘Your name?’
‘ Count Joseph Orsi.’ He looked at me again, and having joined
his officers, to whom he related what had taken place, he turned
round and in a loud voice said to me: ‘ Come out of the ranks.’
Then, seeing a gendarme close by, he said: ‘ Do not lose sight
of this prisoner.’”
For two days the captain kept Count Orsi in his office
and encouraged him to write to any friends he might have
in Versailles. Count Orsi named M. Grdvy (afterwards
president) as having been for years his legal adviser, and
he wrote a few lines to various other persons. But there
were no posts, and in the confusion of Versailles at that
moment there seemed little chance that his notes would
reach their destination. Two days later an order came to
Satory to send all prisoners to Versailles, and the kind-
hearted captain was forced to return Count Orsi to the
column of his fellow-prisoners.
At Versailles they were shut up in the wine-cellars of the
palace, forty-five feet underground. The prisoners confined
there were the very dregs and scum of the insurrection.
The cellars had only some old straw on the floors, left there
by the Prussians. There were six hundred men confined
in this place, and the torture they endured from the close
air, the filth, and the impossibility of lying CiOwn at night
was terrible.
Count Orsi was ten days in this horrible prison. At last
one evening he heard his name called. His release had
come. On going to the door he was taken before a supe-
rior officer, who expressed surprise and regret at the mistake
that had been committed, and at once set him at liberty.
A brave little boy, charged with one of his notes, had per-
severed through all kinds of difficulties in putting it into the
hands of the English lady to whom it was addressed. This
lady and the Italian ambassador had effected Count Orsi’sTHE GREAT REVENGE.
355
release. He was ill with low fever for some weeks in con-
sequence of the bad air he had breathed during his confine-
ment. Subsequently he discovered that personal spite had
caused his arrest as a friend of the Commune.
My next account of those days is drawn from the ex-
perience of the Marquis de Compiegne,1 one of the Versailles
officers. He was travelling in Florida when the Franco-
Prussian war broke out, but hastened home at once to join
the army. He fought at Sedan and was taken prisoner to
Germany, but returned in time to act against the Com-
mune. Afterwards he became an explorer in the Soudan,
and in 1877 was killed in a duel.
On the 20th of May, news having reached Versailles that
the first detachment of regular troops had made their way
into Paris, M. de Compiegne hastened to join his battalion,
which he had that morning quitted on a few hours’ leave.
As they approached the Bois de Boulogne at midnight, the
sky over Paris seemed red with flame. They halted for
some hours, the men sleeping, the officers amusing them-
selves by guessing conundrums; but as day dawned, they
entered Paris through a breach in the defences. The young
officer says, —
“ I shall never forget the sight. The fortifications had been
riddled with balls ; the casemates were broken in. All over the
ground were strewn haversacks, packets of cartridges, fragments
of muskets, scraps of uniforms, tin cans that had held preserved
meats, ammunition-wagons that had been blown up, mangled
horses, men dying and dead, artillerymen cut down at their
guns, broken gun-carriages, disabled siege-guns, with their wheels
splashed red from pools of blood, but still pointed at our posi-
tions, while around were the still smoking walls of ruined private
houses. A company of infantry was guarding about six hun-
dred prisoners, who with folded arms and lowering faces were
standing among the ruins. They were of all ages, grades, and
uniforms, — boys of fifteen and old men, general officers covered
with gold lace, and beggars in rags : Avengers of Flourens,
1 His narrative was published in the “ Supplement Litteraire du
Figaro.”356 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Children of Pfere Duchene, Chasseurs and Zouaves, Lascars,
Turcos, and Hussars. We halted a little farther in the city. We
were very hungry, but all the shops were closed. I got some
milk, but some of my comrades, who wanted wine, made a raid
into the cellar of an abandoned house, and were jumped upon
by an immense negro dressed like a Turco, whom they took for
the devil. Glad as we all were to be in Paris, the sight as we
marched on was most melancholy. Fighting seemed going on
in all directions, especially near the Tuileries and the Place de
la Concorde. The Arch of Triumph was not seriously injured.
On the top of it were two mortars, and the tricolored flag had
been replaced by the drapeau rouge. Detachments were all
the time passing us with prisoners. They were thrust for safe-
keeping wherever space could be found. I am sorry to say
that they were cruelly insulted, and, as usual, those who had
fought least had the foulest tongues. There was one party of
deserters still in uniform, with their coats turned inside out. I
saw one of the prettiest girls I have ever seen, among the
prisoners. She was about fourteen, dressed as a cantiniere,
with a red scarf round her waist. A smile was on her lips, and
she carried herself proudly.
“That morning, May 22, I saw nobody shot. I think they
wanted to take all the prisoners they could to Versailles as
trophies of victory. About one o’clock we received orders to
march, and went down the Boulevard Malesherbes. All the
inhabitants seemed to be at their windows, and in many places
we were loudly welcomed. It was strange to me to be marching
with arms in my hands, powder-stained and dirty, along streets
I had so often trodden gay, careless, and in search of pleasure.
“ On the march we passed the Carmelite Convent, where my
sister was at school; and as we halted, I was able to run in a
moment and see her. Only an hour or two before, the nuns
had had a Communist picket in their yard.
“We marched on to the Parc Monceau [once Louis Philippe’s
private pleasure-garden]. There our men were shooting pris-
oners who had been taken with arms in their hands. I saw
fifteen men fall, — and then a woman.
“That night volunteers were called for to defend an outlying
barricade which had been taken from the insurgents, and of
which they were endeavoring to regain possession. Our cap-
tain led a party to this place, and in a tall house that overlooked
the barricade he stationed three of us. There, lying flat on our
faces on a billiard-table, we exchanged many shots with the
enemy. A number of National Guards came up and surren-THE GREAT REVENGE.
357
dered to us as prisoners. As soon as one presented himself
with the butt of his musket in the air, we made him come under
the window, where two of us stood ready to fire in case of
treachery, while the third took him to the lieutenant. In the
course of the night I was slightly wounded in the ear. A sur-
geon pinned it up with two black pins.
“It was now May 23, — an ever-memorable day. We were
pushing on into Paris, and were to attack Montmartre ; but first
we had to make sure of the houses in our rear. Then began
that terrible fighting in the streets, when every man fights hand
to hand, when one must jump, revolver in hand, into dark cellars,
or rush up narrow staircases with an enemy who knows the
ground, lying in wait. Two or three shots, well aimed, come
from one house, and each brings down a comrade. Exasperated,
we break in the door and rush through the chambers. The
crime must be punished, the murderers are still on the spot;
but there are ten men in the house. Each swears that he is
innocent. Then each soldier has to take upon himself the
office of a judge. He looks to see if the gun of each man has
been discharged recently, if the blouse and the citizen’s trousers
have not been hastily drawn over a uniform. Death and life
are in his hands; no one will ever call him to account for his
decision. Women and children fall at his feet imploring pity ;
through all the house resound sobs, groans, and the reports of
rifles. At the corner of every street lie the bodies of men shot,
or stand prisoners about to be executed.
“ I was thankful when the moment came to attack the heights
of Montmartre, and to engage in open warfare. General Pradie,
our brigadier-general, marched at our head, greatly exposed,
because of the gold lace on his uniform. An insurgent, whom
we had taken prisoner, suddenly sprang from his guards, seized
the general's horse, and presented at him a revolver that he had
hidden in his belt. The general, furious, cried, ‘ Shoot him !
shoot him !’ But we dared not, they were too close together.
Suddenly the man sprang back, gained the street, and though
twenty of us fired in haste at once, every ball missed him.
Leaping like a goat, he made his escape. The general was
very angry. Step by step we made our way, slowly, it is true,
but never losing ground. About two hundred yards from Mont-
martre were tall houses and wood-yards where many insurgents
had taken refuge. These sent among us a shower of balls. We
had sharp fighting in this place, but succeeded in gaining the
position. Then we halted for about two hours, to make prepa-
rations for an attack upon the heights. Some of us while we358 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
halted, fired at the enemy, some raided houses and made pris-
oners; some went in search of something to eat, but seldom
found it. I was fortunate, however, while taking some prisoners
to the provost-marshal, to be able to buy a dozen salt herrings,
four pints of milk, nine loaves of bread, some prunes, some
barley-sugar, and a pound of bacon. I took all I could get, and
from the colonel downward, all my comrades were glad to get a
share of my provisions. The heights of Montmartre had been
riddled by the fire from Mont Valerien. Sometimes a shell from
our mortars would burst in the enemy’s trenches, when a swarm
of human beings would rush out of their holes and run like
rabbits in a warren.”
The punishment of the unfortunate, as well as of the
guilty, was very severe. Their imprisonment in the Great
Orangery at Versailles, where thousands of orange-trees
are stored during the winter, involved frightful suffering.
A commission was appointed to try the prisoners, but its
work was necessarily slow. It was more than a year
before some of the captured leaders of the Commune met
their fate. Those condemned were shot at the Buttes of
Satory, — an immense amphitheatre holding twenty thousand
people, where the emperor on one of his fetes, in the early
days of his marriage, gave a great free hippodrome per-
formance, to the intense gratification of his lieges.
Some prisoners were transported to New Caledonia;
Cayenne had been given up as too unhealthy, and this
lonely island in the far Pacific Ocean had been fixed upon
as the Botany Bay for political offenders. Some of the
leaders in the Council of the Commune were shot in the
streets. Raoul Rigault was of this number. Some were
executed at Satory; some escaped to England, Switzerland,
and America; some were sent to New Caledonia, but were
amnestied, and returned to France to be thorns in the side
of every Government up to the present hour ; some are now
legislators in the French Chamber, some editors and pro-
prietors of newspapers. Among those shot in the heat of
vengeance at Satory was Valin, who had vainly tried to save
the hostages. Deleschuze, in despair at the cowardice of
his associates, quietly sought a barricade when affairs grewTHE GREAT REVENGE.
359
desperate, and standing on it with his arms folded, was shot
down. Cluseret, who had real talent as an artist, had an
exhibition a few years since of his pictures in Paris, and
writing to a friend concerning it, speaks thus of himself:1
“ You can tell me the worst. When a man has passed through
a life full of vicissitudes as I have done, during seventeen years
of which I have seen many campaigns, fighting sometimes
three hundred and sixtv-five days in a year, or marching and
counter-marching, without tents or anything; when one has
been three times outlawed and under sentence of death ; when
one has known much of imprisonment and exile; when one has
suffered from ingratitude, calumny, and poverty, — one is pretty
well seasoned, and can bear to hear the truth.”
One thousand and thirty-one women were among the
prisoners at Versailles and Satory. Many of them were
women of the worst character. Eight hundred and fifty
were set at liberty; four were sent to an insane asylum ;
but doctors declared that nearly every woman who fought
in the streets for the Commune was more or less insane.
The most important of all captures was that of Rochefort.
He had been a leading man in the Council of the Com-
mune, but was so great a favorite with men of literature,
besides having strong friends and an old schoolfellow in
Thiers’ cabinet, that he escaped with transportation to the
Southern Seas. On May 20, when he saw that the end
of the Commune was at hand, he procured from the Dele-
gate for Foreign Affairs passports for himself and his secre-
tary. It is thought that the delegate, enraged at Rochefort’s
purpose of deserting his colleagues, betrayed him to the
Prussians who held the fort of Vincennes. The Prussians
sent word to the frontier, and there the fugitives were
arrested. Rochefort had no luggage, but in his pocket was
a great deal of miscellaneous jewelry, a copy of “ Monte
Cristo,” and some fine cigars. Escorted by Uhlans, he was
brought to St. Germains, and delivered over to the Versailles
Government. For a long time his fate hung in the balance,
and it seemed improbable that even the exertions of
1 Le Figaro.360 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
M. Thiers, the President, and Jules Favre, the Minister for
Foreign Affairs, could save him.
Having told of the last days of the Commune as seen by
Count Orsi and the Marquis de Compiegne, there remains
one more narrative, — the experiences of a man still more
intimately connected with the events of that terrible period,
though, like a soldier in battle, he seems to have been able
to see only what was around him, and could take no gen-
eral view of what went on in other parts of the field.
The writer was an English gentleman who published his
narrative immediately after he returned to England in
September and October, 1871, in “Macmillan’s Magazine.”
“The writer,” says the editor, “is a young gentleman of
good family and position. His name, though suppressed for
good reasons, is known to us, and we have satisfied our-
selves of the trustworthiness of the narrative.” He says :
“ I left England very hurriedly for France on March 29, 1871.
I had neglected to procure a passport, and had no papers to
prove my identity. 1 travelled from Havre to Paris without
trouble, and on the train met two men whom I saw afterwards
as members of the Council of the Commune. The first thing
that struck me on my arrival in Paris was the extreme quietness
of the streets. During the first week of my stay I was absorbed
in my own business, and saw nothing; but on Monday, April 10,
my own part in the concerns of the Commune began. I was
returning home from breakfast about one o’clock in the day,
when I met a sergeant and four men in the street, who stopped
me, and the sergeant said: ‘ Pardon, Citizen, but what is your
battalion ? ’ I answered that, being an Englishman, I did not
belong to any battalion. ‘And your passport, Citizen?’ On
my replying that I had none, he requested me to go with him
to a neighboring mairie, and I was accordingly escorted thither
by the four men. On my arrival I was shown into a cell, com-
fortable enough, though it might have been cleaner. Having no
evidence of my nationality, I felt it was useless to apply to the
Embassy; all the friends I had in Paris who could have identi-
fied me as an Englishman had left the city some days before,
and as I reflected, it appeared to me that if required to serve the
Commune, no other course would be left to me. One thing,
however, I resolved, — to keep myself as much in the back-
ground as possible. In three or four hours I was conductedTHE GREAT REVENGE.
36l
before the members of the Commune for that arrond'ssement.
They received me civilly, asked my name, age, profession, etc.,
and then one of them, taking up a paper, proceeded to say that
I must be placed in a battalion for active service, as I was
under forty years of age. ‘Gentlemen,’ I replied, ‘your politi-
cal affairs are of no interest to me, and it is my misfortune to
be placed in this unpleasant predicament. But I tell you plainly,
you may shoot me if you will, but I absolutely refuse to leave
Paris to fight the Versaillais, who are no enemies of mine in
particular, and I therefore demand to be set at liberty.’ Upon
this they all laughed, and told me to leave the room. After a
little time I was recalled, and told I should be placed in a
compagnie sidentaire. I again remonstrated, and demanded to
be set at liberty, when they said I was drunk, and ordered me
to be locked into my cell, whence I was transferred to my bat-
talion the next morning. I found my captain a remarkably
pleasant man, as indeed were all my comrades in my company,
and I can never forget the kindness I met with from them. My
only regret is my utter ignorance of their fate. I can scarcely
hope they all escaped the miserable fate that overtook so many;
but I should rejoice to know that some were spared. On enter-
ing the captain’s office and taking off my hat, I was told to put
it on again, ‘as we are all equal here, Citizen;’ and after the
captain had said a few words to me, I was regaled with bread,
sardines, and wine, — the rations for the day. The captain was
a young man of six-and-twenty, with a particularly quiet, gentle-
manly manner (he was, I believe, a carpet-weaver). He had been
a soldier, and had served in Africa with distinction.
“ The account of my daily duties as a member of this com-
pany from April 10 to May 23 may be here omitted. I became
orderly to one of the members of the Commune, and being sup-
plied with a good horse (for as an Englishman I was supposed
to be able to ride), I spent much of my time in carrying mes-
sages. On the morning of Tuesday, May 23, our colonel told
us of the death of Dombrowski, who had been shot during the
night, though particulars were not known. I was sorry to hear
of his end, for he had been disposed to be kind to me, and I
knew then that the cause of the Commune was utterly lost, as
he was the only able man among them. The night before, we
had seen such a fire as I never saw before, streaming up to the
sky in two pillars of flame. I was told it was the Tuileries.
The Versaillais were already within the walls of Paris, but this
we in the centre of the city did not know. The news spread
during the day, however, and there was a great panic in the362 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
evening. Everybody began to make preparations for flight, the
soldiers being anxious to get home and change their uniforms
for plain clothes. No one knew with any degree of certainty
where the enemy really was, nor how far he had advanced ; only
one thing was certain, that the game was played out, and that
sauve qtii peut must be the order of the day. Men, women, and
children were rushing frantically about the streets, demanding
news, and repeating it with a hundred variations. The whole
scene was lit up by fires which blazed in all directions. At last
the night gave place to dawn, and the scene was one to be
remembered for a lifetime. The faces of the crowd wore dif-
ferent expressions of horror, amazement, and abject terror. . . .
Early in the morning of Wednesday 24th, I, with some others,
was ordered to the barricade of La Roquette.1 My companions
were very good fellows, with one exception, — a grumpy old
wretch who had served in Africa, and could talk about nothing
but the heat of Algeria and the chances for plunder he had let slip
there. Finding nothing to do at the barricade, I tied my horse
and fell asleep upon the pavement. I dreamed I was at a great
dinner-party in my father’s house, and could get nothing to eat,
though dishes were handed to me in due course. Many times
afterwards my sleeping thoughts took that direction. I really be-
lieve that there were times when I and mauy others would wil-
lingly have been shot, if we could have secured one good meal,
When I awoke, about mid-day, in the Rue de la Roquette, I
found my companions gone to the mairie of the Eleventh Arron-
dissement, and I followed them. Our uniform was not unlike that
of the troops of the line in the French army, so we were taken
by the crowd for deserters, and hailed with ‘ Ah, les bon gar-
qons ! Ah, les bons patriotes! ’ and we shouted back in turn
with all our might, ‘ Vive la Commune ! Vive la Republique!’
Those words were in my mouth the whole of the next three
days. The people never saw a horseman without shrieking to
him, ‘How is all going on at present?’ To which the answer
was invariably, ‘ All goes well! Vive la Commune! Vive la
Republique /’ though the enemy might at that moment be
within five hundred yards. Indeed, the infatuation and cre-
dulity displayed by the French, not only during the insurrection,
but the whole war, was absurd. Tell them on good authority
that they had lost a battle or been driven back, they would
answer that you were joking, and you might think yourself
1 At that time the execution of the hostages was taking place
within the prison.THE GREAT REVENGE.
363
lucky to escape with a whole skin; but say nothing but ‘All
goes well! We have won!’ and without stopping to inquire,
they would at once cheer and shout as if for a decisive
victory.”
The next duty of our Englishman was to act as mounted
orderly to captains who were ordered to visit and report
on the state of the barricades, also to command all citizens
to go into their houses and close the doors and windows.
There was little enthusiasm at the barricades, and every-
where need of reinforcements. The army of the Commune
was melting away. The most energetic officer they saw
was a stalwart negro lieutenant, — possibly the man who, as
De Compiegne tells us, had scared some Versaillais in a
cellar on the 2 2d of May.
On the night of Thursday, May 25, the Column of July
was a remarkable sight. It had been hung with wreaths
of immortelles, and those caught fire from an explosive.
Elsewhere, except for burning buildings, there was total
darkness. There was no gas in Paris, of course. And
here our Englishman goes on to say that so far as his ex-
perience went, he saw no petroleuses nor fighting women,
nor did he believe in their existence.
By Friday, May 26, provisions and fodder were exhausted,
and it was hard for the soldiers of the Commune to get
anything to eat. Our Englishman, in the general disorgani-
zation, became separated from his comrades, and joined
himself to a small troop of horsemen wearing the red shirt
of Garibaldi, who swept past him at a furious gallop. They
were making for the cemetery of Pere la Chaise. “ All is
lost!” they cried. “To get there is our only chance of
safety.” Yet they still shouted to the men and women
whom they passed, “ All goes well! Vive la Commune f
Vive la Republique ! ” By help of an order to visit all the
posts, which the Englishman had in his pocket, they ob-
tained admittance into Phre la Chaise. There were five
Poles in the party, one Englishman, and one Frenchman ;
“and certainly,” adds the narrator, “they were no credit
to their respective nations. It was on their faces that I364 PRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
remarked for the first time that peculiar hunted-dowu look
which was afterwards to be seen on every countenance, and
I presume upon my own.”
Our Englishman rode up to a battery in Pere la Chaise,
planted on the spot made famous by a celebrated passage
in “ Le Pere Goriot,” in which Balzac describes Rastignac,
on the eve of finally selling himself to Satan, as standing and
gazing down on Paris, to conquer a high place in which is
to be his reward. The observer who saw the city from the
same spot on the 26th of May, 1871, says,—
“ Beneath me lay stretched out like a map the once great and
beautiful city, now, alas ! given over a prey to fire and sword. I
could see smoke rising from many a heap of ruins that but a
few short hours before had been a palace or a monument of art.
It was impossible, however, to decide what buildings were actu-
ally burning, for a thick, misty rain had set in, which prevented
my seeing distinctly. In my descent I passed the place where
the body of Dombrowski was lying. He had been shot from
behind, and the ball had passed through his body. At the gate
of the cemetery I found a man waiting for me with news that
Belleville was to be our rendezvous. Words cannot paint the
spectacle that Belleville presented. It was the last place left,
the only refuge remaining; and such an assemblage as was col-
lected there it would be difficult to find again. There were Na-
tional Guards of every battalion, Chasseurs FIderes in their
wonderful uniform, — a sort of cross between Zouave, linesman,
and rifleman, — Enfants Perdas in their green coats and feath-
ers (very few of these were to be seen, as they had no claim to
quarter, nor did they expect any), Chasseurs h Cheval of the
Commune, in their blue jackets and red trousers, leaning idly
against the gates of their stables, Eclaireurs de la Conumme
in blue, Garibaldians in red, hussars, cantinilres, sailors, civi-
lians, women, and children, all mixed up together in the crowded
streets, and looking the picture of anxiety. In the afternoon
about four o’clock we were ordered to mount and to escort ‘ces
coquins,’ — as the officer called a party of prisoners. They were
forty-five gendarmes and six curls, who were to be shot in the
courtyard of a neighboring building. We obeyed our orders
and accompanied them to their destination. I was told off to
keep back the crowd. The men about to die, fifty-one in all,
were placed together, and the word was given to fire. SomeTHE GREAT REVENGE.
36s
few, happier than the rest, fell at once, others died but slowly.
One gendarme made an effort to escape but was shot through
the stomach, and fell, a hideous object, to the ground. One old
curd, with long hair white as snow, had the whole of one side of
his head shot away, and still remained standing. After I had
seen this, I could bear it no longer, but, reckless of consequences,
moved away and left the ground, feeling very sick. As 1 was
in the act of leaving, I observed a lad, a mere boy of fourteen
or fifteen, draw a heavy horseman’s pistol from his belt and fire
in the direction of the dead and dying. He was immediately
applauded by the mob, and embraced by those who stood near
as‘a good patriot.’ And here let me remark that those who
have thought it cruel and inhuman on the part of the conquer-
ors to arrest and detain as prisoners gamins of from twelve to
sixteen, are quite mistaken. Those who remained at the barri-
cades to the last, and were most obstinate in their defence, were
the boys of Paris. They were fierce and uncontrollable, and
appeared to be veritably possessed of devils. The difference
between the irregular corps and the National Guard was that
the latter had, with very few exceptions, been forced to serve,
like myself, under compulsion, or by the stern necessity of pro-
viding bread for their wives and children, while the Irregulars
were all volunteers, and had few married men in their ranks.”
Later in the day two mounted officers in plain clothes,
one of them a captain, whom our friend had served as or-
derly, called him and an artilleryman out of the ranks, and
ordered them to accompany them. After a devious course
through obscure streets of Paris, the officers gave them
some money, and ordered them to go into the next street
and see if they could procure plain clothes. Having done
so, they returned to the place where their officers had prom-
ised to wait for them ; but they had disappeared. This was,
in truth, a good-natured i~use to save the lives of the two
privates, though at the time it was not so understood. Not
knowing what to do, they attempted to return to their regi-
ments, but at the first outpost they were challenged by the
sentry. They had been away five hours, and the counter-
sign had been changed. They were arrested, and carried
to the nearest mairie. They were led upstairs and taken
before a member of the Commune who was sitting at a366 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
table covered with papers, busily writing, surrounded by men
of all ranks and uniforms. On hearing their story, he turned
round, and said, in excellent English, “ What are you doing
here, an Englishman and in plain clothes? ” The English-
man had grown angry. He answered recklessly : “ Yes, I
am English, and I have been compelled to serve your
Commune. I don’t know what your name is, or who
you are, but I request that you give me a paper to allow
me to quit Paris without further molestation.” The mem-
ber of the Commune smiled, and answered : “ There is
only one thing to be done with you. Here, sergeant ! ” And
the Englishman and the artilleryman were escorted to the
guard-room. There everything of value was taken from
them. The Englishman lost his watch, his money, and
what he valued more, his note-book and papers. He wore
a gold ring, the gift of his mother; and as it was difficult
to get off, some of the soldiers proposed amputating the
finger.
Next, a species of court-martial was held, which in a
few minutes passed sentence that they were to be shot at
nine the next morning, for “ refusing to serve the Com-
mune ! ” They had been asked no questions, no evi-
dence had been heard, and no defence had been allowed
them. Says the Englishman, —
“ We were conducted to the Black Hole. There we found
nine others who were to suffer the same fate in the morning. I
was too tired to do anything but throw myself on a filthy mat-
tress, and in a few minutes I was sleeping what I thought was
my last sleep on earth. I was roused at daybreak by a tre-
mendous hammering of my companions on.the door of our cell.
I was irritated, and asked angrily why they could not allow
those who wished to be quiet to remain so. They answered by
telling me to climb up to the window and look into the court-
yard. I found it strewn with corpses. The mairie had been
evacuated during the night, and it was evident we should not be
executed. In vain we tried to force the door of our cell; all we
could do was to make as much noise as possible to attract at-
tention. At last a sergeant of the National Guard procured the
keys, the heavy door was opened, and we were free. I avoidedTHE GREAT REVENGE.
367
a distribution of rifles and ammunition, and passed out into the
street, hoping that my troubles were over. Alas ! they were
only just begun ; for the first sight that met my eyes as I
stepped into the street was a soldier of the Government, calling
on all those in sight to surrender and to lay down their arms. I
gave myself up as a prisoner of war. It was Whit-Sunday,
May 28. Happily my name was written down as one of those
taken without arms.
“ I was placed in a party of prisoners, and we were marched
to the Buttes de Chaumont, passing in our way many a barri-
cade, or rather the remains of them. Here, the body of a man
shot through the head was lying stiff and cold upon the pave-
ment; there, was a pool of coagulated blood ; there, the corpse
of a gentleman in plain clothes, apparently sleeping, with his
head buried in his arms; but a small red stream issuing from
his body told that he slept the sleep of death. Some, as we
marched on, kept silence, some congratulated themselves that
all was over, while some predicted our immediate execution.
All had the same hunted-down, wearied look upon their faces
that I have before alluded to. At last we were halted and given
over to the charge of a regiment of the line. The first order
given was, 1 Fling down your hats ! ’ Luckily I had a little silk
cap, which 1 contrived to slip into my pocket, and which was
afterwards of great comfort to me. We stood bare-headed in
the blazing sun some time, till our attention was called to a
sound of shooting, and a whisper went round: ‘ We are all to
be shot.’ The agonized look on the faces of some, I can never
forget; but these were men of the better sort, and few in number:
the greater part looked sullen and stolid, shrugged their shoul-
ders, and said, ‘ It won’t take long; a shot, and all is over.’
“ A boy about four files behind me was a pitiable object; his
cries and his frantic endeavors to attract notice to a document of
some sort he held in his hand, were silenced at last by a kick from
an officer and a ‘ Taistoi, crapaud ! ’ Very different was it with
a poor child of nine, who stood next to me. He never cried
nor uttered a word of complaint, but stood quietly by my side
for some time, looking furtively into my face. At last he ven-
tured to slip his little hand into mine, and from that time till
the close of that terrible day we marched hand in hand. Mean-
time the executions went on. I counted up to twenty, and
afterwards I believe some six or seven more took place. Those
put to death were nearly all officers of the National Guard.
One who was standing near me, a paymaster, had his little
bag containing the pay of his men, which he had received the368 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
day before, but had not been able to distribute among them.
He now gave it away to those standing round him (I among
them getting a few franfcs), saying, ‘ I shall be shot; but this
money may be of use to you, my children, in your sad captivity.’
He was led out and shot a few minutes afterwards. They all,
without exception, met their fate bravely and like men. There
was no shrinking from death, or entreaties to be spared, among
those I saw killed.
“ After an hour we resumed our march, the mob saluting us
with the choicest selection of curses and abusive epithets I ever
heard. We passed down the Rue Royale, the bystanders call-
ing on us to look upon the ruin we had caused, through the
Champs filysdes to the Arch of Triumph, marching bare-headed,
under a burning sun. At length, in the Avenue de lTmpdratrice,
an order to halt was given. There, weary and footsore, many
dropped down on the ground, waiting for death, which we were
now convinced was near at hand. For myself, I felt utterly
numbed and contented to die, and I think I should have received
with equal indifference the news of my release. I remember
plotting in my mind how I could possibly get news of my fate
conveyed to my parents in England. Could I ask one of the
soldiers to convey a message for me ? And would he under-
stand what to do? With such thoughts, and mechanically
repeating the Lord’s Prayer to myself at intervals, 1 whiled
away more than an hour, until an order, ‘ Get up, all of you,’
broke the thread of my meditations. Presently General the
Marquis de Gallifet (he who had served the emperor in Mexico)
passed slowly down the line, attended by several officers. He
stopped here and there, selecting several of our number, chiefly
the old or the wounded, and ordered them to step out of the
ranks. His commands were usually couched in abusive lan-
guage. A young man near me called out, ‘ I am an American.
Here is my passport. I am innocent.’ ‘ Silence! We have
foreigners and riff-raff more than enough. We have got to get
rid of them,’ was the general’s reply. All chance was over now,
we thought; we should be shot in a few minutes. Our idea
was that those who had been placed aside were to be spared,
and those about me said: ‘ It is just. They would not shoot
the aged and the wounded! ’ Alas! we were soon to be un-
deceived. Again we started, and were ordered to march arm
in arm to the Bois de Boulogne. There those picked out of
our ranks by General de Gallifet — over eighty in number —
were all shot before our eyes ; yet so great was our thirst that
many, while the shooting was going on, were struggling forTHE GREAT REVENGE.	369
water, of which there was only a scant supply. I was not
fortunate enough to get any.
“ The execution being over, we proceeded, now knowing that
our destination was Versailles. Oh, the misery and wretched-
ness of that weary march ! The sun poured fiercely down on
our uncovered heads, our throats were parched with thirst, our
blistered feet and tired legs could hardly support our aching
bodies. Now and again a man utterly worn out would drop by
the wayside. One of our guard would then dismount, and try
by kicks and blows to make him resume his place in the line.
In all cases those measures proved unavailing, and a shot in
the rear told us that one of our number had ceased to exist.
The executioner would then fall into his place, laughing and
chatting gayly with his comrades.
“ Towards eight o’clock in the evening we entered Versailles.
If the curses we had endured in Paris were frightful and nu-
merous, here they were multiplied tenfold. We toiled up the
hill leading to Satory, through mud ankle deep. ‘ There stand
the mitrailleuses, ready for us,’ said one of my companions.
Then, indeed, for the first t;me I felt afraid, and wished I had
been among those who had been executed in the daytime, rather
than be horribly wounded and linger in my misery ; for no sure
aim is taken by a mitrailleuse.
“ The order came to halt, and I waited for the whirring
sound ; but, thank God ! I waited in vain. We set ourselves in
motion once more, and soon were in an immense courtyard
surrounded by walls, having on one side large sheds in which
we were to pass the night. With what eagerness did we throw
ourselves on our faces in the mud, and lap up the filthy water
in the pools ! There was another Englishman, as well as several
Americans, among our number, also some Dutch, Belgians, and
Italians. The Englishman had arrived in Paris from Brest on
May 14 to ‘better himself,’ and had been immediately arrested
and put in prison by the Commune. Being released on the 21st
of May, he was captured the next day by the Versaillais. I re-
mained all the time with him till my release.
“On Wednesday, May 31, we were despatched to Ver-
sailles to be examined at the orangerie. The orangerie is
about seven hundred feet long and forty broad, including
two wings at either end. It is flagged with stone, on which
the dust accumulates in great quantities. According to my ex-
perience, it is bitterly cold at night, and very hot in the day-
time. Within its walls, instead of fragrant orange-trees, were
four to five thousand human beings, now herded together in
24370 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
a condition too miserable to imagine, a prey to vermin, disease,
and starvation.
“ The general appearance of the crowd of captives was, I must
confess, far from prepossessing. They were very dirty, very
dusty and worn out, as I myself was probably, and no wonder;
the floor was several inches thick in dust, no straw was attain-
able, and washing was impossible. I gained some comparative
comfort by gathering up dust in a handkerchief and making a
cushion of it. Thursday, June I, dragged on as miserably as
its predecessor, the only event being the visit of a deputy, which
gave rise to great anticipations, as he said, in my hearing, that
our condition was disgraceful, and that straw and a small portion
of soup ought to be allowed us.
“The terrible scenes and sufferings we had gone through had
deprived many of our number of their reason. Some of the
madmen were dangerous, and made attempts to take the lives
of their companions; others did nothing but shout and scream
day and night. The second night we passed in the orangerie
the Englishman and I thought we had secured a place where we
might lie down and sleep in the side gallery; but af midnight
we were attacked by one of the most dangerous of the madmen.
It was useless to hope to find any other place to lie down in,
and we had no more rest that night, for several maniacs per-
sisted in following us wherever we went, and would allow us no
repose. I counted that night forty-four men bereft of reason
wandering about and attacking others, as they had done our-
selves.
“ The next day we found ourselves at last in the ranks of those
who were to leave the orangerie. Our names were inscribed at
eleven o’clock, and we stood in rank till seven in the evening,
afraid to lose our places if we stirred. What our destination
might be, was to us unknown ; but there was not a man who was
not glad to quit the place where we had suffered such misery.”
Their destination proved to be Brest, which they reached
at midnight of the next day, after travelling in cattle-cars
for about thirty hours. They were transferred at once to a
hulk lying in the harbor, clean shirts and water to wash
with were given them, which seemed positive luxuries.
Their treatment was not bad ; they had hammocks to sleep
in, and permission to smoke on deck every other day. But
the sufferings they had gone through, and the terribly foul
air of the oratigerie, had so broken them down that most ofTHE GEE AT REVENGE.
371
them were stricken by a kind of jail-fever. Many, without
warning, would drop down as if in a fit, and be carried to a
hospital ship moored near them, to be seen no more.
Our Englishman remained three weeks on board this
hulk, and then escaped; but by what means he did not, in
October, 1871, venture to say.
He concludes his narrative with these words : —
“ When I think of those who were with me who still remain in
the same condition, and apparently with no chance of release,
my heart grows sick within me, and I can only be thankful to
Almighty God for my miraculous and providential escape. In
conclusion let me say, as one who lived and suffered among
them, that so far from speaking hardly of the miserable crea-
tures who have been led astray, one ought rather to pity them.
The greater part of those who served the Commune (for all in
Paris, with but few exceptions, did serve) w'ere ‘pressed men ’
like myself. But those who had wives and children to support
and were without work — nay, even without means of obtain-
ing a crust of bread (for the siege had exhausted all their little
savings) — were forced by necessity to enroll themselves in the
National Guard for the sake of their daily pay.
“ In the regular army of the Commune (if I may so style the
National Guard) there were but few volunteers, and these were
in general orderly and respectable men ; but the irregular regi-
ments, such as the Enfants Perdus, Chasseurs Fedhts, Difen-
seurs de la Colonne de Juillet, etc., were nothing but troops of
blackguards and ruffians, who made their uniforms an excuse
for robbery and pillage. Such men deserved the vengeance
which overtook the majority of them.”CHAPTER XVIII.
THE FORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC.
HE fall of the Commune took place in the last week of
May, 1871. We must go back to the surrender of Paris,
in the last week of January of the same year, and take up the
history of France from the election of the National Assem-
bly called together at Bordeaux to conclude terms of peace
with the Prussians, to the election of the first president of
the Third Republic, during which time France was under
the dictatorship of M. Thiers.
Adolphe Thiers was bom in Marseilles, April 16, 1797.
He was a poor little baby, whose father, an ex-Jacobin, had
fled from France to escape the counter-revolution. The
doctor who superintended his entrance into the world re-
corded that he was a healthy, active child, with remarkably
short legs. These legs remained short all his life, but his
body grew to be that of a tall, powerful man. His appear-
ance was by no means aristocratic or dignified if seen from
a distance, but his defects of person were redeemed by the
wondrous sparkle in his eyes. The family of his mother,
on the maternal side, was named Lhomma<;a, and was of
Greek origin. It came from the Levant, and its members
spoke Greek among themselves. Madame Thiers’ father
was named Arnic, and his descent was also Levantine.
Mademoiselle Arnic made a love-match in espousing Thiers,
a widower, who after the 9th Thermidor had taken refuge
under her father’s roof. A writer who obtained materials
for a sketch of Thiers from the Thiers himself, says, —
“ She pitied him, she was dazzled by his brilliant parts,
charmed by his plausible manners, and regardless of his pov-
erty and his incumbrance of many children, she insisted onPA' ES ID EXT ADOLPH THIERS.FORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 373
marrying him. Her family was indignant, and cast her off ;
nor did she long find comfort in her husband. She was a Royal-
ist, and remained so to the end of her days; he was a Jacobin.
Moreover, she soon found that his tastes led him to drink and
dissipation.”
This man, the father of Thiers, was small of stature, mer-
curial in temperament, of universal aptitudes, much wit,
and a perennial buoyancy of disposition. His weakness,
like his son’s, was a passion for omniscience. Some one
said of him : “ He talks encyclopedia, and if anybody asked
him, would be at no loss to tell you what was passing in the
moon.” He had been educated for the Bar, and belonged
to a family of the haute bourgeoisie of Provence ; but every-
thing was changed by the revolutionary see-saw, and shortly
before his son was born, he had been a stevedore in the
docks of Marseilles. His father (the statesman’s grand-
father) had been a cloth merchant and a man of erudition.
He wrote a History of Provence, and died at the age of
ninety-five. The Thiers who preceded him lived to be
ninety-seven, and was a noted gastronome, whose house at
Marseilles in the early part of the eighteenth century was
known far and wide for hospitality and good cheer. He was
ruined by speculative ventures in the American colonies.
Thiers’ grandfather, the cloth merchant, was a Royalist,
who brought down upon himself the wrath of the Jacobins
by inciting the more moderate party in Marseilles to seize
the commissioners sent to them by the Convention, and im-
prison them in the Chateau d’lf. His son (Thiers’ father),
being himself a Jacobin, helped to release the prisoners, and
accepted an office under them in Marseilles. This was the
reason why he had to conceal himself during the reaction
that followed the fall of Robespierre. But all his life he
bobbed like a cork to the surface of events, or with equal
facility sank beneath them. He seems to have been
“ everything by turns, and nothing long.” Among other
employments he became an impressario, and went with an
opera troupe to Italy. There for a time he kept a gaming
table, and finally turned up at Joseph Bonaparte’s court at374 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Naples. He became popular with King Joseph, and fol-
lowed him to Madrid. He was a French Micawber, without
the domestic affections of his English counterpart, but with
far more brilliant chances. His wife was left to struggle at
Marseilles with her own boy to support, and with a host of
step-children. What she would have done but for the kind-
ness of her mother, Madame Arnic, it is hard to tell.
Meantime Adolphe was adopted and educated by Ma-
dame Arnic. She had provided him from his birth with
influential patrons in the persons of two well-to-do god-
fathers. The boy was brought up in one of those beautiful
bastides, or sea-and-country villas, which adorn the shores of
Provence. There he ran wild with the little peasant boys,
and subsequently in Marseilles with the gamins of the city.
His cousin, the poet Andr£ Chenier, got him an appoint-
ment to one of the lycees, or high-schools,' established
by Napoleon; but his grandmother would not hear of his
“wearing Bonaparte’s livery.” The two god-fathers had to
threaten to apply to the absent Micawber on the subject,
if the boy’s mother and grandmother stood in the way of
his education. They yielded at last, and accepted the ap-
pointment offered them. Adolphe passed with high marks
into the institution, and it cost him no trouble to keep
always at the head of his classes. But in play hours there
was never a more troublesome boy. He so perplexed
and annoyed his superiors that they were on the eve of ex-
pelling him, when a new master came to the lycee from
Paris, and all was changed. This master had ruined his
prospects by writing a pamphlet against the Empire. A
warm friendship sprang up between him and his brilliant
pupil. The good man was an unbending republican.
When Thiers became Prime Minister of France under Louis
Philippe, he wrote to his old master and offered him an
important post in the Bureau of Public Instruction ; but the
old man refused it. He would not accept Louis Philippe
as “ the best of republics,” and ended his letter by saying :
“ The best thing I can wish you is that you may soon retire
from office, and that for a long time.”FORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 375
The influence of this new teacher roused all Thiers’ facul-
ties and stimulated his industry. From that time forward
he became the most industrious man of his age. The bulle-
tins and the victories of Napoleon excited his imagination.
He would take a bulletin for his theme, and write up an
account of a battle, supplementing his few facts by his own
vivid imagination. His idea was that France must be the
strongest of European powers, or she would prove the
weakest; she could not hold a middle place in the federa-
tion of European nations.
When Thiers had finished his school course his grand-
mother mortgaged her house to supply funds for his en-
trance into the college at Aix. He could not enter the
army on account of his size, and he aspired to the Bar.
His family was very poor at that period. Thiers largely
supported himself by painting miniatures, which it is said
he did remarkably well.
At Aix he found good literary society and congenial asso-
ciations. His friendship with his fellow-historian, Mignet,
began in their college days. At Aix, too, where he was
given full liberty to enjoy the Marquis d’Alberta’s gallery
of art and wonderful collection of curiosities and bronzes,
he acquired his life-long taste for such things. Aix was
indeed a place full of collections, — of antiquities, of cameos,
of marbles, etc.
Thiers’ first literary success was the winning a prize at
Nimes for a monograph on Vauvenargues, a moralist of
the eighteenth century, called by Voltaire the master-mind
of his period. He won this prize under remarkable cir-
cumstances. The commission to award it was composed
largely of Royalists, who did not like to assign it to a com-
petitor, who, if not a Republican, was at least a Bonapartist.
Thiers had read passages from his essay to friends, and the
commissioners were aware of its authorship. They there-
fore postponed their decision. Meantime Thiers wrote
another essay on the same subject. Mignet had it copied,
and forwarded to Nimes from Paris, with a new motto.
This essay won the first prize; and Thiers’ other essay won376 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
the second prize, greatly to his amusement and delight, and
to the annoyance and discomfiture of the Committee of
Decision.
With six hundred francs in his pocket ($120), he went
up to Paris, making the journey on foot. Having arrived
there, he made his way to his friend Mignet’s garret, weary
and footsore, carrying his bundle in his hand. Mignet was
not at home; but in the opposite chamber, which Thiers
entered to make inquiries for his friend, was a gay circle
of Bohemians, who were enjoying a revel. The traveller
who broke in upon their mirth is thus described : —
“ He wore a coat that had been green, and was faded to yellow,
tight buff trousers too short to cover his ankles, and dusty, and
glossy from long use, a pair of clumsy blucher boots, and a
hat worthy of a place in the cabinet of an antiquary. His face
was tanned a deep brown, and a pair of brass-rimmed spectacles
covered half his face.”
That was about 1821. Thiers was then not a profound
politician, nor was he very clear as to theories about repub-
licanism ; but he was an enthusiast for Napoleon, an enthu-
siast for France. He employed his leisure in making notes
in the public libraries on the events between 1 788 and x 799,
— the year of the 18th Brumaire. His future History of
the Revolution, Consulate, and Empire began, unconsciously
to himself, to grow under his hand. He had hoped to be
called to the Bar in Paris; but as his want of height had
prevented his entering the army, so his want of money pre-
vented his entrance to the ranks of the lawyers of the
capital. The council which recommends such admissions
required at that period that the person seeking admittance
should show himself possessed of a well-furnished domicile
and a sufficient income. Thiers’ resources fell far short of
this. For a while he supported himself in Paris as best he
could, partly by painting fans; he then returned to Aix,
where he was admitted to the Bar. But he could not stay
long away from Paris. He returned, and again struggled
with poverty, painting and making applications for literaryFORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 377
and newspaper work in all directions. At last, about the
time of Louis XVIII.'s death, Manuel, the semi-republican
deputy from Marseilles, took him up. He was then en-
gaged upon his History, and was private secretary to the
Due de Liancourt, to whose notice he had been brought by
Talleyrand in a letter which said: “Two young men have
lately brought me strong recommendations. One is gentle-
manly and appears to have the qualifications you desire in
a secretary; the other is uncouth to a degree, but I think
I can discern in him sparks of the fire of genius.” The
duke’s reply was brief: “ Send me the second one."
In 1826 Thiers began to attract public notice as a clever
and somewhat turbulent opponent of the priest party under
Charles X. He got his first journalistic employment from
the editor of a leading paper in Paris, the “ Constitutionnel.”
He had a letter of introduction to the editor, who, nowise
impressed by his appearance, and wishing to get rid of him,
politely said he had no work vacant on the paper except
that of criticising the pictures in the Salon, which he pre-
sumed M. Thiers could not undertake. On the contrary,
Thiers felt sure he could do the work, which the editor,
confident of his failure, allowed him to try. The result
was a review that startled all Paris, and Thiers was at once
engaged on the “ Constitutionnel ” as literary, dramatic, and
artistic critic. He proved to have a perfect genius for
journalism, and all his life he considered newspaper work
his profession. Before long he aspired to take part in the
management of his paper, and to that end saved and
scraped together every cent in his power, assisted by a
German bookseller named Schubert, the original of Schmuke,
in Balzac’s “ Cousin Pons.” The “ Constitutionnel ” grew
more and more popular and more and more powerful; but
still Thiers’ means were very small, and he was bent on
saving all he could to establish a new newspaper, the “ Na-
tional.” He was engaged to be married to a young lady
at Aix, whose father thought he was neglecting her, and
came up to Paris to see about it. Thiers pleaded for delay.
He had not money enough, he said, to set up housekeeping,378 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
A second time the impatient father .came to Paris on the
same errand, and on receiving the same answer, assaulted
Thiers publicly and challenged him. The duel took place.
Thiers fired in the air, and his adversary’s ball passed
between his little legs. Nobody was hurt, but the match
was broken off, and the young lady died of the disappoint-
ment. Thiers kept every memorial he had of her sacredly
to the day of his death, and in the time of his power sought
out and provided for the members of her family.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about M. Thiers was
the unusual care he took to prepare himself fully before
writing or speaking. He had every subject clearly and
fully in his own mind before he put pen to paper, and when
he began to write, he did so with extraordinary rapidity;
nor would he write any account of anything, either in a news-
paper or in his history, till he had visited localities, conversed
with eye-witnesses, and picked up floating legends.
By an accident he became acquainted before other Pari-
sian journalists with the signing of the Ordinances by
Charles X., July 26, 1830. He had also good reason to
think that Louis Philippe, if offered the crown of France
or the lieutenant-generalship of the kingdom, would
accept it. While fighting was going on in Paris, he and
Ary Scheffer, the artist, were the two persons deputed to
go to Neuilly and sound the Duke of Orleans. As we
have seen, Marie Amalie, the duke’s wife, indignantly re-
fused their overtures in the absence of her husband, while
Madame Adelaide, his sister, encouraged them.
Thiers, Lafifitte, and Lafayette became the foremost men
in Paris at this crisis, and at the end of some days Louis
Philippe became king of the French. He wanted to make
Thiers one of his ministers, but Thiers characteristically
declined so high an office until he should have served an
apprenticeship to ministerial work in an under secretary-
ship, and knew the machinery and the working of all
departments of government.
Thus far I have not spoken of Thiers’ “ History of the
Revolution.” It appeared first in monthly parts. Up toFORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 379
the publication of the first number, in 1823, no writer in
France had dared to speak well of any actor in the Revo-
lution. Thiers’ History, as it became known, created a
great sensation. Thiers himself was supposed by the gen-
eral public (both of his own country and of foreign nations)
to be a wild revolutionist. At first the critics knew not
how to speak of a book that admired the States-General
and defended the Constitutional Convention; but by the
time the third volume was completed, in 1827, it was bought
up eagerly. The work was published afterwards in ten
volumes, and the “ History of the Consulate and Empire,”
which appeared between 1845 and 1861, is in twenty
volumes; but it is only fair to say that the print is very
large and the illustrations are very numerous, and that the
portraits especially are beyond all praise.
From 1831 to 1836, Thiers was one of Louis Philippe’s
ministers, and from 1S36 to 1840 he was Prime Minister,
or President of the Council.
As soon as Thiers rose to power his mercurial father
made his appearance in Paris. Thiers was disposed to
receive him very coldly. “ What have you ever done for
me that you have any claim on me?” he asked. “My
son,” replied the prodigal parent, “ if I had been an ordi-
nary father and had stayed by my family and brought up
a houseful of children in obscurity, do you suppose you
would have been where you are now?” At this Thiers
laughed, and gave his father a post-mastership in a small
town in the South of France called Carpentras. There
the old gentleman lived, disreputable and extravagant to
the last, surrounded by a large family of dogs.
Thiers provided at the earliest possible moment for his
mother and grandmother, buying for the latter a pretty little
property which she had always coveted, near Aix, and
taking his mother to preside over his own home. But
Madame Thiers felt out of place in her son’s life, and pre-
ferred to return to the property given to Madame Arnic,
where she spent the rest of her days with the old lady.
Lamartine tells a pretty anecdote of Thiers’ relations with380 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
his mother. The poet and the statesman had been dining
together at a friend’s house, in 1830, when Thiers was
already a cabinet officer. On leaving together after dinner,
they found in the ante-room an elderly woman plainly
and roughly dressed. She was asking for M. Thiers, who,
as soon as he saw her, ran to her, clasped her in his arms,
kissed her, and then, leading her by both hands up to the
poet, cried joyously : “ Lamartine, this is my mother ! ”
In 1834 Thiers married a beautiful young girl fresh from
her pension, Mademoiselle Dosne, who was co-heiress with
her mother and her father to a great fortune. Unhappily
Thiers had fallen first in love with the mother; but he
accepted the daughter instead. The early married life of
Madame Thiers was saddened by her knowledge of this
state of things. She was devoted to the interests of her
husband, and watched over him as a mother might have
watched over a child. She was an accomplished woman
and most careful housekeeper, and had received an excel-
lent education. She knew many languages, and turned
all English or German documents required by her husband
into French. She was also a charming hostess, but she lived
under the shadow of a great sorrow.
When Thiers was to be married, he paid his father twelve
thousand francs (about 82,500) for the legal parental con-
sent which is necessary in a French marriage ; but he was
by no means anxious to have his irrepressible parent at
his wedding. For three weeks before the event he hired
all the places in all the stage-coaches running through
Carpentras to Lyons.
In 1840 M. Thiers went out of office, in consequence
of a dispute with England about the Eastern Question.
The only charge that his enemies ever brought against him
affecting his honor as a politician was that of employing
the Jew Deutz to act the part of Judas towards the Du-
chesse de Berri; but for that he could plead that it solved
a difficulty, and probably saved many lives.
During the Second Empire he kept much in retirement.
At first he had thought that Prince Louis Napoleon, seeingFORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 3$I
in him the historian and panegyrist of the Great Emperor,
would call him to his councils. But he was quite mistaken.
He could not — nor would he—have served Louis Napo-
leon’s turn as did such men as Persigny, Saint-Arnaud, De
Maupas, and Ue Moray. When the coup d'etat came, Thiers
was imprisoned with the other deputies, the only favor
allowed him being a bed, while the other deputies had no
couch but the floor.
In 1869 there was a general election in France, which
was carefully manipulated by the Government, in order that,
if possible, no deputy might be sent to the Chamber who
would provoke discussion on the changes in the Constitu-
tion submitted by the emperor. Thiers thought it time for
him to re-enter public life and to speak out to his country-
men. At this time one of the gentlemen attached to the
English embassy in Paris had a conversation with him.
“ For a man,” he says, “ of talents, learning, and experi-
ence, I never met one who impressed me as having so great
an idea of his own self-importance ; ” but the visitor was
at the same time impressed by his frankness and sincerity.
Speaking of the Emperor Napoleon III., and foreseeing his
downfall, he said : “ What will succeed him, I know not.
God grant it may not be the ruin of France ! . . . For a
long time I kept quiet. It was no use breaking one’s
head against the wall; but now we have revolution staring
us in the face as an alternative with the Empire; and do
you think I should be doing well or rightly by my fellow-
citizens, were I to keep in the background? If I am
wanted, I shall not fail.” As he spoke, the fire in his eyes
sparkled right through the glass of his spectacles, and all
the time he talked, he was walking rapidly up and down.
When greatly animated, he seemed even to grow taller and
taller, so that on some great occasion a lady said of him
to Charles Greville : “ Did you know, Thiers is handsome !
and is six feet high ! ”
When the fall of the Empire occurred, in September, 1870,
M. Thiers was in Paris; but when the Committee of De-
fence was formed, he quitted the capital, before the arrival382 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
of the Prussians, to go from court to court,—to London,
St. Petersburg, Vienna, — to implore the intervention of di-
plomacy, and to prove how essential to the balance of power
in Europe was the preservation of France. His feeling
was that France ought promptly to have made peace after
Sedan, that her cause then was hopeless for the moment, and
that by making the best terms she could, and by husbanding
her resources, she might rise in her might at a future day.
These views were not in the least shared by Gambetta, who
believed — as, indeed, most Frenchmen and most foreign-
ers believed in 1870 — that a general uprising in France
would be sufficient to crush the Prussians. Thiers knew
better; his policy was to save France for herself and from
herself at the same time.
We already know the story. Gambetta escaped from
Paris in a balloon, and joined Crbmieux and Gamier-Pagfes,
the other two members of the Committee of Defence who
were outside of Paris. At Tours they had set up a sort of
government, and there, in virtue of being the War Minis-
ter of the Committee of Defence, Gambetta proceeded to
take all power into his own hands, and to become dictator
of masterless France. It was like a shipwreck in which,
captain and officers being disabled, the command falls to
the most able seaman. Gambetta had no legal right to
govern France, but he governed it by right divine, as the
only man who could govern it.
This is how a newspaper writer speaks — and justly — of
Gambetta’s government: —
“ From the moment when he dropped, tired out with his jour-
ney by balloon, into his chair in the archiepiscopal palace at
Tours, and announced that he was invested with full powers to
defend the country, no one throughout France seriously dis-
puted his authority. His colleagues became his clerks. The
treasury was empty, but he re-filled it. The arsenal was half
empty, but in six weeks one great army, and almost two, were
supplied with artillery, horses, gunners, and breech-loaders.
The Lyons Reds had been told that they were wicked fools,
and Communists and Anarchists ripe for revolt in Toulouse,LEON GAMBETTAFORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 383
Lyons, and Marseilles had been put down. The respectables
everywhere rose at his summons, anarchy and military disobedi-
ence quailed.”
The fortunes of war forced Gambetta and his Government
from the banks of the Loire to Bordeaux. There, at the
close of January, 1871, Jules Favre arrived from the Cen-
tral Committee in Paris to announce, with shame and grief,
that resistance was over:	Paris had capitulated to the
Prussians; and it only remained to elect a General Assem-
bly which should create a regular government empowered
to make peace with the enemy.
For a few hours that night the fate of France hung trem-
bling in the scales. Thiers was in Bordeaux. He was
known to think that France could only save what was left
by accepting the armistice. Gambetta was known to be
for No Surrender! Which should prevail ? Would the
dictator lay aside his power without a struggle ?
Gambetta rose to the occasion during the night ; but
here the histories of Thiers and Gambetta run together;
therefore, before I tell of what happened the next day, let
me say a few words about the personal history of L£on
Gambetta. He was only thirty-three years old at this
time, having been born in 1838, when Thiers was forty-one
years of age.
Gambetta’s birthplace was Cahors, that city in the South
of France stigmatized by Dante as the abode of usurers
and scoundrels. His family was Italian and came from
Genoa, but he was born a Frenchman, though his Italian
origin, temperament, and complexion were constantly cast
up against him. In his infancy he had been intended for
the priesthood, and was sent, when seven years old, to some
place where he was to be educated and trained for it. He
soon wrote to his father that he was so miserable that if he
were not taken away he would put out one of his eyes,
which would disqualify him for the priestly calling. His
father took no notice of the childish threat, and Gambetta
actually plucked out one of his own eyes.
In 1868 he was a young lawyer in Paris; but his elo-384 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
quence and ability were known only at the Cafe Procope
to a circle of admiring fellow-Bohemians. On All Saints
Day, 1868, the Press, presuming on the recent relaxation of
personal government by the emperor, applauded the crowds
who went to cover with funeral wreaths the grave of Baudin
at P6re la Chaise. Baudin had been the first man killed
on Dec. 2, 1851, when offering resistance to the coup d'etat.
The Press was prosecuted for its utterances on this occasion.
Gambetta defended one of the journals. Being an advocate,
he could say what he pleased without danger of prosecution,
and all Paris rang with the bitterness of his attack upon the
Empire. From that moment he was a power in France.
In person he was dark, short, stout, and somewhat vulgar,
nor was there any social polish in his manners.
Not long after his great speech in defence of the Press,
in the matter of Baudin, Gambetta was elected to the
Chamber by the working-men of Belleville, and at the
same time by Marseilles. He entered the Chamber as
one wholly irreconcilable with the Empire or the emperor.
His eloquence was heart-stirring, and commanded attention
even from his adversaries.
When, on Sept. 4, 1870, the downfall of the Empire was
proclaimed, Gambetta was made a member of the Council
of Defence, and became Minister of the Interior. He re-
mained in Paris until after the siege had begun ; but he
burned to be where he could act, and obtained the consent
of his colleagues to go forth by balloon and try to stir up
a warlike spirit in the Provinces. He was made Minister
of War in addition to being Minister of the Interior. From
Nov. 1, 1870, to Jan. 30, 1871, his efforts were almost su-
perhuman ; and but for Bazaine’s surrender at Metz, they
might have been successful.
Gambetta raised two armies, — one under General Au-
relles des Paladines and General Chanzy; the other under
Bourbaki and Garibaldi. The first was the Army of the
Loire, the second of the Jura.
When the plan of co-operation with Bazaine’s one hun-
dred and seventy-five thousand well-trained troops hadFORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 385
failed, and the Army of the Loire had been repulsed at
Orleans, Gambetta with his Provisional Government moved
to Bordeaux. Thither came Thiers, returned from his rov-
ing embassy, — a mission of peace whose purpose had been
defeated by the warlike movements of Gambetta’s armies.
Gambetta in the early days of his dictatorship wrote to
Jules Favre : “France must not entertain one thought of
peace.” He sincerely believed any effort at negotiation with
the Prussians an acknowledgment of weakness, and he
fondly fancied that a little more time and experience would
turn his raw recruits into armies capable of driving back
the Prussians, when the experienced generals and soldiers
of France had failed.
And now we have reached that terrible hour when news
was received at Bordeaux that all Gambetta’s efforts had
been useless; that Paris had consented to an armistice;
that an Assembly was to be elected, a National Govern-
ment to be formed; and that to resist these things or to
persist longer in fighting the Prussians would be to provoke
civil war.
No wonder that Gambetta and Thiers, both devoted
Frenchmen, both leaders of parties with opposing views,—
the one resolved on No surrender, the other urging Peace
on the best terms now procurable, — passed a terrible night
after Jules Favre’s arrival at Bordeaux, Gambetta debating
what was his duty as the idol of his followers and as pro-
visional dictator, Thiers dreading lest civil war might be
kindled by the decision of his rival.
Hardly less anxious were the days while a general elec-
tion was going on. Bordeaux remained feverish and excited
till February 13, when deputies from all parts of France met
to decide their country’s fate in the Bordeaux theatre.
Notabilities from foreign countries were also there, to see
what would be done at that supreme moment.
Seven hundred and fifty deputies had been sent to the
Assembly, and it was clear from the beginning that that
body was not Republican. But the Anti-Republicans were
divided into three parties, — Imperialists, Legitimists, and
25386 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Orleanists, each of which preferred an orderly and moderate
republic to the triumph of either of the other two. More-
over, that was not the time for deliberations concerning a
permanent form of government. The deputies were met to
make a temporary or provisional government, qualified to
accept or to refuse the hard terms of peace offered by the
Prussians. The two leaders of the Assembly were Thiers
and Gambetta, — the one in favor of peace, the other of
prolonging the war. We can see now how much wiser
were the views of the elder statesman than those of the
younger; but we see also what a bitter pang Gambetta’s
patriotic spirit must have suffered by the downfall of his
dictatorship.
The Assembly had been three days in session, clamorous,
riotous, and full of words, when in the middle of the after-
noon of Feb. 16, 1871, two delegates from Alsace and Lor-
raine appeared, supported by Gambetta. The Speaker —
that is, the president of the Assembly — was M. Jules Gre'vy,
who had held the same office in 1848; he found it hard to
restrain the excitement of the deputies. The delegates
came to implore France not to deliver them over to the
Germans ; to remember that of all Frenchmen the Alsatians
had been the most French in the days of the Revolution,
and that in all the wars of France for more than a century
they had suffered most of all her children. No wonder
the hearts of all in the Assembly were stirred.
“At this moment there appeared in the middle aisle of the
theatre a small man, with wrinkled face and stubbly white hair.
He seemed to have got there by magic, for no one had seen him
spring into that place. He looked around him for an instant,
much as a sailor glances over the sky in a storm, then, stretching
out his short right arm, he made a curious downstroke which
conveyed an impression of intense vitality and will. Profound
silence was established in a moment. The elderly man then
made another gesture, throwing his arm up, as if to say: 1 Good !
Now you will listen.’ He then, in a thin, piping, but distinctly
audible voice, began a sharp practical address. Every one
listened with the utmost attention; none dared to interrupt him.
He spoke for five minutes, nervously pounding the air fromFORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 387
time to time, and sometimes howling his words at the listeners
in a manner that made them cringe. He counselled modera-
tion, accord, decency, but above all, instant action. ‘ The set-
tlement of the Alsace-Lorraine question,’ said he, ‘ will virtually
decide whether we have peace or continued war with Prussia.’
Then, with an imperious gesture of command, he turned away.
‘ Come,’ he said, ‘let us to our committee-rooms, and let us say
what we think.’ ”
Two hours later, the committee appointed to recom-
mend a chief of the executive power announced that its
choice had fallen on this orator, M. Thiers. At once he
was proclaimed head of the French Republic, but not
before he had hurried out of the theatre. Then the ses-
sion closed, and a quarter of an hour after, Lord Lyons,
the English ambassador, had waited on M. Thiers to in-
form him that Her Majesty’s Government recognized the
French Republic.
From that moment, for more than two years, M. Thiers
was the supreme ruler of France. His work was visible in
every department of administration. Ministers, while his
power lasted, simply obeyed his commands.
There were some amusing, gossipy stories told in Bor-
deaux of Thiers’ entrance into possession of Gambetta’s
bachelor quarters at the Prefecture. “ Pah ! what a smell
of tobacco ! ” he is said to have cried, as he strutted into
his deposed rival’s study. All his family joined him in
bewailing the condition of the house; and until it could be
cleansed and purified they were glad to accept an invita-
tion to take refuge in the archbishop's palace. In a few
days all was put to rights, and a guard of honor was set to
keep off intruders on the chiefs privacy. On the first day
of this arrangement, M. Thiers addressed some question to
the sentinel. The man was for a moment embarrassed
how to answer him. M. Thiers was for the time the
chief executive officer of the Republic, but he was not
formally its president. The soldier’s answer, “ Oui, mon
Executif,” caused much amusement.
At this time there was no suspicion in men’s minds388 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
that it was the intention of M. Thiers to form a perma-
nent republic. The feeling of the country was Royalist.
The difficulty was what royalty? It seemed to all men,
and very probably to Thiers himself, that that question
would be answered in favor of Henri V., the Comte de
Chambord.
Gambetta, resigning his power without a word, retired to
San Sebastian, just over the Spanish frontier. There he
lived in two small rooms over a crockery-shop. “ He is
jaded for want of sleep,” writes a friend, “ and distressed by
money matters.” Much of his time he spent in fishing, no
doubt meditating deeply on things present, past, and future.
No pains were spared to induce him to give in his
adhesion to one of the candidates for royalty. His best
friend wrote thus to him : —
“ Those wretches the Communists have destroyed all my
illusions, but perhaps I could have forgiven them but for their
ingratitude to you. See how their newspapers have reviled
you ! A time may come when a republic may be possible in
France; but that day is not with us yet. Let us acknowledge
that we have both made a mistake. As for you, with your un-
rivalled genius you have now a patriotic career open before you,
if you will cast in your lot with the men who are now going to
try and quell anarchy.” 1
Besides this, offers were made him of the prime minister-
ship, a dukedom, a Grand Cordon, and other preferment;
but Gambetta only laughed at these proposals. He was a
man who had many faults, but he was always honest and
true. Both he and M. Thiers were devoted Frenchmen,
patriots in the truest sense of the word, and each took
opposite views. That Thiers was right has been proved
by time.
On March 16 the Government of the Provisional Re-
public removed from Bordeaux to Versailles. Nobody
dreamed of the pending outbreak of the Commune ; all the
talk was of fusion between the elder Bourbon branch and
the House of Orleans.
1 Clement Laurier, Cornhill Magazine, 1883.FORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 389
Thiers was decidedly opposed to taking the seat of
government to Paris, nor did he wish a new election for
an Assembly; he preferred Fontainebleau for the seat of
government, but fortunately (looking at the matter in the
light of events) Versailles was chosen.
Then, to the great indignation of Madame Thiers, the
Royalists at once took measures to prevent M. Thiers from
installing himself in Louis XIV.’s great bedchamber.
“The Chateau,” they said, “was to become the abode of
the National Legislature, the state rooms must be de-
voted to the use of members, and the private apartments
should be occupied by M. Grtlvy, the president of the
Assembly.”
“ M. Thiers would no doubt have liked very much to sleep
in Louis XlV’s bed, and to have for his study that fine room
with the balcony from which the heralds used to announce in
the same breath the death of one king and the accession of an-
other. His secretary could not help saying that it seemed fit
that the greatest of French national historians should be lodged
in the apartments of the greatest of French kings; but as this
idea did not make its way, M. and Madame Thiers yielded the
point, saying that the chimneys smoked, and that the rooms
were too large to be comfortable.”
On seeing a caricature in which some artist had repre-
sented him as a ridiculous pigmy crowned with a cotton
night-cap and lying in an enormous bed,, surrounded by
the majestic ghosts of kings, Thiers was at first half angry;
then he said : “ Louis XIV. was not taller than I, and as
to his other greatness, I doubt whether he ever would have
had a chance of sleeping in the best bed of Versailles if he
had begun life as I did.” 1
So M. Thiers went to reside where the Emperor William
had had his quarters, at the Prefecture of Versailles, and
soon the palace was filled with refugees from Paris. Many
of the state apartments were turned into hospital wards.
Louis XIV.’s bedchamber was given up to the finance
committee.
1 Temple Bar.390 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
The thing to be done, with speed and energy, as all men
felt, was to re-besiege Paris and put down the Commune.
All parties united in this work; but the conservatives con-
fidently believed that when this was done, Thiers and the
moderate Republicans would join them in giving France a
stable government under the Comte de Chambord.
On Sept. 19, 1821, when that young prince was a year
old, a public subscription throughout France had presented
him with the beautiful old Chateau de Chambord, built on
the Loire by Francis I., and from which he adopted his title
when in exile.
After the young prince had been removed from his
mother’s influence, he was carefully brought up in the most
Eourbon of Bourbon traditions. When he became a man
he travelled extensively in Europe. In 1841 he broke his
leg by falling from his horse, and was slightly lame for the
rest of his life. In 1846 he married Marie Therese Beatrix
of Modena, who was even more strictly Bourbon than him-
self. He and his wife retired to Frohsdorf, a beautiful
country seat not very far from Vienna. There they were
constantly visited by travelling Frenchmen of all parties, and
on no one did the prince fail to make a favorable impres-
sion. He was good, upright, cultivated, kindly, but inflexi-
bly wedded to the traditions of his family. He loved France
.with his whole soul, and was glad of anything that brought
her good and glory. But France was his, — his by divine
right; and this right France must acknowledge. After that,
there was not anything he would not do for her.
But France was not willing to efface all her history from
1792 to 1871, with the exception of the episode of the
Restoration, when school histories were circulated mention-
ing Marengo, Austerlitz, etc., as victories gained under the
king’s lieutenant-general, M. de Bonaparte.
During the Empire, under Napoleon III., the Comte de
Chambord had remained nearly passive at Frohsdorf. His
life was passed in meditation, devotion, the cultivation of
literary tastes, and a keen interest in all the events that
were passing in his native country. During the Franco-COMTE DE CHAMBORD.FORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 391
Prussian war he sent words of encouragement to his suffer-
ing countrymen, and nobly refrained from embarrassing
the affairs of France by any personal intrigues ; but when the
war and the Commune were over, and his chances of the
throne grew bright, he issued a proclamation which has
been called “ an act of political suicide.”
On May 8, three weeks before the downfall of the Com-
mune, he put forth his first manifesto. Here is what an
English paper said of it a few days before his next — the
suicidal — proclamation appeared : —
“The Comte de Chambord does not, of course, surrender his
own theory of his own place on earth, but he does offer some
grave pledges intended to diminish suspicion as to the deduc-
tion he draws from his claim to be king by right divine. He
renounces formally and distinctly any intention of exercising
absolute power, and pledges himself, as he says, ‘ to submit all
acts of his government to the careful control of representatives
freely elected.’ He declares that if restored he will not inter-
fere with equality, or attempt to establish privileges. He
promises complete amnesty, and employment under his gov-
ernment to men of all parties; and finally he pledges himself to
secure effectual guarantees for the Pope [then trembling on his
temporal throne in Italy].”
The English journalist continues, —
“ The tone of this whole paper is that of a man who believes
that a movement will be made in his favor which may succeed,
if only the factions most likely to resist can be temporarily con-
ciliated. There is no especial reason that we can see that he
should not be chosen. He has neither sympathized with the
Germans, nor received support from them. He has not bom-
barded Paris. He is not more hated than any other king would
be, — perhaps less; for Paris has no gossip to tell of his career.
Indeed, there are powerful reasons in favor of the choice. His
restoration, since the Comte de Paris is his heir, would elimi-
nate two of the dynastic parties which distract France, and
would relink the broken chain of history. And to a people so
weary, so dispirited, so thirsty for repose, that of itself must
have a certain charm.”
But all these advantages he destroyed for himself by a
new proclamation issued five weeks later. In it he said, —r392 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
“ I can neither forget that the monarchical right is the patri-
mony of the nation, nor decline the duties which it imposes on
me. I will fulfil these duties, believe me, on my word as an
honest man and as a king.”
So far was good; but proceeding to announce that
thenceforward he assumed the title of Henri V., he goes on
to apostrophize the “ White Flag ” of the Bourbons. He
says, —
“ I received it as a sacred trust from the old king my grand-
father when he was dying in exile. It has always been for me
inseparable from the remembrance of my absent country. It
waved above my cradle, and I wish to have it shade my tomb.
Henri V. cannot abandon the ‘White Flag’ of Henri IV.”
This manifesto, written without consulting those who
were working for his cause in France, settled the question
of his eligibility. France was not willing, for the sake of
Henri V., to give up her tricolor, — the flag of so many
memories. Its loss had been the bitterest humiliation that
the nation had had to suffer at the Restoration.
The Comte de Chambord’s own friends were cruelly
disappointed; the moderate Republicans, who had been
ready to accept him as a constitutional monarch, said at
once that he was far too Bourbon. There was no longer
any hope, unless he could be persuaded, on some other
convenient occasion, to renounce the “ White Flag.”
This matter being settled by the Comte de Chambord
himself, all M. Thiers’ attention was turned to two things,
— the disposal of the Communist prisoners, and the pay-
ment of the indemnity demanded by the Germans, the five
milliards.
We are glad to know that Thiers disapproved of the
revengeful feeling that pervaded politicians and society,
regarding the Communist prisoners. He tried to save
General Rossel, and failed. Rochefort and others he pro-
tected. He wished for a general amnesty, excluding only
the murderers of Thomas, Lecomte, and the hostages. He
said, when some one was speaking to him of the sufferingsFORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 393
of those Communists (or supposed Communists) who were
confined at Satory and in the Orangerie at Versailles : “ It
was dreadful, but it could not be avoided. We had twenty
thousand prisoners, and not more than four hundred police
to keep guard over them. We had to depend on the
rough methods of an exasperated soldiery.”
As to the indemnity, the promptness with which it was
paid was marvellous. The great bankers all over Europe,
especially those of Jewish connection, came forward and
advanced the money. In eighteen months the five mil-
liards of francs were in the coffers of the Emperor William,
and the last Prussian soldier had quitted the soil of France.
The loan raised by the Government for the repayment of
the sums advanced for the indemnity was taken up with
enthusiasm by all classes of the French people.
The horrible year of 1871 was followed by one of perfect
peace and great prosperity. The title of President of the
French Republic was conferred on M. Thiers for seven
years. “ The nation seemed re-flowering, like a large plan-
tation in a spring which follows a hard winter.” Trade
revived. The traces of war and civil strife were effaced
with amazing promptness from the streets of Paris. The
army and all public services were reorganized, and to
crown these blessings, the land yielded such a harvest as
had not been seen for half a century. M. Thiers was never
much addicted to religious emotion ; but when, on a Sunday
in July, 1872, the news came to him by telegram of the
glorious ingathering of the harvest in the South of France,
he was quite overcome. “ Let us thank God,” he cried,
clasping his hands. “ He has heard us; our mourning is
ended ! ”
M. Thiers was by that time living in Paris in the Elysee.
He had continued to reside at the Prefecture of Versailles
while the Assembly was in session, but he came to the Ely-
s6e during its recess, and kept a certain state there. Yet
he never would submit himself to the restraints of etiquette.
One who knew him well says: —394 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
“ He was bourgeois to the finger-tips. His character was a cu-
rious effervescing mixture of talent, learning, vanity, childish
petulance, inquisitiveness, sagacity, ecstatic patriotism, and am-
bition. He was a splendid orator, with the voice of an old
coster-woman; a savant with the presumption of a school-boy;
a kind-hearted man, with the irritability of a monkey; a mas-
terly administrator, with that irresistible tendency to inter-
meddle with everything which is intolerable to subordinates.
He had a sincere love of liberty, with the instincts of a despot.”
M. Thiers had during his long life been a collector of
pictures, bronzes, books, manuscripts, and curious relics. His
house in the Place Saint-Georges was a museum of these
treasures, but a museum so arranged that it contributed to
sociability and the enjoyment of his visitors. He had ac-
quired this taste for collecting in his early days at Aix.
During the Commune his house was razed to the ground,
not one stone being left upon another.
When the Commune put forth its decree for this act of
vandalism, Thiers’ consternation was pathetic. The ladies
of his family did everything that feminine energy and inge-
nuity could suggest to avert the calamity. But when the
destruction had taken place, Thiers bore his loss with dig-
nity. His collections were very fine, but he had always
been afraid of their being damaged, and did not show them
to strangers. When the Commune sent the painter Cour-
bet to appraise their value, he estimated the bronzes alone
at $300,000.1 M. Thiers’ collection of Persian, Chinese,
and Japanese curios was also almost unique. After the over-
throw of the Commune, Madame Thiers and her sister did
their utmost to recover such of these treasures as had passed
into the hands of dealers. Many of these men gave back
their purchases, and none demanded extravagant prices.
A great deal was recovered, and the house on the Place
Saint-Georges was rebuilt at the public cost.
It was on the 5th of September, 1872, that the last Ger-
man soldier quitted France and the five milliards of francs
1 Le Figaro.FORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 395
(in our money a thousand millions of dollars) had been
paid.1
I borrow the words of another writer speaking of this
supreme effort on the part of France : —
*• After the most frightful defeat of modern times, with one
third of her territory in the enemy’s hands, with her capital in
insurrection, and her available army all required to restore or-
der, France in eighteen months paid a fine equal to one fourth
of the English National Debt; elected a bourgeois of genius to
her head; obeyed him on points on which she disagreed with
him ; and endured a foreign occupation without giving one single
pretext for real severity. . . . The people of France had no vis-
ible chiefs ; the only two men who rose to the occasion were M.
Thiers and Gambetta. If M. Thiers showed tact, wisdom, and
above all courage and firmness, in probably the most difficult
position in which man was ever placed, surely we may pause to
admire Gambetta. . . . Daring in all things, under the Empire
he denounced Napoleonism, and by his eloquence and courage
he guided timid millions and rival factions from the day when
Napoleon III. was deposed. Under the Empire he had yearned
to restore the true life of the nation ; when the Empire was
overturned he could not believe that that life was impaired. He
thought it would be easy for France to rise as one man and
drive out the invader. As each terrible defeat was experienced,
he regarded it as only a momentary reverse. He had such
abounding faith in his cause, — the cause of France, the cause
of French Republicanism,— that he could not believe in failure.
Of course, to have been a more clear-sighted statesman, like M.
Thiers, would have been best; but there is something very noble
in the blind zeal of this disappointed man.”
It moves one to pity to think of Gambetta weeping in
1 When looking over letters and papers concerning this period, I
found among them many original notes from M. and Madame Thiers.
They all had broad black borders. I learned afterwards that Thiers
and his family used mourning paper so long as a single German sob
dier remained on French soil. Thiers’ writing was thick and splashy.
He always wrote with a quill pen. Early in life he had, like Sir
Walter Raleigh, projected a History of the World; and as he never
wrote of anything whose locality he had not seen, he had made his
preparations to circumnavigate the globe, when he was arrested by
the state of public affairs while on his way to Havre.396 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
the streets of Bordeaux, as we are told he did, when the
bitter news of the surrender of Paris made all his labors
useless, and dashed to the ground his cherished hopes.
Without one word to trouble the flow of events that were
taking a course contrary to all his expectations, he resigned
his dictatorship when it could no longer be of service to his
country, and took himself out of the way of intrigues in his
favor, passing over the Spanish frontier. As soon as the
Germans were out of France, M. Thiers also was prepared to
resign his power. He called a National Assembly to deter-
mine the form of government.
There were several points of primary importance to be
settled at once ; first: should France be a monarchy, or a
republic ?
That she would again become a monarchy was generally
anticipated; but the Comte de Chambord had, as we have
seen, forfeited his chances for the moment. If France were
a republic, who should be her president ? Should there be
a vice-president ? Should the president be elected by the
Chamber, or by a vote of the people ? Should there be one
Chamber, or two ?
M. Thiers was opposed to having any vice-president,
and was in favor of two Chambers. He vehemently urged
the continuance of the Republic, saying that a monarchy
was impossible. There was but one throne, and there were
three dynasties to dispute it. On one occasion he said :
“ Gentlemen, I am an old disciple of the monarchy [he
was probably alluding to the opinions which his mother and
his grandmother had endeavored to instil into him]. I am
what is called a Monarchist who practises Republicanism
for two reasons, — first, because he agreed to do so, secondly,
because practically he can do nothing else.”
The Assembly proclaimed the continuance of the Re-
public, and likewise the continuance of M. Thiers as its
president for seven years.
On several occasions after this, M. Thiers carried his
point with the Assembly by threatening to resign; and as
the Assembly was quite aware how difficult it would be toFORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 397
put any one in his place, the threat always resulted in his
victory.
The immediate cause which led to the fall of M. Thiers
on May 24, 1873, after he had sat for two years and a
month in the presidential chair, was a dispute concerning
the election of M. Charles de R6musat (son of the lady
who has given her memoirs to the world). M. de R^musat
was the Government candidate for a deputyship vacant in
the Paris representation. He was at the time Thiers’ Min-
ister for Foreign Affairs, a personal friend of the president, a
distinguished man of letters, and an old Orleanist converted
to Republicanism. The opposing candidate was M. Barodet,
a Radical of extreme opinions. The Monarchists also
brought forward their candidate. He had only twenty-
seven thousand votes; but these succeeded in defeating M.
de R^musat, who had one hundred and thirty-five thousand,
while the Radicals voted solidly for Barodet, giving him
one hundred and fifty-five thousand.
The blame of this defeat was thrown on M. Thiers. The
Monarchists, who had once called him “ that illustrious
statesman,” now spoke of him as “a fatal old man.” They
attacked him in the Assembly; the Radicals supported
them. M. Thiers was defeated on some measure that he
wished should pass, and sent in his resignation. It was ac-
cepted by three hundred and sixty-two votes against three
hundred and forty-eight. He had fallen ; and yet a plebiscite
throughout the country would have given a large popular
vote in favor of the man “ who had found France defeated,
her richest provinces occupied, her capital in the hands of
savages, and had concluded peace and restored order, and
found the stupendous sum required for the liberation and
organization of the country, founding the Republic, and
bringing order and prosperity back once more.” Indeed,
the peasants even credited him with their good harvests
and the revival of spirit in the army, till they almost felt for
him a sentiment of personal loyalty.
Expelled from power when seventy-eight years of age,
M. Thiers retired to a little sunny, dusty entresol on the398 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Boulevard Malesherbes, where the noise and glare greatly
disturbed him. At Tours, in the lull of events before the
surrender of Paris, he had collected books and studied
botany. As soon as he was installed on the Boulevard
Malesherbes he asked Leverrier, the astronomer, to con-
tinue with him the astronomical studies with which at Ver-
sailles he had indulged himself in brief moments of leisure,
remarking that he had seen a good deal of the perversity of
mankind, and that he now wished to refresh himself with
the orderly works of God.
Shortly after this he removed to better quarters, where
his rooms opened on a garden. In this garden he received
his friends on Sunday mornings from seven to nine, attired
in a wadded, brown cashmere dressing-gown, a broad-
brimmed hat, a black cravat, patent-leather shoes, and
black gaiters. As he talked, he held his magnifying-glass
in his hand, ready to examine any insect or blade of grass
that might come under observation.
One more great service he rendered to his country.
Prince Bismarck, alarmed by the state of things in France,
showed symptoms of intending to seize Belfort, that fortress
in the Vosges which had never surrendered to the Germans,
and which France had been permitted to retain. Thiers
induced Russia to intervene, and went to Switzerland to
thank Prince Gortschakoff personally for his services on the
occasion.
Thiers died at Saint-Germains four years after his down-
fall, at the age of eighty-two. His last earthly lodging
was in the Pavilion Henri IV. (now an hotel), where Louis
XIV. was born.
By his will he left the State, not only all his collections,
which so far as possible he had restored, but the numerous
historical materials which he had gathered for his works, as
well as his house, after his wife’s death, in the Place Saint-
Georges. The collections are there as he left them; the
historical documents have been removed to the Archives.
To Marseilles, his native city, he left his water-color
copies of the chief works of the great masters in Italy.FORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 399
Thiers was childless. Whatever may have been the per-
sonal relations in which he stood to his wife, no woman
was ever more truly devoted to the interests of her hus-
band. She seems to have lived but for him.
People in society laughed at her plain dressing and her
careful housekeeping ; but “ her heart dilated with gladness
when she felt that the eyes of the world were fixed with
admiration on M. Thiers.” Her manner to him was that
of a careful and idolizing nurse, his to her too often that
of a petulant child. She always called him M. Thiers, he
always addressed her as Madame Thiers, — indeed, he is
almost unknown by his name of Adolphe, nor do men often
speak of him simply as Thiers. “ Monsieur Thiers ” he was
and will always be in history, whose tribunal he said he
was not afraid to face. Even his cards were, contrary to
French custom, always printed “ Monsieur Thiers.”
Both M. and Madame Thiers were very early risers, and
both had an inconvenient habit of falling asleep at inoppor-
tune times.
To the last, Madame Thiers took a loving interest in
Belfort, because her husband had saved it from the Ger-
mans. Its poor were objects of her especial solicitude.
Only an hour before her death, hearing that the Maire of
Belfort had called, she expressed a wish to see him, and
endeavored to address him, pointing to a bust of M. Thiers ;
but she was unable to make herself understood; her powers
of speech had failed her.
Two rules M. Thiers never departed from : one was, as
he said himself, “ to defend ferociously the public purse,”
the other, never to give house-room to any but first-rate
objects of art. Some of his pictures were very dear to
him. Several of his bronzes, which were pillaged by the
Commune and never recovered, were mourned by him as if
they had been his friends. He had been wont to call them
“ the school-masters of his soul.”CHAPTER XIX.
THREE FRENCH PRESIDENTS.
MARSHAL MacMAHON, the Duke of Magenta, was
of Irish descent, his ancestors having followed
James II. into exile, and distinguished themselves at the
Battle of the Boyne. Their descendant, Patrice (or
Patrick), the subject of this sketch, was the sixteenth of
seventeen children.
He was born when French glory was at its height, under
the First Empire, in the summer of 1806. When he was
seventeen he was sent to the military school at Saint-Cyr.
There his Irish dash and talent soon won him renown. In
Algeria he acquired fame and fortune and the Cross of the
Legion of Honor. In 1830 he went to the siege of An-
twerp, at the time when the French insisted on promoting a
revolution in Belgium, and the moment that enterprise was
over, he retired to Algeria. At twenty-five he was a captain
and had distinguished himself at the siege of Constantine,
fighting side by side with the Due de Nemours and that
other French officer of Irish descent, Marshal Niel. At
forty-four he was a general of division, and had seen
twenty-seven years of service. The Arabs called him the
Invulnerable.
He went to the Crimean War, and there led the attack
on the Malakoff, holding his post until the place was won.
Devoted to his profession, he was diffident in society. He
was named a senator by Napoleon III. after his return
from the Crimea, but declined to take his seat, refusing at
the same time some other proffered honors. He was sentTHREE FRENCH PRESIDENTS.
401
back to Algeria at his own request, and stayed there, fight-
ing the Arabs, for five years. Then, returning to Paris, he
took his seat in the Senate, where he opposed some of the
arbitrary decrees of the emperor.1
In the Italian War in r859 he fought with distinguished
bravery, and on the battlefield of Magenta was made a
Marshal of France and Duke of Magenta. After being
ambassador at Berlin he was sent to bear the emperor’s
congratulations to King William on his accession, and to
attend his coronation. He was again sent to Algeria as its
governor-general. He had already married Marie, daugh-
ter of the Due de Castries. She was very rich, and con-
nected with some of the most opulent bankers in Vienna.
Marshal MacMahon came back to France at the outbreak
of the Franco-Prussian War, and was given the command of
the First Army Corps; but the emperor insisted on com-
manding his own armies as general-in-chief. The day be-
fore the surrender at Sedan, Marshal MacMahon had been
badly wounded, and had to resign his command to General
Ducrot. Ducrot being also wounded, it became the sad
duty of General Wimpffen to sign the capitulation. Mar-
shal MacMahon was taken as a prisoner to Wiesbaden,
where he remained till the close of the war. He got back
to Paris forty-eight hours before the outbreak of the Com-
mune. A commander was needed for the forces of France.
M. Thiers chose Marshal MacMahon, who with tears in his
eyes thanked him for the opportunity of retrieving his lost
reputation and doing service for France. After he had col-
lected his army, which it took some weeks to bring back
from Germany, to equip, and to reorganize, his men fought
desperately for seven days, pushing their way step by step
into the heart of the capital, till on May 28, 1871, the mar-
shal addressed a proclamation to France, informing French-
men that the Commune was at an end. He then passed
out of public sight, eclipsed by the superior radiance of
1 Temple Bar, “ Courts of the three Presidents, Thiers, MacMahon,
and Grevy,” 1884.
26402 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Thiers and Cambetta. But as time went on, and it was
determined by the Monarchists to coalesce with the ex-
treme Radicals and get rid of M. Thiers, who was laboring
to establish a law and order Republic, the newspapers of
both the Conservative and Radical parties began to exalt
the marshal’s merits at the expense of “ that sinister old
man,” M. Thiers. After six months of this trumpet-blowing
by the opposition Press, the idea was planted in the minds
of Frenchmen that Marshal MacMahon was the statesman
who might bring France out of all her difficulties.
It was ascertained by the Monarchists that Marshal Mac-
Mahon would accept the presidency if it were offered him,
and would consider himself a stop-gap until such time as
France should make up her mind whether the Comte de
Chambord or some one else should be her king.
The attack on M. Thiers was then organized. M. Thiers
was defeated. He sent in his resignation, and it was ac-
cepted by a small majority in the Chamber. A moment
after, Marshal MacMahon was proposed as his successor,
and immediately elected (May 24, 1873).
At this time the parties in the French Chamber were
seven, and their policy was for two or more of them to com-
bine for any temporary object. Legitimists, Orleanists, and
Bonapartists formed the Right; Anarchists, Red Republi-
cans, and decided Republicans formed the Left; while the
Centre was made up of men of moderate opinions of all
parties who were willing to accept an orderly and stable
government of any kind. This party may be said to repre-
sent to the present hour the prevailing state of public feeling
in France.
The three parties on the Left quarrelled fiercely among
themselves; the three parties on the Right did the same.
Both Left and Right, however, were eager to rally the Centre
to their side. The coalitions, hatreds, and misunderstand-
ings of these seven parties constitute for eighteen years
almost the entire history of the Third Republic.
In 18 7 3 the Monarchists, — that is, the three parties on the
Right —were stronger than the combined parties on the Left,THREE FRENCH PRESIDENTS.
403
but not so strong if the Moderates of the Centre voted
with the Left Republicans. Again, if the Legitimists, Or-
leanists, and the Centre should unite, and the Lonapartists
should go over to the Left, the Left would be the stronger.
The Due de Broglie, an excellent man, grandson of
Madame de Stael, was made President MacMahon’s prime
minister. So far the Monarchists had prospered. They had
command of the president, the Assembly, and the army.
These were all prepared to accept Henri V., provided he
would retreat from the position he had taken up in 1871,
consent to become a constitutional sovereign, give up his
White Flag, and accept the Tricolor. The Monarchists
appointed a Committee of Nine to negotiate this matter
with the prince at Frohsdorf; but Marshal MacMahon
gave them this warning: “ If the White Flag is raised
against the Tricolor, the chassepots will go off of themselves,
and I cannot answer for order in the streets or for discipline
in the army.”
With great difficulty the nine succeeded in procuring an
assurance from the Comte de Chambord that he would
leave the question of the flag to be decided in concert
with the Assembly after his restoration. Meantime he
came to Versailles and remained hidden in the house of
one of his supporters. Everybody urged him to accept
the conditions on which alone he could reign, and fulfil
the hopes of his faithful followers. They implored him to
ascend the throne as a constitutional sovereign, and to ac-
cept the Tricolor, in deference to the wishes of the people
and his friends.
He passed an entire night in miserable indecision, walk-
ing up and down his friend’s dining-room, debating with
himself whether he would give way. It had been arranged
that the next day he should present himself suddenly in the
Assembly, be hailed with acclamation by his supporters, and
be introduced by the marshal-president himself as Henri
Cinq. The building was to be guarded by faithful troops,
the telegraph was prepared to flash the news through
France, the very looms at Lyons were weaving silks bro-404 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
caded with fleurs de lys. But Henri V. could not bring
himself to comply. He fled away from Versailles before
dawn. “He is an honest man,” said M. Thiers, “and will
not put his flag in his pocket.” A few days later he pub-
lished at Salzburg a letter in which he protested against the
pressure his friends had brought to bear on him. “ Never,”
he said, “ will I become a revolutionary king,” by which he
meant a king who reigned under a constitution; never, he
protested, would he sacrifice his honor to the exigencies of
parties; “and,” he concluded, “never will I disclaim the
standard of Arques and of Ivry ! ”
“ The count,” said an English newspaper, “ seems to have
forgotten that Arques and Ivry were Protestant victories.”
“My person,” continued the count, “is nothing; my
principle is everything. I am the indispensable pilot, the
only man capable of guiding the vessel into port, because
for this I have mission and authority.”
Thus ended all chances for Henri V. The Orleans
princes, having concluded a compact with him as his heirs,
felt themselves bound in honor to refuse to accept any com-
promise which “the head of the family” did not approve.
It can be easily imagined how provoked and disappointed
were all those who had rallied to the king’s party. There
remained nothing to do but to strengthen the Republic and
to provide it with a permanent constitution. A Commit-
tee of Thirty was appointed to draw up the document. The
constitution was very conservative. It has now been in
force nineteen years, but it has never worked smoothly, and
the object of the extreme Republicans, who have clamored
for “revision,” has been to eliminate its conservative ele-
ments and make it Red Republican. It is impossible for a
people who change their government so often to have much
respect or love for any constitution.
The Marshal-Duke of Magenta had accepted the presi-
dency without any great desire to retain it; nevertheless, he
established his household on a semi-royal footing, as though
he intended, as some thought, that there should be at least
a temporary court, to prepare the way for what might be atTHREE FRENCH PRESIDENTS.	405
hand. M. Thiers had been a bourgeois president; the mar-
shal was a grand seigneur. M. Thiers’ servants had been
clothed in black; the marshal’s wore gay liveries of scarlet
plush, and gray and silver. When M. Thiers took part in
any public ceremony he drove in a handsome landau
with a mounted escort of Republican Guards, and his
friends (he never called them his suite) followed as they
pleased in their own carriages. But the marshal’s equi-
pages were painted in three shades of green, and lined
with pearl-gray satin. They were drawn by four gray
horses, with postilions and outriders. To see M. Thiers
on business was as easy as it is to see the President at
the White House. Anybody could be admitted on send-
ing a letter to his secretary. To journalists he was always
accessible, believing himself still to belong to their profes-
sion. But to approach the marshal was about as hard as
to approach a king, and he hated above all things news-
paper writers.
In 1873 the Shah of Persia came to Paris, and the mar-
shal entertained him magnificently. He gave him a torch-
light procession of soldiers, a gala performance at the Grand
Opera, and a banquet in the Galerie des Glaces at Versailles.
The Parisians regretted that the visit had not been made in
M. Thiers’ time, when society might have been amused by
stories of how the omniscient little president had instructed
the shah, through an interpreter, as to Persian history and the
etymology of Oriental languages ; but society had a good
story connected with the visit, after all. During the state
banquet at Versailles the shah turned to the Duchess of
Magenta, and asked her, in a French sentence some one
had taught him for the occasion, why her husband did not
make himself emperor.
The marshal was content to hold his place as president,
and the Due de Broglie governed for him, except in any-
thing relating to military affairs. On these the marshal
always had his way.
The Due de Broglie’s government, which was all in the
interest of the monarchical principle, became distrusted406 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
and unpopular. In one year twenty-one Republicans and
six Bonapartists gained seats in the Assembly, while the
Orleanist and Legitimist parties gained not one. By 1874
the cause of royalty in France was at a low ebb. In this
year — a year after the downfall of M. Thiers — the Due
de Broglie was defeated in the Chamber on some measure
of small importance ; but his defeat turned him summarily
out of office. The Left Centre — that is, the Republicans
from conviction — was the strongest of the seven parties.
The Republic seemed established on a basis of law and
order.
According to the constitution, the president was chosen
for seven years, with the chance of re-election ; the Chamber
of Deputies was elected for seven years by universal suf-
frage, but every year one third of its members had to retire
into private life or stand for a new election. The Senate
was chosen by a complicated arrangement, — partly by the
Chamber, partly by a sort of electoral college, the members
of which were drawn from the councils of departments,
the arrondissements, and the municipalities of cities. As
Gambetta said : “ So chosen, it could not be a very demo-
cratic assemblage.”
“ Arrondissement,” in the political language of our Southern
States, would be translated electoral districts either in town
or country. In the Northern States it would mean districts
for the cities, townships in the country.
The Speaker, or President of the Chamber, at Tours, at
Bordeaux, and at Versailles, until a month before the down-
fall of M. Thiers, had been the immaculately respectable M.
Jules Gr6vy, who had entered public life in 1848. He had
been deposed during the period when the Monarchists had
strength and felt sure of the throne for Henri V., and he
had been replaced by a M. Buffet. It was M. Buffet who
became prime minister on the downfall of the Due de
Broglie. Marshal MacMahon by no means relished being
governed by a cabinet composed of men of more advanced
republican opinions than his own. But it is useless to go
deeper into the parliamentary squabbles of this period.THREE FRENCH PRESIDENTS.
407
Then began the quarrel of which we have read so often
in Associated Press telegrams, — the dispute concerning the
scrutin de liste and the scrutin d’arrondissement. “ Scrutin ”
means ballot; scrutin de liste ” means that electors might
choose any Frenchman as their candidate ; “ scrutin d’arron-
dissement,” that they must confine their choice to some man
living in the district for which he wished to stand. The
Left disapproved the scrutin d’arrondissement, which gave
too much scope, it said, for local interests to have weight
over political issues. In our own country local interests
are provided for by State legislatures, and in elections for
Congress the scrutin d 'arrondissement is adopted.
On the last day of December, 1875, the National Assem-
bly was dissolved. Confused, uninteresting, factious as it
had been on points of politics, it had at least taught French-
men something of parliamentary tactics and the practical
system of compromise. The American government is said
to be based on compromise. In France, “ all or nothing ”
had been the cry of French parties from the beginning.
The leader of the Left was now Gambetta, who managed
matters with discretion and in a spirit of compromise.
From this policy his immediate followers have been called
“ opportunists,” because they stood by, watching the course
of events, ready to promote their own plans at every
opportunity.
The new Assembly proved much too republican to please
the marshal. In every way his situation perplexed and
worried him. He was not a man of eminent ability, and
had never been trained to politics. He had been used to
govern as a soldier. His head may have been a little turned
by the flatteries so freely showered on him before his elec-
tion, and he had come to entertain a belief that he was in-
dispensable to France. He saw himself the protector of
order against revolutionary passions, and conceived himself
to be adored as the sole hope of the people. “ Believing
this, he could hardly have been expected to conform to the
simple formulas which govern the councils of constitutional
kings.” Moreover, behind the marshal was his friend the408 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Due de Broglie, “ now counselling compromise and now
resistance, but always meditating a sudden blow in favor of
monarchy.”
By the close of r876 it became so evident that the gov-
ernment of France could not be carried on upon strictly
conservative principles that even the Due de Broglie ad-
vised the marshal to form a Cabinet from the Left, under
the prime ministership of M. Jules Simon. This gentle-
man had been one of the five Jules’s in the Committee of
Defence in 1870. He was an upright man, very liberal in
his opinions, and philosophic in his tendencies, which made
him especially unacceptable to Marshal MacMahon.
Simon formed a ministry, which governed, with perpetual
parliamentary disputes, till May 16, 1877. On that day
Marshal MacMahon sent a letter to his prime minister,
telling him that he did not appear to have sufficient support
in the Chamber to carry on the government, and reproach-
ing him with his Radical tendencies. Of course the minister
and his colleagues at once resigned. The marshal then
dissolved the Chamber, and appealed to the people, placing
the Due de Broglie ad interim at the head of affairs.
In spite of all the marshal and his friends could do to
secure a Conservative majority in the new Chamber, it was
largely and strongly Republican. There was no help for it;
as Gambetta said, the marshal must either se soumettre, ou
se demettre, — choose submission or dismission.
He had a passing thought of again dissolving the unruly
Chamber, and governing by the Senate alone. He found,
however, that the country did not consider him indispen-
sable, and was prepared to put M. Thiers in his place if he
resigned.
But M. Thiers did not live to receive that proof of his
country’s gratitude. He died, as we have seen, in the sum-
mer of 1877, and the next choice of the Republican party
was M. Jules Grevy.
For two years longer the marshal held the reins of gov-
ernment, but he resigned on being required to sign a reso-
lution changing the generals who commanded the fourPRESIDENT JULES GREW.THREE FRENCH PRESIDENTS.	409
army corps. “ In a letter full of dignity/' says M. Gabriel
Monod, “ and which appeared quite natural on the part of
a soldier more concerned for the interests of the army than
for those of politics, he tendered his resignation. The two
Chambers met together, and in a single sitting, without noise
or disturbance, M. Jules GnWy was elected, and proclaimed
president of the French Republic for seven years.”
It is said that in 1830, when Charles X. published his
ordinances and placarded his proclamation on the walls of
Paris, a young law-student, who was tearing down one of
them, was driven off with a kick by one of the king's officers.
The officer was Patrice MacMahon; the law-student Jules
Gr6vy.
M. Grevy was pre-eminently respectable. He was bom
in the Jura mountains, Aug. 15, 1813. His father was a
small proprietor. Diligence and energy rather than bril-
liancy distinguished the young Jules in his college career.
When his college life ended, he went up to Paris and
studied for the Bar. MacMahon’s kick roused his pugnacity.
He went home, took down an old musket, and joined the
insurgents, leading an attack upon some barracks where the
fighting was severe. The Revolution having ended in a
constitutional monarchy, he went into a lawyer’s office,
and plodded on in obscurity for eighteen years.
In 1848 he rendered services to the Provisional Govern-
ment, and the farmers of his district in the Jura elected him
their deputy. He went into the Chamber as an Advanced
Republican, and voted for the banishment of the Orleans
family, for a republic without a president, and for other
extreme measures. Before long he was elected vice-presi-
dent of the Chamber.
Then came the Empire, and M. Gr^vy went back to his
law-books. He and his brother must have prospered at the
Bar, for in 1851 they had houses in Paris, in which after the
coup d'etat Victor Hugo and his friends lay concealed.
When the emperor attempted constitutional reforms, in
1869, Gr£vy was again elected deputy from the Jura. He
acted with dignity and moderation, though he voted always410 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
with the advanced party. Gambetta he personally disliked,
having an antipathy to his dictatorial ways. When the
National Assembly met at Bordeaux to decide the fate of
France, Grevy was made its Speaker, or president; but
when the coup d'etat in favor of Henri V. was meditated,
he was got rid of beforehand, after he had presided for two
turbulent years over an Assembly distracted and excited.
Every one respected M. Gr6vy. There was very little of
the typical Frenchman in his composition. He was of
middle height, rather stout, with a large bald, well-shaped
head. He was no lover of society, but was a diligent
worker, and his favorite amusements were billiards and the
humble game of dominoes. His wife was the good woman
suited to such a husband; but his daughter, his only child,
was considered by Parisian society pretentious and a blue-
stocking. She married, after her father’s elevation to the
presidency, M. Daniel Wilson, a Frenchman, in spite of his
English name. M. Grdvy’s Eli-like toleration of the sins of
his daughter’s husband caused his overthrow.
In Marshal MacMahon’s time there were two points on
which he as president insisted on having his own way ; that is,
anything relating to army affairs, or to the granting civilians
the cross of the Legion of Honor. He did not object to
the decoration of civilians, but he insisted upon knowing
the antecedents of the gentlemen recommended for the dis-
tinction. Well would it have been for M. Gr6vy had he fol-
lowed the example of his predecessor. The marshal would
never give the cross to a man whom he knew to be a free-
thinker. His reply to such applications always was : “ If
he is not a Christian, what does he want with a cross? ”
It is said that in 1877, when the marshal thought of re-
signing rather than accepting such an advanced Republican
as M. Jules Simon as chief of his Cabinet, he sent for M.
Gr6vy, and asked him point-blank : “ Do you want to be-
come president of the Republic? ’’ “ I am not in the least
ambitious for that honor,” replied M. Grivy. “ If I were
sure you would be elected in my place, I would resign,”
continued the marshal; “ but I do not know what wouldTHREE FRENCH PRESIDENTS.	41 I
happen if I were to go.” “ My strong advice to you is not
to resign,” said M. Gr£vy; “ only bring this crisis to an end
by choosing your ministers out of the Republican majority,
and you will be pleased with yourself afterwards for having
done your duty.”
“ Well, you are an honest man, M. Gr£vy; I wish there
were more like you,” said the marshal; and having shaken
hands with M. Gr6vy, he dismissed him, though without pro-
mising to follow his advice. He reflected on it that night,
however, and adopted it the next morning. But when ad-
vised to take Gambetta for his minister, he replied : “ I do
not expect my ministers to go to mass with me or to shoot
with me ; but they must be men with whom I can have some
common ground of conversation, and I cannot talk with
cc monsieur-la.” Indeed, Gambetta was often shy and
awkward in social intercourse, seldom giving the impression
in private life of the powers of burning eloquence with
which he could in public move friend or foe. Nor had
M. Gr6vy been by any means always in accord with the
fiery Southerner. At Tours he objected to Gambetta’s
measures as wholly unconstitutional. “ You are one of those
men,” retorted Gambetta, “ who expect to make omelettes
without breaking the eggs.” “ You are not making omelettes,
but a mess,” retorted M. Grdvy.
Both the marshal and his successor were sportsmen and
gave hunting-parties, those of the marshal being as much
in royal style as possible. M. Gr6vy preferred republican
simplicity. When he was allowed, as Speaker of the House,
to live in Marie Antoinette’s apartments in the Chateau of
Versailles, he might have been seen any day sauntering
about the streets with his hands in his pockets, or smoking
his cigar at the door of a cafe. He had a brougham, but he
rarely used it. His coachman grumbled at having to follow
him at a foot-pace when he took long walks into the country.
His servants did not, like the marshal’s, wear gray and scarlet
liveries, but his household arrangements were more dignified
and liberal than those of M. Thiers. He had a curious way
of receiving his friends sans ceremonie. Three mornings in412 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
the week his old intimate associates, — artists, journalists,
deputies, etc., — entered the presidential palace unan-
nounced, and went straight to an apartment fitted up for
fencing. There, taking masks and foils, they amused them-
selves, till presently M. Grevy would come in, make the
tour of the room, speak a few words to each, and invite
one or two of them to breakfast with him.
Both M. Gr£vy and Marshal MacMahon held their Cabinet
meetings in that salle of the Elysee which is hung round
with the portraits of sovereigns. Opposite to M. Gravy’s
chair hung a portrait of Queen Victoria ; and it was remarked
that he always gazed at her while his ministers discoursed
around him. But his happiness, poor man ! was in his
private apartments, where his daughter, her husband, M.
Wilson, and his little grandchild made part of his house-
hold.
M. Grdvy gave handsome dinners at the Elysee, and
Madame Gr6vy and Madame Wilson gave receptions, and
occasionally handsome balls. Everything was done “ de-
cently and in order,” much like an American president’s
housekeeping, but without show or brilliancy.
Having indulged in this gossip about the courts of the
presidents (for much of which I am indebted to a writer in
“Temple Bar”), we will turn to graver history.
When M. Gr^vy became president, Gambetta succeeded
to his place as president of the Chamber. He did not de-
sire the post of prime minister. His new position made
him the second man in France, and seemed to point him
out as the future candidate for the presidency.
M. Defavre became chief of the Cabinet, and M. Wad-
dington Minister for Foreign Affairs. But Gambetta,
whether in or out of office, was the leader of his party, and
a sense of the responsibilities of leadership made him far
more cautious and less fiery than he had been in former
days. Yet even then he had said emphatically: “ No
republic can last long in France that is not based on law,
order, and respect for property.”
In August, 1880, however, eighteen months after M.THREE FRENCH PRESIDENTS.
413
Gravy’s elevation to the presidency, Gambetta became
prime minister. He flattered himself that he might do
great things for France, for he believed that he could count
on the support of every true Republican. He was mistaken.
Three months after he accepted office, the Radicals and
the Conservatives combined for his overthrow. He was
defeated in the Chamber on a question of the scrutin de
liste, and resigned.
Gambetta’s disappointment was very great. He had
counted on his popularity, and had hoped to accomplish
great things. He was a man of loose morals and of declin-
ing health, for, unsuspected by himself, a disorder from
which he could never have recovered, was undermining his
strength; this made him irritable. On the 30th of
August, 1882, he was visiting, at a country house near
Paris, a lady of impaired reputation ; there he was shot in
the hand. The wound brought on an illness, of which he
died in December. It has never been known whether the
shot was fired by the woman, as was generally suspected,
or whether his own pistol, as he asserted, was accidentally
discharged.
He was buried at Pfere la Chaise, without religious ser-
vices ; but his coffin was followed by vast crowds, and all
Frenchmen (even his enemies, and they were many) felt
that his country had lost an honest patriot and a great
man.
On the centennial anniversary of the opening act of the
French Revolution, a statue of Gambetta was unveiled in
the Place du Carrousel, the courtyard of French kings.
No future king, if any such should be, will dare to displace
it. Gambetta’s life was a sad one, and his death was
sadder still. With all his noble qualities,—and there are
few things nobler in history than the manner in which he
effaced himself to give place to his rival, — how great he
might have been, had he learned early to apply his power
of self-restraint to lesser things !
Gambetta wanted Paris to remain the city of cities, the
centre of art, fashion, and culture; and he took up the414 FRA AXE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Emperor Napoleon’s policy of beautifying and improving
it by costly public works. “ Je veux ma re'publique belle,
bien par^e ” (“I want my republic beautiful and well
dressed ”) was a sentence which brought him into trouble
with the Radicals, who said he had no right to say “ my
republic,” as if he were looking forward to being its dic-
tator. He voted for the return of the Communists from
New Caledonia, and during the last two years of his life
these returned exiles never ceased to thwart him and revile
him. Some one had prophesied to him that this would
be the case. “ Bah ! ” he answered, “ the poor wretches
have suffered enough. I might have been transported' my-
self, had matters turned out differently in 1870.” 1 Had he
lived, it is probable that in 1886 he would have supplanted
M. Gr6vy. “ Nor,” says one of his friends, “ can it be
doubted that, loving the Republic as he did, and having
served it with so much devotion and honesty, he would
have found in his love a power of self-restraint to keep him
from courses that might have been hurtful to his own work.”
For the establishment of the Republic was principally “ his
own work.” He proclaimed its birth, standing in a window
of the Hotel de Ville in 1870; he gave it a baptism of
some glory in the fiery, though hopeless, resistance he
opposed to the German invasion; and he kept it standing
at a time when it needed the support of a sturdy, vigilant
champion. To the end it must be believed that he would,
as far as in him lay, have preserved it from harm. Not
long before his death, during a lull in his pain, which for
a moment roused a hope of his recovery, he said to his
doctor : “ I have made many mistakes, but people must
not imagine I am not aware of them ; I often think over my
faults, and if things go well I shall try the patience of my
friends less often. On se corrige ! ”
When Gambetta was dead, the man who stepped into
his place was Jules Ferry. He was a lawyer, born in the
Vosges in 1832. He had never been personally intimate
with Gambetta, but he succeeded to his political inheritance,
1 Cornhill Magazine, 1883.THREE FRENCH PRESIDENTS.
415
became chief of his party, secured the majority that Gam-
betta never could get in the Chamber, and did all that
Gambetta had failed to do.
His attention when prime minister was largely devoted
to the development of French industry in colonies. He
began a war in Tonquin, he annexed Tunis, and commenced
aggressions in Madagascar. All of these enterprises have
proved difficult, unprofitable, and wasteful of life and
money.
The position of France with relation to other powers has
become very isolated. Her best friend, strange to say, is
Russia, — the young Republic and the absolute czar!
Germany, Austria, and Italy form the alliance called the
Dreibund. But their military force united is not quite
equal to that of France and Russia combined. If Russia
ever attacks the three powers of Central Europe on the
East, it is not to be doubted that France will rush upon
Alsace and Lorraine. The mob of Paris, in 1884, put
M. Gre'vy to much annoyance and embarrassment by hiss-
ing and hooting the young king of Spain on his way
through the French capital because he had accepted the
honorary colonelcy of a German regiment, and M. Grevy
and his Foreign Minister had profoundly to apologize. The
incident was traceable, it was said at the time, to the in-
discretions of M. Daniel Wilson, the president’s son-in-law,
whose melancholy story remains to be told.
Shortly before Gambetta’s death, occurred that of the
Prince Imperial in Zululand, and that of the Comte de
Chambord in Austria.
The son of Napoleon III. had been educated at Wool-
wich, the West Point Academy of England. When the
Zulu war broke out, all his young English companions were
ordered to Africa, and he entreated his mother to let him
go. He wanted to learn the art of war, he said, and per-
haps too he wished to acquire popularity with the people
of England, in view of a future alliance with a daughter of
Queen Victoria. The general commanding at the seat of
war was far from glad to see him. He knew the dangers416 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
of savage warfare, and felt the responsibility of such a
charge. For some time he kept the prince working in an
office, but at last permitted him to go on a reconnoitring
expedition, where little danger was anticipated. There is
no page in history so dishonorable to the valor and good
conduct of an English gentleman as that which records
how, when surprised by Zulus, the young prince was de-
serted by his superior officer and his companions, and
while trying to mount his restive horse, was slain.
He left a will leaving his claims (such as they were) to
the imperial throne of France to his young cousin Victor
Napoleon, thus overlooking the father of that young prince,
Jerome Napoleon, the famous Plon-Plon.
The reconciliation which in 1S73 took place between the
Comte de Chambord and his distant cousins of the house
of Orleans never resulted in cordial relations, though the
Comte de Paris, as his cousin’s heir, visited the Comte de
Chambord at Frohsdorf. The Comtesse de Chambord de-
spised and disliked the family of Orleans, and the Mon-
archist party in France still remained divided into Legiti-
mists and Orleanists, the latter protesting that they only
desired a-constitutional sovereign, and did not hold to the
doctrine of right divine.
The Comte de Chambord died Aug. 24, 1883. His
malady was cancer in the stomach, complicated by other
disorders. The Orleanist princes hastened to Frohsdorf to
attend his funeral, but they were so disdainfully treated by
his widow that they deemed it due to their self-respect to
retire before the obsequies. This is how “ Figaro,” a leading
Legitimist journal in Paris, speaks of the Comte de
Chambord : —
“ He had noble qualities and great virtues. What most dis-
tinguished him was an intense feeling of royal dignity, which he
guarded most jealously by act and word. But we may be per-
mitted to doubt whether the fifty-three years he had passed in
exile had qualified him to understand and to sympathize with
the great changes in public opinion in his own country, and the
true tendencies of the present and the rising generation. In hisTHREE FRENCH PRESIDENTS.
417
youth he was entirely guided by others, but after the coup cPItat
of 1851 he took things into his own hands, and directed his
course up to the last moment with a firmness which admitted of
neither contradiction nor dispute. He sincerely wished to pro-
mote liberty; there was nothing in him of the despot, but he
had lived all his life out of France, and could not comprehend
the preferences and the habits which had grown into national
feeling. He was kindly, genial, intelligent, witty, dignified, and
•affable. He only needed to have been brought up among his
people to have made an admirable sovereign. Had the first
plan of the Revolution of 1830 been carried out, and the young
prince been made king, with Louis Philippe lieutenant-general
till his majority, it is possible that France might have been
spared great tribulations. For our own part,” continues the
“ Figaro,” “we have always looked upon monarchy as the best
government for the peace, prosperity, and liberty of France; but
with the personal politics of the Comte de Chambord we could
not agree. After all France had gone through, it was necessary
to nationalize the king, and to royalize the nation. M. le Comte
de Chambord utterly refused to yield anything to constitutional
ideas and to become what he called the king of the Revolution.
It is true that the White Flag of the Bourbons had been associ-
ated with a long line of glories in France, but for a hundred
years the Tricolor had been the flag under which French soldiers
had marched to victory. It was this matter of the flag that
prevented the success of the plan of restoration in 1873, two
months after the Comte de Paris had so patriotically sacrificed
some of his own most cherished feelings by his reconciliation
(for his country’s sake) with his cousin at Frohsdorf. The
party could do nothing without its head. The Orleanist princes
would not act without their chief, and the opportunity passed,
perhaps never to return.”
“ Henri V. never hesitated about the matter of the flag,” says
another writer. “ He regarded its color as above everything
important. The question of white or tricolor was to him a vital
thing. He said: ‘ Kings have their private points of personal
honor like mere citizens. I should feel myself to be sacrificing
my honor, since I was born a king, if I made any concessions
on the subject of the White Flag of my family. With respect to
other things I may concede; but as to that, never, never/
The only thing for which I have ever reproached Louis XVI.
was for having for one moment suffered the bonnet rouge to be
placed upon his head to save his royalty. Now you are pro-
posing to me to do the same thing. No! ’ The count had
27418 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
drawn up a constitution for France after his own ideas, but he
would show it to no man. No human being had any power to
influence him. But he was heard to say more than once : 1 I
will never diminish the power of the sovereign. I desire liberty
and progress to emanate from the king. Royalty should pro-
gress with the age, but never cease to be itself in all things.’
He deemed the authority he claimed to be his by right divine;
but one may be permitted to think,” concludes this writer, “ that
this authority, if it came from Heaven, has been recalled there.”
Four months before his death he had a touching inter-
view with his heir, the Comte de Paris, at Frohsdorf. The
count little expected then that he would be prevented from
taking the part of chief mourner at the funeral which took
place Sept, i, 1883, at Goritz, when the king, who had
never reigned, was laid beside Charles X., his grandfather.
We may best conclude this account of the Comte de
Chambord with some touching words which he addressed
to his disappointed supporters in 1875 : —
“Sometimes I am reproached for not having chosen to reign
when the opportunity was offered me, and for having perhaps
lost that opportunity forever. This is a misconception. Tell
it abroad boldly. I am the depositary of Legitimate Monarchy.
I will guard my birthright till my last sigh. I desire royalty as
my heritage, as my duty, but never by chance or by intrigue.
In other times I might have been willing (as some of my ances-
tors have been) to recover my birthright by force of arms.
What would have been possible and reasonable formerly, is not
so now. After forty years of revolution, civil war, invasion, and
coups diktat, the monarchy I represent can only commend itself
to Europe and the French people as one of peace, conciliation,
and preservation. The king of France must return to France
as a shepherd to his fold, or else remain in exile. If I must not
return, Divine Providence will bear me witness before the
French people that I have done my duty with honest intentions.
In the midst of the prevailing ignominies of the present age it
is well that the life and policy of an exiled king should stand
out white in all their loyalty.”
There was little of general interest in French politics
during the remaining years of M. Gravy’s first administra-THREE FRENCH PRESIDENTS.
419
tion, which ended early in 1886. He was the first French
president who had reached the end of his term. He was
quietly re-elected by the joint vote of the two Chambers,
not so much because he was popular as because there
seemed no one more eligible for the position. He had not
had much good fortune in his administration. M. Ferry’s
colonization schemes had cost great sums of money and
had led to jealousies and disputes with foreign nations.
French finances had become embarrassed. The French
national debt in 1888 was almost twice as great as that of
England, and the largest additions to it were made during
M. Gravy’s presidency, when enormous sums were spent on
public works and on M. Ferry’s colonial enterprises. The
mere interest on the debt amounts annually to fifty millions
of dollars, and every attempt at reduction is frustrated by
the Chambers, which are unwilling to approve either new
taxes or new loans.
The two principal points of interest during the latter
years of M. Gravy’s first term of office concerned the per-
secution of the Church and the persecution of the princes
of the house of Orleans.
The Republic began by taking down the crucifixes in all
public places, such as court-rooms, magistrates’ offices, and
public schools; for in France men swear by holding up a
hand before the crucifix, instead of by our own irreverent
and dirty custom of “ kissing the book.” Then the educa-
tion of children was made compulsory; but schools were
closed that had been taught by priests, monks, or nuns.
Next, sisters of charity were forbidden to nurse in the hos-
pitals, their places being supplied by women little fitted to
replace them.
As to the Orleans princes, in 1S86, the year of M.
Grdvy’s second election, they were summarily ordered to
quit France ; not that they had done anything that called
for exile, but because Prince Napoleon (who called himself
the Prince Imperial and head of the Bonaparte dynasty)
had put forth a pamphlet concerning his pretensions to the
imperial throne. This led to the banishment of all mem-420 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
bers of ex-royal families from French soil, and their erasure
from the army list, if they were serving as French soldiers.
This decree was particularly hard upon the Due d’Au-
male, who was a French general, and had done good ser-
vice under Chanzy and Gambetta in the darkest days of the
calamities of France.
The Comte de Paris deeply felt the outrage. He gave
the world to understand that he had never conspired against
the French Republic while living on his estates in France,
but felt free to do so after this aggression.
The Due d’Aumale avenged himself by an act of truly
royal magnificence. He published part of his will, be-
queathing to the French Institute, of which he was a mem-
ber, that splendid estate and palace of Chantilly which he
had inherited from his godfather, the old Duke of Bourbon.
With its collections, its library, its archives, and its pictures,
the gift is valued at from thirty-five to forty millions of
francs. The revenue of the estate is to be spent in enrich-
ing the collections, in encouraging scientific research, in
pensioning aged authors, artists, and scientific discoverers.
“ It is the grandest gift,” says M. Gabriel Monod, “ ever
given to a country. It is worthy of a prince who joins to
the attractive grace of noble breeding and the finest quali-
ties of a soldier, the talents of a man of letters, the learn-
ing of a scholar, and the taste of an artist.”
M. Gr£vy — le vieux, “ the old fellow,” as his Parisians irre-
verently called him — was deeply attached to his daughter,
whose husband, M. Daniel Wilson, a presumptuous, specula-
tive person, had made himself obnoxious to society and to
all the political parties. This man lived at the £lys£e with
his family, and made free use of presidential privileges. It
is said that by using the president’s right of franking letters
for his business affairs, he saved himself in postage forty-
thousand francs per annum. He also made use of informa-
tion that he obtained as son-in-law of the president to fur-
ther his own interests, and once or twice he got M. Gr£vy
into trouble by the unwarrantable publication of certain
matters in a newspaper of which he was the proprietor.THREE FRENCH PRESIDENTS.
421
Besides this he was at the head of a great number of finan-
cial schemes, whose business he conducted under the roof
of the Elys6e. Before he married Mademoiselle Grevy, a
cotiseil de famille had deprived him of any control over his
property till he came of age, on account of his reckless-
ness; but he was what in America we call “a smart man,”
and M. Gr£vy was very much attached to him.
In the early days of 1887 a person who considered him-
self defrauded in a nefarious bargain he was trying to make
with an adventuress, denounced to the police of Paris a
Madame Limouzin, to whom he had paid money on her
promise to secure for him the decoration of the Legion
of Honor. He wanted it to promote the sale of some kind
of patent article in which he was interested. To the aston-
ishment of the police, when they raided the residence of
Madame Limouzin, letters were found compromising two
generals, — General Caffarel, who had been high in the
War Department when General Boulanger was minister, and
General d’Andlau, author of a book, much commended by
military authorities, on the siege of Metz.
General Caffarel was a gallant old officer, and it is said
the scene was most piteous when, as part of his punish-
ment, the police tore from his coat his own decoration of the
Legion of Honor. The War Minister tried to smother the
scandal and to save the generals, but it got into the public
prints, with many exaggerations. General d’Andlau took to
flight. The police arrested Madame Limouzin, her accom-
plice, Madame Ratazzi, and several other persons. The
public grew very much excited. It was said that state
secrets were given over to pillage, that they were sold to
the Germans, that the Government was at the mercy of
thieves and jobbers. “ One figure,” wrote M. Monod,
“ stood out from the rest as a mark for suspicion. It was
that of M. Daniel Wilson. He had never been popular with
frequenters of the Elys^e. He was a rich man, both on his
own and his wife’s side, and was an able man and a man of
influence in business affairs. He had been Under-Secre-
tary of Finance and President of the Committee of the422 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Budget.” Many thought he had the best chance of any
man for succeeding M. Gr6vy as president of France. He
was, however, one of those unquiet spirits who may be found
frequently among speculators and financiers. He had no
scruple about using his position to promote his own busi-
ness interests and the interests of the schemes in which he
was engaged, nor did he hesitate to give useful information
to leaders who favored his own views in the Chambers and
were in opposition to the ministers he disliked. Thus the
son-in-law of the president intrigued against the president’s
ministers, and Jules Ferry, leader of the Republican law
and order party in the Chamber, and his followers, could
not forgive him for having thus betrayed them. Wilson be-
longed to the advanced section of the Republican party, the
Reds; but he was not so popular with them that they were
unwilling to attack him, provided they could thereby get
rid of M. Grevy, and put a more advanced Republican in
his place.
No positive accusation, however, in the matter of Ma-
dame Limouzin could have been brought against M. Wilson,
had it not been discovered by that lady’s counsel that two
of the letters seized and held as evidence — letters from
M. Wilson to Madame Limouzin — were written on paper
manufactured after their date, — an incident not unfamiliar
to readers of old-fashioned English novels. The real letters,
therefore, had undoubtedly been abstracted, and replaced
by others of a less compromising kind.
The Ministry, which up to the time of this discovery had
endeavored to keep the name of the president’s son-in-law
from being connected with the sale of decorations of the
Legion of Honor, was obliged to authorize his prosecution;
and the Prefect of Police, who was suspected of having
given back to M. Wilson his own letters, was forced to
resign.1
When the trial of M. Wilson and the prefect came on,
they were acquitted, not by a verdict of Not Guilty, but be-
cause the French Code contained no clause that constituted
1 There is a similar incident in Balzac’s “ Cousin Pons.”THREE FRENCH PRESIDENTS.	423
it an offence for a man to obtain possesssion of his own let-
ters. The judge, when he acquitted the accused, stated
that there was no doubt whatever of the substitution. Then
from all sides information began to pour in from people
who had paid money to M. Wilson to procure them minis-
terial or presidential favors, and such disclosures could not
but reflect on M. Gr£vy. Instantly his enemies seized their
opportunity. For once, Monarchists and Anarchists united
and endeavored to force the president to resign; but the
old man stood by his son-in-law in his hour of adversity,
and would not go.
Then the coalition changed its base, and attacked M.
Rouvier, the prime minister. He was outvoted in the
Chamber on some insignificant question; and having no
parliamentary majority, he was forced to resign. By no ef-
forts could M. Grdvy get any one to take his place. Once
he thought he had persuaded M. Clemenceau, a Radical
leader, to form a ministry ; but his party gave him to under-
stand that they would not support him.
The president, then seventy-five years of age, was in a
position in which any one but a partisan political opponent
must have been moved to pity him. He had been so long
and so loudly extolled for his extreme respectability and his
austere virtues that he had never dreamed that public opin-
ion on such a point as this could turn against him. He
could not endure the idea of being dismissed with con-
tempt less than two years after his re-election to the presi-
dency by the unanimous vote of all Republicans. He was
willing to go, but he did not choose to be forced to go by
the brutal summons of an infuriated public. Yet France,
pending his decision, was without a government. Some-
thing had to be done. He employed every device to gain
time. He had interviews with men of various parties. He
grew more and more care-worn and aged. His troubles
showed themselves in his carriage and his face. “ By turns
he was insinuating, eloquent, lively, pathetic. He showed
a suppleness and a tenacity of purpose that amazed those
brought into contact with him. If he could but gain time,424 FRANCE IN'THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
he hoped that the Republicans would disagree about his
successor, and decide to rally round him; but at last he
was forced to send in his resignation. He did so Dec. i,
1887, in a message which, by the confusion of its language,
betrayed the anguish of his mind.” A few days after giv-
ing up his quarters at the Elysde as president of the Repub-
lic, he was stricken down by paralysis.
When the resignation of M. Gr6vy had been accepted,
came the question, Who should succeed him? If the Re-
publican party split and failed to choose a president, the
Monarchists might seize their opportunity. The candidate
most acceptable to the Moderate Republicans was M. Jules
Ferry, but he was unpopular with the Radicals. He had
belonged to the Committee of Defence and the Govern-
ment of Versailles which had put down the Commune.
His colonial policy had not been a success, and he was
known to have no toleration for the Reds. Mobs collected
in the streets shouting “ A bas Ferry ! ” He was accused
of being the candidate of the Comte de Paris, of the pope,
of Bismarck. He was “ Ferry the traitor! Ferry the
Prussian ! Ferry the clerical 1 Ferry the Orleanist! ” The
Radicals, with the ex-Communist, General Eudes, at their
head, swore to take up arms if Ferry were elected by the
Chambers. The Moderate Republicans were not strong
enough, without help, to carry his election. It was a case
when a “ dark horse ” was wanted, an obscure man, against
whom nothing was known.
The Radicals proposed two candidates, — M. de Freycinet,
who, though not a Radical, was thought weak enough to be
ruled by them, and M. Floquet. But the Moderates would
not lend their aid to elect either of these men. At last
both parties united on M. Sadi-Carnot.
There were two reasons for his election : the first lay in
his name; he was the grandson of Lazare Carnot, elected
deputy in 1792 to the National Convention from Arras, at
the same time as his friend Robespierre. This man and
Robespierre had belonged to the same Literary Society in
Arras, — a club into which no one could be admitted withoutPRESIDENT SADI-CARNO T.THREE FRENCH PRESIDENTS.	425
writing a love-song.1 Lazare Carnot was the good man of
the Revolution. Not a stain rests upon his character. He
organized the glorious armies of the Republic, and was
afterwards one of the members of the Directory. His son,
Hippolyte Carnot, as the oldest member in the Senate in
1887, had the duty of announcing to his own son, Sadi-
Carnot, his election to the highest office in the gift of his
countrymen. M. Hippolyte Carnot was a man of high
character, who during a long life had filled many public
offices. He was also a man of letters, and wrote a Life of
Barere, —a book that will be best remembered by having
come under the lash of Macaulay. Every cut inflicted
upon Barere tells, and we delight in its severity.
The second reason for Sadi-Carnot’s election was the
popularity he acquired from its being supposed that when
he was at the head of the Committee of Finance he had
resisted some illegal demands made on the Treasury by
M. Wilson. The demands were resisted, it is true, but not
more by M. Carnot than by his colleagues. “ He was made
president of the French Republic,” some one said, “ for
an act of integrity he had never committed, and for giving
himself the trouble to be born, like any heir of royalty.”
He is a good man, who has made no enemies, either in
public or private life. It may also be added that he seems
to have attracted few personal friends. The Republic has
grown in strength, and factious opposition has decreased
during his administration. His republicanism is not ad-
vanced or rabid. He is rigidly honest. He has a charm-
ing wife, who, though slightly deaf, enjoys society and gives
brilliant receptions.
Poor M. Gr6vy passed away into sorrow and obscurity.
He took up his residence on his estate in the Department
of the Jura, where, in September, 1891, he died. M. Wil-
son appears first to have made all his own relations rich,
and then by speculations to have ruined them.
In contemplating the disastrous end of M. Grevy we
1 See Robespierre’s in the “ Editor’s Drawer,” Harper’s Magazine,
1889.426 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
must remember that the scandal which caused his fall,
after so many years of honorable service for his country,
amounts, so far as he was concerned, to very little. The
only fault of which he can be accused was that of too great
toleration of the speculative propensities of his son-in-law.
It was proved, indeed, that there were agencies in the hands
of disreputable persons in Paris for the purchase and sale
of influence and honors, but there was little or no evidence
that these agencies had had any influence with the public
departments. The existence of such agencies under the
Empire would have excited little comment. Thar the trials
of Madame Limouzin, General Caffarel, and M. Wilson so
excited the public and produced such consequences, may
be proof, perhaps, of a keener sense of morality in the
Parisian people.
Some one said of M. Gr6vy that he was a Radical in
speech and a Moderate in action, so that he pleased both
parties. The strongest accusation against him was his per-
sonal love of economy, and his entire indifference to show,
literature, or art. It was also considered a fault in him as a
French president that he showed little inclination to travel.
Socially, the polite world accused him of wearing old hats
and no gloves. On cold days he put his hands in his
pockets, which in the eyes of some was worse than put-
ting them for his own purposes into the pockets of other
people.GENERAL BOULANGER.CHAPTER XX.
GENERAL BOULANGER.
UP to 1886 the name of General Boulanger commands
no place upon the page of history. After that year
it was scattered broadcast. For four years it was as familiar
in the civilized world as that of Bismarck.
A new word was coined in 1886 to meet a want which
the general’s importance had created. That word was
boulangisme, though it would be hard to give it a definition
in the dictionary. We can only say that it meant whatever
General Boulanger might be pleased to attempt.
George Ernest Jean Marie Boulanger was born in the
town of Rennes, in Brittany, in 1837.1 His father had been
a lawyer, and was head of an insurance company. He
spent the latter days of his life at Ville-d’Avray, near Paris;
and as he did not die till 1884, he lived to see his son a
highly considered French officer, though he had not then
given promise of being a popular hero and a world-famous
man. General Boulanger’s mother was named Griffith ; she
was a lady belonging apparently to the upper middle class
in Wales. She had a great admiration for George Washing-
ton, and the future French hero received one of his names
from the American “ father of his country.” In his boy-
hood Boulanger was always called George ; but when he
came of age he preferred to call himself Ernest, which is
the baptismal name by which he is generally known.
In 1851 his parents took him to England to the Great
Exhibition. He afterwards passed some months with his
maternal relatives at Brighton, and was sent to school there ;
1 Turner, Life of Boulanger.428 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
but he had such fierce quarrels with the English boys in
defence of his nationality that the experiment of an English
education did not answer. At the age of seventeen he was
admitted to the French military school at Saint-Cyr, and two
years later was in Algeria, as a second lieutenant in a regi-
ment of Turcos. His experiences in Africa were of the
kind usual in savage warfare; but he became a favorite with
his men, whom he cared for throughout his career with
much of that fatherly interest which distinguished the
Russian hero, General Skobeleff.
When the war with Italy broke out, in 1859, Boulanger
and his Turcos took part in it. He was severely wounded
in his first engagement, and lay long in the hospital, at-
tended by his mother. He received, however, three deco-
rations for his conduct in this campaign, in which he was
thrice wounded. On the last occasion, as he lay in hospital,
he received a visit of sympathy from the Empress Eugenie,
then in the very zenith of her beauty and prosperity.
Boulanger’s next service was in Tonquin, where on one
occasion he fought side by side with the Spaniards, and
received a fourth decoration, that of Isabella the Catholic.
He was next assigned to home duty at Saint-Cyr ; and when
the terrible war of 1870 broke out, and all the cadets were
drafted into the army as officers, he was made major of a
regiment, which was at Mizieres, on the Belgian frontier,
when MacMahon and the emperor surrendered at Sedan.
Boulanger and his command escaped with Vinoy’s troops
from the disaster, and got back to Paris, where he kept his
men in better order during the siege than any other officer.
They took part in the sortie made to join Chanzy’s Army
of the Loire, in November, 1870, and in a skirmish with
the Prussians he was again badly wounded. When the
Prussian army entered Paris on March 5, 1871, Boulanger
and the regiment under his command had the unpleasant
duty of guarding the streets along their line of march to
insure them a safe passage.
In 1874, when thirty-seven years of age, Boulanger was
a colonel, with the breast of his uniform covered with deco-GENERAL BOULANGER.
429
rations; but he had taken no part whatever in politics, and
was not known to have any political views, save that he
called himself a fervent Republican, and personally resented
any aristocratic assumptions on the part of inferior officers.
In 1881 he was sent by the French Government to the
United States, in company with the descendants of La-
fayette and Rochambeau, to attend the Yorktown celebra-
tion. Amongst all the French delegation Boulanger was
distinguished by his handsome person and agreeable man-
ners, while his knowledge of English made him everywhere
popular. He was already married to his cousin, Made-
moiselle Renouard, and had two little daughters, Helene
and Marcelle.
When the Minister of War gave Boulanger his appoint-
ment on the mission to Yorktown, he cautioned him that
he must not shock the quiet tastes of American republicans
by wearing too brilliant uniforms. Fortunately Colonel
Boulanger did not accept the hint, and on all public occa-
sions during his visit to this country he attracted the ad-
miration of reporters and spectators as the handsomest
man in the French group, wearing the most showy uniform,
with the greatest number of glittering decorations. He was
tall, with handsome auburn beard and hair, and very regular
features. Even in caricatures the artist has been obliged to
represent him as very handsome.
After his return to France, Boulanger was sent to Tunis,—
a State recently annexed by the French, who were jealous
of the power acquired by Great Britain on the southern
shores of the Mediterranean by her protectorate in Egypt.
Here Boulanger’s desire to conduct things in a military way
led to disputes with the civil authorities, and he returned to
France in 1885, where M. de Freycinet, then head of a new
Cabinet, made him Minister of War. He at once set to
work to reform the army. He told his countrymen that
if they ever hoped to take revenge upon the Germans (or
rather revanche ; for the words do not mean precisely the
same thing), they must have their army in a much better
state of preparation than it was in 1870. Instantly a cry430 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
arose in France that General Boulanger was the man who
sought a war with Germany, and who would lead French
armies to the reconquest of Alsace and Lorraine. The
French peasantry have never been able to accept the loss
of Alsace and Lorraine as an accomplished fact; they
look on the retention of those provinces by the Germans
as a temporary arrangement until France can at the right
moment wrest them out of her powerful rival’s hand.
Boulanger’s popularity rose to fever-heat. The Boulan-
ger March, with its song, “ En revenant de la revue,” was
played and sung in all the cafes chanta7its of Paris. The
general rode a black horse as handsome as himself. Some
one has said, “As a political factor, Boulanger was born
of a horse and a song.”
In 1886 he advocated the exile of the Orleans princes
and the erasure of the Due d’Aumale’s name from the list
of French generals. For this he was reproached with in-
gratitude to the duke, who had once been his commanding
officer. His own letter of thanks for kindness, favors, and
patronage was produced, and Boulanger could only defend
himself by pronouncing it a forgery.
He made many changes in army regulations, which in-
creased his popularity with the army. One was an order
to the men to wear their beards; and as in the French army
soldiers had always been obliged to shave except when on
active service, this was interpreted, in the excited state of
public feeling, into an intimation of the probability of a
speedy declaration of war. As War Minister, the general
also extended the time when soldiers on leave might stay
out at night, and relieved them from much of the heavy
weight that on the march they had had to carry. He broke
up certain semi-aristocratic clubs in the regiments which
controlled army opinion, and gave more weight to the sen-
timents of the sub-officers.
But before long the Ministry, in which he represented the
War Department, came to an end, — as, indeed, appears
to have been the fate of all the ministries under the adminis-
tration of M. Gr£vy. No policy, no reforms, could beGENERAL BOULANGER.
431
carried out under such frequent changes. The popular cry
was that the popular favorite must retain his portfolio as
War Minister in the new Cabinet; and this occasioned
considerable difficulty. The general had begun to be feared
as a possible dictator. His popularity was immense; but
what his place might be in politics no one could precisely
tell. That he was the idol of the nation was certain; but
was he a Radical of the Belleville type, or a forthcoming
Napoleon Bonaparte, — an Imperialist on his own account,
or a Jacobin?
The fall of the second Ministry in which he served put
him out of office, and the War Minister who succeeded him
proceeded to bid for popularity by fresh reforms, which the
Radical Deputies thought might be acceptable to the people.
Those who deal with the French peasant should never lose
sight of the fact that the peace and prosperity of himself
and of his household stand foremost in his eyes. The
Frenchman, as we depict him in imagination or in fiction,
is as far as possible from the French peasant. If ideas
contrary to his selfish interests ever make their way into his
mind, they are due to the leaven of old French soldiers
scattered through the villages. So when the new Minister
of War proposed, and the Chamber of Deputies passed, an
ordinance that made it illegal to buy a substitute, and re-
quired every Frenchman, from eighteen to twenty-one years
of age, to serve in the army, the peasant found small conso-
lation for the loss of his sons’ services in the thought that
the son of a duke must serve as well as the son of a laborer.
Boulanger had introduced no such measure. “ Vive le G6-
n6ral Boulanger ! ”
Another measure, passed about the same time, brought
great trouble into families. It was a law making education
compulsory, and was loaded with vexatious and arbitrary
regulations. Every child privately educated had to pass,
semi-annually, a strict examination before certain village
authorities. This gave rise in families to all sorts of tribu-
lations. France is not exactly a land of liberty; personal
liberty is sacrificed to efforts to enforce equality.432 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
General Boulanger after his loss of office was given the
command of the Thirteenth Army Corps, and was sent into
a sort of exile at its headquarters at Clermont-Ferrand.
At the railroad-station in Paris a great crowd awaited him
on the day of his departure. It broke down the barriers,
and delayed in-coming and out-going trains, as it pressed
around him. At first the general seemed pleased by
this evidence of his popularity; then he began to feel the
truth of what a friend whispered to him, “ These twenty
thousand men will make you forty thousand enemies,” and
he grew embarrassed and annoyed by the demonstration.
Finally he mounted a locomotive, and made a brief speech
to the people ; then the train steamed out of the station.
The exile of the general to Clermont-Ferrand, and the
harsh measures taken against him by the man who succeeded
him in the War Office, caused his popularity with the popu-
lace daily to increase. He was felt to be a power in the
State, and this, when he perceived it, awakened his ambition.
In November, 1887, when all parties in France were
anticipating the resignation of M. Gre'vy after the exposure
of his son-in-law, the majority of Frenchmen, outside the
Chamber of Deputies, dreaded the election of M. Jules Ferry
to his place, and prophesied that it would be the signal for
another civil war. This was the opinion held (rightly or
wrongly) by M. Grevy himself, by General Boulanger, and
by the Comte de Paris. By the last day of November, when
it seemed impossible for M. Grtivy to retain office, because
no leader of influence in the Chamber would help him to
form a ministry, Boulanger, who had come up to Paris, met
a small party of his friends, including M. Clemenceau, leader
of the Radical party, and Rochefort, the leader of the Radi-
cal press, at dinner at the house of M. and Madame
Laguerre.1 M. Laguerre was a deputy who supported
Boulanger in the Chamber against his enemies. Two
gentlemen present had that afternoon seen M. Gr6vy, who
had implored them to find some leader who would form a
1 See “ Les Coulisses du Boulangisme,’' published in “ Figaro,”
and attributed to M. Mermieux.GENERAL BOULANGER.
433
ministry; already had M. Clemenceau been thought of, but
he was undecided. It was evident that if he would secure
the out-of-doors support of Boulanger’s popularity, his
ministry must include Boulanger. It seemed equally certain
that if it did so, it would be beset by enemies in the Chamber.
In the midst of a heated discussion on the subject, General
Boulanger about midnight was mysteriously called away.
The person who summoned him was the editor of the
“ Cocarde,” the Boulangist newspaper, who had been sounded
that afternoon by an agent of the Comte de Paris to know
if it were probable that Boulanger would join the Monarch-
ists to defeat the chances of Jules Ferry. The party of the
Comte de Paris had recently gathered strength both by the
death of the Comte de Chambord and that of the Prince
Imperial. But it was also divided. There were those who
called themselves of the old school, who held to the high-
minded traditions which had caused M. Thiers to say to one
of them in 1871, “You are of all parties the most honest,—
I do not say the most intelligent, but the most honest; ” and
the men of the new school, — men of the close of the cen-
tury, as they called themselves, — who thought all means
good that led to a good end, and were for energetic action.
To this party belonged the Comtesse de Paris, daughter of
the Due de Montpensier and of the Infanta Luisa of Spain.
She had been known to say emphatically : “ I don’t like
people who are always going to do something to-morrow,
— like the Comte de Chambord; such princes die in
exile.”
The Due d’Aumale, on the contrary, despised crooked
ways ; and the hope of an intrigue or alliance with General
Boulanger was not named to him by his nephew, especially
as there was good reason to think he would never have con-
sented to make a useful instrument of the man who had so
ill-treated him when Minister of War.
The idea, however, had suddenly presented itself to the
agents of the Comte de Paris (if it had not been previously
suggested to him) that General Boulanger might be won over
to play the part of General Monk, or failing this, that he
28434 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
might not be unwilling to ally himself with the Monarchists
to defeat the election of M. Ferry.
It was to hold an interview with the gentleman who
represented the cause of the Comte de Paris that Boulanger
was summoned from the conference going on at M.
Laguerre’s.
The Royalist agent proposed that M. Gre'vy should be
retained as president, and promised that his party in the
Chamber would support any ministry which should include
General Boulanger, and of which he should be virtually the
head. In return, Boulanger was to give his support to an
appeal to the people, to see what form of government
France would prefer. It was added that if Boulanger were
Minister of War, he could do what he pleased with the
army; and thus France, well managed, might change from a
republic to a monarchy by the will of the people and
without civil war.
The general listened quietly to these suggestions. “ There
is nothing you could ask that would be too much to reward
the services you would render to our country,” said the
agent of the Royalists; “ and remember that the highest
fortunes under a Republic are the most unstable. Give us
your word to do what we ask, and then at least M. Ferry
will never be president.” “I give you my word,” said
Boulanger. But the other then suggested that so impor-
tant an arrangement must be ratified by some person
higher in the confidence of the Comte de Paris than him-
self ; and he went in haste for the Baron de Makau.
That gentleman showed General Boulanger a letter from
the Comte de Paris, giving him full powers as his represen-
tative. The general was to support the proposal for a
popular vote for or against the restoration of monarchy,
and to use his influence with the people in its favor. If
monarchy were restored, he was to be made head of the
army. After a long conversation the general departed,
promising to sound the chiefs of the Radicals, and ascertain
which of them would be most available to carry out the
plan.GENERAL BOULANGER.
435
But to his friend the editor of the “ Cocarde,” who
seemed alarmed at the extent of his promises, he said, as
soon as they were alone together, “ I would do any-
thing to avoid civil war and the election of Ferry; but
what fools these people must be to put themselves in my
power ! ”
He spoke no more till they returned to the house where
they had left the dinner-party. The discussion was going
on as before, only M. Clemenceau had made up his mind
that he would not undertake to form a ministry, and M.
Andrieux had been summoned from his bed to know if he
would do so. He expressed his willingness to undertake
the task, but said frankly that he could not offer the War
Office to General Boulanger. “ Anything else, my dear
general, you shall have,” he said, “ and in a few months
probably you may have that also; but if you formed part
of the Cabinet at first, I could not conciliate the Chamber.
You shall be military governor of Paris, —the noblest mili-
tary post in the world.”
But this offer was incompatible with the secret engage-
ments that the general had entered into not an hour before.
The conference, therefore, broke up at five in the morning
without a decision having been reached.
The next morning the two gentlemen who had been
charged by M. Gr6vy to procure him a prime minister, and
if possible a cabinet, reported the failure of their mission.
“Then all is over for me,” said M. Grevy; “ I shall at once
send in my resignation.”
The resignation was accepted, and greatly to the surprise
of the general public, — for already the streets were full of
excited citizens, — M. Sadi-Carnot was elected president,
almost without discussion, and without disorder. His elec-
tion put an end to the secret arrangement between Bou-
langer and the Royalists, and appeared likely to give France
a more settled government than it had enjoyed since the
Republic came into existence. The Exposition of 1889,
too, was at hand, and Paris was very anxious that no politi-
cal convulsions should frighten away strangers.436 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
The general was deeply hurt by his unpopularity in the
Chamber, and by the way in which his former friends had
thrown him over; but he still had the mob, the army, and
the peasantry for his partisans, nor was he without the
sympathy of the Bonapartists.
It was not long before he got into trouble with the War
Department for coming to Paris without leave. It had not
been usual for a general of division to ask leave of the
Minister of War for a brief absence, nor could General
Boulanger forget that he himself had been War Minister
not many months before.
The general complained bitterly of the way he had been
followed up by the police, as if he had been a criminal.
“ From the time I left the Ministry of War,” he said,1 “ I
have been spied upon and shadowed like a thief. Even
my orderly has been bribed to report facts and falsehoods
concerning me. My letters have been opened, and copies
of my telegrams lie on every minister’s table.” He
was deprived of his command, and retired from active
service.
This measure, so far from rendering him innocuous to the
Opportunist party, brought him into Parliament2 (as the
French Chambers are now called) and increased his popu-
larity. He had been already elected deputy both from the
Department of the Aisne and the Department of the
Dordogne, — the latter without his proposing himself as a
candidate, although he was ineligible, and could not take
his seat, since at the time of his election he was an officer
of the Government, holding a command. Having now re-
tired into private life, he stood for the Department of Le
Nord, where he was received with enthusiasm and elected
by an immense majority. From all quarters came tele-
graphic messages to him from candidates for parliamentary
honors, offering to resign their seats in favor of the popular
hero. Even Corsica was anxious to have him for her
1	To a reporter for “ Figaro.’’
2	Parliament before this time meant in French history the Provin-
cial Courts, that had chiefly legal functions.GENERAL BOULANGER.
437
deputy. But it was not only his own election which con-
cerned General Boulanger; he wished to secure the elec-
tion of his followers. For that purpose election funds were
needed, and the alliance with the Royalists was renewed.
Whenever a Royalist candidate had a certainty of election,
no Boulangist candidate was to contend against him. In
other cases the agents of the Comte de Paris were openly
to encourage their followers to vote for the nominee of the
ally who was to assist the Monarchists to oppose the Gov-
ernment. There would have been great difficulty in raising
the money needed for this electoral campaign, had it not
been for a lady of high rank, the Duchesse d’Uzes, of un-
spotted reputation, and of great enthusiasm for the cause
of royalty, who poured her whole fortune (over three mil-
lion francs) into the joint treasury. The alliance between
Boulanger and the Royalists was a profound secret. Very
few Boulangists suspected that their election expenses were
being paid by funds drawn from the purses of the supporters
of monarchy.
For more than a year the popularity of “ Le brav' Gdn6-
ral ” kept the various ministries that succeeded each other in
Paris and their officials all over France, in perpetual anx-
iety. Boulanger made journeys almost like royal progresses
into the Departments. Everywhere crowds cheered him,
reporters followed him, his name was in everybody’s
mouth, his doings filled columns of the newspapers in many
languages, and his flower, the carnation, was embroidered
on tablecloths and worn in button-holes. All newspapers
and reviews seem to have agreed that no man had been so
popular in France since the days of the Great Emperor.
He liked the position thrust upon him, and accepted grace-
fully and graciously the adoration he received, — an adora-
tion born partly of infectious curiosity, partly from a love
of what is phenomenal, partly from the attraction of the un-
expected, and above all from the national need of some
object of idolatry. France had been long destitute of any
one to whom she might pay personal devotion. Every
peasant’s cottage throughout France was soon decorated438 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
with his chromo. He has even been seen on his black
horse adorning the bamboo hut of a king in Central Af-
rica. Pamphlets, handbills, and brief biographies were
scattered by his friends throughout the Provinces. His
very name, Boulanger — Baker — helped his popularity. A
corn-law passed in France was obnoxious to the country,
as tending to make bread more dear; “ Boulanger is to
bring us cheap bread ! Long live our Boulanger ! ” became
the popular cry.
But all this enthusiasm seems to have been founded only
on expectation. General Boulanger had done nothing that
might reasonably have attracted national gratitude and
adoration. Yet there was a strong feeling throughout
France that Boulanger would save the country from what
was called the Parliamentary regime. France had become
weary of the squabbles of the seven parties in the Cham-
ber, of the rapid changes of ministry, of the perpetual
coalitions, lasting just long enough to overthrow some chief
unpopular with two factions strong enough by combination
to get rid of him. The Chamber, it was said, though un-
ruly and disorganized, had usurped all the functions of
government, and a republic without an executive officer
who can maintain himself at its head, has never been
known to stand. In France fashion is everything, and in
France, in 1888, it was the fashion to speak ill of parlia-
mentary government.
“Why am I a Boulangist?” cried a young and ardent
writer .of the party.1 “Why are my friends Boulangists?
Because the general is the only man in France capable of
carrying out the expulsion of mere talkers from the Cham-
ber of Deputies, — men who deafen the public ear, and are
good for nothing. Gentlemen, a few hundreds of you, ever
since 1870, have carried on the government. All of you
are lawyers or literary men, none of you are statesmen.”
At the height of the popularity of the general his career
was very near being cut short by a political duel. In
France, as we have seen in the history of the Duchesse de
1 Le Figaro.GENERAL BOULANGER.
439
Berri, it is not an unheard-of thing to get rid of a political
adversary by a challenge. After Boulanger had insulted
the Due d’Aumale while he was Minister of War, a chal-
lenge passed between himself and an Orleanist, M. le Baron
de Lareinty. Boulanger stood to receive the fire of his ad-
versary, but did not fire in return. He was subsequently
anxious to fight Jules Ferry; but Jules Ferry declined any
meeting of the kind. After he entered the Chamber, his
great enemy, Floquet, who was then in the Cabinet, called
him in the course of debate “ A Saint-Arnaud of the cafes
chantants ! " Boulanger challenged him for this, and the
duel took place with swords. Floquet was slightly wounded,
but the general’s foot slipped, and he received his adver-
sary’s sword-point in his throat. It was almost a miracle
that it did not sever the jugular vein. For some time “ Le
brav’ Gtm^ral’s” life was despaired of; but when he was
pronounced out of danger, Paris amused itself with the
thought that the most prominent soldier in the French
army had nearly met his death at the hands of an elderly
lawyer.
Since the funds furnished to Boulanger for the election
expenses of his candidates, and even for his own per-
sonal expenses, came from the Royalist party, he wras more
bound to it than ever; but he pretended to be guided by
a body that called itself the National Republican Com-
mittee, which he assured his friends, the Monarchists, he
used only as a screen. When Madame d’Uzfes threw her
last million into the gulf, it seemed expedient to the Roy-
alists to exact more definite pledges from Boulanger than
his word as a soldier. “ If the present Government of
France is overthrown,” they said, “and an appeal made
to the people, who will fill the interregnum ? Will General
Boulanger, if all power is intrusted to him, consent to give
it up, if the nation votes for monarchy ? And with all the
machinery of government in his hands, is it certain that
a plebiscite would be the free vote of the people?”
A general election was to take place in the summer of
1889, at the height of the Universal Exposition. Hitherto44° FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
the various elections in which Boulanger had contended
had been for vacant seats in the old Assembly. He was
anxious to test his popularity in Paris by standing for the
workman’s quarter of Belleville; and in spite of his being
opposed by the Radicals in the Chamber, as well as by the
Government, he was elected by a large majority.
The Government then changed its method of attack. It
brought in a bill changing the selection of parliamentary
candidates from the scrutin de liste to the scrutin d’arron-
dissevient. Boulanger therefore would be eligible for election
only in the district in which he was domiciled.
Besides the National Republican Committee (which the
general called his screen), there was formed all over France
a Boulangist society called the League of Patriots. This
league was now attacked by the Government as a conspi-
racy. A High Court of Justice was formed by the Senate,
before which its leaders were summoned to appear. Bou-
langer became seriously alarmed. He did not see how
he could act if shut up in prison. His apprehensions
were carefully augmented by the heads of the police, who
had placed one of their agents about his person.1 This
man showed him a pretended order for his arrest on
April i, 1889. The question of his retirement into Bel-
gium if his liberty were threatened had been already de-
bated by himself and his friends. Nearly all of them were
against it. “ Let not the people think our general could
run away,” said some. But others answered, “ They will
say it is a smart trick; that the general has cheated the
Government.”
After seeing the false document which was shown him,
with great pretence of secrecy, by the police agent, the
general hesitated no longer. On the evening of April 1,
accompanied by Madame de Bonnemains, a lady to whom
he was paying devoted attention, pending a divorce from
his wife, he went to Brussels, followed by his friend Count
Dillon, the go-between in financial matters between the
Royalists and himself. The Cabinet of M. Carnot had
1 Les Coulisses du Boulangisme.GENERAL BOULANGER.
441
learned the value of the saying, “ If your enemy wishes to
take flight, build him a bridge of gold.”
The departure of the general threw consternation into
the ranks of his followers. “ It cannot be ! ” they cried.
Then they consoled themselves with the reflection that he
must soon return, as he had done once before under some-
what similar circumstances.
But he did not return. The Government had triumphed.
Boulanger’s power was broken; like a wave, it had toppled
over when its crest was highest. The High Court of Jus-
tice condemned Deroulhde the poet, Rochefort, and Dillon,
to confinement for life in a French fortress. The sentence,
however, was simply one of outlawry, for they were all with
Boulanger.
The exiles did not stay long in Brussels. The Gov-
ernment of Belgium objected to their remaining so near
the frontier of France,—for in Brussels a telephone con-
nected them with Paris, — and they went over to London.
There, at the general’s request, he had an interview with
the Comte de Paris. But their conversation was limited to
useless compliments and military affairs. Boulanger’s power
as a political leader was at an end; the friends of the
prince would advance him no more funds, and in the elec-
tions, which took place very quietly in France during the
summer, he and his friends suffered total defeat.
The Government of France — strengthened not only by
the success of the Exposition, by its great triumph at the
elections, and by the discomfiture of its enemies, but also by
the conviction forced upon parliamentary leaders that the
country was weary of mere talk and discord, and demanded
harmony and action — now became the strongest Govern-
ment that France had enjoyed for a long time. The Re-
public had passed the point of danger, the eighteenth year,
which had been the limit of every dynasty or form of gov-
ernment in France for over a century. It rallied to itself
men from the ranks of all its former enemies, but its
greatest victory was over the Monarchists. The wreck
of their cause by the alliance with a military adventurer was442 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
a blunder in the eyes of one section of the Royalists; in
the eyes of another, it was a dishonor that amounted almost
to a crime.
Boulanger had rallied to himself the clerical party in
France by the promise of a republic strong enough to pro-
tect the weak, — “a republic that would concern itself with
the interests of the people, and be solicitous to preserve
individual liberty in all its forms, especially liberty of con-
science, that liberty the most to be valued of all.” 1 Such
a republic it seems possible the Third Republic may now
become, especially since it is on all hands conceded that
there is a reaction in France in favor of religious liberty,
for those who are religious as well as for those who are
“ philosophers.”
President Carnot has been an eminently respectable
president. Fie has committed no blunders, and if he has
awakened little enthusiasm, he has called forth no animos-
ities. The worst that can be said of him is embodied in
caricatures, where he always appears ready to serve some
useful purpose, as a jointed wooden figure that can be put
to many a use.
The French army is now stronger and better disciplined,
and more full of determination to conquer, than any
French army has ever been before. But no ruler of France
can be anxious to precipitate a war with Germany; and
judging from the present state of feeling among the French,
there appear to be no serious political breakers ahead.
Of course in France the unexpected is always to be ex-
pected, and what a day may bring forth, nobody knows.
Sir Charles Dilke tells us that in 1887, when a friend of
his was going to France, he asked him to ascertain for him
if General Boulanger were a soldier, a mountebank, or an
ass; and the answer brought back to him was, “ Fie is
a little of them all.” The general, after his interview in
London with the Comte de Paris, took up his residence in
the island of Jersey. Fie cannot but have felt that his
popularity had failed him, and that his enchanter’s wand
1 Speech at Tours.GENERAL BOULANGER.
443
was broken. From time to time he made spasmodic efforts
to bring himself again to the notice of the public. He
offered repeatedly to return to France and stand his trial
for conspiracy, provided that the trial might be conducted
before a regular court of justice, and not before an espe-
cial committee appointed by the Chambers.
Meantime his domestic relations must have caused him
poignant anxiety. His wife was his cousin, —- a lady of the
haute bourgeoisie in a provincial town. She appears to have
felt herself unequal to what might be required of her as the
wife of the national hero. She entertained apprehensions
that her fate might be that of the Empress Josephine.
When her husband became War Minister, she declined to
preside over his receptions, and withdrew herself from his
official residence, taking with her her two daughters, H^lfene
and Marcelle. Thus deserted, Boulanger became open to
scandals and reports, some true, and some false, such as
would inevitably be circulated in France concerning such
a man’s relations with women. It is quite certain, how-
ever, that at the height of his popularity he became infatu-
ated with the divorced wife of a Baron de Bonnemains, —a
lady well connected, and up to the time when Boulanger
became her lover, of unstained reputation. She was also
rich, having a fortune of 1,500,000 francs. She was not
very beautiful, but was tender, gracious, and womanly. M.
de Bonnemains had not made her a good husband, and her
friends rejoiced when the law gave her a divorce. General
Boulanger and his wife seem to have agreed to sever their
marriage tie under the new French divorce law, which re-
quires both parties to be examined by a judge, who is to try
if possible to reconcile them ; but at the last moment Ma-
dame Boulanger refused, upon religious grounds, her assent
to a divorce, and the marriage of the general with Madame
de Bonnemains became thenceforward impossible.
The story is not a pleasant one, but it is necessary to
relate it, because of its results.
Madame de Bonnemains, whose constitution was con-
sumptive, drooped and sickened in Jersey. She removed444 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
in the spring of 1891 to Brussels to try one of the new
schemes for the cure of pulmonary trouble. The remedy
seems to have hastened her death, which took place in
July. General Boulanger never recovered from her loss.
His friends and his funds had failed him, and the death of
this woman, whom he had passionately loved, completely
overwhelmed him. He spoke constantly of suicide, and in
spite of precautions taken by his friends, he carried his
purpose into effect upon her grave in the cemetery of
Brussels, October 2, 1891.
Whatever General Boulanger’s faults may have been in
relation to other women, he was devoted to his mother.
The latter, who was eighty-six years old at the time of his
death, resided in Paris, and when he was in the city he
never suffered a day to pass without visiting her. A lock of
her white hair was on his breast when he was dressed for
burial.INDEX.
Abdul Aziz, Sultan, 232.
Abdul Kader, 82, 94.
Abdul Medjid, 86.
About, Edmond, quoted, 248.
Adelaide, Madame, of Orleans, 20, 25,
26, 55> 83, 108.
Affre, Denis Auguste, Archbishop of
Paris, 142 et seq.
African generals, 94; their imprison-
ment, 159 et seq.
Albert, Prince, 100 ; visits Boulogne,
180-182; his opinion of the empe-
ror, 182-184, 217; of Maximilian,
192.
Algeria, 82, 83, 94, 134.
Alison, Sir Archibald, quoted, 142,
150.
Alsace and Lorraine, 241, 242, 246-
249,386,387.
America, demands payment of French
Spoliation Claims, 81 ; Louis Napo-
leon sent to, 69; relations with
Mexico, 195, 196, 210; Boulanger
in, 429.
Americans, what they saw of the
coup d'etat, 160-162; of Paris in
1870, 241, 245; of the siege, 273,
275 ; of Versailles, 282-286.
Angouleme, Louis Antoine, Duke of,
and Dauphin, 12, 13, 21, 24, 26.
Angouleme, Marie Th6r£se, Duchess
of, and Dauphine, 13, 28, 29, 4S, 49.
Appert, chaplain to Queen Marie
Am61ie, quoted, 56, 57.
Arenenberg, 62, 64, 69.
Aumale, Henri d’Orl6ans, Duke of,
37, 3S> 94. >34,42°. 430, 433.
Barbas, 95, 140.
Barrot, Odillon, 110, 112-114, 1^7.
Baudin, 158, 384.
Bazaine, Marshal, 202. 204, 257. 258,
270, 277, 287, 288, 3S4.
Belfort, 288, 299, 398, 399.
Benedetti, 232.
Bergeret, General, war delegate, 307,
3°9*
Berri, Charles Ferdinand, Duke of,
12, 13.
Berri, Marie Caroline, Duchess of,
12, 13, 22, 26, 29, 40-49.
Bismarck, Otto von, Prince, 219, 254,
264, 267, 268, 271, 293-298.
Blanc, Louis, quoted, 34, 40, 41, 46,
52, 53, 65, 70; Louis Blanc himself,
J3°» T33* *34, 137, Mo, 305, 3°6-
Bombardment, of Paris, by the Prus-
sians, 278, 279, 298, 299; during the
Commune, 309, 310; of Strasburg,
286, 287.
Bonjean, Louis, Senator and Judge,
327, 330, 332i 333. 345-
Bordeaux, 300, 3S3, 3S5-3S8.
Bordeaux, Duke of. See Chambord.
Boulanger, George Ernest Jean Marie,
General, boyhood, 427, 428 ; army
life, 428, 429 ; sent to America, 429;
to Tunis, 429; Minister of War,
429, 430 ; popularity, 430-432 ; in-
trigues with Legitimists, 433-439*,
influence declines, 440 ; leaves
France, 440-442 ; domestic rela-
tions, 443; death, 444.
Bourbaki, General, 288, 384.
Bourbons, 10, 14.44-6
INDEX.
Bourbon, Louis Henri Joseph, Duke
38, 39, 4°*
Broglie, Duke of, 405-408.
Burgoyne, Sir John, 260, 262.
Caffarel, General, 421.
Cannon, 274, 275; at Montmartre,
30I> 302*
Canrobert, Marshal, 216.
Carbonari, 14; Louis Napoleon and
his brother take the oaths, 63 ; never
absolved, 70, 71,179, 180, 186.
Carlotta, Empress of Mexico, 36, 37,
I92“I94» i98> l99> 201 > 203> 204>
211.
Carmagnole, 23.
Camot, Hippolyte, 125, 425.
Carnot, Sadi, fourth President of
Third Republic, 424, 425, 435.
Carrel, Armand, 47.
Catholic lady in Red Paris, 310-313.
Cavaignac, Eugene, General, War
Minister, Dictator, 140, 142-144,
149, 152, 159, 160, 164.
Chambord, Comte de, Henri V., Due
de Bordeaux, 12, 26-29, 32, 40, 48,
49, 39°i 39', 392, 4°3> 4°4- 416-
4!8. 433-
Changarnier, General, 82, 138, 139,
146, 148, 150, 152, 159, 160, 164.
Chapultepec, 200, 209.
Charles X., 12, 15-17, 20-33.
Chasseurs d’Afrique, 308.
Christian Brothers, 277.
Clemenceau, 306.
Clement Thomas, General, 302, 392.
Club of Communists, 273.
Cluseret, General, war delegate, 308,
3°9, 310. 3T7, 3i8> 359-
Commune, 265,300-307, 314,321, 330,
349, 35s, 359-
Compi&gne, Chateau de, 169, 176.
Compikgne, Marquis de, narrative of
suppression of the Commune, 355-
358-
Constantine, 82, 83, 93, 94.
Council of the Commune, 306, 316,
317, 3J9, 320, 358-
Coup d'etat, 150-163.
Courbet, artist, 315.
Courbevoie, 88, 306, 307.
Crimean War, 180,185,187, 219, 400.
Crozes, Abbe, 323.
Darboy, Archbishop of Paris, 323,
324? 329-333-
Decazes, Due de, 11.
Deleschuze, war delegate, 317, 337,
358, 359-
Deputies imprisoned, 157, 158.
Deutz, 44, 45, 3S0.
Dickens, Charles, quoted, 182.
Dombrowski, General, 309, 321, 361.
Dominicans of Arceuil, 341, 342.
Duguerry, Gaspard, Abbe, 323, 330,
332*
Duval, General, 307.
Eagle, 75.
Iigalit6, Philippe, Duke of Orleans,
17, 18.
Erckmann-Chatrian, quoted, 238, 247.
248.
Escobedo, General, 206, 208, 210.
Eudes, General and war delegate, 307,
3J7-
Eugenie, Empress, 167-176,185, 186,
197, 216, 217, 220, 22t, 232, 234-
237,241,243,251,257-261,428.
Evans, Dr. Thomas, 259, 260.
Faurk, sings the “ Marseillaise,” 240,
241, 244.
Favre, Jules, 257, 267, 268, 270, 279,
291-295, 298, 299.
Ferr6, 314, 315, 331, 333, 337.
Ferry, Jules, 257, 414, 415, 424.
Feuchkres, Madame de, 39, 40.
Fieschi, 34, 49-53.
Fleury, General, 151, 177, 178, 223.
Flourens, 307.
Fortifications of Paris, 262-264.
France under Louis XVIII., 9, 10, n,
15 ; under Charles X., 16,17, 20, 21;
under Louis Philippe, 34, 35, 81,
107, 108, 109 ; under the Provisional
Government, 125, 126, 133, 135—
140; under the Empire, 178, 179,
218, 226, 227, 228 ; during the
Franco-Prussian War, 238, 239, 246,INDEX.
447
247 ; under the Third Republic, 385,
393> 43S, 44i, 442*
Francis, king of Naples, his political
creed, 15, 16.
Franco-Prussian War declared, 232;
preparations in France, 238, 239,
246, 249, 250 ; in Prussia, 238, 247;
campaign from August 2 to Sep-
tember 4, 241-244, 247-249, 251 —
255; siege of Paris, 262-264, 268-
279; war in the provinces, 286-
288.
Funeral of Napoleon I., 87-92 ; of
victims, 1848, 123; of Lamartine,
146.
Gallifet, Marquis de, 204, 368,
369-
Gambetta, Leon, 257, 270, 277, 278,
382-385, 388, 395, 396, 411-414.
Garibaldi, Giuseppe, General, 288,
296-298, 306.
Genton, 330.
German Emperor. See William.
German Empire, 288, 289, 290, 291,
298.
German soldiers, 247, 248, 283, 284,
285.
Germans, residents in France, 250,
251.
Government, Provisional, in 1848,117,
118, 122, 125, 130-139; in 1870,
257, 262, 267, 270, 271 ; in 1871,
372i396-
Grand Livrc, 339, 340.
Greville, Charles, quoted, ir, 12, 16,
l7i 35.87.
Grevy, Jules, third President of Third
Republic, 157, 406, 408-414, 418,
4i9. 42.3'426, 435.
Guillotine burned, 315.
Guizot, 101, no, 112.
Ham, 34, 76-80, 160, 163, 164.
Hartwell, n. 12.
Henri V. See Chambord.
Henrion, 331, 333.
H6risson, Comte d’, 291-295.
Hohenlohe, Princess Adelaide, 166.
Hohenzollern, Prince Leopold of, 231;
his sister, 166.
Home, the Spiritualist, 220, 221.
Hortense, Queen of Holland, 59, 60,
63, 64, 69, 234.
Hostages, their arrest, 323, 324 ; im-
prisonment, 325, 326, 327, 329; ex-
ecution, 328-335, 364, 365.
Hotel-de-Ville, 26, 27, 123, 130-132,
138, 187, 270, 271, 279, 302, 303,
306, 321.
Hugo, Victor, 96, 153-156, 251-253,
273. 3°4-
Ibrahim Pasha, 84, 86.
Indemnity to the Prussians, 294, 295,
299. 373. 394-
Irving, Washington, quoted, 168, 173.
Isabella, Queen of Spain, 100, 101,
220.
Ismail Pasha, Khedive of Egypt, 232-
236.
Jackson, Andrew, General, 81, 82.
Jaumont, quarries of, 2^9. 25S.
Jecker, Mexican banker, 202, 330.
Joinville, Philippe, Prince de, 37,87,
91, 108, 109.
Juarez, President of Mexican Repub-
lic, 195, 197, 202, 209, 210.
Juarists, 198, 201, 202, 205.
Khedive of Egypt. See Ismail
Pasha.
Lafarge, Madame, 108.
Lafayette, Gilbert, Marquis de, 14, 15,
26, 27, 35, 83.
Laffitte, 14, 15, 25, 27, 83.
Laguerre, 432, 433.
Lamartine, Alphonse de, 109, 117,
I I25_I33i I35. '36. 238, 140. 146-
Lamazou, Abb6 de, narrative of resis-
I tance in La Roquette, 334-336.
Lecomte, General, 302, 392.
Ledru-Rollin, 125, 137-139, 140.
Limouzin, Madame, 421, 422.
Loire, Army of the, 274, 276, 277.448
INDEX.
Lopez, General, 201, 206, 207, 214.
Louis XVIII., 9-15.
Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland, 59-
61, 63, 80.
Louis Napoleon, 58, 61-80, 140, 141,
144-146, 150, 153; as Prince Presi-
dent, 146-149, 165, 166. As Empe-
ror, see Napoleon III.
Louis Philippe, King of the French,
17-20, 25-27, 34-37, 49-5T» 54, 83,
91, 95, 102, 107-112, 114, 121, 134.
Lucchesi Palli, Count, 137, 138, 140.
Lullier, 307, 317.
Luzy, Mademoiselle de, 103, 104, 106,
107.
Macaulay, Lord, 425.
MacMahon, Patrice, Marshal, Duke of
Magenta, second President of Third
Republic, 14, 248, 251, 253, 384,
400, 402, 407-412.
Mahmoud II., Sultan, 84, 85, 86.
Malmesbury, Lord, quoted, 261, 262.
Marie Amelie, Queen of the French,
19, 50,51, 54-57, 97-99, 112.
Marmont, Marshal, Duke of Ragusa,
21, 22, 26.
“ Marseillaise,” 239-241, 244, 245.
Maupas, De, Prefect of Police, 150-
I53*
Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, 58,
191-194,198-214.
Megy, 316, 331, 336-33S.
Mehemet Ali, 84-87.
Mejia, General, 205, 207, 209, 211-
213.
Mexico, 194-198, 200-205.
Ministry of Marine (Navy Department
building), 345-348.
Ministry of National Defence, 246,
251, 262, 266, 269-271, 279.
Miramar, 193, 194, 201, 203.
Miramon, General, 205, 207, 209, 211,
212, 213.
Mobiles, 122, 133, 138, 249, 250, 263,
267, 269.
Moltke, General von, 188, 189, 264,
298, 299.
Monroe doctrine, 196,
Montholon, Count, 74, 76.
Montijo. See Eugenie and Teba.
Montpensier, Duke of, 37, 95, 100,
101, 115, 231.
Montpensier, Duchess of, 37, 100,
101, H5,433-
Morey, 51-53.
Morny, Due de, 150, 152, 153, 157,
160, 169, 177, 178.
Mortier, Marshal, Duke of Treviso,
50.
Napoleon I., 58, 59, 62, 65; funeral
of, 87-92, 226.
Napoleon II., Due de Reichstadt, 58,
64,191.
Napoleon III., 165, 166, 170, 175—
190-197, 202, 203, 215, 216-228,
249, 252, 254-256, 261, 262.
Napoleon, eldest son of Louis and
Hortense, 60.
Napoleon, second son of Louis and
Hortense, 61, 62, 63, 179.
Napoleon (Plon-Plon), son of King
Jerome, 166, 171, 220, 419.
National Guard, 35, 88, 89, 133, 138,
263, 268, 269, 280, 295, 301-303,
3°5- 349, 35°. 365. 371-
National workshops, 133, 141-144.
Narratives : Louis Napoleon’s descent
on Boulogne, 71-76; his escape from
Ham, 70-80; of Victor Hugo dur-
ing the coup d'etat, 155,156 ; of an
American, 160-162 ; of the entry
of the Prussians into Versailles,
282-286; of a lady in Red Paris,
310-313; of Paul Seigneret, 324-
328; of the Abbe Lamazou, 334-
336; of Count Orsi during the
Commune, 313, 314; of his arrest as
a Communist, 355-358; of a victim
of Paris and Versailles, 360-371.
Nemours, Due de, 37, 50, 108, 109,
113, ns.
Neuilly, 54, 96-99, 217.
Nolte, Vincent, anecdote of Lafayette,
14, 15.
O’Brien, Smith, 135, 136.
Oliphant, Mrs. M. E. W., quoted,
131, 13J1 35°> 35i-
Ollivier, Emile, 224, 225, 245, 246.INDEX.
449
Ordonannces, 17, 20-24.
Orleans family, 36, 37, 95, 140, 217,
388, 419, 420.
Orleans, Ferdinand, Duke of, 36, 93,
95-100.
Orleans, Helene, Duchess of, 115-
ji8.
Orsi, Joseph, Count, 71, 72; quoted,
73. 3J3-3I6. 352, 353, 354-35S.
Orsini, Felice, 185, 219.
Oudinot, Duke of Reggio, General,
147, 148.
Palikao, Count Montauban, 246,
249.
Paris in 1830, 16, 17, 21, 22-25, 27!
in 1848,111-121 ; under the Empire,
227; in July, 1870, 239, 240; in
August, 1870, 244-246, 249, 250 ; in
September, 256, 258, 262-264, 266 ;
in the siege, 266, 269, 271-2S1 ;
during the Commune, 305, 309-313,
315. 3i6. 32°-322. 3®2> 363-
Paris, Comte de, 114, 420, 433, 441,
442.
Parties in 1820, 9-11 ; in 1830, 21, 26,
28, 34, 35; in 1848, 108, 109,122-
126 ; in 1850,135,136,139, 140,147-
149; in 1871, 385, 386; in 1873,
402-404 ; in 1889,441, 442 | Legiti-
mists, 41, 433.
Pasquier, Dr., 307.
Peace signed, 280, 281, 299.
Peasants, 121, 145, 183, 184, 246,431.
Persigny, Fialin, Due de, 72, 76, 150,
151,177,178,190.
Petit, General, 136.
Petroleuses, 321,322.
Pigeon post, 273, 274.
Piguellier, Colonel, 75.
Plebiscites, 144, 165, 183, 184, 230,
231,298.
Poiret, 335-
Polignac, Prince, 16,17, 20, 23, 24.
Praslin, Due de, 102 et seg.
Prefecture of Police, 163, 325, 326,
342-345-
Prince Imperial (Napoleon Eugene
Louis Jean Joseph), 64,65,187-190,
242,243,260,415,416.
Provisional Government, 1848, 121,
122, 125, 130-139; in 1871, 372,
3g7, 3S9, 394-396.
Queretaro, 205, 206, 207-213.
Rambouillet, 27, 28.
Reichshoffen. See Worth.
Remusat, 397.
Republic, Second,	130-149, 165 ;
Third, 257, 262, 265, 372, 404, 435,
43S-442.
Restoration 9-15.
Revolution, 1830, 20-28; 1848, 108-
126, 132; 1870, 257, 258, 262.
Rochefort, Henri, Marquis de, 229,
257, 270, 317, 259, 392, 432.
Rome, 147, 148.
Rossel, General, war delegate, 318,
3r9» 392-
Saarbruck, 241, 242, 244.
Salm-Salm, Prince, 205, 207 ; Princess,
208, 209.
Saint-Arnaud, Jacques Leroy, Mar-
shal, 83, 151, 178.
Sarcey, Francisque de, quoted, 267,
270, 276, 277.
Scrutin de lisle, Scrutin d'arron-
dissement. 406, 407, 440.
Seigneret, Paul, 324-328.
Seisset, Admiral, 305.
Simon, Jules, 257, 308, 408, 410.
Soledad, La, treaty of, 197, 198.
Shah of Persia, 405.
Spain, 12, 231, 232.
Spanish marriages, 100, 101, 102, 109.
“ Spectator,” The, quoted, 242.
Strasburg, 64-69, 268, 286, 287.
Switzerland, 69, 28S.
Suez Canal, 232-236.
Talleyrand - P£rigord, Charles,
Prince of Benevento, 23, 26, 83, 84.
Teba, Madame de {nee Fitzpatrick,
Marquise de Montijo), 167, 168,
I 169.
20450
INDEX.
Thiers, Adolphe, first President of
the Third Republic, 21, 25, 87, 112,
113, 229, 246, 269-271, 299, 305,
315,320; biographical sketch, 372-
382,386,387, 389,392-399,405,
408.
Thiers, Madame, 180, 389,394, 399.
Ticknor, Mr. George, quoted, 167,
168.
Tissot, Victor, quoted, 191.
Trochu, Jules, General, 257, 262, 270,
271, 276-279, 294.
Tuileries, 23, 50, 116, 117, 119, 120,
171, 172, 190, 221, 241, 257-259,
320, 321, 349.
Uz£s, Duchess of, 437, 439.
Vamb£ry, Colonel, 66, 67.
Valerien, Fort, 263, 307.
Vendome, Place, massacre, 305 ; col-
umn, 3*5i 3l6*
Versailles, 93, 282-286, 288, 290, 305,
389.390-
Versailles troops enter Paris, 320, 321,
355-358-
Villele, M. de, 16.
Victim of Paris and Versailles, 360-
37*-
Victoria, Queen of England, 100-102,
184-186-192, 215-219.
Vinoy, General, 279, 301, 307.
Walewski, Count, 177, 179, 224.
Washburne, E. B., American Minis-
ter, 251, 269, 338.
Wellington, Arthur, Duke of, 22, 23,
179-
White Terror, n.
William, King of Prussia, 219, 264,
267, 268; made Emperor of Ger-
many, 288-291.
Wilson, Daniel, 420-423.
Wimpfen, General, 252, 253.
Wissembourg, 242.
Worth, 243, 247, 248.