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 MEMOIRS 
 
 (VIEUX SOUVENIRS) 
 of the 
 
 Prince de Joinville
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 (l^IEUX aOUFENIRii) 
 of the 
 
 Prince de Joinville 
 
 ^ 
 
 Tramlated from the French With many Illustrations from 
 
 By- Lady Mary Loyd Original Dr a-wings by the Author 
 
 London 
 William Hcinemann 
 
 MDCCCXCV
 
 DC 
 
 SOUVENIRS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 1818— 1S30 
 
 I WAS born at Neuilly-sur-Seine, on the outskirts of 
 Paris, on the 14th of August 18:8. Imn:iediately after 
 my birth, and as soon as the Chancellor of France, M. 
 Dambray, had declared me to be a boy, I was made over 
 to the care of a wet nurse and another attendant. Three 
 years later I passed out of female hands, earlier, somewhat, 
 than is generally the case, for a little accident befell my 
 nurse, in which my eldest brother's tutor, an unfrocked 
 priest, as he was then discovered to be, was also concerned. 
 My earliest memory, and a very hazy one it is, mixed up 
 with some story or other about a parrot, is of having seen 
 my grandmother, the Duchesse d'Orléans-Penthièvre, at 
 Ivry. After that I recollect being at the château of 
 Meudon with my great-aunt, the Duchesse de Bourbon, a 
 tiny little woman ; and being taken to see the Princesse 
 Louise de Condé at the Temple, and then I remember 
 seeing Talma act in Charles the Bold, and the great 
 impression his gilt cuirass made upon me. 
 
 But the first event that really is exceedingly clear in my 
 recollection is a family dinner given by Louis XVIII. at 
 
 B
 
 2 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, i 
 
 the Tuileries on Twelfth Night, 1824. Even now, sixty- 
 six years after, I can see every detail of that party, as if it 
 had been }'estcrda}'. Our arri\'al in the courtyard of the 
 Tuileries, under the salute of the Swiss Guard at the 
 Pavilion Marsan and the King's Guard at the Pavilion de 
 Flore. Our getting out of the carriage under the porch of 
 the stone staircase to the deafening rattle of the drums of 
 the Cent Suisses. Then my huge astonishment when we 
 had to stand aside halfway up the stairs, to let " La viande 
 du Roi," in other words, his Majesty's dinner, pass by, as 
 it was being carried up from the kitchen to the first floor, 
 escorted by his bodyguard. 
 
 At the head of the stairs we were received by a red-coated 
 
 Steward of the Household, who, as I was told, bore the 
 
 name of de Cossé, and, crossing the Salle des Gardes, we 
 
 were ushered into the drawing-room, where the whole 
 
 famih" soon assembled : to wit. Monsieur, who afterwards 
 
 became Charles X,, the Due and Duchesse d'Angoulême, 
 
 the Duchesse de Berri, my father and mother, my aunt 
 
 Adélaïde, my two elder brothers, Chartres and Nemours, 
 
 my three sisters, Louise, Marie, and Clémentine, and last 
 
 and youngest of all, myself. There was only one person 
 
 present who did not belong to the Royal House of France, 
 
 and that was the Prince de Carignan, afterwards known as 
 
 Charles Albert, a tall, thin, severe-looking person. He 
 
 had just served in the ranks of the French army, with all 
 
 the proverbial valour of his race, through the Spanish 
 
 campaign of 1823, and he wore on his uniform that evening 
 
 the worsted epaulettes given him on tlie field of batttle by 
 
 the men of the 4th Regiment of the Guard, with whom he 
 
 had fought in the assault on the Trocadéro. Presently 
 
 the door of the King's stud}' opened, and Louis XVHI. 
 
 appeared, in his wheeled chair, with that handsome white 
 
 head and in the blue uniform with epaulettes which the 
 
 pictures of him have rendered so familiar. He kissed each 
 
 of us in our turn, without speaking to any of us except my 
 
 brother Nemours, whom he questioned about his Latin 
 
 lessons. Nemours began to stammer, and was only saved
 
 i8i8— 1S30] 
 
 PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 
 
 from disgrace by the opportune entrance of the Prince de 
 Carignan. 
 
 At dinner the Twelfth Night customs were duly observed, 
 and when I broke my cake I found the bean within it. I 
 must confess the fact had not been altogether unforeseen, 
 and my mother had consequently primed me as to my be- 
 haviour. This did not prevent me from feeling heartily 
 shy w^hen I saw every eye fixed on me, I got up from the 
 table, and carried the bean on a salver to the Duchesse 
 d'Angoulême. I loved her dearly even then, that good 
 kind Duchess ! for she had always 
 been so good to us, ever since we 
 were babies, and never failed to give 
 us the most beautiful New Year's 
 gifts. My respectful affection deep- 
 ened as I grew old enough to realize 
 her sorrows and the nobility of 
 her nature, and I was always glad, 
 after we were separated by the events 
 of 1830, to take every opportunity of 
 letting her know how unalterable my 
 feelings for her 
 were. She broke 
 the ice by being 
 the first to raise 
 her glass to her 
 lips, when I had 
 
 made her my queen, and Louis XVIII. was the first to 
 exclaim, " The Queen drinks." A few months later the 
 king was dead, and I watched his funeral procession from 
 the windows of the Fire Brigade Station in the Rue de 
 la Paix, as it passed on its way to Saint-Denis. 
 
 Then came the echo of the excitement caused by the 
 coronation of Charles X., that great ceremonial of which 
 the Cathedral of Rheims was the scene, and which, coming 
 as it did after all the horrors of the Revolution, gave rise 
 to the sanguine hope that the ancient monarchy would 
 repair every disaster now, just as it had in the time of 
 
 B 2
 
 4 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap. 
 
 Charles VII. But our childish ideas were not of so far- 
 reaching a nature. It was the splendour displayed that 
 interested us — the dresses, the carriages, and so on, of 
 the princes and ambassadors who came from all parts of 
 the world to greet the opening of the new monarch's reign. 
 Numbers of artists solicited my father's permission to do 
 his portrait, in the gold and ermine robes of a prince of 
 the blood which he wore at the coronation, and our pet 
 amusement at the time was to go and see papa " sitting as 
 Pharamond." I said Pharamond, like my elders, although 
 my own historical knowledge was of the most elementary 
 description. To be frank, I was exceedingly backward, 
 and have always remained so. My mother had taught me 
 to read, but beyond that I had reached the age of six 
 knowing nothing or hardly anything. But I was a very 
 good rider and went out alone on a pony Lord Bristol had 
 given my father, which I rode boldly, and I might even say 
 recklessly. The pony's name was Polynice. He and I 
 understood each other perfectly, and I was his friend to 
 the last. I took care he should end his days in the park 
 at St. Cloud, where he roamed in freedom, with a stable of 
 his own to retire into if the fancy took him. Often and 
 often I have been to see him, in that same stable, which he 
 ended by never leaving except to come and greet us, and 
 warm himself in the sunshine. He died, there, fortunately 
 for himself, full of years, just before the pleasant re- 
 volutionary occurrences of 1848, in which he would cer- 
 tainly have had his share. But my father desired me to 
 be something more than a mere horseman. He got mc 
 a tutor, and from that day out, for several years, my recol- 
 lections are divided, to the exclusion of everything else, 
 between my education and my life with my family. My 
 tutor was called M. Trognon, and his name brought many 
 a jest upon him, amongst others a line of Victor Hugo's 
 in Rîiy Bias about that 
 
 Affreuse compagnonne, 
 Dont la barbe fleurit et dont le nez trognonne.
 
 iSiS— 1830] 
 
 PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 
 
 " Fleurit " was an allusion to Cuvillier-Fleury, my brother 
 Aumale's tutor, and Victor Hugo thought he owed both 
 the gentlemen a grudge. M. Trognon, a distinguished 
 pupil of the École Normale, had begun his teaching career 
 as professor of rhetoric at the college at Langres, where, 
 coming in one day to take his class, he found his desk 
 occupied by a donkey, which his pupils had established in 
 his seat. " Gentlemen," he said as he went out, " I leave 
 you with a professor who is worthy of you." Soon after, 
 he was recalled to Paris, as assistant to M. Guizot in his 
 courses of historical lectures at the Collesre of France. 
 
 He was not only an accomplished university man, but 
 something else besides, as we learnt from a copy of the 
 Figaro, which our eldest brother brought back from 
 college. In this newspaper we read, in fact, a set of 
 verses by Baour-Lormian, beginning thus : — 
 
 Oue me vent ce Trognon, pédagogue en besicles, 
 Dans la fosse du Globe enterrant ses articles ! 
 
 There was no doubt about it. My tutor was a journalist, 
 and these lines a revengeful answer to an article of his 
 in the Globe, a newspaper which, as we soon learnt,
 
 6 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, i 
 
 he had founded in concert with Pierre Leroux, Dubois, 
 Jouffroy, Rémusat, and some others. We discovered 
 too that our journalist was a freethinker as well, and 
 author of a thick octavo book which had been con- 
 demned by the Index at Rome, a fact which did not 
 prevent his dying in the most religious frame of mind 
 possible, well nigh in the odour of sanctity. My tutor 
 was, in truth, of too lofty an intelligence to persevere 
 long in that religious nihilism, that denial of the existence 
 of a future state, which, spreading from religion to family 
 life, and from thence again to the affairs of the State, 
 ends by leaving nothing standing but animal man and his 
 animal passions and appetites. The long death-struggle 
 of a passionately loved sister, who was supported by the 
 constant ministrations of the Bishop of Beauvais, M. 
 Feutrier, and her calm end, of which he was an eye- 
 witness, began the change within him. When, in later 
 years, the Abbé Dupanloup, then Vicar of the Church of 
 the Assumption, was charged with the care of my religious 
 education, he and Trognon became very intimate, and 
 death alone interrupted the close communion then estab- 
 lished between these two great minds. 
 
 The first years of my education were very happy. 
 Anything dry about it was liberally compensated for by 
 the constant intimacy of the family circle. We were three 
 sisters and six brothers (this last number soon reduced to 
 five by the death of my brother Penthièvre), all living 
 together, eating together, often doing lessons together, 
 together always in all games and pleasure parties and 
 excursions. What a joyous band we were may easily be 
 guessed. Each boy had his own tutor, and two govern- 
 esses were in charge of my sisters. So long as tutors and 
 governesses only had to deal with their own pupils, all 
 went w^ell, but when the brothers and sisters were all 
 together, and influenced by the spirit of insubordination 
 and love of playing pranks which the elder ones brought 
 back from school, we made life hard and sour to the pre- 
 ceptorial body. But they got on, somehow. The grands-
 
 iSiS— 1830] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 7 
 
 parents, as we called our parents, taken up as they were 
 by their social engagements, left all initiative to the tutors. 
 Each of these was only expected to enter daily in a book 
 his report and opinion of the pupil committed to his care. 
 This book was seen by my father, and he added his own 
 remarks and orders, and then returned it. 
 
 Our day generally began at five o'clock in the morning. 
 The elder ones went to school to attend their classes, took 
 their meals and played with the boarders, and came home 
 after evening school. The boys who were not at school 
 and the girls spent the day doing their lessons. In the 
 evening, pupils and teachers of both sexes all dined 
 together, and then went to the drawing-room, where there 
 was always company, for my parents received every 
 evening. Thursdays and Sundays, which were school 
 holidays, were given up specially to lessons in what were 
 known as accomplishments : drawing, music, physical 
 exercises, riding, fencing, singlestick, dancing, &c. On 
 Sundays, every one, great and small , dined at " the great 
 table," and this life of ours was as regular as clockwork 
 summer and winter alike. 
 
 In winter time we lived in the Palais-Royal, which then was 
 not at all what it is nowadays. Where the Galerie d'Orléans 
 is now to be seen, there were hideous wooden passages, 
 with muddy floors, exclusively occupied by milliners' shops, 
 and peopled, it was said, by thousands of rats. To get 
 rid of this collection of shanties, they were sawn through 
 below, and allowed to come down with a crash. Crowds 
 of people came to witness the collapse, in the hope of 
 seeing the expected multitude of rats rush out. There 
 was not a single one ! They had all cleared out in good 
 time. Such is the wisdom of the brute creation ! 
 
 When I first lived at the Palais-Royal, I had a room in 
 the Rue de Valois, which overlooked the Bœuf à la Mode 
 restaurant, and opposite there dwelt an old lady, always 
 dressed in black, who regularly every day, at the very 
 same hour, placed an indispensable article of domestic use 
 upon her window-sill, so that it was as good as a clock
 
 8 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, i 
 
 to us. Later on, I changed my room for one looking over 
 the courtyard, facing the rooms occupied by an actor 
 at the Comédie-Française named Dumilâtre, and his 
 daughters ; Dumilâtre, whom I knew well, having seen him 
 play those small tragedy parts which consist in making 
 a dignified exit and saying, " Yes, my lord," had the same 
 habits as my black lady, and the same object used to 
 appear upon his window-sill with equal regularity. I had 
 only changed my clock ! 
 
 It was during the winter sojourn at the Palais-Royal, 
 too, that our masters and their lessons multiplied. And 
 several of these masters were oddities, amongst others our 
 professor of German. Picture a little bland-mannered old 
 man, dressed all in black, with satin breeches, woollen 
 stockings, enormous shoes, and a broad-brimmed hat. He 
 had been tutor to Prince Metternich in his }'outh. I know 
 not what chance had later driv^cn him into France — where, 
 during the Terror, he became one of the secretaries of the 
 much-dreaded Committee of Public Safety at Strasbourg. 
 He lived alone with his daughter, whom he often sent to 
 Germany, not by the ordinary means of communication, 
 but concealed in the van which was sent periodically into 
 Hungary to fetch supplies of leeches for the hospitals, 
 which circumstance made us conclude that the simple 
 name of " Herr Simon " by which he called himself prob- 
 ably concealed some deep myster}-. Nothing, alas ! remains 
 to me of his German, nor of that of a valet of the same 
 race, who had been put about me, so ill adapted has 
 my mental constitution always proved to an}' foreign 
 language. 
 
 Another oddity was our dancing master, an Opéra 
 dancer, named Scuriot. What a fine presence that man 
 had ! His lesson, which we all took together, like a little 
 corps lie ballet, was a great amusement to us, especially 
 because of the theatrical stories we used to make him tell 
 us. One day he arrived in a great state of excitement, 
 and addressing the governesses he said, " Ladies, you see 
 before }'ou a man who had a remarkable escape yesterday.
 
 iSiS— 1S30] 
 
 PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 
 
 The ballet called Les Filets de Vulcain was being danced, I 
 was playing Jupiter, and I was just going to ascend in my 
 glory, with Mercury beside me, when I felt that same glory 
 was out of order, and I had only just time to jump off, 
 and to shout to Mercury, 'Jump, my friend, jump, don't 
 lose an instant ! ' Well, well ! " During the pauses in the 
 lesson, when his fiddle ceased, and while he wiped the 
 perspiration from his brow, we used to crowd round him. 
 and ask him questions. The elder ones always tried to 
 get him on the subject of a danseuse named Mademoiselle 
 Legallois, one on which he would descant unendingly. This 
 was the lady who on one occasion appeared in a ballet 
 as the allegorical representative of Religion, which fact 
 caused it to be said of a certain 
 Marshal of France " qu'il s'était 
 éteint dans les bras de la re- 
 ligion " (that he had passed 
 away peacefully in the 
 arms of religion). But 
 the moment we were 
 seen crowding round and 
 whispering with the old 
 dancer, the governesses 
 would charge down upon ' ■ 
 us with their " What is 
 
 it .'' What is it .-^ " and we began our battements and 
 our steps again. Personally I owed one of the earliest 
 successes in my life to old Seuriot. I had profited 
 so much by his lessons, that I appear to have danced 
 the minuet in a quite remarkable way, so much so that 
 my parents had a complete crimson velvet dress in the 
 style of the last century made for me, with the indispen- 
 sable three-cornered hat and a sword with knots of ribbon. 
 Thus accoutred, with powdered head and pigtail, I had 
 to give several performances of my minuet, which I danced 
 with my sister Clémentine, both of us displaying all the 
 airs and graces of bygone times. My marquis's dress, of 
 which I was excessively proud, served me also for a fanc)'
 
 lo SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, i 
 
 dress ball given by the Duchesse de Berri, at which, 
 identifying myself too much with my character, I had 
 
 a quarrel with a Cossack of my own age, young de B 
 
 about a partner. In my fury I drew my sword, he did 
 likewise, and we were just falling on each other, when 
 the Duchesse rushed up crying, " Stop, you naughty 
 children ! Take their swords away, M. de Brissac ! " As 
 for my sister Clémentine, who was at the ball too, w^earing 
 her minuet gown, and looking utterly bewitching in her 
 powder and her looped-up dress, she attracted the notice of 
 Charles X., to whom she doubtless brought back memories 
 of his own youth. He came to her and kissed her, and 
 gazed at her for a long time, holding her hand. Then, 
 turning to my father, he said, " ^Monsieur, if I were forty 
 years younger, your daughter should be Queen of France," 
 whereupon he kissed her over again. 
 
 Our dancing lessons, which were looked upon as recrea- 
 tion, alternated with walks about Paris. The girls w^ent in 
 one direction, and the boys in another. When we went out 
 thus, one tutor alone took the extra duty of looking after 
 us. When it was Trognon who came out, we always 
 expected to be taken to Sautelet's, a bookseller in the 
 Rue de Richelieu, whose establishment became, I recollect, 
 in later days, the head office of the National. There 
 Trognon would hold forth amongst the journalists, while 
 the clerks talked to us. I remember their showing me 
 the splendid manuscript of the Memoirs of Saiiit-Sijuon, 
 which Sautelet was then publishing. When, on the other 
 hand, it was Cuvillier-Fleury who marshalled us, the objects 
 of our walks became more varied, and we soon began to 
 discover that there was not unfrequently a petticoat some- 
 where about. Yet I owe to him the precious memory of a 
 visit to the studio of Eugène Delacroix ; and also of one 
 to M. de Lavalette, Postmaster-General under the first 
 Napoleon, a most interesting man, well known for his 
 celebrated escape on the eve of the day appointed for his 
 execution, after the Hundred Days, when his wife came 
 and took his place, and brought him garments to escape in.
 
 iSiS— iS3o] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE ii 
 
 But oftenest of all we used to go to a bookseller's in the 
 Rue Saint-André-des-Arts, who was a great friend of 
 Fleury's, and we were always sure to find either him or 
 his charming wife at home. 
 
 Fleury's friendship for this bookseller was indeed the 
 cause of a comical adventure. In the confusion of the first 
 few days of the Revolution of 1830, the gentleman in ques- 
 tion appeared before us with white belt and a sword over 
 his civilian's dress. "Look here, Fleury," said he, "what 
 use can I be to you to-day .'' " Fleury considered for a 
 minute, and then he said he really didn't quite see, but 
 that after all he thought nobody had troubled their heads 
 about the Prefecture of Police. " I'll be off there," said my 
 bookseller, and off he went, appointed himself Prefect ot 
 Police, and performed all his functions for several days. I 
 have never heard of him since. 
 
 Turn about with these walks, too, we had lessons in 
 gymnastics, of which science a certain Colonel Amoros 
 was the apostle. This worthy colonel gave prizes to 
 everybody, so as to make his classes popular. These 
 prizes took the form of collars, inscribed in large painted 
 letters with the particular merit of the pupil rewarded, 
 such as agility, courage, strength, &c. One pupil was 
 given a prize for " hidden virtue." After the gymnastic 
 lessons came riding lessons, for which we were taken to the 
 Cirque Olympique, I and my two elder brothers being 
 always put in the charge of a single tutor. But as he 
 invariably found the riding school too cold, he used to go 
 and shut himself up in the manager's room, and leave us 
 to the tender care of Laurent Franconi and the rough 
 riders, which amounted to leaving us to ourselves. This 
 icy cold arena, in the Place du Château-d'Eau, consisted of 
 one immense hall, where the place of the pit was taken up 
 by a circus or riding school for all sorts of horsemanship, 
 which circus was connected with the stage by inclined 
 planes, whenever a military piece with battles in it was 
 performed. In this circus Laurent Franconi made us practise 
 " la haute école," and his assistants. Bassin and Lagoutte,
 
 12 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, i 
 
 taught us to v^ault on horseback, astride and sitting, and 
 standing upright — after every fashion, in fact. And to our 
 great amusement, too, these lessons, falHng as they did on 
 Sunday afternoons, generally coincided with the rehearsals 
 on the stage, in which we joyfully took our share during 
 the intervals we were allowed for rest, scaling the practic- 
 able scenery, or taking part with the artists in certain 
 interludes not mentioned on the programme. This was 
 not indeed our only initiation into theatrical art, a career 
 bearing so much analogy to that of every prince. Taking 
 advantage of the close proximity of the Palais-Royal to the 
 Comédie- Française, my father had added a regular course of 
 dramatic literature to the educational plan he had laid out 
 for us. So very often, when the old stock plays were being 
 given at the Français, he would take us by a door lead- 
 ing from his drawing-room into the passage which separates 
 the side scenes from the artists' green-room, and leave us 
 in his box — the three centre ones on the grand tier thrown 
 together — returning to fetch us at the end of the per- 
 formance. Those evenings at the Comédie-Française were 
 our greatest jo}', and taught us many a useful lesson, 
 filling our heads with classic literature far more efficiently 
 than all the reading and courses of lectures in the world. 
 But those unlucky classics were very much neglected. 
 They were not a bit the fashion. There would hardl}- 
 be two hundred people in the theatre, and all the boxes 
 were empty. A wretched orchestra, conducted by a stout 
 man of the name of Chodron, squeaked a tune that set 
 everybody's teeth on edge. Up would go the curtain, 
 without any warning, in the very middle of some phrase 
 in the music which would break off with a sigh from the 
 clarionet, and drearily the play would begin. We were 
 all eyes and ears in spite of that, and nothing in the 
 play of the tragic actresses — ]\Iadame Duchesnois, Madame 
 Paradol, and Madame Bourgoin — ever escaped us. I can 
 see and hear yet all Corneille's plays, and Racine's too, 
 and Zaïre, and lilahoifiet, and L' Orphelin de la Chine, and 
 many more. But what we longed for most impatiently were
 
 i8iS— 1830] 
 
 PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 
 
 13 
 
 Molière's plays. They were our prime favourites, and 
 what actors too ! Monrose, Cartigny, Samson, Firmin, 
 Menjaud, and Faure, whose appearances as Fleurant in 
 Le Malade and Truffaldin in LEtoiirdi we always greeted 
 with delight, on account of the properties he carried 
 in his hand. This same Faure, an old soldier of 1782, 
 never failed to say to my father, as he escorted him to 
 the door, taper in hand, " Ha, Sir ! this is not the camp 
 at la Lune ! " referring to a bivouac just before the battle 
 of Valmy. It w^as always a great amusement to us to go 
 along the passages behind the 
 scenes, especially when the 
 classic Roman processions were 
 being formed up there for the 
 tragedies, for among the lictors 
 and the other Romans we recog- 
 nised many of the clerks and 
 workmen employed about the 
 Palais-Royal, and we used to 
 bid them good day, and call 
 them by their names, and be 
 very proud indeed of speaking 
 to artists, and we went home to 
 our own fold, imitating the call 
 in the theatre: "On va-a-com- 
 mencer! On co-mmence !" (Go- 
 ing to begin, just beginning). Sometimes too we were 
 taken to see modern plays, but that did not happen often. 
 Yet even now I seem to hear the actor Armand, just 
 before 1830, talking thick behind his Directoire cravat, 
 
 in Tom Jones : — 
 
 Point d'amis, point de grâce, 
 A la session prochaine il faudra qu'on y passe ! 
 
 and the whole house rose at him ! I remember also being 
 taken to the first night of Henri III., and being very much 
 amused by the cups and balls and the pea-shooters. I was 
 much affected too by the death of Arthur, a charming page 
 in a violet dress, played by Mile. Despréaux, who after-
 
 14 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, i 
 
 wards became Madame Allan. I had no eyes for anybody 
 else. As we were going awa}', my father leading me by 
 the hand, we found the Duchesse de Guise, Mademoiselle 
 Mars, panting, and wrapped in a rose-coloured satin cloak 
 lined with swansdown, waiting for the compliments which 
 my father showered on her. She had not impressed me 
 nearly so much as the page in violet. 
 
 Talking of Henri III., a play we took great interest in, 
 because its author, quite unknown at the time, belonged to 
 our household, I will recall here a recollection connected 
 with the name of Alexandre Dumas. Everybody knows 
 he began life as a clerk in my father's library at the Palais- 
 Royal. The chief librarian was Vatout, whose works, and 
 perhaps too some well-known songs, have gained him a 
 seat in the Academy. But Vatout was never in the library 
 by any chance. The real librarian, and a very worthy 
 fellow he was, was a man of the name of Tallencourt. He 
 was an old soldier, and this caused him to be elected 
 captain of a grenadier company in the Citizen Guard — a 
 position to which, in the first blush of his enthusiasm, 
 he attached an exaggerated importance. Well, some time 
 after Dumas had resigned his position in the library, 
 in the midst of the riots which occurred so frequently 
 about that period, we saw Tallencourt come home one 
 day in full warlike attire, with his bearskin cap and his 
 cloak, and a very gloomy countenance. " What do you 
 think has just happened to me .'' I was in command of 
 a patrol in my ward — as we had heard several shots, wc 
 were advancing with the greatest caution, in double file, 
 keeping close to the walls, with our eyes and ears open. 
 All at once I heard a shout — ' Here's for you, de 
 Tallencourt ! ' and then a shot. Well, the shout — that 
 voice — it was Alexandre Dumas' voice ! " " Oh, nonsense ! " 
 we all cried. But he stuck to it — and we resisted the 
 violent inclination to laugh that assailed us, convinced 
 as we were that if the worthy man really had recog- 
 nized the voice, he had been the victim of a prank of 
 Alexandre Dumas, who had doubtless enjoyed the fun
 
 iSiS— 1830] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 15 
 
 of seeing the rout of his former chief and his brave 
 " guernadiers " ! 
 
 When our father did not take us to the Théâtre 
 Français, we spent our evenings in those beautiful rooms 
 in the Palais-Royal where he had gathered together so 
 many admirable pictures and works of art, plundered and 
 dispersed since by the revolutionists and their tribe, to- 
 gether with the splendid furniture which was used to burn 
 a detachment of the 14th Regiment of the Line alive, on 
 the 24th of February, on which day it was on guard at 
 the Palais-Royal. And to think that a French Chamber 
 actually voted national rewards to people who had made 
 an auto da fé of French soldiers who were guilty of 
 defending till death the post which duty and honour at 
 once made sacred to them ! But let that pass ; worse 
 things happen nowadays, but at the happy time I speak 
 of nobody thought of the possibility of such shameful 
 doings. This is what men call progress ! As far as we 
 ourselves were concerned, we spent our evenings in all the 
 carelessness of our youth, playing together merrily and 
 noisily in the family drawing-room, a large gallery running 
 from the courtyard to the Rue de Valois. The games were 
 liveliest on Sundays and Thursdays, because, those days 
 being school holidays, our merry band was reinforced by 
 my brothers' class-mates, MM. de Laborderie, Guillermy, 
 d'Eckmiil, Albert, &c., &c., and by Alfred de Musset as well, 
 whom I still seem to see, with his blue coat and gilt 
 buttons, his fair curly hair, and his melancholy and some- 
 what affected ways. We generally played " prisoners' 
 base " — a game to which the great gallery was very well 
 suited. Sometimes there was dancing, and then my 
 mother's eye was always on de Musset, who seemed to 
 scorn our games and to be inclined to pay assiduous court 
 to my big sisters. 
 
 Our games never interfered with the coming and going 
 of visitors and habitual guests and old friends of my 
 father's, who had been his friends before the Revolution. 
 There was the Due de la Rochefoucauld, " the good Duke,"
 
 i6 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, i 
 
 as he was called, very much dreaded by us children because 
 he was always kissing us, and smelt so strongly of tobacco ; 
 and M. de Lally-Tollendal ; and then friends of more 
 recent date, General Gérard, Raoul de Montmorency, 
 Madame de Boigne, the Princesse de Poix, the Princesse 
 de Vaudémont, besides many others, soldiers, artists, 
 diplomats, and ladies — every one, in fact, who was distin- 
 guished either by their personal charm, by mental qualities, 
 or by the brilliancy of their career. Some amongst the 
 number were more congenial to me than others ; such as 
 François Arago, the astronomer, inexhaustible in wit and 
 humour, whether he was recounting his adventures when 
 he was in captivity in the Barbary States, or the way he 
 plagued his colleague Ampère, a soldier like himself in the 
 regiment of the " Parrots in mourning," as he dubbed the 
 Institute, in his southern accent, because of its green and 
 black uniform. And then Macdonald, Marmont, Molitor, 
 and Mortier, the four Marshals whose name began with 
 M, the heroes of a hundred fights, the living embodiment 
 of the renown our arms had won. We used all of us 
 to try and hear whatever they said, whatever stories they 
 told, and to gather up any information or anecdote touch- 
 ing the military glory of our country. 
 
 The diplomats interested us less — I will not speak of 
 M. de Talleyrand, whose face and figure were striking 
 enough, though they made but little impression on our 
 uninformed imaginations. Yet I remember the fits of 
 laughter we went into one day, when my father, in a fit of 
 absence, aped the great man's limp as he crossed the 
 drawing-room to receive him. We delighted in Pozzo di 
 Borgo, the Russian Ambassador, because as soon as his 
 burly presence appeared his jokes and witty sallies and his 
 stories provoked loud and inexhaustible shouts of laughter. 
 All children love cheery people. There was another 
 diplomat whose arrival we always looked forward to, 
 the Bailli de Ferrette, Minister of the Grand Duke of 
 Baden — and this for two reasons. First of all because 
 of that title of " Bailli," which seemed to belong to
 
 1 818—1830] 
 
 PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 
 
 17 
 
 another world, or at all events to a harlequinade, and then 
 on account of the extraordinary appearance of the man — 
 he looked like a skeleton in powder. We were quite 
 ignorant in those days, it is needless to remark, of the fact 
 that this cool, proper-looking Bailli was a great musician, 
 a first-class performer of the Stabat Mater, whose inspira- 
 tion however depended on his having the shoulders, very 
 décolletée ones too, of a charming nightingale, over whom 
 the Opéra and Opéra-Comique fought for many a day, as 
 the desk he laid his music on. Sometimes when the 
 evening was half over a bell was heard like the one in the 
 fourth act of the Huguenots. " There's the big bell," we 
 
 would cry. It was the signal that Madame la Dauphine 
 or Madame la Duchesse de Berri was coming to pay us 
 a visit, and my father would tear off, with all of us after 
 him, to receive the visitor on the staircase. But our 
 season at the Palais-Royal closed with the winter, and 
 the first fine days saw us migrate to Neuilly, to the 
 general delight. 
 
 Neuilly ! I can never write the word without feeling 
 moved, for it is bound up with all the happiest memo- 
 ries of my childhood, and I salute that name with 
 respect akin to that which I would show a dead man I 
 Those who never knew the Neuilly of which I would 
 speak must imagine to themselves a very large country 
 
 \
 
 l8 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, i 
 
 house, of no architectural pretension, consisting almost 
 exclusively of sets of ground-floor rooms, tacked one on 
 to the other on much the same level, with delightful 
 gardens, and standing in the middle of a very large park 
 which stretched from the fortifications to the Seine, just 
 where the Avenue Bineau now runs. Within the park 
 walls there were fields and woods and orchards, and even 
 islands, the chief of which was called the " He de la 
 Grande Jatte," and the whole of one reach of the Seine, 
 the whole within a quarter of an hour's journey from Paris. 
 
 This beautiful demesne, the favourite residence of my 
 father and mother, who had made it, and were always 
 adding new beauties to it, and who lived there in those 
 days, far from political cares, and surrounded by their 
 many children, who were all devoted to them, was also 
 the place that we loved best. We were so near town that 
 our education, our masters, our lessons at home or in 
 school, went on just as if we were in Paris, while we had 
 the advantage of fresh air and country life, with all its 
 liberty and its natural and spontaneous exercise. At five 
 o'clock in the morning, before lessons or school began, we 
 were galloping about in the big park. In play hours, and 
 on the Thursday and Sunday holidays, the whole troop of 
 children roamed the fields, almost unaccompanied, the 
 older ones looking after the youngest. We used to make 
 hay, and get on the hay-cocks, and dig potatoes, and climb 
 the fruit-trees, and beat the walnut-trees. There were 
 flowers everywhere, fields of roses, where we gathered 
 splendid bouquets every day, without their ever being 
 missed even. Then we used to go boating and swim- 
 ming. Boys and girls, equally good swimmers all, would 
 plunge in turn into the little arm of the Seine enclosed 
 within the park, and nothing more delicious can be 
 imagined than to cast oneself into deep water near the 
 bridge at Neuilly, and to let oneself drift down almost 
 as far as Asnières, under the great willows, returning 
 afterwards on foot by the " He de la Grande Jatte." 
 
 This island, laid waste now and turned into a slum, was
 
 iSiS— 1830] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 19 
 
 covered then with venerable trees, and intersected by 
 those " shady paths " sung by Gounod, in which we loved 
 to lose ourselves in all the carelessness of our childhood, 
 and perhaps too in the first awakening instincts of our 
 youth. Nothing but a memory remains of that enchant- 
 ing spot. It was confiscated by Napoleon III. on some 
 flimsy pretext or other, and forthwith cut to pieces, so as 
 to destroy every trace of those who had owned and lived 
 in it. It is as much as I can do, as I drive along the 
 Avenue Bineau, to find, among the villas which have been 
 built all over it, some well-known tree or other, behind 
 which I used to lie in wait to shoot the hares, which a big 
 dog I had trained to the work used to put up for me. As 
 for the house itself, after being the scene of a terrible 
 orgie, it was sacked and burnt down by the conquerors in 
 the glorious fight of February 1 848. Not a stone of it 
 remains. All the works of art within it were destroyed. 
 But I know of one stray bit saved from the wreck. The 
 traveller who goes to see the museum at Neufchâtel, in 
 Switzerland, may observe, alongside of the picture which 
 represents M. de Montmolin, an officer of the Swiss Guard, 
 allowing himself to be murdered on the loth of August, 
 sooner than give up the flag which was intrusted to his 
 loyal care, a very small canvas, carefully mended up. That 
 fragment is the principal figure in Leopold Robert's first 
 picture, and his masterpiece, L Improvisateur, which used 
 to hang in the billiard-room at Neuilly. Either a salvage 
 man, or a looter of enlightened taste, cut it out with a 
 penknife, in the midst ot the conflagration, and it is the 
 only thing that was saved. 
 
 But let me come back to my story. 
 
 In my father's sitting-room at Neuilly, and the billiard- 
 room more especially, with the doors on the terrace open, 
 the evenings used to be spent, in a circle of neighbours, 
 friends, and habitual visitors. 
 
 These evenings had such a decisive influence on my 
 future destiny that I cannot do otherwise than speak of 
 them. 
 
 C 2
 
 20 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, i 
 
 That billiard-room is before me now, with the pictures 
 that adorned it, all of them masterpieces — U Improvisateur, 
 by Leopold Robert ; La Femme du Brigand, by Schnetz ; 
 Faust and Marguerite, by Ary Scheffer ; Venice, by Ziegler — 
 hanging round. 
 
 I see the most frequent guests too. First two abbés, whose 
 names — the Abbé de Saint-Phar and the Abbé de Saint- 
 Albin — were a significant inheritance due to the frailty of 
 their great-grandparents many years before the Revolution. 
 And yet another abbé, with powdered side curls, L'Abbé 
 de Labordère, a former Grand Vicar of Fréjus, who some- 
 how or other, I know not how, had become mayor of Neuilly. 
 Then there was the Maréchal de Gouvion de Saint-Cyr, our 
 near neighbour, who always had a circle round him ; and 
 admirals too, the Comte de Sercey, with his pigtail — an 
 Indian veteran, Admiral Villaumetz ; and generals and 
 officers besides, whose stories of their campaigns used to 
 fill us with enthusiasm. Amongst the generals who were 
 friends of the family there was General Drouot, who was 
 very fond of me, and would take me on his knee and tell 
 me stories. I had seen Horace Vernet's picture, La 
 Bataille de Hanau, which represents Drouot on foot 
 amongst his guns, just as the Bavarian Cuirassiers are 
 charging through them. That had been quite enough to 
 fire my ardour, and I wanted to be an artilleryman too. 
 Just about the same time, my father was presented with a 
 twelve-pounder howitzer by the Vincennes artillery, and 
 Colonel de Caraman came to try it with us. We fired shots 
 in the park, at the rising ground near Yilliers, and 
 my military enthusiasm was wrought up to the highest 
 pitch. I tormented my mother till she had an artillery 
 uniform made for me, and when I had it on my back I 
 thought my fortune was made. After having been taken 
 to the fair at Neuilly, and seeing the non-commissioned 
 officers of the Regiment of i^the Guard quartered at 
 Courbevoie dancing with the pretty laundresses belonging 
 to the village, I tried hard to force my sisters to join mc in 
 imitating the particular st}-le of dance I had seen them
 
 iSiS— i83o] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 21 
 
 perform, I have heard it said that my chorégraphie per- 
 formance was fairly successful, but there my fancy for 
 the military career ended. General Drouot went back to 
 Nancy ; I did not see him again, and I soon fell under 
 other and more lasting influences. 
 
 Among my father's aides-de-camp there was a young 
 cavalry lieutenant-colonel, the Comte d'Houdetot, who had 
 begun life as a midshipman. He was a very clever man, 
 and one of the most delightful story-tellers imaginable. 
 By birth a créole, from the Mauritius, he and his 
 family had happened to come back to Europe on board 
 the corvette La Régénérée, commanded by that same 
 Admiral Villaumetz, our neighbour and constant visitor in 
 the billiard-room. At the time of the voyage D'Houdetot 
 was a baby in arms, and in an action between the Régénérée 
 and the English, at the Loos Islands, his wet nurse was cut 
 in two by a round shot, which gave rise to a saying of his, 
 " I have more right to promotion than anybody. Lots of 
 people have had horses killed under them, but I'm the only 
 man in the French army that ever had a woman killed 
 under him." 
 
 Mutually attracted by this common memory, the former 
 middy and the old admiral used to spend their evenings 
 relating their adventures to each other, and their stories, 
 which had begun by interesting, ended by fascinating me. 
 It, was worth while to hear D'Houdetot tell about the 
 battle of Trafalgar, at which he had been present as a 
 midshipman on board the Algésiras, commanded by his 
 uncle Admiral Magon, how, as he lay on the poop, with 
 both his legs broken by the bursting of a shell, he saw his 
 uncle the admiral receive his death-blow, at the very 
 moment when, wounded already, and his hat and wig 
 carried away by a shot, he had thrown himself on to the 
 nettings, shouting to his crew, " The first man who boards 
 that ship with me shall have the Cross ; " and how too, the 
 boarding party having been driven back, the mizzen-mast 
 of the Algésiras, cut through by a round shot, fell across 
 the British ship, throwing a comrade of D'Houdetot's,
 
 22 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, i 
 
 the midshipman of the maintop, beyond it, into the sea, 
 and how that middy swam back to the Algcsiras. And 
 then came the story of the tempest after the battle, 
 in which victors and vanquished ahke struggled together 
 to escape shipwreck, under the command of Lieutenant 
 de la Bretonnière, in later days my own commanding 
 officer, who succeeded in bringing the ship into Cadiz. 
 There D'Houdetot was lying upon the mole, under a burn- 
 ing sun, feverish and exhausted with pain, when the hand 
 of a woman, whom his youth had touched, spread a fan 
 over " the poor little fellow's " head, to protect him from 
 the blaze. He drew the ministering hand to him, and 
 kissed it, and to that simple act he owed his escape from 
 the horrors of an overcrowded hospital, teeming with 
 typhus. He recovered, re-embarked on board the frigate 
 Herviione, and was wrecked with her. " Trafalgar and a 
 shipwreck in the space of two years," he used to say, " gave 
 me enough of a seafaring life." He got leave to be trans- 
 ferred to the cavalry, and covered himself with glory in the 
 heroic charges at the battle of the Moskowa ; but his heart 
 always remained with his old sailor comrades, and he never 
 tired of talking about them. 
 
 As for old Villaumetz, his whole life had been spent on 
 board ship. He had gone with M. d'Entrecasteaux to 
 search for La Pey rouse ; he had commanded the squadron 
 from which Prince Jérôme Bonaparte deserted with his 
 ship the Vétéran, and his stories of sea fights and adven- 
 tures were endless. Listening to them first inspired me 
 with that longing to enter the naval career which never 
 left me again. 
 
 My first attempts at seafaring were made at Tréport, 
 during the short holiday trips we used to take to the 
 Château d'Eu. I was dreadfully sea-sick every time, but 
 that did not dismay me ; and then the honest sailors, with 
 their simple, open, resolute faces, attracted me irresistibly. I 
 used to envy them their risky life, as I watched their boats 
 from the jetty at Tréport, running in before the gale. That 
 settled the matter ; I was regularl)- fascinated, in short. And
 
 I8I8-I830] 
 
 PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 
 
 23 
 
 that love of my life will last as long as I do. Besides the 
 sailoring charm which Tréport had for me, many a pleasant 
 memory of my life is bound up with Eu and Randan. 
 My parents were accustomed in holiday times to take us 
 for a little trip either to Eu or to Randan, a large property 
 in the Auvergne belonging to my aunt. During these 
 journeys, lessons and school hours and study of every kind 
 were intermitted, and this alone sufficed to give them a 
 sovereign charm. It should be added that in those days 
 travelling was not what it is now, and that these trips 
 gave rise to many little adventures, for which we were 
 always on the look out. My father had had a big carriage 
 built with room for twelve people in it, which held the 
 whole family, and which, with 
 all due deference, was very like 
 a travelling menagerie-van. A 
 courier used to ride on ahead 
 to order post horses ; another 
 rode just in front of the car- 
 riage. When each stage was 
 finished, the six horses that 
 were to draw us for the next 
 were led up : wicked, cross- 
 grained stallions they were, 
 
 that squealed and bit and kicked. They got harnessed 
 somehow or other ; and then out came the dapper pos- 
 tilions, with their hats trimmed with gay ribbons, cocked 
 on one side, some of them still wearing powder and with 
 their hair tied in a club. They had waistcoats trimmed 
 with dozens of silver buttons, and close-fitting pantaloons 
 covered their legs. Margot would bring out the great iron- 
 bound boots, into which they shoved those same legs ; they 
 were hoisted laboriously on to their horses ; the postmaster 
 shouted, " Now then, in with your spurs, and let them go ! " 
 and off we went full tear, bells jingling and whips cracking, 
 to the admiration of the women and children of the village 
 gathered round to see the show. Once we were off, things 
 calmed down ; but the postboys had no control whatever
 
 24 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, i 
 
 over their horses, who knew the road, and did the stage, 
 from force of habit, at their own pace. If we came across 
 other carriages or wagons on the road, it was just a ques- 
 tion as to whether our team would take us too much out 
 of their way, or not enough. Such meetings were pro- 
 claimed by yells from the postilions. If the horses did 
 not go far enough to one side, there would be a terrible 
 collision, and a volley of oaths, together with a clashing of 
 lanterns and a clatter of broken windows. If the horses 
 got too far out of the way, the carriage would first of all 
 tilt tow^ards the sideway, slope more and more, and fre- 
 quently end by turning over gently into the ditch. Then 
 a clamour would rise from the menagerie, everybody first 
 feeling themselves all over, and then laughing, while the 
 great machine Avas being lifted up, preparatory to a fresh 
 start. A little farther on, it might be, another accident 
 would occur. We would be passing through a village, and, 
 to create a sensation, the postboys would begin cracking 
 their whips in concert. The horses would get excited, and 
 the pace would increase. It was all very well if the village 
 street was a straight one, but if there was an angle in it 
 the horses would take it too short, and there would be a 
 violent collision with the kerbstone at the corner. Then 
 all the wheelwrights and all the innkeepers, ever on the 
 watch for such mishaps, would hurr}' up. The repairs 
 would take four hours perhaps, whereat the grands- 
 parents would storm, but we children were jubilant. 
 Confusion reigned supreme, and we could write to our little 
 friends, " We were upset at such and such a place ; we 
 broke down at such another." We got lots of copy out 
 of it. 
 
 There was no great interest about our visits to Randan. 
 We used to leave the high-road at Aigueperse. Six or 
 eight pairs of oxen were harnessed to the carriage, and 
 Auvergnats in their costumes and broad-brimmed hats 
 (there were still costumes there, in those days), with goads 
 in their hands, drove the team, the carriage swinging back- 
 wards and forwards on the muddy roads, up hill and down
 
 i8i8— 1830] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 25 
 
 dale; it was hard work getting there, but we did get there 
 at last. The great entertainment of the visit was to go and 
 see Madame la Dauphine, who went through a cure at 
 Vichy every year. 
 
 It was far pleasanter to stay at Eu. The old castle 
 of the Guises was a mere tumbledown barrack at the 
 time I speak of. The passages had waves in them 
 like the sea. When there was a storm the whole house 
 shook, and the smaller children used to feel quite fright- 
 ened, when, after listening to Anatole de Montesquiou's 
 ghost stories, of an evening, they had to go through the 
 Guise Gallery, with all its dreadful portraits which seemed 
 to step out of their frames to the dreary whistle of the 
 sea-wind. But all the same we loved the old place. 
 It was quite out of the common run. Just as we used to go 
 and see Madame la Dauphine at Vichy from Randan, we 
 used to go from Eu to see Madame la Duchesse de Berri, at 
 Dieppe, which she had made her summer residence. We 
 accompanied her once to the lighthouse at Ailly under the 
 escort of her guard of honour, a squadron of Cauchoise 
 women on horseback. /;/ illo tempore — in those days, all 
 Norman women, and those of the Caux district especially, 
 did their errands and their marketing on horseback. There 
 were very few vehicles to be seen. The prettiest of the 
 peasant girls had been selected ; and it was really a pleasure 
 to see them prancing, to the number of forty, round the 
 Duchess's carriage, with their captain and lieutenant 
 riding at each door, all dressed alike, in white, in the full 
 Cauchoise costume, chignon and cap with lace lappets, 
 each on her pacing hack, which she managed to perfection. 
 When a halt was made, the squadron dismounted, each 
 girl holding her horse — a most charming effect it made in 
 the Norman landscape. I never heard where the guard 
 was quartered, but I am quite convinced there never can 
 have been any difficulty about finding the necessary 
 billets ! M. de Murat, Prefect of the Lower Seine, was 
 the originator of this idea. He was a charming fellow, 
 but so absent, that one morning, when the Duchesse de
 
 26 
 
 SOU\'ENIRS OF THE 
 
 [chap. 1 
 
 Berri sent for him, he hastily put on his sword and his 
 smartest uniform, and hurried in his three-cornered hat to 
 wait on Madame, without discovering, till he got there, 
 that he had forgotten his breeches ! 
 
 A great change came into my life in 1828. I was ten 
 years old ; my turn had come ; I was sent to school, and 
 
 à 
 
 entered the Collège Henri IV. Ay di me ! as the Spanish 
 lament has it. When I pass by Saint-Etienne du Mont, and 
 look at the Tower of Clovis, and the great walls of that 
 learned prison in which I spent three years, the memories 
 that come back to me are not pleasant — far from it. My 
 life there was mortally tedious, and I did no good what- 
 soever. My whole education has been gained by reading
 
 iSiS— 1S30] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 27 
 
 (I was and I have always remained passionately fond of 
 reading), by observation, and by listening to those people 
 who know how to hold my attention. I listened with all 
 my ears and all my heart to the Abbé Dupanloup, when 
 he gave me religious instruction ; to Pouillet, when he 
 taught us physical science ; to the great Arago, when he 
 put a sextant into my hands for the first time in my life. 
 Later on, to Michelet, when I attended the course of 
 historical lectures he gave to my sister Clémentine ; and, 
 later yet, to the lessons on law which were given us by M. 
 Rossi, the minister of Pius IX. But Greek and Latin, and 
 hours spent over an exercise or a translation with a fat 
 dictionary to keep me company ! Oh, mercy on me ! 
 From the scholastic point of view I was simply a diuice, 
 nothing but a dunce. Yet I managed to scramble one 
 prize — the shabbiest of them all — the second for Latin 
 versions in the seventh class ! I was presented with my 
 reward at the prize distribution, to the tune of "Vive 
 Henri IV. ! Vive ce roi vaillant, ce diable à quatre . . . ! " 
 At the same moment I received, from a stout red-faced 
 gentleman, a wet kiss — much too wet a kiss — which gave 
 me no pleasure whatsoever. I recollect the porter at the 
 college was nicknamed" Boit-sans-soif " ; that my greatest 
 joy was to go out by his door, after evening school, and go 
 down the Rue de la Montagne or the Rue des Sept-Voies, 
 playing a thousand pranks as I went, and that my grief used 
 to be keen indeed when I had to go back the next morning. 
 Yet some good comrades I had whom I dearly loved, and 
 amongst whom I improved in playing various games, and 
 learned the art of both giving and receiving kicks and 
 cuffs. But, take it all in all, my schooldays are, as they 
 say in mathematics, " a minus quantity " to me.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 183c— 1833 
 
 The Revolution of 1830 broke out during my school- 
 days. I was twelve years old — too young therefore, by far, 
 to estimate its character, political or social, correctly. I 
 only remember that it filled me with the deepest astonish- 
 
 ment. Never having witnessed any kind of disturbance, I 
 had not the faintest notion what a revolution might be 
 like. I had always seen the King and the Royal Family 
 treated with a respect which, indeed, they have never 
 forfeited, and I was a hundred miles from the thought that 
 they could possibly be banished. It is a fact, nevertheless,
 
 1830—33] SOUVENIRS OF PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 29 
 
 that the beginning of 1830 differed from other years, and 
 that something seemed to be brewing. Strange remarks 
 were made at school, over and over again, even among us 
 little ones ; our tutors, all of them connected with the press, 
 were what was called in those days " dans le mouvement " 
 — abreast of the times, and they never stopped talking 
 politics. Where were they not talked, indeed ? It was a 
 downright disease. The speech of M. de Salvandy, on the 
 occasion of the fete given by my father at the Palais-Royal 
 in May, that year, in honour of the King of Naples, my 
 uncle and godfather, may be called to mind. " A real 
 Neapolitan fete indeed. Sire ! — for we are dancing on a 
 volcano." 
 
 And a truly Neapolitan _/iVé? it was, not only on account 
 of the presence of the sovereigns of the two Sicilies, and of 
 the ideal beauty of the night, but also by reason of the 
 tarantella, a sort of ballet, which was danced in the middle 
 of the evening, by Madame la Duchesse de Berri and thirty 
 of the most beautiful young ladies of the Faubourg Saint- 
 Germain, in Neapolitan costume, among whom I think I 
 still see, compact of grace and elegance, the lovely Denise 
 du Roure, soon to become Comtesse d'Hulst. The taran- 
 tella was followed by a polonaise, led by Comte Rodolphe 
 Appony and the Duchesse de Rauzan, resplendent in blue 
 and gold. A more sedate dance, this, performed by noble 
 lords and ladies, all in Hungarian costume, and escorted by 
 pages, bearing their respective banners. It would have 
 been hard to say which of the ladies taking part in these 
 two dances bore off the palm for aristocratic beauty. They 
 were worthy representatives of their race. 
 
 The Royal Family, headed by Charles X., was present at 
 this fete, whereat pre-eminence of every kind was gathered 
 together and every class represented, and where cordiality 
 seemed universal. After the entrance of the two sets of 
 dancers in costume, the King went out to walk on the 
 terrace which runs along the top of the Galerie d'Orléans. 
 The night was so v/arm and lovely that the ladies were 
 walking about in their low gowns, and the dazzling illumi-
 
 30 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, ii 
 
 nations made it as bright as day. The courtyard of the 
 Palais-Royal was closed, but an immense crowd filled the 
 gardens, trying to see as much as possible of the gay 
 doings. I was running in front of Charles X. as he walked 
 along, and I saw his tall form advance to the parapet of 
 the terrace on the garden side, with that truly royal air he 
 had about him. He waved his hand several times in greet- 
 ing to the crowd, which at that short distance, and under 
 that brilliant light, must have recognized him perfectly, not 
 by his features only, but by his full uniform of Colonel- 
 General of the Guard, and also by the retinue that followed 
 him. But there was no shout of " Vive le Roi ! " nor any 
 hostile one either. The surging crowd only seemed to be 
 rather more stirred, and the same uproar rose from it 
 as one may hear on a firework night, when some fine set- 
 piece is set alight. One last wave of the hand, with a 
 " Bonjour, mon peuple ! " which the King spoke half in jest 
 and half in earnest, and Charles X. departed. I was never 
 to see him again. Immediately afterwards, or nearly so, the 
 crowd laid hands on the chairs in the garden, piled them 
 up on the grass plots where the midday gun stood, and set 
 them on fire. The troops had to be called out to clear the 
 garden, and that first scene of public riot, so new to me 
 filled me with astonishment and rage as well. 
 
 Shortly after this fete came the taking of Algiers — a 
 proof of the national strength, of political courage and fore- 
 sight — a brilliant military exploit, performed under the 
 " drapeau blanc," which might well have roused the enthu- 
 siasm of the nation, tightened the bond between France 
 and her king, and reconciled the people to their ancient 
 flag. It did nothing of the kind. The taking of Algiers 
 was received like an ordinary piece of news, and the tri- 
 colour flag was regretted as deeply as ever. For the platform 
 and the press — but especially the press, the mightiest 
 instrument of destruction of modern times — had done their 
 work. The days of the Government of the Restoration were 
 numbered. Not that it had been blameworthy. Both at 
 home and abroad it had certainly been the best of all the
 
 iS3o— 1833] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 31 
 
 administrations that had succeeded each other since 1789. 
 But it had endeavoured to govern Hke a patriarch, for the 
 present good and the future greatness of France, and to 
 withstand the assaults of those unprincipled individuals 
 who looked on their country simply as a farm to make 
 money out of. So bit by bit it had been demolished, just 
 as everything has been demolished these past hundred 
 years, in the name of laws and principles which dissolve 
 every kind of government, and which will soon make it 
 absolutely impossible for society to exist. The hour when 
 the words, " Get out of that, and let me take your place," 
 the real and only object of our successive revolutions, should 
 resound, was on the very stroke. 
 
 On the 25th of July we had all been dining at Saint-Leu 
 with M. le Duc de Bourbon, an old cousin of ours, who 
 never meddled with politics, and led a leisured and 
 delightful life between Chantilly and Saint-Leu, never 
 coming to Paris except to pass through it, although the 
 beautiful palace there which bears his name, the Palais 
 Bourbon, belonged to him. His great passion was for sport, 
 in which he excelled ; and my father had made a friend of 
 him by giving him the hunting in all his forests. There was 
 another reason too, and perhaps after all it was the chief 
 one, for this cordiality, that my parents had consented to 
 receive the Baronne de Feuchères, who held great sway over 
 the Duke, but who had never been admitted to Court. I 
 can see the handsome old man yet, laconic in speech, his 
 profile of the most strongly marked Bourbon type, his hair 
 and pigtail white, with his tightly buttoned blue coat, from 
 which a lace frill escaped, and his trousers, which were 
 always much too short, showing his white stockings under- 
 neath. On the evening I speak of there had been a great 
 gathering at Saint-Leu — a big dinner, then a drawing-room 
 play, acted by Madame de Feuchères and the Duke's 
 gentlemen. In the audience were many officers of the 
 Royal Guard, and numerous other persons, whose names 
 were known to me from having heard them quoted as beino- 
 amongst those ardent Conservatives called at that time the
 
 32 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, ii 
 
 " Ultras." One of them, a M. de Vitrolles, attracted my 
 attention by holding a long conversation with my father 
 in one of the intervals between the acts. He has since 
 related this conversation in his Memoirs, and also the con- 
 viction it gave him of the horror with which the idea of a 
 fresh revolution filled my father. Their only disagreement 
 was as to the means to avert it. Which of the two was in 
 the right .'' 
 
 That evening we went back to Neuilly, and the next 
 morning, 26th of July, as we were just getting ready, 
 Nemours and I, to start for school, somebody opened the 
 door and launched the remark to our tutors : " The 
 coup d'Etat is in the Moniteur ! " " What ! " " Yes ! 
 The Decrees." Whereupon the tutors rushed to the 
 family drawing-room, whither we followed them. There 
 sat my father, thunderstruck, the Moniteur in his hand. 
 When he saw the tutors come in, he threw up his arms in 
 despair, and let them fall again. After a silence on his 
 part, during which my mother rapidly acquainted the 
 gentlemen with the state of affairs, my father said : " They 
 are mad ! " That was all, and after another silence, a long 
 one — " They will get themselves banished again. Oh ! for 
 my part, I have been exiled twice already. I will not bear 
 it again : I stay in France ! " 
 
 I heard no more, for it was schooltime, and we had to 
 get into the carriage ; but those words and that first 
 impression remain graven on my memory. 
 
 That day at school was just like any other, but the 
 next, the 27th, as we came back from the Collège Henri 
 IV., it was easy to see that there was a great stir in Paris. 
 Deligny's swimming school, at the corner of the Quai 
 d'Orsay, where we went after school, according to custom, 
 to take our bath, was full of young men discussing and 
 holding forth, and relating incidents, true or not, which 
 had occurred during the day. The Place Louis XV., now 
 the Place de la Concorde, was occupied by the troops. 
 There was a regiment of Foot Guards, a battalion of the 
 Swiss Guard, the Lancers of the Guard, the Artillery
 
 1830— 1833 PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 33 
 
 of the Military School — magnificent troops all of them, 
 the finest I have seen in any country, and of which the 
 Enghsh Foot Guards alone in these days give any idea. 
 Officers inspired in the highest possible degree with esprit 
 de corps and chivalrous devotion, old non-commissioned 
 ofificers, many of whom had seen the wars of the Empire, 
 commanding seasoned soldiers, young in years but old in 
 discipline and instruction, and all proud of the splendid 
 uniform they wore — such was the Royal Guard. And what 
 shall I say of the superb Swiss battalions, acknowledged 
 by ancient tradition to be the finest infantry in the world ? 
 These splendid troops, which might have rendered such 
 great service to France on the battlefield, were to disappear 
 within two days. Upon them too I had looked my last. 
 Close to the Porte Maillot we met the Duchesse de 
 Berri, riding amongst a numerous group of equerries. We 
 exchanged friendly greetings. No doubt her instinct as a 
 woman and a mother led her to try to keep in touch with 
 passing events. 
 
 The next morning, the 28th, we knew Paris to be in open 
 revolt. Cannon boomed, the great bell of Notre-Dame 
 sounded the tocsin, and naturally we did not go to school. 
 But the masters who gave my sisters lessons came out to 
 Neuilly, and from them, in turn, we learnt what was going 
 on within the capital — barricades in all the streets — the 
 troops on the defensive — the tricolour hoisted everywhere. 
 On the 29th, the struggle drew closer to us. A bullet 
 fell whistling in the park. According to the fugitives from 
 Paris, the insurrection had triumphed, the troops of the 
 line were fraternizing with the rebels, and the Guard was 
 retiring on Saint-Cloud to gather round the King. I pass 
 over all the rumours and false reports accompanying this 
 news, which was all too true. And what were we doing 
 during these anxious hours .'' We obeyed various impulses. 
 The first, a fervent sympathy with our soldiers, who were 
 engaged in the struggle — ces pauvres soldats, the real France, 
 the re2i\ people, obeying the noblest motives — honour — duty 
 — and opposing Xht populace, whose envy and evil instincts 
 
 D
 
 34 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, ii 
 
 had been let loose by a handful of ambitious men. And 
 we knew no rest till the whole staff of the household had 
 repaired to the various gates of the park, to open them to 
 the soldiers, separated, dispersed, threatened with massacre 
 as they were. They were brought in and fed, and given 
 caps and blouses instead of their uniforms, and put across 
 to the other side of the Seine in boats. And with all that, 
 so full is the heart of man, and yet more that of the child, 
 of contradiction, that we followed the current and made 
 tricolour cockades, my sisters and I, and all of us ! There 
 is no doubt the fascination of the tricolour flag had a good 
 deal to do with the rapidity with which the Revolutionary 
 powder-train took fire. 
 
 As there must always be a laughable side, even to the 
 grimmest events, the comic element was supplied in this 
 case by our professors of languages, drawing, and so forth, 
 who had not dared to go back into Paris after leaving it 
 on the 28th, on account of the fighting. When they had 
 made up their minds to return on the 29th, we persuaded 
 those of them who wore moustaches that they would run 
 very great risks, and even be taken for soldiers in disguise. 
 Whereupon the schoolroom was at once turned into a 
 barber's shop, where a general shaving was performed, 
 with the inevitable change of appearance resulting there- 
 from, which increased the alarm of the individuals operated 
 upon tenfold. 
 
 While our professors were shaving off their moustaches, 
 our father was disappearing from Neuilly. His move- 
 ments were rigorously concealed from us, and I never 
 learnt what they really were even in later days. So I will 
 not attempt to speak of them. W^e were soon aware of 
 the bare fact that he was in Paris, exercising public 
 functions which were somewhat ill-defined as )-et ; and on 
 the evening of the 31st my mother informed us that we 
 were going to join him at the Palais-Royal.^ 
 
 We started about eight o'clock at night, my mother, my 
 
 ^ It is not for me to pass judgment on my father's conduct in 
 accepting the crown in 1830. There is no doubt the July
 
 1830— 1833] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 35 
 
 aunt Adélaïde, and we children, in an omnibus, so as not 
 to attract notice. We began to come to barricades at the 
 Barrière de l'Étoile, but openings had been made in them 
 already, large enough for carriages to pass through, all 
 which openings were watched by guards of armed people 
 — I beg their pardons, I was mistaken — armed citizens, 
 playing at soldiers and police, who stopped and cross- 
 questioned everybody in the most childish fashion. The 
 omnibus could not get beyond the Place Louis XV., so 
 many obstacles did we find in the way. We got out, and 
 my mother divided us into twos, and told us to scatter 
 and meet again at the Palais-Royal. 
 
 Paris was a curious sight that night, lighted up every- 
 where with lamps, and tricolour flags at every window. 
 How people found time to make up so many emblems in 
 those two days is a mystery ! The streets were all torn 
 up, and the paving-stones piled into the barricades, mixed 
 up with overturned carriages, casks, and rubbish of all kinds. 
 Behind these barriers were extemporized guardians, passers- 
 by, people walking about with guns and firing them off every 
 minute, and everybody, man, woman, and child, wore huge tri- 
 colour cockades in hats and caps or bonnets, or in their hair. 
 
 Revolution was a great misfortune. It gave a fresh blow to the 
 monarchical principle, and it unfortunately encouraged those who 
 speculate in insurrection. But I know as a fact that my father never 
 desired it, and indeed watched its approach with the deepest sorrow. 
 When the throne of Charles X. collapsed without his being able to 
 defend it in any way, he certainly felt the most passionate desire to 
 escape the common exile and to continue living a life which was to 
 him the happiest of lives in France. The struggle once over, and the 
 country in revolt from end to end, he realized that the only way in 
 which he could escape exile was to associate himself with the move- 
 ment, and at the outset he certainly did it solely in the hope of bringing 
 back Henri V. to the throne. When this hope failed him, he yielded 
 to the entreaties of those persons who implored him. as the only 
 person in a position to do it, to check France on that fateful descent 
 which must bring her from the Republic to a Dictatorship, and so on 
 to invasion, and to mutilation. He delayed that disastrous succession 
 of events for eighteen years, at the risk of his own life, which was 
 incessantly threatened, and history will do him honour for it in spite 
 of the injustice of human nature. 
 
 D 2
 
 36 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, ii 
 
 In the centre of a great crowd on the Place du Palais- 
 Royal there was one of the Laffitte et Caillard diligences, 
 which had been used as a barricade, and set up again. It 
 was full of people inside, and they clustered on the roof 
 like bees, all of them singing in chorus. Between the 
 choruses, sharp volleys of musketry rang out, and the 
 vehicle, drawn by three or four hundred people holding on 
 to ropes, tore round the square, amid a concert of varied 
 yells. Though it was very late when we reached the 
 palace, it was all lighted up, and every door stood open. 
 Anybody who chose could go in, and w^hen we went up 
 the stairs we found many people already settled on the 
 steps, prepared to spend the night there. We saw my 
 father in his study, and then we were sent to bed, or 
 rather to camp out in the rooms we usually slept in. The 
 next day the firing slackened, but the general idleness 
 continued ; everybody was walking about. Soon the ques- 
 tion of food began to press, for all supplies and trade were 
 stopped by the universal barricades. -Everybody asked 
 everybody else what was going on, a subject upon w^hich 
 every one except the leaders was profoundly ignorant. 
 The multitude was just like an immense flock of sheep, 
 whose shepherds had been driven away, and who seemed 
 to wonder why the new dogs who were to herd them did 
 not make their appearance. There was no bad feeling ; now 
 and then there would be a panic, everybody taking to 
 their heels, nobody knew why, and then stopping again 
 and bursting out laughing. Sometimes a noise arose, and 
 swelled as it drew nearer. It was some popular leader 
 going to the Hôtel de Ville or the Palais-Royal, with two 
 or three claqueurs before him, to stir up an enthusiasm 
 in which everybody shared, without having a notion of the 
 name of the hero they were acclaiming, yet glad to be able 
 thus to show off their civic rights. Then there would be a 
 fit of general tenderness. Everybody kissed everybody else 
 vehemently. In some cases a transport of patriotism 
 thus calmed itself; in others perhaps it was the effect of 
 the extreme heat, and the consequent thirst, which had not
 
 1830— 1833] 
 
 PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 
 
 37 
 
 gone unquenched, and in others, again, it was merel}- the 
 relaxation of morals an era of universal brotherhood 
 brought with it. The hero of this general and infectious 
 kissing match was Lafayette. Everybod}' wanted to kiss 
 him. A great rattle of drums having announced his 
 arrival at the Palais- Royal one day, he had to take his 
 stand in one of the drawing-rooms, in front of me, and be 
 kissed by thousands of persons of all ages. I did it, like 
 all the others, but I saw people I knew come up again 
 many times over to be kissed by the illustrious veteran, 
 and each time their agitation seemed to increase. 
 
 Every one went in and out of the Palais-Royal as the}- 
 chose. It was a strange march past, of people of all 
 sorts, who came to take notes, see how the wind blew, and 
 give in an adhesion which might be more or less disinter- 
 ested. Some of them, inspired by real devotion, came to 
 try if they might even yet serve a cause that was so dear 
 to them. Thus I saw M. de Chateaubriand led into my 
 mother's drawing-room by Anatole de Montesquiou. And, 
 on the other hand, I saw Savary, Due de Rovigo, notorious 
 in connection with the Due d'Enghien, in full uniform, 
 booted and spurred, leave the study, whither he had gone 
 to offer mv father his services.
 
 38 
 
 SOUVENIRS OF THE 
 
 [chap. II 
 
 One evening, as we were all gathered together, we heard 
 a ereat noise coming from the staircase. We hurried 
 towards it. A crowd of armed men, with lighted torches, 
 were coming up, shouting loudly and waving flags. At 
 their head came five or six pupils 
 of the Ecole Polytechnique, with 
 their three-cornered hats cocked 
 and swords drawn. Behind them a 
 woman in man's attire, red belt 
 and close-fitting pantaloons, was 
 being borne in triumph. She was 
 a heroine of the barricades, whom 
 the yelling crowd desired to intro- 
 duce to my father, and he had to re- 
 ceive her. This scene filled me with 
 disgust, and it was soon followed 
 by another, no less painful. The 
 leaders of the Revolution had sent 
 an army of volunteers to dislodge the 
 old King and his Guard from Rambouillet. They did not 
 turn him out, first of all because the King himself had 
 decided to disband his guard and retire to Cherbourg 
 with no escort but four companies of his bod}'guard ; and, 
 secondly, because these same volunteers, numerous as they 
 were on leaving Paris, melted away rapidly on the road, 
 and above all things took good care not to venture within 
 range of the Guard's fire. Nevertheless, they returned in 
 triumph from Rambouillet, bringing back the royal horses 
 and carriages, which they had seized without striking a 
 blow. I was horrified to see the great carriages, with six 
 or eight horses, still driven by the wretched coachmen and 
 postilions, in their state liveries, enter the Place du Palais- 
 Royal — believing as I did that they were bringing back 
 the King and his family as prisoners, into the very jaws of 
 the Revolution. But, happily, this was not the case. The 
 only people in the carriages were some young blackguards, 
 dressed up in extraordinary garments, dressing-gowns 
 and cotton caps, and I know not what other masquerading
 
 1S30— 1S33] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 39 
 
 trash, intended to call forth the ribald jokes of the mul- 
 titude. It was a disgusting scene. The days passed on, 
 and by degrees Paris returned to its ordinary life. The 
 streets were repaired, vehicles began to circulate again. 
 Soldiers, gendarmes, policemen, were to be seen once more, 
 and a certain sense of security revived. At all events the 
 eternal struggle of order against disorder began afresh. 
 Those who formed the most turbulent element of the 
 Revolutionary party were induced, by degrees, to engage 
 in the army, and were drafted off to Algiers, under the 
 title of " Régiments de la Charte." It was less easy to get 
 rid of a Guard of Honour, numbering some two or three 
 hundred men, which had formed itself on its own responsi- 
 bility, nominally for the protection of my father and of the 
 Palais-Royal. This guard v/as always in the vestibule and 
 on the staircase, night and day alike. It was an oinniinn 
 gatJieriun of vagabonds, prowling 
 ruffians of the vilest kind, ragged 
 scamps, all carrying arms, stolen 
 from every sort of place, among 
 others from the Musée d Artil- 
 lerie, whence some had gone so 
 far as to borrow cuirasses and 
 helmets that had belonged to the 
 warriors of the League. Of course 
 they all had to be fed and paid. 
 The chief of the band was a 
 midshipman in the navy, on leave 
 in Paris at the time the Revolu- 
 tion broke out, of the name of Damiguet de Vernon, 
 who died afterwards with the rank of general in the 
 army. Whenever my father went out, to go to the 
 Chamber of Deputies or elsewhere, this rabble turned 
 out and saluted after a fashion of its own, with drums 
 beating and trumpets blowing. It was a scene quite 
 worthy of Callot's pencil. To get rid of this worthy set, 
 the midshipman was at once given a lieutenant's com- 
 mission in the mounted Municipal Guard, under pretext of
 
 40 SOU\'ENIRS OF THE [chap, ii 
 
 a reward from the nation, and clothes were bestowed on his 
 band, wherewith they hastened to decamp on the first sign 
 of the introduction of an)-thing Hke discipline into their 
 ranks. 
 
 Our regular routine began again too. After over a 
 week's holiday, I was put back to school, where we 
 immediately made a revolution of our own, by insisting 
 that the bell which rang for class and mealtimes should be 
 replaced b}' a drum. If, as I went into school with my 
 folding desk under my arm, I came across the column of 
 big boys coming down from their class-rooms, I used to 
 get man}- a cuff to the tune of " Take that, your young 
 Majesty ! " or the slang saying of the day, " Have you 
 seen Léontine .''" — this last from the name of Léontine Fay, 
 a favourite actress with young people. But, apart from 
 that, my life was as monotonous as ever it had been. The 
 riots and attempts at insurrection which succeeded each 
 other with something ver}- like regularity seemed to 
 diversify it but very little. Yet I did feel a certain excite 
 ment the first time I witnessed one of these attempts at 
 sedition. Our evening was just over at the Falais-Royal, 
 and I had gone up to m}' room, when loud shouts, and an 
 ejaculation of " Oh, good gracious ! " from my valet, made 
 me run to the window. The Court of the Palais Royal 
 was closed, but all the galleries were filled with a surging, 
 )-elling crowd, the more violent of whom were battering at 
 the staircase door facing Chevet's shop. " They are going 
 to break it in and come upstairs : they'll be here in another 
 moment," we said to ourselves. " What is to be done ? " 
 
 Amidst the general shouting, yells of " Death to Louis 
 Philippe 1 " were to be heard. Then, all at once, in the 
 gaslight, I saw the policemen's swords twinkle, pinking 
 people in all directions. Soon the troops came hurrying 
 up with fixed bayonets, and the rabble took to their heels 
 at the sight of them. This crowd had just come back 
 from Vincennes, whither it had gone to demand the heads 
 of Charles X.'s ministers, who were shut up in the fortress, 
 from General Daumesnil, " the man with the wooden leg,"
 
 1830— 1S33] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 41 
 
 and having failed in that attempt it wanted to have my 
 father's instead. 
 
 So that affair ended ; but fresh opportunities for creating 
 disturbances soon occurred, and were as eagerly seized 
 upon. One was during a great diplomatic dinner given 
 by my father in the dining-room of the Palais-Royal, 
 which looks out on the Cour des Fontaines. I was sitting 
 by Lord Granville's daughter, and doing my best to make 
 myself pleasant, when the uproar of the riot burst upon us 
 suddenly and interrupted all the talk. Everybody looked 
 at everybody else, and then down at their own plate, and 
 everybody looked very sorry to be where he was at that 
 moment. Then the noise of a great trampling of hoofs 
 on the pavement revealed the fact that the cavalry was 
 charging, whereupon the sky cleared, and conversation 
 began again, though not without some appearance of 
 effort. 
 
 Another time, again, matters became more serious. 
 The riot — I don't remember which it was now, there were 
 so man}- of them ! — became very threatening at one 
 moment. I see my father still, taking Casimir Perier by 
 the arm, and shouting in his ear, " Tell them to serve out 
 ball cartridge, ball cartridge, do you hear.^" Casimir 
 Perier, as excited as himself, was rushing away, when he 
 was stopped by an officer, who said, " There are three 
 students of the Ecole Polytechnique, sent to parley, 
 waiting below." 
 
 " Parley for whom ? For the rioters ? For the insur- 
 rection } Lay hands on them ! Lock them up in prison." 
 
 " But, sir," said the officer, himself a former student at 
 the Ecole Polytechnique, " I can't : I've given them mj' 
 word ! " But Casimir Perier was not there to listen even. 
 Just then I observed a man of wobegone appearance, 
 sitting in a corner of the drawing-room in which the fore- 
 going scene had taken place. One of my eldest brother's 
 aides-de-camp, General Marbot, was walking up and 
 down in front of him, never taking his eyes off him. 
 " What are you doing there .''" I asked the general.
 
 42 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, ii 
 
 " I'm keeping my eye on that gentleman you see there." 
 
 " Who is he > " 
 
 " The Prefect of Police." 
 
 " Really .' " 
 
 " They say he is playing us false." 
 
 And there you see a specimen of the plight you find 
 yourself in on the morrow of a revolution, when order 
 needs restoring not only in the open streets but in the 
 highest quarters in the State. 
 
 For my own part, I was always delighted to hear the 
 drums call the National Guard — and consequently all our 
 masters, tutors, and professors, who served in it — to arms, 
 at each fresh outbreak of disturbance. 
 
 It meant interrupted studies, and, above all, interrupted 
 attendance at school, where, however, luckily for me, I was 
 not to stay much longer. Seeing that I did no good there 
 whatever, my father decided, in the spring of 1831, to 
 remove me altogether, and as my taste for a naval career 
 was growing stronger and stronger, he resolved to make a 
 sailor of me. But before I seriously entered the profession 
 he wished me to make a sea-voyage. So I was sent to 
 Toulon, to be shipped as volunteer pilot's apprentice, on 
 board the ArtJicviise frigate, commander Latreyte. I 
 was barely thirteen. I could not have begun at a better 
 age. 
 
 After bidding the tenderest farewell to my father and 
 mother, my aunt, and my brothers and sisters, from whom 
 I had never been parted before, I was packed into a post- 
 chaise with Monsieur Trognon, and off we started. 
 
 As far as Lyons our journey was uneventful, but when 
 we got there M. Paulze d'lvoy, the préfet, and ]\I. Vitet, 
 author of Barricades des Etats de Biais, took possession of 
 me, nominally to show me the town — in reality to make 
 me the pretext for certain demonstrations in favour of the 
 new order of things. I was driven about, to Fourvières, to 
 La Croix-Rousse, and so forth, and had the best of recep- 
 tions from their sturdy inhabitants. Thirteen-year-old lad 
 as I was, I had to receiv^e the officers of the National
 
 1830— 1833] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 43 
 
 Guard — very military indeed they were, with their uniform 
 with its white facings, copied from that of the Imperial 
 Guard. And these receptions and official entertainments, 
 which were not at all to my personal taste, were repeated 
 all along the road till we got to Toulon, marked by in- 
 creasing animation and fervour as we got farther south, 
 and as the population through which we passed became 
 more and more divided by political passions. At Valence 
 I found an enormous crowd of people, and the garrison 
 and National Guard both under arms, while a tall lieu- 
 tenant-colonel, of the 49th Regiment of the Line, insisted 
 on my inspecting the troops in person. 
 
 He took my hand with one of his, with the other he 
 waved his sword, and led the plaudits. His name was 
 Magnan, and he was a Marshal of France before he died. 
 At Mornas, the native place of the famous Baron des 
 Adrets, the reception took a very original shape. As we 
 drove up to the posting-house, I saw a great crowd, and 
 the National Guard drawn up in two ranks, on the 
 right and left of the postilions who were to take 
 us on. The carriage pulled up between the ranks, 
 and I fancied I saw a sort of suppressed smile on 
 the countenances of the National Guard. It did not 
 last long, for the commandant in the wildest excitement 
 rapidly gave the words of command : " Present arms — 
 Fire !" And they were followed by the most abominable 
 noise, every man having presented arms with his finger on 
 the trigger of his musket. The crowd cheered tremen- 
 dously, the horses plunged and reared, and there was a 
 terrible disturbance, which seemed to afford the keenest 
 joy to the officer in command. There was nothing very 
 striking at Orange, nor at Avignon. Speeches by the 
 authorities, visits to the public buildings, very much the 
 same routine as that which official receptions have 
 nowadays made so familiar to everybody. Rut at Orgon, 
 between Avignon and Aix, it was a very different matter. 
 An immense and excited crowd awaited our arrival, 
 shoutino- all manner of things. Then the carriage was
 
 44 
 
 SOUVENIRS OF THE 
 
 [chap. II 
 
 seized upon by people who looked drunk, but who were 
 drunk with political passion alone. It seems the town 
 of Orgon was not reckoned to favour the regime of 1830. 
 So from every side I was greeted with shouts of " We 
 are Cavaillon's men ! . . . We've come down from the 
 mountains so that }-ou may tell your papa there are no 
 Carlists in Provence." And then they sang the Marseillaise. 
 The horses were taken out of the carriage, the crowd 
 surrounded it, climbing on the steps, the wheels, the fore- 
 carriage, the roof. I was like a prisoner in a cage ; all I 
 could see out of the window was the boots of the people 
 
 \ — «^ \^~ Mil -^ ) ^ w"^ 'i ..'■■-.VA. y 
 
 
 s,v 
 
 who were sitting on the top. They sang all the verses 
 of the Marseillaise, and bawled between them. A gentle- 
 man contrived to slip up to the carriage door, gave himself 
 out to be the mayor, and tried to rescue us, calling out : 
 " Gentlemen, this really is not decent behaviour." All he 
 got for his pains was a shout of " What the devil do we 
 care about a mayor like you?" I don't know how long it 
 would have gone on, if a detachment of the battalion of 
 Government workmen quartered at Orgon, which had been 
 sent for, had not come to our rescue. 
 
 Between Orgon and Marseilles we met the " Régiment 
 de la Charte " marching from Paris on their way to
 
 1830— i833l PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 45 
 
 Algiers, and their passage through the country did not a 
 httle to excite the inhabitants. At Marseilles the National 
 Guard lined the Allées de Meillan, each man with a bouquet 
 stuck into the muzzle of his rifle, which he took out and 
 threw into the barouche in which I sat with General Gazan, 
 so that I was soon fairly buried, with nothing but my head 
 sticking out, while the crowd shouted at the top of its 
 voice: "Vive lé Prinnche ! — Long live the Prince!" and 
 I heard women's voices adding, " Que sis poulid ! Qui est 
 si joli ! " 
 
 I had hardly reached Toulon, ere the frigate I had 
 joined put to sea, my apprenticeship began, and I soon 
 made myself at home among our sailors, who all of them, 
 officers, petty officers, and seamen alike, not only showed 
 me an affection which won my heart from the very outset, 
 but took every pains to make my stay amongst them 
 a pleasant one, while each in his own special sphere 
 initiated me into all the details of my duty. 
 
 The Arthéniise was a fine sailing frigate, of fifty-two 
 
 guns, with huge spars — one of the most elegant types of 
 
 the old-fashioned ships, but an old-fashioned ship she 
 
 was indeed. We even had hempen cables instead of chain 
 
 ones ! The crew, drawn almost exclusively from the lists 
 
 of registered seamen, was active and bold on the rigging, 
 
 but somewhat insubordinate. The words of command 
 
 were given amidst volleys of oaths, and carried out under 
 
 a hail of blows dealt by the petty officers. The superior 
 
 officers, who had all belonged to the old Imperial Navy, 
 
 clung to that detestable habit, which has cost us so 
 
 many reverses, of completely neglecting the military side 
 
 of the ship's drill. The only thing they looked to was 
 
 navigation. There was indeed a routine of regulation 
 
 practice carried out, but it was utterly ridiculous. The 
 
 nee plus ultra of perfection in artillery drill, for instance, 
 
 was supposed to be when at the word " Ram " all the 
 
 thirteen rammers of the ship's battery struck the bore of 
 
 the guns with irreproachable simultaneity ! Now and then 
 
 there was a rehearsal of the drill book, but it was always
 
 46 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, h 
 
 clone amidst universal sleepiness and inattention. There 
 never was one day's practice, nor even one shot fired, 
 during the whole cruise. 
 
 The commander gave me boatswains and sailors to 
 teach me the various details of my duty, and I soon learnt 
 to give things their right names, to tie knots, and to climb 
 about the rigging too, though I did not manage that, the 
 first time, without being horribly frightened. I remember, 
 when I got as far as the topgallant crosstrees, clinging 
 on, and not daring to come down till I was driven to it by 
 the jeers of the on-lookers. But I learnt most of all by 
 observation, and from the outset I had that indescribable 
 thing that nobody can teach another, the seafaring instinct. 
 Our cruise was a pleasant one, and our stays in port were 
 interesting. At Ajaccio I came upon more public functions, 
 and was the hero of a Bonapartist demonstration. I was 
 borne as though in triumph to the house where Napoleon 
 was born, where I was received by a very old Signor 
 Ramolino, brother to Madame Letitia. In common with 
 my sisters, who drew pictures of Napoleon all over the 
 place, I professed the greatest admiration for the great 
 warrior. So I asked his uncle for some souvenir of him, 
 and he presented me with a red armchair, out of the room 
 in which he was born. 
 
 After a visit to the Dey of Algiers, the last representative 
 of those Barbary Moors who were the " Terror of the 
 Seas," as the Muette de Portici has it, I received at 
 Leghorn an invitation from the Grand Duke of Tuscan}' 
 to come to Florence, and was taken thither by the French 
 Minister, M. de Ganay, a charming man. There was nothing 
 that excellent good Grand Duke and his family did not do 
 for me while I sta}'ed at the Pitti Palace, and the only 
 acknowledgment I could make of it all was to turn my 
 schoolboy talents to constructing a jointed jumping jack, 
 that turned head over heels, for one of the young princesses 
 whom we used to call the Archduchess Mimi, and who 
 afterwards married Prince Luitpold of Bavaria. I returned 
 on board the ArtJicviise full of gratitude for my reception,
 
 1S30— 1S33] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 47 
 
 and of admiration for the monuments and artistic marvels 
 I had seen at Florence and Pisa and Pistoja, and in which, 
 in spite of my youth, I had taken the deepest interest. 
 
 At Naples I found fresh delights in the midst of my 
 mother's family and my young cousins, of both sexes, one of 
 whom, Antonietta, an admirabl)- beautiful girl, later became 
 Grand Duchess of Tuscany in her turn. Nothing indeed 
 could have been more charming than the Naples of those 
 days. I do not speak of that wondrous setting which will 
 last to all eternity, but of the Naples of the Neapolitans, 
 gay, noisy, and teeming with wit, as it was before the plague 
 of politics fell on it, bringing divisions and gloom, and 
 
 despoiling it of all its charm of originality ; Naples, 
 with its lazzaroni and its macaroni, and its '' corricoli '* 
 tearing along with tinkling bells, crammed with monks 
 and women in their costumes — the Naples, in fine, of 
 Pidci7iella and of Leopold Robert. 
 
 After Naples came Palermo, and then Malta, where 
 we found the magnificent British squadron, and received 
 the most hospitable of welcomes from General and Lady 
 Emily Ponsonby, the governor and his charming wife. 
 
 Our stay at Malta ended with a disagreeable incident, 
 hardly conceivable in these days, when naval discipline may 
 be held up as a model to every one. On the evening of the 
 day before that on which we were to weigh anchor, our
 
 48 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap. li 
 
 whole crew deserted in a body. In .spite of the efforts of 
 the officer of the watch, and some others of inferior rank, 
 who were present, over 300 men seized the boats and dories 
 that lay alongside of us, and took " French leave " on shore. 
 The next day we could not start, for we had no crew. We 
 had to apply to the police and the English garrison, who 
 sent out pickets, collected our rovers, and brought almost 
 all of them back in the course of the evening, and we 
 started somewhat humiliated at having given the English 
 such a sad specimen of the insubordination which always 
 follows on revolutions. The English have had their revo- 
 lution too, but they have taken good care to have no more 
 than the one, and above all not to make laws which render 
 a periodical recurrence of revolution inevitable. As we 
 had over 300 delinquents, it was impossible to punish them. 
 The men felt this, and, with the evident intention of setting 
 their officers at defiance, they spent the next few evenings 
 singing revolutionary songs, some verses of which they 
 came and yelled on their knees on the quarterdeck. The 
 firmness of the commanding officers got the better of these 
 saturnalia, by degrees. 
 
 Storms delayed us in the Maltese waters, and we only 
 just missed being on the spot on the very day when an 
 eruption threw up an island and a volcano from the depths 
 of the sea, to which they have now returned. After a long 
 passage, the frigate anchored at Algiers, which in 1831 
 was still the city of the Deys. Not a street had been 
 widened, nor a European house built. It was still inha- 
 bited by a numerous native population. The Rue de la 
 Marine, which was like a narrow winding staircase, was 
 crowded with negro women street sellers, the cafés filled 
 with Moors w^earing huge turbans. To increase the 
 picturesqueness of the situation, there was fighting going 
 on at the city gates. Berthezene, the Governor-General, 
 had just been forced to beat a retreat from Médéah. I 
 could see the firing on the slopes of Kouba from the 
 frigate, and a column had to be sent out to revictual the 
 Maison-Carrée ! Under these circumstances, the Governor
 
 1S30— 1833] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 49 
 
 bethought himself that it would be a good thing to show 
 " the King's son " to the troops, and settled to hold a 
 review the next day. The troops were to be withdrawn 
 for the moment from the line of defence, and the review 
 •was to be held at Mustapha. I had ventured to suggest 
 that I might go and see the soldiers in their own lines, 
 hoping thus to get near the firing, a natural desire enough, 
 seeing I wore a volunteer uniform in spite of my thirteen 
 years, but nobody listened to me, and to Mustapha I was 
 taken, mounted on the ex-Dey's white mule, which an 
 artilleryman persisted in leading by the bridle, in spite of 
 all my indignant protests. 
 
 A real downright review that was ! The men had been 
 fighting all the morning, and Zouaves and linesmen alike 
 looked fierce indeed, with tanned faces, eyes reddened by 
 the smoke, and a black mark at the corner of every mouth, 
 from biting off the ends of the cartridges. The Zouaves 
 had only just been raised, and were not a bit like the 
 Zouaves of the present day. The ranks consisted mostly 
 ■of Arabs, who wore almost the same uniform as the present 
 one, only with bare legs and slippers on their feet, mingled 
 with Parisian roughs, drafted out of the " Régiments de la 
 ■Charte," most of them wearing blouses and caps. Many 
 -of the non-commissioned officers had come from the Royal 
 Guard, and still wore their blue cloaks. The excessively 
 ■whimsical get-up of the officers put the finishing touch to 
 this motley show. Most of them had adopted the Mameluke 
 •dress — white turbans, huge trousers, yellow boots, a sun 
 ■embroidered on their backs, and a scimitar. After the 
 Zouaves I saw the squadron of" Chasseurs Algériens," the 
 nucleus of the future " Chasseurs d'Afrique," march past. 
 They wore Turkish dress and turbans too, all but their 
 commanding officer, a big bearded artillery captain, 
 who wore a burnous and Arab pistols over his uniform. 
 His name was Marey-Monge, and he was a general of 
 division when he died. 
 
 After the review I was taken back to my ship. The 
 frigate sailed for Port Mahon, where we underwent a long 
 
 E
 
 5° 
 
 SOUVENIRS OF THE 
 
 [chap, ir 
 
 quarantine, and thence to Toulon, where we arrived just 
 as the squadron which had forced the mouth of the Tagus, 
 under the orders of Admiral Roussin, returned. I went 
 over those fine ships, and especially the Algésiras, with 
 many a regret that the ArtJicuiise had had no share in the 
 fray. The commander of the Algésiras, M. Moulac, a 
 tall, strongly built, grey-headed man, the bravest of the 
 brave, who had fought boldly in all our naval struggles 
 with England, told me a story which impressed mc deeply, 
 and which I here transcribe just as it remains fixed in my 
 memory : — 
 
 " It has been blowing great guns, as you know, all the 
 last few days. The ship was running under easy sail when 
 
 'ii^- 
 
 . — , . ___J^ji^^: 
 
 
 I heard a shout of ' Man overboard ! ' The lifebuoy was 
 thrown, and, looking astern, I saw the man had caught it. 
 But it was a raging sea — I saw and felt that to try and 
 lower a boat to save the poor wretch must expose the men 
 who manned it to the greatest danger. The crew read 
 in my face the fearful struggle going on within me, and 
 twenty, thirty, perhaps forty volunteers, headed by ofificers 
 and midshipmen, crowded round me, beseeching me almost 
 on their knees : ' Let us save our comrade, sir ! we can't 
 desert him ! ' I was weak enough to yield. By un- 
 expected good luck, we managed to lower a boat without 
 accident, and she started manned by a dozen men. We
 
 1830-1833] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 51 
 
 saw her, by still greater good fortune, get to the poor 
 fellow and save him, and I was steering about so as to 
 make it easier for her to get back, when a huge wave 
 broke over her. A shout of horror went up from her, and 
 then silence. In another minute I saw my boat capsized, 
 on the crest of a wave, with two or three men, one of them 
 a midshipman, clinging to the keel. To shorten their 
 agony, I made as though I was going ahead. The middy 
 understood that I was forced to abandon them, for he 
 waved a farewell and let himself go. I had been weak, 
 but I was cruelly punished. Thirteen men drowned instead 
 of one, and by my fault ! " 
 
 I shall never forget the severe expression that came over 
 the commander's face as he added, laying his hand on my 
 shoulder, " Some day, boy, you may be in command. 
 May the thought of me remind you always that duty is 
 inexorable ! " 
 
 After this final episode in my first cruise I went ashore, 
 but I went ashore a sailor to the core, and my one idea, 
 when I got back to Paris, was to acquire the technical 
 information needed for my profession. To this the years 
 1832 and 1833 were devoted. M. Guérard, a charming 
 fellow, universally liked and an incomparable instructor, 
 was my mathematical teacher. A lieutenant in the navy, 
 M. Hernoux, put me through the course of study of the 
 Naval School. At the same time I set assiduously to work 
 to learn drawing. My first master in this line was M. 
 Barbier, the father of Jules Barbier, the poet and librettist, 
 who, with Emile Augier, was a class-mate of my young 
 brothers. I did watercolours too, under an Englishman, 
 William Callow, and oils in Gudin's studio. But my real 
 master, who taught me to draw, and led and guided me, 
 and gave me my taste for things artistic, was Ary Scheffer, 
 with whom I remained on terms of the closest intimacy 
 until his death. 
 
 It was somewhere about this time that a French army 
 entered Belgium, and besieged and took the citadel of 
 Antwerp, and during this campaign my elder brothers 
 
 E 2
 
 52 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, ii 
 
 first had the honour of leading our soldiers under fire. 
 Antwerp once taken, the French Government, content 
 with having given a proof of activity to Europe, and 
 shown everybody what our legions could do, at once re- 
 called the army, and my father went to review it in the 
 cantonments on the frontier where it lay. I made this 
 journey with him. The troops were splendid, full of zeal 
 and confidence. I was shown one infantry brigade, which 
 at the time of mobilization had done marches of sixty to 
 seventy kilometres, so as to reach the given point at the 
 hour fixed upon. It was an interesting journey, though a 
 very trying one. Every day there was an entry into some 
 town, and a partial review, in Siberian cold. And every 
 evening there was a banquet, and every night a ball. The 
 chief review was held at Valenciennes. The troops looked 
 magnificent, drawn up on the snow, and, though it was so 
 terribly cold, a brilliant sun lighted up the splendid military 
 scene. It was enlivened by a little incident. The com- 
 mandant of the fortress of Valenciennes was an old 
 colonel, who had re-engaged in 1S30, after having dabbled 
 somewhat in conspiracy, under the Restoration. His 
 name was M. de la Huberdière, and he had had himself a 
 hat made exactly like Napoleon's, and wore it just after 
 the same fashion. 
 
 During the march past, either from sheer keenness or 
 because he wanted to attract attention to himself, he edged 
 himself gradually in front of the staff, on the side w^here 
 the troops advanced, till at last he was abreast of the 
 King, so that the troops appeared to be marching past 
 him. This provoked one of my father's aides-de-camp, 
 Heymès, who went up to him, and said, saluting, " It seems 
 to me. Colonel, you would be better placed still if you were 
 on the King's horse 1" The shriek of laughter which 
 greeted this remark may be imagined. 
 
 This same Heymès, one of the few survivors of General 
 Leclerc's expedition to St. Domingo, had, on leaving that 
 charnel-house, become aide-de-camp to Marshal Ney. 
 He it was who, during the famous retreat from Russia,
 
 IS30-I833] 
 
 PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 
 
 53 
 
 was sent to ask the general who was blowing up the 
 Beresina bridges to suspend the work of destruction, so as 
 to allow of the passage of the column with the wounded, 
 who must otherwise be doomed to death. It was worth 
 seeing the expression of his face, severe enough already, 
 when he repeated the answer the general in question gave 
 him, with the most southern of accents, " What, my dear 
 fellow ! The wounded ! The Emperor has decided to 
 sacrifice them ! " 
 
 The worthy Heymès did my father a great service a 
 short time after the review which has led me to mention 
 
 him. It was at the moment of the insurrection in June 
 1832. We were at St. Cloud. It was well known that 
 the agitators of every description intended to make a 
 demonstration on the occasion of General Lamarque's 
 funeral, but the demonstration was not expected to be of 
 any importance. However, at about five in the evening, 
 we beheld Heymès, in plain clothes, gallop into the court- 
 yard, on a dragoon's charger, covered with foam. He had 
 just come from the demonstration, and had witnessed that 
 ordinary prologue to revolutions, pillage and massacre — 
 pillage of gunsmiths' shops, and massacre of the officers of
 
 54 SOU\'ENIRS OF THE [chap. ll 
 
 the 6th Dragoons, shot down with pistols, without any 
 provocation whatever, at the head of their squadrons in 
 line. 
 
 " You must come to Paris, Sire," he said, as he dis- 
 mounted. My father did not wait for him to say it twice, 
 and an hour later he was at the Tuileries, thence giving 
 the impulse which nipped the revolutionary attempt in the 
 bud. The next morning he was on horseback amidst the 
 troops and the National Guard, which hemmed the rioters 
 into the ward of St. Merri. An incident occurred there 
 which was highly characteristic of that Parisian population, 
 in whom a generous chord will always thrill, even in its 
 maddest moments. The King, with my brother Nemours 
 and his staff, had gone down the Rue des Arcis, at the end 
 of which lively firing was heard. The troops who were 
 massed in the street greeted the sovereign with cheers, and 
 he, going forward, reached a square in which the fighting 
 was actually going on. The cheering ran from one to 
 another, the soldiers who were engaged ceasing their fire 
 to join in. This change in the music struck the insurgents 
 also at last. They stopped firing too, and were to be seen 
 appearing at the windows, rifle in hand, taking off their 
 caps to the plucky King, whom they would not have 
 hesitated to shoot at a minute before. 
 
 I need not say that as soon as the King and his escort 
 disappeared down a side street the fight began again, 
 merrier than ever, and the 42nd Regiment of the line 
 carried the monastery of St. Merri. An historic regiment 
 that 42nd! After having fought against the "White" 
 insurrection in the Vendée and the republican insurrec- 
 tion at the St. Merri monastery, caused the breakdown 
 of Prince Napoleon's Boulogne adventure, occupied the 
 Chamber of Deputies on the 2nd of December, and 
 heroically lost its whole strength twice over in the siege of 
 Paris, it has had the good fortune of being almost the 
 only one of our regiments to keep its arms and its colours 
 amidst all our mishaps. 
 
 There was no further interruption to the course of my
 
 1830— 1833] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 55 
 
 studies, except a journey of the King's to Normandy, on 
 which I accompanied him. The official object of this 
 journey was to hold a review, at Cherbourg, of the squadron 
 which had operated, in concert with an English one, in the 
 North Sea, during the arrangement of the Belgian question. 
 But its chief end was to go through the Departments in 
 Normandy and enter into relations with the honest folk 
 who populated them. 
 
 The trip was fruitful in incident. The first happened at 
 Bernay, the native town of the virtuous Dupont de l'Eure, 
 one of those virtuous individuals who would virtuously 
 have your head cut off sooner than drop the smallest iota 
 of their vulgar and Utopian ideas. The prefect, M. Passy, 
 had warned the King that amongst the addresses that would 
 be read to him on his arrival there would be one which 
 would give him a lecture. Thus warned, we arrived, and 
 having mounted a platform in the open air, with a verdant 
 dome above it, the reception and the addresses began. 
 There was nothing very particular at first ; at last a 
 " Président de Tribunal " advanced, and the way he made 
 his bow with his prim look, and the curiosity which 
 stretched every neck, told me at once that the King was 
 going to get the promised lecture. It came, indeed, very 
 studied, and very impertinent too. Everybody listened in 
 silence. It was all about courtiers, the danger of listening 
 to flatterers, and so forth. As it ended, the heads of the 
 president and his friends all came up with a " Take that, 
 my fine fellow " look. 
 
 Then the King replied with the utmost politeness, thank- 
 ing M. le Président for the advice he had been good enough 
 to give him. "Flatterers and courtiers," he said, "have 
 indeed done much mischief, and, sad to say, the race is not 
 yet extinct, for nowadays there are courtiers who are far 
 more dangerous than the flatterers of princes and of kings 
 — those courtiers and flatterers of the people, who to buy a 
 vain and contemptible popularity suggest to them dreams 
 which are unrealizable and which bring them to misfor- 
 tune," &c. On this head my father bestowed a well-directed
 
 56 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, ir 
 
 hidinij on the president, which was constantly inter- 
 rupted by a running fire of applause, so that the worthy 
 gentleman ended by not knowing which way to look. 
 Amongst other eminently French qualities, my father pos- 
 sessed the gift of repartee to the highest degree. He 
 always knew how to use it, though with a politeness and 
 good nature which softened whatever might be too sharp 
 about its sting. This time the blow went home. Our 
 journey, thus begun, was continued amid constantly in- 
 creasing cordiality and success. It was a somewhat tiring 
 manner of life. We went by short stages, from one recep- 
 tion to another. Everywhere the National Guard and the 
 troops were under arms. When they were in considerable 
 numbers, wc mounted horses, either lent or requisitioned 
 beforehand. In the evening, wherever we slept, there woulcî 
 be a great banquet, and generally a ball as well. It w^as. 
 the duty of us young folk to lead the dancing — -a pleasant 
 task enough, if we could have chosen our partners among 
 the pretty women whom I was beginning to notice, in spite 
 of my being only fourteen, and of whom there were many, 
 especially at Grandville and St. Lô. But our partners were 
 given to us officially, and were chosen from the families of 
 the authorities. We exerted ourselves to be pleasant in 
 spite of that. I do not know whether I was succeeding toO' 
 much or too little at a ball one night, but I saw the 
 husband's head suddenly appear between my partner and 
 myself, with the observation, " Well, my wife's not bad- 
 looking, is she ?" and he smacked his lips like a man who 
 has eaten a good thing. 
 
 Falaise was the culminating point in our journey as far 
 as incidents went. We were to make a halt there, and, as 
 fifteen battalions of the National Guard were collected, 
 the aide-de-camp, who did duty as quartermaster too, 
 had seen to getting suitable mounts for the King, for us, 
 and for Marshals Soult and Gérard, who accompanied us. 
 The famous fair at Guibray, near Falaise, was just over,^ 
 and a circus which had come to enliven it was still there. 
 The circus horses were laid hands on, and when we arrived
 
 1830— 1833] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 57 
 
 we were agreeably surprised to find fine white horses 
 awaiting us instead of the ordinary nags and troop-horses 
 we generally had to ride. So we got into the saddle, and 
 the review began. Just as the King reached the right flank 
 of the line, the band began to play, and then an unforeseen 
 event occurred. Our proud coursers, thinking that they 
 were at a performance, set each of them to do his own 
 particular duty. The King, Marshal Soult, and two others 
 of our party were riding the horses who did that trick 
 called the " Grand-Ecart," in which all four horses draw 
 together at the same moment. When their riders pulled 
 at their bridles, the four horses, feeling themselves reined 
 up, instantly fell into the usual circus canter. Another 
 horse kept wheeling round and round, and confusion, 
 became general, nobody guessing what had happened until 
 the aide-de-camp smote his brow, and stopped the band. 
 
 The trouble did not end there. The National Guard 
 was in proud possession of one gun, which it had horsed 
 somehow or other. A jolt broke the axle-tree, just as it 
 was going past. Then there was a half-squadron of cavalry 
 mounted on stallions or geldings. But the trumpeter was 
 on a mare, which fact brought difficulty on poor Rosinante 
 during the march past. In the evening there was a great 
 ball in a huge temporary shed, with tiers of seats all round 
 it. All of a sudden half the tiers collapsed, like cards,, 
 and all the ladies were to be seen, though almost unhurt^ 
 on their backs with their legs in the air, amidst a most 
 awful dust ! I must confess we ungallantly seized the 
 opportunity of the confusion to go off to our beds. The 
 King, too, did the same, thus escaping from the persecu- 
 tions of the Polish refugees, interned at Falaise, who had 
 come to the ball in lancer uniforms worthy of the merry- 
 andrews at the opera balls, to pester him with their 
 petitions.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 1834— 1836 
 
 My technical education recommenced more vigorously 
 than ever when this journey was over. It had been 
 decided that before being definitely placed on the Navy 
 List I must pass my public examination as a first-class 
 pupil at Brest. So I was prepared accordingly, and 
 received those successive doses of instruction which the 
 English designate by the characteristic word " cramming," 
 for which the only French equivalent I can find is "gaver." 
 My mathematical teacher held a class for a limited number 
 of youths in a house in the Rue Gît-le-Cœur, and 
 thither I went, to gain the habit of speaking the language 
 of algebra in public. In contrast to my memories of 
 school lessons, I have the pleasantest recollections of 
 those I received in that den — for den it was ! This, 
 perhaps, is on account of the good fellows I met there, 
 and who have been my friends ever since, and also owing 
 to the charm our kindly instructor wielded over us all. I 
 do not believe there is a single one of his pupils, from the 
 illustrious Marshal Canrobert down through my contem- 
 poraries, Excelmans, Bonie, Morny, Daumesnil, the Gref- 
 fulhe brothers, Friant, Baudin, Valbezen, and many more, 
 to the younger generation that came after me, who does 
 not cherish the most grateful and affectionate feelings for 
 the worthy Guérard. When we were close on the time for 
 my examination, he had me questioned several times over 
 by the ofiicial examiners of the Ecole Polytechnique and
 
 iS34— 1836] SOUVENIRS OF PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 59 
 
 others, so as to accustom me to the surprises of public 
 examinations. I thus passed through the hands of Baron 
 Reynaud, and of Messieurs Bourdon, DeUlle, and Lefébure 
 de Fourcy. This last inspired me with downright terror, 
 on account of his reputation for methodical brutality. 
 One of my class-mates had reported to me that well-known 
 colloquy between him and a candidate who got confused, 
 at he stood chalk in hand before the black board, and 
 who heard M. Lefébure de Fourcy's voice saying calmly, 
 "Waiter, just bring a bundle of hay for this pupil's break- 
 fast." To which the indignant pupil promptly added, 
 "Waiter, bring two : the examiner will breakfast with me." 
 At length, crammed to the muzzle with nautical and 
 astronomical calculations, and all the other sciences the 
 official programme demanded, I started for Brest, kept up 
 even as I drove along, in the highest state of preparation. 
 There were a few interludes during the journey. Certain 
 spots in Brittany were still, early in that year 1834, dis- 
 turbed by the consequences of the rising in 1831, and my 
 passage was the signal in several places for what we call, 
 in parliamentary language, " mouvements en sens divers," 
 conflicting emotions. Sometimes I saw white handker- 
 chiefs waving or twisted round hats, doing duty for cock- 
 ades. At other points the tricolour demonstrations took a 
 quaint form. I remember at one place where we changed 
 horses my carriage drew up between two rows of National 
 Guards, who were keeping back a considerable crowd of 
 people. At the carriage door appeared the Mayor with 
 his scarf round his waist, saluting me with this remark : 
 " Sir, this place is but a hole, but it is a hole in which 
 hearts devoted to your august family are throbbing ; " 
 while at the other the village priest and his clergy, all in 
 surplice and alb, struck up 
 
 Soldats du drapeau tricolore 
 D'Orléans toi qui l'as porté, 
 
 and so right through the Parisienne to a brass accompani- 
 ment.
 
 6o SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, lu 
 
 My examination was held in the great hall of the Pre- 
 fecture of the Navy at Brest, before a board of officers, 
 engineers, and professors. It was a public one ; but what 
 alarmed me most at its outset was the presence of all the 
 pupils of the Naval School, who filled the tiers of seats, 
 on one side of the hall. Luckily the sight of some old 
 chums amongst them cheered me up, and as the examin- 
 ation went pretty well I soon saw on their youthful faces,, 
 just as actors, they say, read their coming success on their 
 audience at the theatre, that my cause was won, and that 
 I was accepted, not only by the scientific big-wigs but by 
 the universal suffrages of my contemporaries. Yet I was- 
 rejoiced when the sitting was over ! 
 
 Some days later, at L'Orient, I joined the Sirène frigate,. 
 Commander d'Oysonville, as midshipman, and started on 
 an ocean voyage. This cruise was uneventful, except for 
 a few little incidents such as always occur in a sailor'.s 
 life. 
 
 Thus, being in the maintop one day, when topsails were 
 being reefed in a strong breeze, a rope chanced to breaks 
 twisted round my legs, and carried me into mid air, head 
 downwards. If the sinewy arms of the captain of the 
 maintop and one of the top men had not caught me as 
 I passed, I should have fallen into the sea or on the deck,, 
 and either alternative would have been disagreeable. Later 
 on, at the end of the cruise, we re-entered Brest in a 
 south-westerly squall, under circumstances which made a 
 very useful impression on me. 
 
 We had had bad weather for some days, no reliable 
 observations had been taken, and we were very doubtful 
 as to the frigate's position. Driving as we were at a great 
 rate, before the gale, we were reckoning on the occasional 
 partial lightening of the fog to catch sight of and recognize 
 some point of land or rock, according to which we might 
 steer our course amongst the reefs which swarm at the 
 entrance of Brest harbour. We had to be ready to change 
 our course and go about at any moment. Everybody was 
 on deck, straining his eyes to try and see something, cool,.
 
 ,834—1836] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 61 
 
 and steady in nerv^c, as a well-disciplined body of men is 
 in face of any danger. But one man was not present, our 
 commanding officer, whose prompt judgment and word 
 of command alone could bring us from perilous uncertainty 
 into safety. Our commander was below, in his cabin, and 
 there he persisted in staying, in spite of the indirect efforts 
 made by the officer of the watch, the second in command, 
 and the navigating officer to get him out of it. It was 
 incomprehensible, and at the same time very alarming. 
 Commander d'Oysonville, who was churchwarden of St. 
 Roch when he died, was a kind and very honourable 
 man, but nobody could possibly have been less of a 
 sailor. He was a first-class organizer, and he carried his 
 theories to the extremest possible limit. He had one, 
 amongst others, that the captain of a ship ought to command 
 her from his cabin, so as never to appear before his crew 
 ■except on the most solemn occasions, and it was for the 
 sake of being true to this principle that he refused to show 
 himself in the circumstances I speak of. His obstinacy 
 very nearly cost us dear, for on the earnestly longed-for 
 break in the fog suddenly taking place a point of land was 
 seen. We thought we recognized the Island of Molènes : 
 the commander was hurriedly informed, and he sent an 
 order to change our course. A lightening at another 
 point in the horizon showed us some rocks. " The Pierres 
 Vertes ahead ! " sang out a coasting pilot, specially shipped 
 for the voyage, who was looking out from his perch on the 
 foreyards, and the navigating officer tore off again to warn 
 the commanding officer. During all these comings and 
 goings the curtain of fog came down again, and we went 
 driving on towards the reefs at the rate of twelve knots an 
 hour. It could not be allowed to go on ! With or without 
 leave the second officer took the command, and put an 
 end to an impossible situation. Our worthy commander 
 only appeared just as we were dropping anchor in the 
 roadstead, when all uncertainty was over, and I seem yet 
 to see the looks that greeted his tardy appearance. 
 Everybody's anxiety had been increased by knowing how
 
 62 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, hi 
 
 he had lost the ship Le Superbe, seventy-four guns, off the 
 Island of Paros, some years before, and under very peculiar 
 circumstances. For my own part, 1 learnt on this occasion 
 what everything has confirmed me in since — the danger of 
 uncertain and divided authority either at sea or elsewhere. 
 
 When I got back to Paris, having finished the technical 
 portion of my education, I went on with a course of history, 
 literature, physical science, and chemistry, and together 
 with my sisters, especially my sister Mary, I applied myself 
 with the utmost fervour to my drawing. I worked with 
 her daily, under the direction of Ary Scheffer, and I 
 recollect our grief one morning on finding the Jeanne 
 d'Arc she was modelling in wax for Versailles, melted by 
 an overheated stove, had collapsed the whole length of its 
 framework, to such an extent as to become the merest 
 cripple. By dint of lowering the temperature, and the 
 use of a screw-jack applied in a peculiar manner, and 
 vigorously turned by Ary Scheffer and myself, Jeanne 
 d'Arc rose up again upon her framework, and the damage 
 was soon made good. 
 
 About that time too, influenced by the genius of V^ictor 
 Hugo, my sister Clémentine and I were seized with a 
 perfect passion for old Paris, that delightful Paris of 
 ancient story. We had Sauval's thick volumes, we had 
 searched all the old books for traces of the ancient legends, 
 and we u.sed to spend our afternoons going to see the sites 
 and hunt for the remains of the places we had read about. 
 There is not a church or a monument of which we did not 
 know every detail, nor an alley or a corner in the quarters 
 of the Halles, the Hôtel de Vaille, the Arsenal, the Temple,, 
 and the Panthéon that we had not carefully explored with 
 the most fervent interest. What joy it was to us one day 
 when we were trying to trace the Hôtel St. Paul, the old 
 palace of our kings, to come upon a course of masonry 
 which had undoubtedly belonged to it ! 
 
 Although I was on shore, I w^as still devoted to my 
 profession. I used to see almost all the naval officers who 
 passed through Paris, and tried to push forward those
 
 i834— 1836] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 65 
 
 whom the general body of the profession singled out 
 as being likely commanding officers. These matters of 
 promotion, as well as any others that affected naval 
 interests, brought me into daily touch with the ministers, 
 and my relations with M. Thiers date from that time. 
 Yet, oddly enough, it was riding on horseback that 
 brought us together ! During the King's stays at Com- 
 piègne and P'ontainebleau, and his country trips to 
 Versailles, St. Cloud, and Rainc}% when he used to invite 
 foreign visitors and his ministers, and great personages in 
 general, to join in his excursions, M. Thiers was as much 
 bored as I was at having to go in the carriages and 
 chars à bancs which drove in a long line one behind 
 the other. We much preferred accompanying them on 
 horseback, and nothing delighted the little minister more 
 than to let his mount tear along full gallop with a loose 
 rein. He had a very firm seat, and was very plucky» 
 especially on a horse of ours called " Le Vendôme," which 
 in his southern accent he pronounced " Le Vanndomme." 
 I remember one day, at Fontainebleau, as he was galloping 
 along beside me on that same " Vanndomme," we passed 
 by a young fagot-gatherer, bending under her load. She 
 straightened herself at the noise ; it was very hot, her 
 jacket had come unbuttoned, and showed a bare white 
 very well furnished bust. She smiled to M. Thiers, who 
 pulled his horse up short, turned back to thrust a handful 
 of small change into the young woman's palm, and started 
 off again full tear, as if he had had an electric shock, 
 jumping the fallen trees with a resolution and energy 
 which I had never known him show before. 
 
 On another occasion he proved himself a less brilliant 
 horseman. The statue of Napoleon, that statue which 
 is put up and taken down in every Revolution, was to be 
 ceremoniously replaced on the top of its column. The 
 troops and the National Guard were under arms, with 
 their bands and drums, headed by a splendid drum-major» 
 massed at the foot of the column. We arrived in state, by 
 the Rue Castiglione, so that the column surmounted by
 
 •64 
 
 SOUVENIRS OF THE 
 
 [CHAI'. Ill 
 
 the statue, covered by a veil that was to drop at a given 
 signal, faced us just as we came out upon the square. 
 M. Thiers, in full uniform, with his minister's hat and 
 feathers, and again riding "Vanndomme," struck in his 
 spurs, left the procession at full gallop, and passed before 
 my father, shouting at the very top of his falsetto voice, "I 
 take your Majesty's pleasure ! " the words being accom- 
 panied by a wave of his hat which ill-natured people might 
 liave said was copied from General Rapp's gesture in 
 Gerard's picture of the Battle of Aiisterlitz at the Louvre. 
 On this signal the drums beat, the bands played, the statue 
 was unveiled — but M. Thiers had lost control of " Vann- 
 ■domme," who, wild with enthusiasm, bolted head down 
 
 
 -overthrowing drums and drum-major, while the little 
 minister clung to his back like a monkey in a circus. It 
 was a comical sight ! But far from laughable under this 
 same ministry of M. Thiers were the perpetual attempts 
 upon my father's life. The speculators in revolution, 
 who had been encouraged by their easy success in 
 1830, grew discouraged after several like essays at risings 
 had been severely put down. They then fell back on 
 assassination. The most serious attempt was Fieschi's, 
 on July 28, 1835. Together with my two eldest brothers 
 I was to accompany the King to a review of the National 
 •Guard and the regular army, drawn up on the Boulevards. 
 All of us who were to take part in the procession, princes, 
 •marshals, generals, and aides-de-camp, were assembled in
 
 i834— 1S36] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 65 
 
 the drawing-room at the Tuileries, next to the Throne 
 Room, when the Minister of the Interior, M. Thiers, burst 
 in like a whirlwind, and, beckoning to my two brothers and 
 me, led us into the embrasure of a window. " My dear 
 princes," said he, looking at us over his spectacles, " it 
 is more than likely there will be an attempt on the life 
 of the King, your father, to-day. We have been warned 
 from several quarters. They say there will be an infernal 
 machine somewhere near the Ambigu Theatre. It is very 
 vague, but there must be something at the bottom of it all. 
 We have had all the houses near the Ambigu searched 
 this morning to no purpose. Should the King be warned .'' 
 Should the review be put ofif.-*" 
 
 We answered unanimously that the King must be warned, 
 but that, brave as he was well known to be, he would never 
 consent to having the review put off. So it turned out. 
 
 " Look well after your father," repeated M. Thiers, and 
 we mounted our horses. The review went on well enough, 
 except that w^e all remarked the presence of a large number 
 of insolent-looking individuals, with red carnations in 
 their button-holes — the members, evidently, of the secret 
 societies, who had not been warned of what was going to 
 happen, but to be ready for anything that might happen. 
 We had not been able to take any precautions, beyond 
 dividing the care of watching over the King's person between 
 my brothers and myself and the aides-de-camp on duty. 
 One of us with an aide-de-camp, was to take it in turn to 
 keep just behind his horse, with our eye on the troops and 
 the crowd, so as to interpose if we noticed any suspicious 
 gesture. My turn had come to take the post of watcher, 
 with General Heymès, aide-de-camp in waiting, on my 
 right. On my left I had Lieutenant-Colonel Rieussec, 
 commanding the legion of the National Guard before which 
 we were passing. Close to the Ambigu, not the present 
 theatre — the neighbourhood of which had been searched — 
 but a former Ambigu, which had been shut up, opposite 
 the Jardin Turc café, we heard a sort of platoon firing like 
 the discharge of a mitrailleuse, and raising my eyes at the 
 
 F
 
 66 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, in 
 
 noise I saw smoke coming from a window which was half 
 closed by an outside shutter. 
 
 I liad no time to notice more, and at the moment I did 
 not perceive that m}- left-hand neighbour, Colonel Rieussec, 
 was killed, that He}'mès' clothes were riddled with bullets, 
 and his nose carried awa}', nor that my own horse was 
 wounded. All I saw was my father holding his left arm, 
 and saying to me over his shoulder, " I'm hit ! " And so 
 he was : one bullet had grazed his forehead, another spent 
 one had given him the blow of which he complained, and 
 a third had passed through his horse's neck. But that we 
 only knew afterwards, and it was only afterwards too that 
 we learnt the instrument of the crime had been an infernal 
 machine. Our first thought was that the firing would go 
 on, so I struck spurs into my horse, and seizing my father's 
 by the bridle, while my two brothers struck it behind with 
 their swords, we led him swiftly through the scene of 
 immense confusion that ensued — horses riderless, or bear- 
 ing wounded men, swaying in their seats, broken ranks, and 
 people in blouses, who rushed upon the King, to touch him 
 or his horse, with frantic shouts of " Long live the King!" 
 As we retired, I just saw the taking by assault of the house 
 whence the discharge had come. The young aides-de-camp 
 had dismounted, leaving their horses loose, and with the 
 Municipal Guards and the police they scaled the house 
 and the one next door (the Café Barfetti), climbing on to 
 the verandah and smashing in the windows. Then the 
 review began again. We had ascertained the King was 
 not wounded, nor we ourselves, but we were not aware as 
 yet either of the great number or of the names of the victims. 
 Hereupon M. Thiers appeared beside us, with his white 
 kerseymere trousers covered with blood. All he said to us 
 was, " The poor Marshal ! " 
 
 " Whom do you mean .-' " 
 
 " Mortier ! He fell dead across me, crying out, * Oh, my 
 God ! ' " 
 
 We reckoned ourselves up as we went along. Forty- 
 two dead or wounded : dead — Marshal Mortier, General 

 
 i834— 1836] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 67 
 
 Lâchasse de Verigny, Colonels Raffet and Rieussec, Captain 
 Willatte, aide-de-camp to the Minister of War, seven others, 
 and two women ; wounded — Generals Heymès, Comte de 
 Colbert, Pelet, Blin, and many more. The Due de Broglie 
 was hit full in the chest by a bullet that flattened out on 
 his star of the Legion of Honour. 
 
 It was not far from the scene of the crime to the farthest 
 end of the line of troops, so the procession soon retraced 
 its steps. The roadway where the blow had been struck 
 was nothing but a pool of blood. The wounded and almost 
 all the dead had been carried away, and I only saw one 
 corpse, flat on its face in the mud, among the dead horses, 
 but all the blood about frightened our horses so that we had 
 hard work to get on. 
 
 On the square of the Château d'Eau a huge and furious 
 crowd surging round the station house, which was protected 
 by numerous Municipal Guards, showed us the assassin, or 
 one of them, had been arrested. The review was concluded, 
 and my father's self-control was sorely tried by the 
 unanimity and fervour of the acclamations of which he was 
 the object from all sides, from soldiers and civilians alike. 
 It is unnecessary to add that we did not see any more red 
 carnations. 
 
 The march past was to take place in the Place Vendôme, 
 and the chancellor's offices were full of ladies of the 
 official world, gathered round my mother. We dismounted 
 for a moment to go and speak to them, and here again a 
 moving scene took place. We had been able to send on 
 an aide-de-camp to assure my mother and aunt and my 
 sisters that we were safe and sound, but our messenger 
 had not had time to learn the names of all the victims. So 
 when we mounted the stairs of the chancellor's ofiices, 
 some of us all bespattered with blood, all these women, 
 their brilliant dresses contrasting sadly with their terrified 
 eyes, rushed upon us to see whether those they loved were 
 amongst us. Some of them were never to see their dear 
 ones again ! 
 
 Shortly after this bloody episode in our national history 
 
 F 2
 
 68 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, hi 
 
 I joined the Didon frigate, Captain de Parseval, as enseigne 
 de vaisseau. My new commanding officer, who had joined 
 the navy at a very early age, had served as a midshipman 
 on board Villeneuve's vessel, the Biicentaiire, at Trafalgar. 
 He was in command of the mizzentop, and saw Nelson's 
 ship, the Victory, pass slowly astern of the Biicentaiire — so 
 close that her yards caught the other's ensign — while the 
 fifty guns of the British ship poured their fire one after the 
 other into the stern of the French one, sweeping her gun- 
 deck from end to end, and laying low four hundred of her 
 crew. After this commencement of his career. Commander 
 de Parseval had spent his whole life in fighting and adven- 
 ture. He had been in three shipwrecks, one specially 
 terrible one on the Isle de Sable, near the coast of Nova 
 Scotia, in which he was a lieutenant at the time) he swam 
 ashore to get help and save the crew of his frigate. 
 He died with the rank of admiral, after having had the 
 chief command of the Baltic Fleet during the Crimean 
 War. He was a charming fellow, slight and smart-looking, 
 very carefully dressed, as resolute in command as he was 
 formal as to politeness, a consummate seaman, managing 
 his ship in first-rate style. I sailed a great deal with him, 
 and learned much from him, and from the very first I felt 
 a personal affection for him, which was never belied, and 
 which he reciprocated. An extra bond of sympathy 
 existed between us — when I was just becoming deaf, he 
 was deaf already. 
 
 We made a cruise for drill, on the Didon, doing a deal 
 of navigation in all sorts of weathers, and I performed 
 the duties of captain of the watch — my first attempt at 
 command, my first trial in a responsible position. 
 
 The winter season of 1836 found me back in Paris, 
 where I began my classes again, and gave myself up in 
 particular to my passion for the fine arts. This taste of 
 mine was the cause of a terrible blowing up I got from my 
 father. The jury of the Salon of 1836 refused a picture 
 of Marilhat's — I think it was his first. Some of the 
 artists who had seen the young painter's work thought
 
 i834— 1836] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 69 
 
 this decision unjust. They grumbled, and their grumbling 
 got as far as the newspapers. I was curious enough to go 
 and see the picture at Durand-Ruel's. It was a view of 
 Rome by twilight, seen between great umbrella pines. I 
 thought it a splendid picture, and spurred somewhat, I 
 confess, by a spirit of contradiction, I was seized with an 
 eager desire to acquire it. But I had not a halfpenny of 
 my own, there was my difficulty ! To overcome it, I laid 
 siege to my aunt Adélaïde, who doted on her brother's 
 children as if they had been her own, and who never (and 
 well the rogues knew it !) could resist their wheedling. I 
 succeeded, as I had hoped, and Marilhat's picture became 
 my property. But certain of the jury went and com- 
 plained to the King, and I was greeted with, " Oho ! so 
 you are going to set yourself up in opposition ! I've 
 trouble enough already with those artists! It's the Civil 
 List (that means it's me) that takes them in at the Louvre. 
 I can't be the only judge as to what is accepted and what 
 isn't. I have to have a jury, the Institute is good enough 
 to undertake the job — all its members are dying of fright, 
 and I shield them under my own responsibility, just as I 
 do my ministers, although it's contrary to the letter of the 
 law — and it's you, one of my own sons, who comes and 
 sets an example of insubordination ! Much obliged to 
 you, sir!" 
 
 My picture was inspected all the same. I need hardly 
 say the grands-parents pronounced it frightful, a regular 
 daub. I hung my head under this double-barrelled cen- 
 sure, and drooped my ears like a whipped spaniel, but 
 I stuck to my opinion, and likewise to my Marilhat. I 
 think it was shortly after this little adventure that I added 
 another " daub " to my "gallery." One morning as I was 
 busy modelling (for I dabbled in sculpture too) in my 
 sister Marie's studio, Ary Scheffer came in, and began 
 telling me about an unknown artist he had met, quite 
 young, a man of undoubted talent, who was in a terribly 
 poverty-stricken condition. Six hundred francs would 
 take him out of his difficulties, and he would give two
 
 70 
 
 SOUVENIRS OF THE 
 
 [chap. Ill 
 
 small pictures, pendants, which he had just finished, in 
 exchange. 
 
 " What do they represent ? " I inquired. 
 
 " They are both landscapes, connected with episodes in 
 Walter Scott's novels. One represents the charge of 
 Claverhouse in the Covenanters, and the other the Army 
 of Charles the Bold crossing the Alps. Come ! " added 
 Scheffer, turning to me. " Be good-natured. If you have 
 six hundred francs, give them to me ! " 
 
 I chanced to have the money, and gave it him. " W' hat's 
 y oViX protege's name 1 " asked 1. 
 
 " Théodore Rousseau." Fancy that great artist selling 
 his pictures in pairs, as furniture, in fact — for bread ! 
 
 In 1836, too, on February 28, I was present at the 
 first performance of Les Hîignenots, an opera which 
 enchanted me. The action, the music, the stage setting, 
 the interpretation, made an ensemble that was unique, a 
 work of art that defied comparison. Nothing on the stage, 
 to my mind, has ever surpassed the duet in the fourth act, 
 as created and sung by Nourrit and Mile. Falcon. Inspired 
 
 «
 
 i834— 1836] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 71 
 
 by the musical and dramatic situation, these two artists 
 were completely carried away, and their emotion was as 
 infectious as it was apparent. Mile. Falcon had a way of 
 interrupting her singing, to speak the words, " Raoul, ils te 
 tueront ! " with an expression into which her whole soul 
 was thrown, which was the very embodiment of passion. 
 Ah ! Passion indeed ! Passion it is that thrills in every 
 page of that admirable book of Mérimée's, La Chronique de 
 Charles IX., which has given birth in succession to those 
 two masterpieces, Le Pre aux Clercs and Les Huguenots. 
 And what indeed would life be without passion 1 If 
 Fieschi's crime marked the year 1835 with a crimson letter, 
 1836 was the year of Alibaud's attempt. The history of 
 my father's reign is nothing but an innumerable succession 
 of such attempts, some of which came to the birth, while 
 others, again, miscarried, Alibaud, as my readers are 
 aware, fired point-blank at the King with a walking-stick 
 gun, which he steadied on the door of the carriage, as it 
 passed slowly through the Tuileries archway, and missed 
 him, except that his whiskers were singed by the wad. 
 Neither my father's courage nor that of my mother and 
 aunt, who were with him, failed them for a moment. I saw 
 them get out of the carriage at Neuilly, without for an 
 instant suspecting the risk they had run. 
 
 But the time soon came for me to go to sea again, and 
 I was ordered to join the frigate Iphigenie, of which 
 my old captain, M. de Parseval, had taken command, as 
 full lieutenant, and we started for the Levant station. 
 The recollection of a very extraordinary accident which 
 occurred during this cruise remains with me. We were in 
 the Archipelago, off the Island of Andros. I had just 
 come off the first night w^atch, at midnight, and had got 
 into bed, when 1 heard somebody say our consort, a 
 twenty-gun brig, the Ducouédic^ Commander Bruat, 
 was making signals of distress. I got back on deck with- 
 out delay. The brig's lights had disappeared. Nothing 
 could be seen of her. It was blowing great guns, with a 
 heavy sea. We continued in a state of great anxiety till
 
 72 
 
 SOUVENIRS OF THE 
 
 [chap, m 
 
 morning. At last, b}- the first rays of daylight, we saw our 
 consort dismasted. She signalled to us for a tow, which 
 was quite impracticable in the state of the sea. All we 
 could do was to stand by her, while she tried to get to 
 Syra with her foresail, the only one left her. This she 
 succeeded in doing. But the extraordinary thing is that 
 what dismasted her was the contrary action of a tremend- 
 ous roll, and a heavy squall, which came just at midnight, 
 when the whole crew was mustered on deck to change the 
 
 watch, and that the mainmast with all its spars and gear, 
 and the maintopmast as well, fell on to the deck without 
 hurting anybody. 
 
 Except for this one accident, all the interest of this fresh 
 cruise of mine lay on the side of the picturesque. Greece, 
 with her mythological, poetic, and historical memories, 
 and the great severe outlines of her landscapes, struck me 
 with admiration. But this was quickly overshadowed by 
 the impression made upon me by my first glimpse of Asia 
 — the Mussulman East, which Lamartine's Voyage and
 
 iS34— 1836] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 73 
 
 Decamps' pictures had made me long so eagerly to know. 
 My joy, therefore, may be conceived, when I saw, as I 
 landed at Smyrna, the living image of Decamps' master- 
 piece. La Pati'OHiile de S7?iyrne, now at Rotterdam, 
 passing by me — the very same police officer trotting along 
 on his hunched-up Turcoman horse, surrounded by his 
 policemen, regular bandits, running beside him, covered 
 with brilliant rags and glistening weapons. This worthy 
 police agent, whose name was Hadgy-Bey (which we 
 promptly turned into " Ouat'Gibets "), very soon became our 
 ally. I did his likeness. He was all smiles whenever we 
 met, and he winked at all our young midshipmen's pranks. 
 One they played was rather too strong, and roused the 
 fury of the Turks. Smyrna was at that time the most 
 Eastern of Eastern towns, full of tortuous bazaars, and 
 narrow alleys winding in and out, in which circulation, 
 difficult enough at all times, sometimes became impossible 
 for hours, when long strings of camels, fastened together 
 with ropes, were going along them. Nothing could have 
 been more vexatious than these blocks, which man and 
 beast alike seemed to take pleasure in prolonging, when- 
 ever the Giaours seemed annoyed by them. 
 
 What, think you, did our middies do .'' A great many 
 of them together (for we had a very strong naval squadron 
 at Smyrna just then) hired donkeys, tied them together 
 with long cords, mounted them, each rider with a long pipe 
 in his mouth and affecting a quiet Eastern gravity of 
 demeanour, and off they started. 
 
 This farandole, which was quite a kilomètre long, went 
 round and round the bazaars all day, up and down and in 
 and out, stopping all the traffic, as if a real caravan was 
 passing through. At first the " true believers " were 
 puzzled, but when they realized they were being laughed 
 at they grew furious, and rushed off to get " Ouat'Gibets," 
 who held his fat sides and roared with laughter when they 
 told him what was amiss. Our midshipmen gave him a 
 regular ovation. We were avenged on camels and camel 
 men alike.
 
 74 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, hi 
 
 The neighbourhood of Smyrna was delightful, and 
 brigandage quite unknown. Civilization had not yet taught 
 that refinement of the art, as practised nowadays, whereby 
 people are carried off and called upon to get themselves 
 ransomed, on pain of having their noses or ears, or finally 
 their heads, cut off. It was quite safe to go anywhere, to 
 canter far along the road to Magnesia, or to stop and take 
 coffee beside some cool spring in the shadow of the huge 
 plane-trees, and watch the whole East pass by — caravans 
 from Diarbekir, half-wild Turcoman tribes, bashi-bazouks 
 from the four corners of Asia, all of them worthy subjects 
 for an artist's pencil, and I never stopped drawing them. 
 Coming back to the town, which had been cooled by the 
 sea-breeze, the *' Imbat," we used to spend our evenings 
 in the Levantine or Armenian society of the place, amongst 
 grandfathers who were still faithful to their old costume, 
 wrapped in kaftans, and charming young ladies, with 
 Tacticos on their heads, and their beautiful figures, which 
 no stays had ever tortured, draped in half-Oriental costumes. 
 Native music, soft and plaintive, sounded, as we Vv'ould 
 watch Mademoiselles Peiser, Athanaso, Fonton, Tricon, 
 &c., dance the Romaika. Nothing exists, nowadays, of 
 what was so seductive then. The Orient has kept its sun- 
 shine and its colouring, but that horrible cosmopolitanism 
 has invaded everything. Everywhere there are stays ! and 
 stays steal charm away ! 
 
 We were young and gay at the time I speak of, and 
 passionate too ! Two of my brother lieutenants fought a 
 duel, much more serious than those pin-prick encounters 
 which are now the fashion. They fought with pistols, on 
 the very marine promenade where they had been joking 
 with young ladies the evening before. Just as the seconds 
 gave the signal to fire, the sun rose on the horizon. Its first 
 ray glinted on a breast button on the uniform of one 
 principal: the other man's bullet, as though drawn by some 
 fatal attraction, struck the button, and killed our unhappy 
 comrade dead. A midshipman carried off a charming 
 Greek lady, who was discovered in his cabin after his ship 
 
 I
 
 i834— 1836] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 75 
 
 had got out to sea. And many another strange incident 
 occurred ! On leaving Smyrna, the Iphigénie cruised all 
 about the Archipelago, and along the Anatolian, Carama- 
 nian, and Syrian coasts. Whenever I was not on duty my 
 pencil was in my fingers, for I had the most enchanting 
 and picturesque of models under my hand. From Tripoli 
 in Syria 1 climbed to the top of Mount Lebanon, whence 
 I saw an immense panorama, with the ruins of Baalbec and 
 the Desert. We picnicked with the patriarch of the 
 Lebanon and his monks, under the world-famed cedars, 
 and Bruat had a perfect duel of jokes there with a witty 
 ship's surgeon named Camescasse, who was one of our 
 party. I remember a funny saying of this same Camescasse, 
 about a brother medico of his who retired into Brittany, 
 where his practice was specially among the local aristocracy. 
 He always called him " The Avenger of the People." 
 
 At Eden, the chief town of the Maronites, the old shiek 
 Boutrouss-Karam received me with the greatest honours, 
 and I was half drowned with sprinklings of rose-water, the 
 smell of which I detest. Apart from my presence, there 
 was a great fête going on at Eden for the marriage of 
 Boutrouss-Karam's daughter, and the whole Maronite nation 
 had hurried to it in their best clothes. Such handsome 
 types, such costumes, such turbans ! I was one of the 
 bride's witnesses : she and I had each to keep a bracelet 
 balanced on our heads during the whole of the ceremony. 
 The bride shook, and her bracelet fell down. After the 
 ceremony she received me unveiled. She was a fine tall 
 dark girl, but not a pretty woman. From Jaffa I journeyed 
 to Jerusalem, and travelled all through the Holy Land, 
 with a feeling of deep emotion, which was only disturbed 
 by one vexatious incident. On the day I was to go to the 
 Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a great crowd had got there 
 before me, and a quarrel, which degenerated into a general 
 melee, forthwith arose between Greeks, Jews, and Arme- 
 nians. It was only by dint of hard knocks that the 
 Turkish police made way for me to enter the Holy Place, 
 and, to crown the scandal, just as I knelt in deep devotion
 
 76 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap. la 
 
 before the altar, the organ began to play the Marseillaise. 
 There was yet another episode during my stay at Jeru- 
 salem. The Governor of the Province waited upon me 
 to say he had Mehemet Ali's orders to place himself at 
 the disposal of the son of the King of France, and to do 
 whatever he desired. I caught the ball on the hop, and 
 replied he was just in time, for I had just been going to 
 ask his leave to enter the Mosque of Omar, which stands 
 on the site of the ancient Temple of Solomon. It should 
 be added that this fine mosque, which is next in holiness 
 in Mussulman eyes to that at Mecca, and which is now 
 open to all the world, had at that date never been seen 
 except by the famous traveller Ali Bey. 
 
 Governor Hassan Bey tugged his beard when he heard 
 my request, and seemed very much put out indeed. After 
 a moment's silence he made up his mind, and said, " Come 
 to-morrow : I'll take you there myself" The next day 
 I kept my appointment, bringing Bruat and two or three 
 officers who were making the same trip with me. We 
 entered the mosque, which is really very beautiful, and 
 went all over it. The Imaums and Softas, the priests and 
 students, had cast horrified glances upon us from the mo- 
 ment of our entry. Suddenly one of them began to intone 
 in a falsetto voice a sort of Litany, to which the crowd 
 replied in chorus. Soon the Litany turned into angry 
 shouts, and the crowd, led by an old Negro Imaum, in a 
 yellow robe, who seemed to have worked himself into 
 a perfect paroxysm of fury, rushed at us with threatening 
 gestures. This was by no means reassuring, but Hassan 
 Bey was equal to the emergency. Seizing me by the arm, 
 he put me behind him, with Bruat and the other gentlemen 
 grouped round me. Then he ordered a dozen Kavasses 
 he had brought with him to charge, which they did, laying 
 out heavily with their sticks. Not content with that, he 
 had the most turbulent of the Softas seized, thrown down 
 at his feet, and beaten without mercy. The blows hailed 
 down on the poor wretch as if they had been beating 
 a carpet. This determined attitude cowed the crowd.
 
 1834—^836] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 77 
 
 which fell back to the far end of the mosque, grumbling. 
 " We will go now," said the Bey. Once we w^ere outside, 
 he shut us up in a neighbouring mosque, which was 
 empty, begging us to wait there for him. Soon we heard 
 a great noise and yelling outside. Presently Hassan 
 Bey reappeared smiling, and let us out. The crowd had 
 disappeared, and a battalion of Egyptian infantry had 
 taken its place. Advised by the Bey, we left Jerusalem a day 
 after this scuffle, with much regret on my part. The sight 
 of all the spots which are glorified by the splendid stories 
 of our religious history had impressed me deeply. My 
 imagination had conjured up the very pictures in Royau- 
 mont's illustrated Bible, out of which I had learnt both the 
 Old and the New Testament. And just as I was about to 
 start, when I opened the window of the room I occupied 
 in the Latin convent, I saw just in front of me the 
 picture in that same Bible which represents David, with 
 hands uplifted in admiration, as he gazes at Bathsheba, 
 the wife of Uriah the Hittite. I was the David, and 
 Bathsheba was a woman, looking really magnificent in her 
 eastern robes, who was sitting on the terrace facing me. 
 Only she was not combing out her hair like the woman in 
 the Bible picture : she was hunting it for vermin ! 
 
 I returned from Jerusalem by the Dead Sea, Nazareth, 
 and Acre. 
 
 As we were riding along one night, to escape the heat, 
 not far from Nazareth, we met a troop of horsemen 
 headed by an individual in Egyptian dress, who announced 
 himself as Ibrahim Aga, sent by Soliman Pasha to meet 
 me. Just as I was calling up the dragoman to translate 
 what I had to say to him, Ibrahim Aga said to me in a 
 drawling voice, " Don't give yourself that trouble, it isn't the 
 least necessary. I am the Marquis de Beaufort, captain on 
 the staff." He was in fact one of the very many French 
 officers, who were detached to the Egyptian army then 
 lying in cantonments in Syria, after its victories over the 
 Turks at Homs and Konieh. I had seen and greatly 
 admired these troops all over Syria and at Acre. I was soon
 
 78 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, hi 
 
 to sec Soliman Pasha — in other words, Colonel Selves, a 
 Frenchman, who had organized them, and under the 
 energetic and iron-willed son of Mehemet Ali, Ibrahim 
 Pasha, had led them to victory. 1 beheld a little man, whom 
 long residence in Egypt had quite orientalized in appear- 
 ance, but who had preserved all the vivacity of his Gallic 
 wit. The IpJiigenie returned to France by Malta, where I 
 made the acquaintance of Lord Brudenell, since celebrated 
 under the name of Lord Cardigan, for his famous Balaclava 
 charge, and of Major Rose, a charming fellow, who later be- 
 came the Sir Hugh Rose of the Crimean War, and after that 
 Field-Marshal Lord Strathnairn of the Indian Mutiny. At 
 that moment Major Rose commanded the 42nd Highlanders, 
 the famous "Black Watch," a splendid regiment, especially so 
 then, when it consisted of nothing but veterans of Herculean 
 build. It furnished the Guard of Honour that received me 
 at the Palace of the Grand Masters when I went to pay my 
 respects to the governor, and the salute of that splendid 
 body of men in full-dress uniform and feathered bonnets, 
 with their colours lowered to the ground, their band play- 
 ing God save the Queen, and their bagpipes shrieking 
 under the arches of the palace, was a most striking sight. 
 That was the first time I heard the bagpipes of the 
 Highland regiments. I have often heard them since, 
 and they always remind me of that wonderfully dra- 
 matic incident in the great Indian Mutiny, the relief 
 of Lucknow. In Lucknow, the capital of the kingdom of 
 Oude, a handful of British soldiers, with the women and 
 children who had escaped the massacre, had taken refuge 
 in a huge and strongly built place called the Residency. 
 Isolated in the heart of India, besieged for months on end, 
 without any outside news, starving, decimated by sickness 
 and the enemy's fire, women and soldiers alike, with true 
 British pluck, and having lost all hope of succour, had no 
 thought but to sell their lives as dearly as possible. All at 
 once the noise of the daily cannonade and the rifle fire 
 seem to be doubled, and unaccustomed shouts are heard, 
 like the national " hurrah." The cheering seems to get
 
 i834— 1836] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 79 
 
 nearer, but the Sepoys have so often cheered derisively ! 
 Suddenly another sound strikes on the ear of the besieged. 
 The bagpipes ! The bagpipes ! And soon they make 
 out the famous Highland march, The Cajupbells are 
 coming! Reinforcements they were, collected from all 
 quarters, English and Scotch, soldiers and sailors too, com- 
 manded by old Lord Clyde of Balaclava fame. By main 
 force they carried the works the mutineers, tenfold their 
 strength, had thrown up round Lucknow, bringing un- 
 hoped-for succour from the mother country, nay, bringing 
 actual salvation with them. A wonderful moment ! 
 
 I got back to Paris to hear the news of the failure of the 
 first expedition against Constantine, and the brilliant part 
 my brother Nemours had played in that terrible business. 
 I never doubted that signal revenge would soon be taken 
 for the check, and I was in despair that my being a sailor 
 stood in the way of my asking to be allowed to have a 
 share in it. 
 
 Meanwhile, I was present at a fresh attempt on my 
 father's life. A man of the name of Meunier fired a pistol 
 at him the day the Chamber of Deputies was opened. 
 Some movement in the crowd shook the would-be assassin's 
 arm, but the bullet came into the carriage, smashing the 
 front window, and my brothers and 1 were all cut with the 
 broken glass. I remember a very characteristic remark by 
 one of the Deputies on this occasion. After the King had 
 departed, as the Members of the Chamber were talking 
 over the attempt, one of them said, " Ought we to con- 
 gratulate the King } " 
 
 " Certainly," was the reply ; " we always do it." 
 
 Shortly afterwards an emulator of Fieschi invented a 
 perfected machine which should have mowed us all down 
 at the earliest opportunity, but he was discovered, and 
 destroyed himself, just as he was going to be arrested, 
 carrying the secret of his accomplices with him. 
 
 Amidst political agitation and ministerial ambitions, with 
 which I troubled myself but very little, the marriage of my 
 eldest brother,the Due d'Orléans, and its attendant festivities,
 
 8o SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, hi 
 
 took place. The wedding was at Fontainebleau ; there was 
 a great fi'U at the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, and the formal 
 inauguration of the Museum at Versailles. 
 
 The marriage was settled without my brother and 
 Princess Hélène ever having seen each other. Impatient 
 to know her, and anxious to be the first to greet her on 
 P"rench soil, my brother went to meet her at Nancy, where 
 she was to arrive with her mother and a lady in waiting. 
 He rushed forward, saw three ladies, caught his fiancee's 
 hand, and carried it to his lips. Not at all ! It was the 
 lady-in-w^aiting's. This momentary hitch was soon forgotten, 
 and when the Princess entered the Cour du Cheval-Blanc 
 at Fontainebleau, in her state coach and eight, amidst the 
 roar of cannon and the beating of drums, we all went down 
 the great staircase to receive her, with the King at our head, 
 just like the greats lords going down the staircase at 
 Chenonceaux in the second act of the Hugnenots. It was 
 a beautiful sight. The state entry into Paris, down the 
 Champs-Elysées, and through the Gardens to the Tuileries, 
 we on horseback and the Princesses in the state carriages, 
 with the Orleans state liveries, surrounded by an immense 
 multitude of people, all the women in brilliant spring 
 toilettes, and in the loveliest weather, was a splendid sight 
 too. Then there was a very fine ball at the Hôtel de Ville 
 — rather clouded, though, by a prediction coming from all 
 quarters, that it would be the occasion of another attempt 
 on my father. 
 
 Old Prince Talleyrand, who was almost dying, begged 
 my eldest brother to go and see him, so that he might add 
 his warning to all the others. Raising himself to a sitting 
 posture, and with death in his face, he said : " It won't be 
 a knife or a pistol, it will be a hail of paving-stones thrown 
 from the roofs, which will crush you all ! " We were grateful 
 for the warning, and we were glad it did not come to pass. 
 Nothing happened, either in the street or at the ball, 
 where we were surrounded by an army of chosen ' guests,' 
 and from which we were driven back at a great pace, 
 escorted by squadrons of cuirassiers, who glittered in the
 
 i834— 1S36] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 81 
 
 torchlight. But the crowning point of the fetes was the 
 inauguration of the Versailles Museum, that museum 
 formed and dedicated by my father " To all the Glories 
 of France!" Others besides himself have given the 
 sadness of irony to that inscription ! Every revolution 
 must be paid for with a price ! 
 
 On the occasion of this inauguration the King gave a 
 dinner to twelve hundred people in the galleries of the Palace. 
 Each of us had to preside over a table, and I should have 
 found mine a somewhat tiresome task, if among my guests 
 I had not met some very clever men, whose conversation 
 amused me much. Such were Alphonse Karr, Léon Goz- 
 lan, Nestor Roqueplan, &c. 
 
 After dinner there was a theatrical performance — the 
 Misanthrope, given for the first time with Louis XIV. 
 dresses, acted by Perrier, Provost, Samson, Firmin, Men- 
 jaud, Monrose, and Régnier, with Mmes. Mars, Plessy, and 
 Mante; and then one act oi Robert le Diahle,\v\\h Duprez, 
 Levasseur, and Mile. Falcon — and the ballet. 
 
 After the performance there was a general promenade 
 in the galleries, which were lighted up brilliantly. I lay 
 claim to two good ideas, which came to me during the 
 evening. The first was to plague the King and the 
 ministers to such an extent, after the act out of Robert le 
 Diable, that Meyerbeer, whom I fetched, was then and 
 there nominated an officer of the Legion of Honour, a 
 commonplace distinction enough nowadays, but which at 
 that time was very exceptional. The second was to ask 
 the King, also, if he would graciously permit the artists 
 who had taken part in the performance to join the guests 
 in the promenade in the galleries. Of this permission I 
 was myself the bearer, and I naturally extended it to the 
 corps de ballet. When all these young ladies in their 
 morning dress, and many of them bandbox in hand, 
 appeared walking about amongst the gaily bedizened folk, 
 some of the fine ladies turned up their noses. But the 
 medley was a charming one, nevertheless.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 1837— 1838 
 
 After the wedding festivities I went back to sea, a 
 lieutenant still, on board the Hercule, 100 guns — Captain 
 Casy. Captain, petty officers, crew, all hands in fact save 
 a few officers, were Provençal. Before a week was out 
 I caught myself talking with their accent ! 
 
 We were bound for South America. 
 Gibraltar was our first port, and our 
 reception by the governor. Sir Alex- 
 ander W'oodford, Lad)- Woodford, and 
 their charming children was of the 
 kindest. I have a recollection of it 
 which I treasure all the 
 more in that later in the 
 da}- I had to do with an- 
 other governor with whom 
 I had no cause at all to be 
 satisfied. From Gibraltar 
 we went to Tangier, the 
 Moorish town I was to 
 ' bombard some }'ears after- 
 wards, but where on this 
 occasion I fought with wild boars only under the guidance 
 of that first-class .sportsman, Mr. Drummond Hay. The 
 beauty of the eyes and colouring and the originality of the 
 costume of the Jewish girls at Tangier delighted me, but not 
 to the extent of chasing a certain melancholy from my heart, 
 which had clung about it ever since the beginning of my
 
 1^37— jS] SOUVENIRS OF I'RINXE DE JOLWILLE 83 
 
 cruise, through the long night watches, and even amidst the 
 amusements of our stays in port. I was thinking of Her ! 
 There always is a lier when one is only twenty ! After 
 Tangier the ship stopped at Santa Cruz in Teneriffe ta 
 take in water, and during this operation I organized a 
 scientific expedition to the famous Peak of Teneriffe, 
 which is nearly twelve thousand feet high, and from which 
 my professor M. Pouillet had asked me to take some 
 scientific observations. My brother officer, Rigaud de 
 Genouilly, one of the ship's lieutenants, accompanied me. 
 After two days climbing and bivouacking for one night 
 at a great height, we were only about five or six hundred 
 feet or so from the summit, when we were caught up by a 
 messenger bringing us the captain's orders to get back as 
 fast as we could. A despatch boat had just anchored at 
 Santa Cruz bringing news that in consequence of some 
 foreign complication a French squadron had been ordered 
 to Tunis, and would probably go on to the East. The 
 Hercule was to join it immediately. We tore down the 
 mountain, rejoicing in the thought that we were most 
 likely going to do some firing, and after a passage of 
 twenty days, spent in all sorts of fighting drill, we cast 
 anchor in the Bay of Tunis, only to have a bucket of cold 
 water thrown over our heads. The complications on which 
 we had built a whole structure of danger and glor}- had 
 passed away. The squadron we were to have joined had 
 departed, and orders awaited us to resume our interrupted 
 cruise, and bear away for South America. One piece of 
 news we were told was that the expedition which 
 was to go and avenge our last year's defeat at Constantine 
 was fitting out at Bona, and that my brother Nemours 
 commanded one of the brigades. Now my big ship was 
 to revictual at Algiers, and I besought the captain, 
 who had a free hand, to touch at Bona and give me a 
 chance of seeing my brother. The passage from Tunis to 
 Bona was delayed by calms, and when we got in, I found 
 to my great regret that the expedition had started, but 
 that a small column was being formed which was to join 
 
 G 2
 
 S4 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, iv 
 
 it, starting on the following morning. At this news I 
 rushed to my captain, and calling all the resources of 
 persuasion and every wile of diplomacy to my aid, I strove 
 to convince him that there would be time for me, during 
 his revictualling, whereat I should be practically useless, 
 to make a rush to the expeditionary force and get back 
 again, and that if the King, my father, knew I had happened 
 to be where I was, he would be much displeased at my 
 turning my back on an enterprise which was to avenge 
 our national honour. There w^ere no telegraph wires in 
 those days, and I contrived to get the desired permission. 
 Twenty-four hours later I turned soldier for the nonce, 
 and started off, mounted and accoutred and full of fresh 
 dreams of glory, destined once more to disappointment — a 
 disappointment shared by various engineer and artillery 
 officers and three Prussians, Messieurs von Willisen,^ von 
 Noville, and Oelrichs, who had arrived too late to start 
 with the expeditionary force, and, like myself, were 
 endeavouring to rejoin it. What shall I say about the 
 march of the column to which 1 was attached upon 
 Constantine ? It lasted over twelve days of fearful weather, 
 during which no discomfort was spared us. Torrents of 
 rain, rivers in flood, snowfalls, men dying of cold, stragglers 
 whose shouts for help only brought us to them to find 
 them lying headless on the ground, and last of all, a 
 terrible outbreak of cholera, which one of the regiments 
 in the column brought with it from France. And we had 
 the mental agony to boot of being kept ever so long at the 
 foot of a mountain, the Raz el Akbah, which w^as so sodden 
 that no gun nor vehicle could get up it, even with triple 
 teams, and listening to the firing of the attacking batteries 
 before Constantine without being able to get there. 
 
 One day, during this delay, the chief medical officer, 
 by way of consolation, greeted us wath these words at 
 breakfast : " Bad news, gentlemen; w-e have just discovered 
 
 ^ H. de Willisen, aide-de-camp to the Prince of Prussia, who after- 
 wards became the Emperor William, was in chief command of the 
 Holstein army.
 
 iS37— 1S38] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 85 
 
 that the cesspools of the hospital (a miserable hut) have 
 burst, and for the last twenty-four hours they have been 
 leaking into the spring where we get our drinking 
 water." 
 
 " Hang it all, doctor, you really might have kept that to 
 yourself," we all cried in a breath ! 
 
 Amid all this suffering and discomfort, physical and 
 moral, the courage, spirits, good humour and downright 
 gaiety of the soldiers never failed for a single moment. I 
 had never seen them before under such trying circumstances, 
 and I thought them quite admirable, and their officers too^ 
 — the very embodiment of devotion. One day, the rear 
 guard detachment had dropped some way behind the main 
 column, and found itself stopped by an impetuous torrent, 
 which was swelling visibly under a deluge of rain. The first 
 men who tried to cross were carried off their feet, thrown 
 down, and only pulled out with great difficulty. Without 
 a moment's hesitation all the officers plunged into the 
 water, though it w-as up to their arm-pits, and holding on 
 to each other's arms they formed a sort of animated dam, 
 above which they made their men cross over, and it was 
 all done in the simplest way. Frenchmen of all classes, 
 soldiers, sailors, what-not, a splendid race they are, when 
 the spirit of obedience and discipline inspires them with 
 a sense of duty ! At last we came in sight of Constantine, 
 and shortly after of a body of cavalry, the Third Chasseurs 
 d'Afrique, sent out to meet us. From an officer detached 
 in advance we learnt the place had been taken by assault 
 three days previously, and that the Comte de Damrémont, 
 general in command, had been cut in two by a round shot, 
 while he was talking to my brother Nemours. Very soon, 
 galloping up to the Coudiat-Ati, I was in the arms of that 
 good brother, who had behaved so brilliantly during the 
 whole campaign. He was in the act of inspecting his 
 brave little army, and we finished the inspection together. 
 Then he scanned me from top to toe, and the smart 
 soldier spoke instead of the brother. " You can't go about 
 like that, haven't you anything else to put on ? "
 
 86 SOUVKXIRS OF THE [chap, iv 
 
 " I'm afraid I haven't," I sadly replied, with a humiliated 
 glance at my short jacket, my trousers turned up with a 
 bit of gutta percha, and my straw hat coveied with waxed 
 cloth, none of which had been improved by camping out 
 in the mud. The only soldier-like things about me were 
 my sword and my lieutenant's epaulettes. But they 
 manufactured me a cap ; a naval lieutenant, Fabre Lamaur- 
 elle, who had come up with me, lent me his coat, and so 
 I became presentable. 
 
 The sight of the breach excited me greatly, and my first 
 care was to mount it. If my readers will call up the 
 appearance of the buildings pulled down when a new street 
 is opened in Paris, they will get some idea of the picture 
 the top of the breach presented. It was a chaos of ruins, 
 caused by cannon shot and explosions, without any ap- 
 parent way out. The ground was like the moraine of a 
 glacier, scattered over with caps, epaulettes, and human 
 remains. A soldier of the 2nd Light Infantry was stand- 
 ing sentry beside a big stone. 
 
 " What are you doing there ? " 
 
 " Do you see that bit of a blue cloak down that hole .'' 
 The colonel is underneath that stone, and the bayonets 
 sticking out of the rubbish belong to the men he was lead- 
 ing. The explosion buried them all alive !" 
 
 A terrible trial that explosion was for assaulting columns 
 scattered through a labyrinth of ruins, and barricaded lanes, 
 and fired at from all sides by an invisible foe. 
 
 But nothing dismayed our brave fellows for an instant. 
 I was told that at the moment of the catastrophe, when the 
 staff, which was following the progress of the fight with 
 anxious ears, for there was no seeing anything, saw the 
 cloud caused by the explosion shrouding the neighbour- 
 hood of the breach, and hundreds of wounded and burnt 
 and maimed men coming down it, they thought the assault 
 had been repulsed and that the game was up. 
 
 Lamoricière, commanding the first attacking column, 
 was carried back blinded, and to everybody's astonish- 
 ment the commanding officer of the 2nd column, Colonel
 
 i837— 1S38] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 87 
 
 Combes, was seen returning also. He advanced, sword in 
 hand, to the General commanding, over whose face an ex- 
 pression first of wonder and then of anger spread, at the 
 sight of a commanding officer quitting his post. Nothing 
 daunted, the colonel informed him, in a few curt sentences, 
 of the state of the fight, and of his own confidence in its 
 success, ending with these words : " It will be another 
 glorious day for France and for those who live to see the 
 end of it." He saluted, tottered — he was dead ! No sign 
 of his had betrayed that he was mortally wounded. 
 
 As I listened to the tale I asked General Vallée, — " But 
 what would you have done, General, if the assault had been 
 repulsed } " 
 
 " We should have begun again." As he said it he pressed 
 his lips together with that fearfully stern expression which, 
 with his short stature, had earned him the nickname in the 
 army of " Little Louis XI.," and an officer behind me who 
 had heard my question and the answer, added in an under- 
 tone, " And he had taken all his precautions." 
 
 " What do you mean .' " 
 
 " When he was told, the night before the assault, that 
 the ammunition was giving out, he ordered one round to 
 be kept in reserve for the battery that played upon the 
 breach — " 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 "Don't you understand .'* He meant to fire oh the 
 attacking column if it gave any sign of wavering. He did 
 it once in Spain at the siege of Tarragona." 
 
 There was another scene of war at the opposite end of 
 the town from the breach at the Kasbah. During the 
 assault all the non-combatant Mussulman population had 
 taken refuge there, crowding and cramming it up to the 
 very edge of the ramparts that crowned the precipices of 
 the Rummel, and either from sheer terror or by dint of the 
 pressure of the crowd, a cascade of human beings fell from 
 the ramparts on to the rocks and terraces of the precipice. 
 Heaps of corpses, men, women and children, but especially 
 women, were caught here and there, and on one of the
 
 88 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, iv 
 
 heaps an old white-bearded Arab was turning over the 
 dead, one by one, seeking doubtless for some one who was 
 dear to him. 
 
 Having no official position in the army, and as I could 
 not well rest on laurels I had not won, I spent my time 
 sketching. I began, of course, with the breach, and in- 
 stalled myself, for that purpose, beside a human head 
 severed from the trunk, which lay on the ground alongside 
 of a dead horse in the torn open belly of which a dog had 
 made its lair. While I was drawing, I heard a bugle 
 sounding a march and soon I saw the bugler coming out 
 upon the breach ; behind him marched a sub-lieutenant, 
 sword in hand, and then in place of men, a string ot 
 donkeys, led b}^ about a dozen Zouave irregulars. Puzzled, 
 I went up to the bugler and, stopping him, I asked what 
 he was blowing for. *"' Why," he replied rocking from one 
 foot to another with his bugle on his hip, "this is the 
 volunteer company from Bougie going back to head- 
 quarters." 
 
 " What .' " 
 
 " Those are the rifles on the donkeys, there — everybody 
 was killed in the assault ; there is nobody left but us." He 
 began blowing again. The donkeys passed on and I bared 
 my head to them. 
 
 Confident in the impregnability of his town, the Bey of 
 Constantine had left his harem there and the ladies of it 
 were shut up in the palace, which had been turned into 
 head-quarters, and where I was living with Nemours. As 
 may be imagined, this harem gave me subjects for many 
 sketches, which disappeared, unluckily for me, in the sacking 
 of the Tuileries on February 24th, 1848. In one of the 
 court)ards, planted with orange-trees and roses, and sur- 
 rounded by the elegant Moorish balconies of the Bey's 
 Palace, there was a little door, which had been confided to 
 the care of the vivandière of the 47th Regiment and of a 
 sergeant major oï spahis, of the name of Bel-Kassem. It 
 was the door into the harem and gave access to several 
 courts, surrounded by galleries, both on the ground floor
 
 1837-1838] 
 
 PRINCE DE JOIiWILLE 
 
 89 
 
 and first story, on which opened spacious rooms carpeted 
 with divans and cushions and with shelves all round piled 
 with quantities of things, knick-knacks, and, above all, stuffs, 
 especially silken ones. The women — there were over two 
 hundred of them — spent their lives 
 night and day alike, squatting or lying 
 on the cushions in these apartments. 
 They were divided into two categories. 
 The négresses, who formed the great 
 majority, occupied two court-yards, 
 and these courts exhaled a fetid odour 
 which poisoned the whole of the Bey's 
 palace, whenever the wind blew from 
 that quarter. The white and sallow- 
 complexioned women all lived to- 
 gether, the}" all wore Arab dress, with 
 more or fewer trinkets, and there were 
 some pretty women among them. 
 Two were Greeks and there was one 
 
 reall}' beautiful Moorish woman, called Ayescha. I did 
 her likeness, and that of the chief eunuch as well. He was 
 a negro, growing grey, with a deceitful hypocritical eye 
 all muffled up in very fine haiks which showed nothing 
 but the tip of his nose, and legs which were 
 entirely guiltless of calf. That sitting would 
 have been a good subject for a picture — I 
 drawing, the ladies of the harem hanging over 
 me watching me work, and the negro stand- 
 ing and swearing as he stood, while A)-escha 
 went to and fro lavishing the quaintest caresses 
 on him, to keep him in good temper. 
 K<!4iiJp^ One evening. General Vallée had an enter- 
 
 1 f tainmentgot up for him in the harem. There 
 - ""Tz-r"^ were great illuminations, singing, music with 
 tambourine accompaniment and the danse 
 dit ventre. Amongst those present was General de Caraman, 
 who commanded the artillery. He was seized with cholera 
 just as he was going away, and was dead b}- six o'clock
 
 90 
 
 SOUVExXIRS OF THE 
 
 [chap. IV 
 
 the next morning. Such is life ! Several adventures 
 arose out of the fact of the harem's presence. One fine 
 night, when everybody was asleep, two of the officers 
 of infantry irregulars on guard took it into their heads 
 to knock at the door, and were filled with delighted 
 surprise on hearing the gentle voice of the good-natured 
 cantinicre reply, " Is that you ? Well upon my word," 
 and the door opened. But within less than two minutes 
 the frightful uproar caused by two hundred women shriek- 
 ing at once roused the whole of head-quarters, and our 
 
 two officers tore full pace back 
 to the guardroom and got the 
 men under arms. This scare, 
 and it may be some others too, 
 added to the pestiferous smell 
 from the négresses' quarters, 
 made the authorities resolve to 
 get rid of all this human cattle 
 and distribute it amongst the 
 most well-to-do of the Mussul- 
 man population. I went to look 
 on at their departure, which was 
 presided over by a major on the 
 staff, assisted by a detachment 
 of irregulars. The women 
 •'•■ had been warned the even- 
 ing before, and leave had 
 been given for each to take 
 away 'as much as she herself could carry. So they had spent 
 the whole night rolling as many precious stuffs round their 
 waists as they could support the weight of, and we found 
 ourselves face to face with human balloons, like monstrous 
 gourds. They could hardly walk, even when held up by the 
 soldiers; and getting through the doorways was more diffi- 
 cult still. Some of them, hauled at in front and pushed from 
 behind, shot through like the cork of a champagne bottle. 
 Others, who could not squeeze through at all, were made over 
 to the soldiers to be reduced to the necessary size, the whole
 
 i837— 1838] PRIN'CE DE JOINVILLE 91 
 
 thing accompanied by a chorus of shouts and objurgations 
 of every kind. But to pass from the harem to graver 
 subjects. On October i8th. I was present at the military 
 funeral of the Comte Damrémont. It was a moving sight. 
 Some few hundred yards from the spot where he had been 
 killed, just at the foot of the breach, a cenotaph had been 
 built of sand-bags, on which the coffin, with his General's 
 cloak, and his sword and white feathered hat laid on it, 
 had been placed. The weather had gone into mourning 
 too, for the occasion. It was a very gloomy day. The 
 whole Arab population was looking on, squatting on the 
 walls. On the top of the breach were planted the colours 
 of the 47th Regiment. Below it the Zouaves' drums rolled 
 a funeral march, while the officers did obeisance for the 
 last time to the remains of their former general. And 
 what officers they were too ! How many future men of 
 mark there were in that assemblage, which, not to 
 mention its chiefs, numbered Captains Niel, Canrobert, 
 MacMahon, St. Arnault, Lc Bœuf, Ladmirault, Morris, 
 LeHo, and many another in its ranks ! 
 
 The army left Constantine in two detachments. I 
 returned with the second, which escorted the general in 
 command, who had fallen sick, and an enormous convoy of 
 fever patients and cripples of all sorts. It was a dreary 
 journey back, for the column was decimated by cholera, 
 and the road was strewed with corpses. Every minute 
 soldiers were to be seen dropping their muskets and 
 writhing in the most awful convulsions. My brother, who 
 commanded the rear-guard, spent his whole time having 
 the poor wretches picked up and tied into mule litters. 
 They were thence drafted into the ambulance waggons, 
 which were crowded already, and there they died like flics. 
 As soon as a man died, the other occupants of the waggon 
 united their efforts and heaved him overboard. When the 
 convoy started every morning a row of corpses marked 
 the spot the waggons had been on during the night. A 
 detachment of engineers covered them over with a little 
 soil, but we had hardly moved off before the Arabs swooped
 
 92 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, iv 
 
 down from all directions and uncovered and stripped 
 them. 
 
 I was ill myself by the time the columns got to Bona — 
 fever had me in its grip, but thanks to severe physicking I 
 was almost my own man again by the time I rejoined my 
 ship at Algiers. She went to sea almost at once. I had a 
 relapse at Senegal, but the ocean passage completely cured 
 me, and I was quite in smooth water by the time we 
 reached the South American coast. Rio de Janeiro was 
 our first port. I need not enlarge on the magnificent view 
 presented by the Bay of Rio, which has been so frequently 
 described by travellers. It was during this stay in harbour 
 that I first saw the young princess who was later to become 
 the Princess de Joinville, the devoted companion of my 
 whole life. During this stay, too, I made an expedition to 
 Minas, the gold mine country, a long journey on mule- 
 back, through the magnificent 
 monotony of the virgin forest. One 
 of the mines I went to see, called 
 Gongo-Soco, was worked by the 
 labour of four hundred slaves, and 
 owned by" an English company who made an enormous 
 profit out of it. I went down it, and, under the guidance 
 of some Cornish miners, I had a try with a pick and 
 succeeded in getting out several nuggets as thick as my 
 little finger. As the vein was principally manganese, we 
 were black all over when we came out of the mine, but a 
 body of négresses came at once to wash us. Another 
 expedition I made into the " camp " initiated me into a 
 sort of sport which was new to me — hunting wild horses 
 with a lasso. After having admired the extraordinary 
 skill of the caniperos in doing this, I tried it myself, 
 and that not altogether unsuccessfully — it is a fascinating 
 occupation. 
 
 To finish up our stay at Rio, we gave the emperor and 
 his famil)-, and the whole of society both foreign and 
 Brazilian, a ball on board our ship. Towards the end 
 of the evening, I turned a young lion I had been given in
 
 iS37— 183S] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 93 
 
 Senegal loose in the ball-room, and his appearance some- 
 what disturbed the figures of the cotilloji. 
 
 From Rio the Hercule called in succession at Guiana, 
 Martinique and Guadaloupe. The low shores of Guiana 
 are clothed with mangrove swamps, the trees of which 
 seemed scarlet, so covered were they with red ibises ! 
 Nothing more gay-looking can be imagined than the 
 Cayenne River, and the pretty town standing on its banks 
 — the wooden houses all separated from each other by 
 gardens in which the tropical vegetation displays an 
 unexampled luxuriance and variety. Flowers of every 
 hue, set among huge calabash trees, gigantic palms of 
 every kind, such as the traveller's palm with its immense 
 fan-shaped leaves, bread-fruit trees, and many more, charm 
 the eye with a wealth of colour which must be seen before 
 it can be realized. Though the Cayenne River may be 
 charming, the other arms of the Guiana delta, great rivers, 
 hedged in by_ thick dark forest walls, are far gloomier to 
 the sight. But those magnificent forests, peopled with 
 creatures of all sorts, and especially with an infinite 
 number of birds, of the most varied and dazzling plumage, 
 have the irresistible attraction that hangs about life in the 
 wilds. 
 
 I went up several of these rivers, such as the Aprou- 
 ague and the Mana River, and visited the carbets, or 
 villages, of several Indian tribes, the Norags, and the 
 Galibis, which last were still quite savage at the time of 
 which I write, armed with bows and arrows, and obtaining 
 a light by rubbing two bits of stick together — a thing I 
 actually saw them do. Men and women alike were red- 
 skinned, tartar-eyed, their smooth hair dyed with "rocou," 
 a sort of madder, and with a small strip of cotton passed 
 between the legs as their only garment. The women were 
 particularly frightful. Almost all of them had huge 
 stomachs, which they held up with their hands just like a 
 monkey's pouch, and all wore a kind of tight bracelet 
 above and below their knees and ankles, which caused 
 the intervening parts to swell, and gave their legs the
 
 94 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, iv 
 
 appearance of skewers with Dutch cheeses on them. 
 Apart from the savages, the general impression of 
 Guiana remaining with me is that of a great hot-house, 
 in which everything was as improbably huge as in one 
 of Gustave Doré's illustrations — where I came across 
 apricots as big as my head, and caimans ten yards 
 long. As regards the inhabitants, I recollect créoles, 
 enervated by the climate, who were as kindly as they 
 were intelligent; pale-faced women, languorous and se- 
 ductive, with soft low murmuring voices ; and lastly, just 
 as I passed through, a negro drum-major of the National 
 Guard, with a great big busby and a plume that was a 
 dream ! 
 
 My recollection of Martinique and Guadaloupe bring 
 them back to me as lovel}- green islands of volcanic out- 
 line. The former especially struck me as being exceed- 
 ingly picturesque, its hills covered with pleasant-looking 
 habitations with the peaks of the Carbet veiled in the dark 
 clouds brought by the trade winds, for background. I had 
 to review the troops on the Savana, the promenade of Fort 
 Ro)-al, but I confess I took more interest in the costume of 
 the beautiful quadroons, or quarterbred mulatto women, than 
 in the review itself. This costume is worth describing. A 
 brilliant-coloured bandanna, knotted round the head in the 
 most fanciful manner ; no stays of course, nothing but an 
 embroidered chemise, showing a magnificent outline, and a 
 bright-coloured skirt, yellow or rose-coloured, trained at 
 the back, but gathered up on one side, to show a beautiful 
 bare leg. When I add that these women often have a 
 creamy white complexion which many a European would 
 envy, the proud exclamation of the old householder, dragged 
 I know not why before a court of justice, will be appre- 
 ciated. To the Judge's question "What is your profession .''" 
 he replied " M}^ profession ! I keep up the supply of 
 Mulattos ! " '' Je fais des DiuIâtTes ! " It was in the days of 
 the greatest prosperity of our beautiful Antilles that the 
 old boaster spoke. When I arrived, this was already on 
 the wane, and it really was tiresome not to be allowed to
 
 1837-1 838] 
 
 PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 
 
 95 
 
 talk about an}-thing but sugar and emancipation by the 
 créoles. 
 
 Nowadays what we call progress has done its work, and 
 these colonies, which used to be an element of national 
 wealth, employing a whole navy of merchantmen, and 
 which served as nursery for the 
 sailors of our warships, are now 
 no more than machines for elect- 
 ing Radical Deputies, and thus 
 increasing the number of agents 
 of the national destruction. 
 
 At Martinique, we joined the 
 flag of the admiral in command 
 of the station. I have served 
 under many admirals, one 
 more eccentric than the 
 other. One of the first, an 
 excellent seaman, had one 
 passion only, music — 
 and his instrument was , ,. - 
 — the double bass. He '--:-..- 
 
 spent his time perform- 
 ing solos on this cumbrous instrument, which he would then 
 put away in a small apartment known in the old-fashioned 
 navy as la bouteille. Sometimes the sea-water came through, 
 the port, and flooded everything. When the admiral fetched 
 his double bass out, and began his tunes, he would notice 
 from the sound that the body was full of water, and then 
 every sort of dodge would be resorted to, to get the liquid 
 poured out by the sound holes. The poor admiral ! 
 There is a story that his double bass was victim one day 
 of the spite of certain seamen, who marked their displeasure 
 by pouring something less clean than sea-water into the 
 big fiddle. This same gallant admiral having gone ashore 
 once upon a time, at St. Louis in Senegal, and finding the 
 bar there continued so impassable that he could not rejoin 
 his ship, sent her round to Gorec, and went there himself 
 overland slung under a camel's belly, and armed with an
 
 96 
 
 SOUVENIRS OF THE 
 
 [chap. IV 
 
 umbrella, whicli proved his complete ignorance of the 
 miracles of the Prophet Mohammed. 
 
 My commanding officer at the time of which I write 
 was another oddity. Imagine a thin little man, as hot as 
 pepper, adorned with a hooked nose and chin, one as huge 
 as the other. A real old-fashioned gentleman, always 
 tightly buttoned up in the most irreproachably correct of 
 garments, and with all the exquisite and formal politeness 
 
 of the old school. Plverybody was 
 fond of the good old fellow, who 
 heightened the oddity of his ap- 
 pearance on board his own ship 
 by w^earing a huge straw hat like 
 the bell-crowned hat Eugène Sue 
 puts on the head of M. Pipelet 
 in the Mystères de Paris, and a 
 song had been composed about 
 him, which we used to sing together 
 and the chorus of which began 
 " Bon ! bon ! de la Kretonnière ! 
 Bon Bon!" — la Bretonnière being his name. This same 
 officer saved Admiral Magon's ship after Trafalgar, and 
 later on he commanded the Breslaiv at Navarino and 
 showed the most consummate bravery there. His flag- 
 ship was the Didon, which ship, having run aground 
 several times, had earned the nickname of " Dido the 
 touching" {la toiicJiante Didoii). Poor old Didon! I had 
 sailed with her before and the sight of her gave me the same 
 feeling of grateful recollection that stirs within a man who 
 meets an old love. After a short cruise with the whole 
 squadron the admiral led the way to the British island of 
 Jamaica.
 
 i837— 1838] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 97 
 
 We had hardly cast anchor before he sent to ask the 
 British Governor when he would receive him, and, the 
 appointment duly made, he sent for me to go with him. 
 An aide-de-camp received us at the landing-stage, silently 
 pointed to the governor's carriage which awaited us, and 
 disappeared. The carriage in question was a phaeton with 
 room for two people in it, and a little seat behind for the 
 groom, who was standing at the horses' heads with true 
 British correctness. Says the admiral to me, " Are we to 
 go in that ? '' 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " But," and he took two steps to the rear, " there isn't 
 any coachman." 
 
 " You are to drive yourself, sir." 
 
 With a half turn to the right he replied, " I ! Impos- 
 sible ! I've never been able to get a horse to go in my 
 life. Do you know how to drive ? " 
 
 " A little, sir." 
 
 " Then take the reins, sir ! " 
 
 Into the carriage then we got, to the great satisfaction 
 of the groom, who had guessed rather than understood 
 the misgivings of the French admiral in the cocked hat. 
 At first, things went pretty well. The groom showed me 
 the way to Spanish Town, saying "■left " or " right" as the 
 case might be, when, presently, we came to a great market 
 crowded with négresses with blue cotton stuffs twisted 
 round their haunches, all screaming at the top of their 
 voices. The horses in our phaeton took fright at the noise, 
 their alarm communicated itself to the négresses, who ran 
 away, upsetting everything. I lost command of the horses, 
 which swerved to one side, knocking over the heaps of 
 gourds and water melons and bananas. There was a 
 terrible scene of confusion. The admiral clung on with 
 both hands, never stopping shouting " Oh the devil ! the 
 devil! the devil !" However we got through without any 
 serious accident. On the return journey, conscious of my 
 own incapacity, I offered to give up my place as whip to 
 the admiral, but he refused with a most determined " No, 
 no, no ; oh no ! " 
 
 H
 
 98 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, iv 
 
 At the time of my visit, Jamaica was still celebrated for 
 its rum, and my father had charged me not to forget to 
 bring him a barrel, a commission I did not fail to execute. 
 But a lamentable accident happened in connection with 
 that same barrel. It was brought back to France and duly 
 placed in the cellars at Neuilly, and had been forgotten for 
 ever so long, when one fine day the King, recollecting it, 
 ordered some of the contents to be handed round at the 
 end of dinner. All the guests smacked their lips before- 
 hand; but disappointment awaited them, and the first taste 
 was followed by a general grimace of horror. It was simply 
 beastly. Enquiries were set on foot and here is their result ! 
 A distinguished mental specialist, who had been ordered to 
 take a sea voyage for the benefit of his health, which had 
 broken down, had got leave from the Minister for Naval 
 Affairs to sail on board the Hercule. Deeply interested as 
 he was in his own special subject, he had occupied himself 
 during all our stays in port in collecting brains, both 
 human and animal, which he immediately labelled and 
 shut up in a barrel of alcohol, which was exactly like my 
 barrel of rum. The two barrels had got mixed and my 
 father and his guests had been drinking rum flavoured with 
 brains ! 
 
 Our squadron dispersed on leaving Jamaica. The 
 admiral, I think, w^as to go to San Domingo, we ourselves 
 to Havana. One of our ships, a beautiful despatch boat, 
 the Fabcrt, bore us company the first day. In the evening, 
 the weather being calm, her commander, a lieutenant, M. 
 de Pardeillan, came on board us to dine. Little did we 
 think, as we accompanied him to the head of the companion, 
 that we were bidding him an eternal farewell. The ship, 
 the crew, and their young captain all disappeared, and have 
 never been heard of again. The sea swallowed them all 
 up, and the sea has kept the secret. 
 
 As we entered Havana, I was struck by the sight of a 
 whole fleet of strange-looking ships which lay at anchor 
 under the IMorro citadel. They u^ere long boats, built for 
 speed, with immense sloping spars, like racing yachts. They 
 were not warships, though they were heavily armed. They
 
 i837— 1S3S] PRINXE DE JOINVILLE 99 
 
 were slavers, for the negro trade was still in full swing in 
 Cuba. The demand for black labour being constantly on 
 the increase, the slavers went to fetch it from Africa, and 
 brought it back at all risks, in spite of the British cruisers. 
 But this importation of black cattle, which had been humane 
 and kindly enough while it was free, had grown frightfully 
 barbarous since the successful landing of each cargo had 
 been exposed to every chance imaginable. The trade, 
 nevertheless, fed the extraordinary prosperity of the fair 
 Spanish colony, Queen of the Antilles, and especially that 
 of her capital town, the Havana. The stir in the port 
 itself was prodigious, and how shall I describe the animated 
 appearance of the streets, the splendid houses, and the 
 innumerable churches that met my gaze, and the evidence 
 of luxury betrayed everywhere, and by everything I 
 saw .'' 
 
 In the days of his wandering exile, my father had 
 sojourned at Havana, and my first care was to seek out 
 the friends he had left behind him there. Thanks to them, 
 I soon found myself at home, in the Montalvo, Penalver, 
 Arminteros, Arastégui, O'Reilly and de Arcos families, 
 whose charming companionship formed the chief delight of 
 my own stay. My cousinship with the Queen of Spain 
 caused me to be received with great honour, also, by the 
 authorities, especially by the Captain General, Espeleta. A 
 review was arranged for me on the Paseo Tacon,and of that 
 same review I have an undying recollection. Let my 
 readers imagine a line formed by the Espana, Barcelona 
 and Habana regiments, the artillery, and a lancer regiment, 
 splendid troops all of them, under the command of General 
 Count de Mirasol, with his baton slung at his buttonhole. 
 And, facing this line, another of the most exquisitely 
 charming aspect. All the volantes in Havana drawn up 
 in battle array ! The said volantes, peculiar to the place, 
 are gigs without hoods or aprons, perched on two huge 
 wheels, and each drawn by one horse in silver-mounted 
 trappings, ridden by a calassero or negro postilion in 
 flaming livery, laced on every seam. In each volante 
 
 H
 
 SOUVENIRS OF THE 
 
 [chap. IV 
 
 two ladies lounged, in evening dress, low-necked, bare- 
 headed, and armed with fans. Every pretty woman 
 in Hav^ana was there, talking to the occupiers of the 
 next carriage, looking on and being looked at, and all 
 under a lovely tropical sunset, which lighted up the sea, 
 whence a soft refreshing breeze was blowing on one side, 
 and on the other a forest of cocoa palms with the fortress 
 of Principe rising above them. The ensemble of the 
 picture and its details were alike charming, and to us 
 sailors, just off the sea, it was heightened by contrast. 
 These Havana ladies add all the charm of Spaniards to 
 a mingling of créole indifference with the confidence of 
 well-born women. Their eyes and complexions are magni- 
 ficent, their wrists and ankles exquisitely delicate, and their 
 
 feet ! I never saw anything 
 like them — the feet of a 
 Chinese woman, only natu- 
 ral, not produced by tor- 
 ture. I brought away a 
 precious souvenir from 
 
 '',.%--_ r — . ^::l: — -■-=- Havana, in the shape of a 
 
 shoe which I knew to be 
 genuine, but which never met with anything but incredulity 
 till the sacking of the Tuileries in 1848 bereft me of it 
 altogether. 
 
 I remember yet a beautiful excursion in the interior of 
 the Island, partly by rail, partly by volante, along splendid 
 avenues of palmettos, and thick shady mango trees, to the 
 country house belonging to Doiia Matilda de Casa Calvo, 
 Marquise de Arcos, where I spent two days in the 
 pleasantest of company and where Lord Clarence Paget, 
 who was of the party, astonished us by his talent as a 
 singer. Our delightful stay in port was brought to a close 
 b}- a ball given to me by the town of Havana at the 
 Societad Philarmonica. I had just been dancing that pretty 
 dance, a sort of slow valse, which is called the Habanera, 
 and I was walking with my partner, a beautiful Spanish 
 Mexican, with tiny feet, under the arcades which ran round
 
 iS37— 1838] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE loi 
 
 the patio, when she pulled a straw-covered cigarette out of 
 her pocket and lighted it. " Don't you smoke ? " she en- 
 quired. 
 
 " No, Mademoiselle." 
 
 " Oh, but yes, I'm sure you will smoke," and she took 
 her cigarette from her pretty lips and gave it to me to 
 smoke, which I did without hesitation. That sudden con- 
 version has been a durable one. But I have often regretted 
 that I could not begin it all over again ! 
 
 Twenty-four hours later, at two o'clock in the morning, 
 I was wakened in my cabin by a violent shock. The 
 Hercule had just run aground in the dangerous waters of 
 the Bahama Channel. Whatever the weather may be, 
 the running aground of a huge body like a hundred gun 
 ship is a serious matter. To crown our disgrace, the 
 corvette La Favorite, which sailed in company with us and 
 had followed us blindly, ran aground at the same instant. 
 Luckily it was almost calm, and the great Hercule lay 
 quietly on the sand like a stranded whale. Whenever the 
 least suspicion of a swell came, she gave a shudder, a sort 
 of wag of her tail, which was very alarming. If the swell 
 increased she would soon go to pieces, and every boat we 
 had to launch would never be enough to save the crew. 
 It was one of those anxious moments in a sailor's life 
 when each man makes it his business to conceal his own 
 feelings. We set hard to work to get down a big anchor 
 on the deep-water side. Once it was down and the cable 
 taut, we began to lighten the ship, pouring all the water 
 overboard, and getting ready to put the guns over the 
 side. Then daylight came, and showed us our real position. 
 A long way off we could see a low island on the coast of 
 Florida, called Looe-Key. The dawn also showed us, in 
 the offing, the British corvette Pearl, commanded by our 
 pleasant comrade of some days before, Lord Clarence 
 Paget, who had sailed from Havana at the same time 
 as we ourselves. As soon as he perceived our position he 
 hurried to our assistance, and steering with all the decision 
 and seafaring good sense of the British sailor, he got as
 
 I03 SOU\'ENIRS OF THE [chap, iv 
 
 close as possible to us, put down his two anchors at once, 
 and came to us, sa}-ing, " I bring }'ou the only thing I can, 
 a fixed point to work on." 
 
 We thanked him cordiall}-, but, just at that moment, 
 thanks to our having lightened the ship, and also to the 
 tide, which fortunately began to rise, the Hercule swayed 
 for a few minutes on her sandy bed, and then began to 
 float. A sigh of relief broke from every breast, especially 
 from those of the captain and the unlucky officer of the 
 watch, whose carelessness had been the original cause of 
 the accident. 
 
 A few hours more, and everything but a trifling leak had 
 been put to rights, and we were on our way to the United 
 States — to a new countr}', a young nation, which attracted 
 me as by instinctive sympathy. On our very arrival in 
 the Chesapeake river, I came across a characteristic trait. 
 " Can }'ou speak French .' " I asked the pilot who hailed 
 us. Instantly he answered me, in English, " No, I only 
 speak American ! " The claim to separate nationalit}- 
 extended even to the language. 
 
 Shortly afterwards I went ashore, and, armed with an 
 itinerary, kindly drawn up for me by Michel Chevalier, in 
 which he had mentioned all he advised my seeing, both as 
 to men and things, during the short time at my disposal, I 
 started on a hasty tour through that splendid countr}'. 
 That first glimpse of America fulfilled all m}' expectations, 
 and delighted me. A \-oung country it was in ver}' deed. 
 Nature itself, to my European ej-es, had a pureness of 
 atmosphere, a richness of vegetation, a freshness, a general 
 air of }'outh, unknown in our older countries. Man too, in 
 his gait, in his independence of mind, and his boldness of 
 enterprise, betrayed an exuberant vigour of which our 
 populations, enervated by disappointing experiences, and 
 crushed by routine as they are, have grown incapable. 
 
 As I desired to get from Norfolk in Virginia to 
 Washington, I started by the Roanoke Railwa}-, on the 
 first day of my trip, and thus crossed an immense marsh, 
 the " Dismal Swamp." The rails wc ran on being laid
 
 iS37— 183S] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 103 
 
 open-work fashion on huge piles fifteen feet above the 
 marsh, the whole road rocked under the weight of the 
 engine, so much as to disturb the waters of the swamp and 
 startle the numberless snakes and turtles inhabiting it. It 
 was a most novel sensation. Further on, betwixt Baltimore 
 and Philadelphia, the train having to cross an arm of the 
 sea, steamed on full pace ; the engine, uncoupling itself, 
 ran ahead on to a siding, while our train was carried by its 
 own impetus on to the upper deck of a steam ferry-boat, 
 moored at the end of the line. It stopped exactly at the 
 right spot, and while the boat crossed the arm of the sea, 
 we went below and dined at a splendid buffet on the lower 
 deck, waited on by the prettiest of barmaids. 
 
 Further on yet, between Philadelphia and Pittsburg, in 
 that rich Alleghany country where the coal-beds lie on 
 the surface, and coal costs five francs a ton, and whence 
 petroleum oil was soon to gush forth, the travelling was done 
 by canal in the flat country, and by funicular railways in 
 the mountains, by means of boats built in sections which 
 hooked together on the water, and were taken apart when 
 there was a question of climbing up inclined planes. All 
 public works and means of communication were full of 
 daring things like these, while in Europe (I speak of the 
 year 1838) we were still at our first timorous essays at 
 railway travelling. 
 
 I travelled through Virginia, passing by all those spots 
 where four and twenty years later I was to watch the 
 bloodiest battles of the War of Secession, that first and 
 awful convulsion of the great Republic's manhood. 
 Reaching Washington, I was most courteously received by 
 President Van Buren. How often since then I have been 
 back at the White House, under Presidents Tyler, 
 Buchanan, and Lincoln ! How man)' a curious scene I 
 have witnessed there, under the rule of the last-named 
 President, rich as it was in dramatic incident ! During 
 that first stay of mine at Washington I made the acquaint- 
 ance of three of the greatest men in the United States — 
 Calhoun, Webster, and Clay — Calhoun of Carolina, the
 
 I04 
 
 SOUVENIRS OF THE 
 
 [chap. IV 
 
 impassioned Southerner ; Webster, the eloquent represen- 
 tative of New England Puritanism ; and Clay of Kentucky, 
 with his angular face and powerful frame, and a curious 
 mixture of extreme gentleness and energy in his manner 
 and ways — the very type of the Western population, the 
 advance-guard of civilization. I was present at several 
 sittings of the Senate, and heard these gentlemen speak 
 with an authority which seemed to fascinate their auditors. 
 
 SOUTHERN SCOUT. 
 
 W^ashington as a city, did not interest me at all — bits 
 of town, scattered about in an ocean of dust, which later 
 on I knew as an ocean of mud ; hotels crowded with 
 canvassers, all devouring so hurriedly at tûd/e d'Jwte time, 
 that the first arrivals were rising from table when the last 
 ones were sitting down, and all this amidst a noise of jaws 
 that reminded me of the dogs being fed in a kennel ; 
 the whole population, whether politicians or canvassers,
 
 i837— 183S] PRIxNCE DE JOINVILLE 105 
 
 chewing and spitting everywhere ; Httle society or none at 
 all, save that formed by the foreign diplomats, most of them 
 clever men, but bored by their isolation, and consequently 
 disposed to see everything around them with unfavouring 
 eyes. One of the chief members of this society at the time 
 of my sojourn, was the British Minister, Mr. Fox, a 
 diplomatist of the old school, past master in forms, and 
 proprieties, and social refinements — everything that the 
 English sum up in the word "proper." I was told that 
 one day as he was leaning against the chimney-piece in a 
 drawing-room where dancing was going on, in deep 
 conversation with I know not what other personage, an 
 American couple came and stood just in front of him in a 
 country-dance. Soon the young man began to show signs 
 of anxiety ; his voice grew thick, his cheeks swelled 
 alternately, and he cast anxious glances at the chimney- 
 piece. At last he could hold on no longer, and with the 
 most admirable precision, he shot all the juice of his quid 
 into the fireplace just between Mr. Fox and his interlo- 
 cutor. " Fine shot, sir ! " the old diplomat contented 
 himself with saying, with a bow. It may have been that 
 little incidents of this kind cast a chill on international 
 relations ! 
 
 Philadelphia delighted me. It is a cheerful town, with 
 streets planted with fine trees. The prison there, the first 
 built on the solitary system, occupied me for a whole day. 
 I went over every corner of it, in the company of the 
 directors, and of any other officials who could inform me 
 on the subject. It will be known to my readers that the 
 system in this prison, at the time of which I write, was that 
 of absolute seclusion in cells — complete isolation in fact 
 — during the whole term of sentence. Soon afterwards I 
 visited Auburn Prison, in New York State, where the con- 
 demned person was subjected to a different régime, — cells at 
 night, but work in common, though in silence, during the 
 day. I have been over many prisons since, for I have 
 always held that the management of such places is a pretty 
 reliable thermometer of the moral condition of the country
 
 io6 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, iv 
 
 to which they belong. I know of some foul ones in states 
 which set up to be very civilized. In France we are 
 lamentably behindhand in the matter. Though we have 
 some prisons which are model, we have a great many more 
 which are shamefully behind the times. For my own part, 
 I have come to the conclusion, from all I have seen and 
 heard, that seclusion in cells at night, with work in common 
 during the da)'time in small easil}' managed workshops, or 
 better still, in the open air as at Portland Prison in England, 
 is the penitentiary system which offers the fewest draw- 
 backs. I say drawbacks, for no such system can offer 
 advantages. All the holding forth of philanthropists 
 about the sad fate of criminals is empty noise. A prison 
 must be a place of punishment ; it can never bean abode of 
 reformation, nor of reclamation. 
 
 Let us pass, from the prisons, to Mr. Norris's great steam 
 engine, and especially locomotive engine works, w^hich 
 Michel Chevalier had told me to be sure to go and see ; and 
 most interesting, trul}', they were. Great improvements in 
 the construction of locomotives originated in these works. 
 Mr. Norris had also had a very original and exceedingly 
 American idea — to make a great orchestra of musical 
 instruments played by steam instead of by human lungs. 
 I heard, or at all events I was told I heard, the " Hunting 
 Chorus " in Robin Hood performed by this orchestra, in 
 which the conductor's baton was replaced by a tap. It 
 was horrible ! 
 
 After Philadelphia came Niagara, w^onderful and peerless. 
 I admired its picturesque grandeur, but I admired the 
 rapids before the fall ever)- bit as much. The mighty power 
 of the huge river, the overflow of all those great lakes, 
 pouring in foaming fury over its rocky bed, for such a dis- 
 tance and through such splendid scenery, is indescribable- 
 striking. In the midst of the lovely country of the Hudson 
 Highlands, stands West Point, the famous military school 
 w'here all the officers of the American army are educated. 
 I was the guest, while there, of Colonel de Russy, who was 
 in command, and my stay w^as full of interest. There is a
 
 i837— 183S] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 107 
 
 curious point about the school, and it is not the least of 
 the surprises reserved for us by the American democracy. 
 The cadets do not enter by examination, but by favour. 
 The Senators, or representatives of each State in the 
 Union, have a right to a certain number of nominations. 
 The President has the same. Their choice, as a rule, falls 
 on lads of intelligence, and the only thing asked of them on 
 joining, is to give proof of a healthy constitution. They 
 know nothing, and have to learn everything in the school, at 
 which they consequently spend four years. Well, in spite 
 of the absence of selection or competition for entrance, the 
 result is quite excellent. The knowledge, spirit of discipline 
 and duty of the American officer, and his adaptability to 
 no matter what task, leave nothing to be desired. 
 
 Ev^erybody knows New York, that huge cosmopolitan 
 city, the commercial capital of the New World, where 
 colossal fortunes are made and lost with the giddiest 
 rapidity. Its position as being the chief artery of human 
 activity, is incomparable, but the town — qua town — has 
 this point in common with all huge agglomerations of 
 commercial buildings. It is utterly commonplace. I 
 merely passed through it on my way to rejoin my ship 
 at Newport, but with me there came on one of those 
 splendid steamers, veritable floating palaces indeed, which 
 the Americans excel in building, a huge picnic, at which 
 150 New York ladies were present. The night passage 
 across Long Island Sound in lovely weather, with all this 
 gay party dancing and supping, was most delightful. 
 
 I left the United States with a feeling of the deepest 
 gratitude for the sympathetic, almost affectionate, welcome 
 I had everywhere received, and the most sincere admira- 
 tion for that great democracy, ambitious without being 
 envious, where shabby class rivalry is unknown, where 
 each man endeavours to rise by his own intelligence, worth, 
 and energy, but where no one desires to drag others down 
 to the level of his own idleness or mediocrity. 
 
 A great community, in which nobody would for a 
 moment suffer the State to take to itself the risrht to
 
 loS 
 
 SOUVENIRS OF PRINCE DE JOINVILLE [CHAP. iv 
 
 interfere between father and child by denying the free 
 disposal of his property, and thence his paternal authority 
 to the parent. 
 
 A great community, where no man need be a soldier 
 unless he chooses, and where all are free to bring up their 
 children as they think fit, to practise the religion that 
 pleases them best, and to combine in perfect freedom for 
 the endowment of church or school. What an example, 
 in many matters, the young nation sets the old ! We 
 left Newport on our return to France, and after a quick 
 passage of nineteen days, the Hercule anchored in Brest 
 Roads, on July loth, 1838.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 1838 
 
 Before six weeks were out, 1 was at sea again, on 
 my way to Mexico. My orders to sail reached me at 
 Lunéville, where my brother Nemours had taken refuge, 
 with a cavalry command, from the desperate endeavours 
 of the grands-parents to get him married, and whither 
 I had followed him with the same object. Thanks to my 
 brothers, my memory is crowded with recollections of 
 Lunéville and the camp there, beginning with that of an 
 
 ) 
 
 
 unlucky captain who ruined his career by stopping^ his 
 squadron at galloping drill, before the prostrate form of 
 
 General Comte de M commanding the division, 
 
 stretched on the broad of his back by a lively charger 
 with the ringing word of command — ''Obstacle !'' 
 
 During my short visit I lived with my brother in the 
 Château, where one general whiled away his sleepless 
 hours by playing the French horn, much to the enjoyment
 
 no SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, v 
 
 of cvcr}'body else ! Our evenings were spent at the 
 theatre, where there was a ballet. A corps de ballet at 
 Luneville ! The wily manager had got out of the difficulty 
 by composing a chorégraphie scenario called Les Sabotiers, 
 in which the only sign of skill asked of the lady performers 
 was to swing the sabots on their feet in cadenced time. 
 A great noise they made, which did not, however, prevent 
 the Mayor of Luneville from falling asleep regularly every 
 evening in the municipal box, where he sat enthroned 
 perched on a curule chair as high as that of Thomas 
 Diafoirus. He even fell off it, during a performance at 
 which I was present, and so noisily that the shock inter- 
 rupted the evolutions of the ballet ; and all the officers of 
 the garrison who filled the stalls, rose with an anxiety 
 which may have been somewhat affected, and would not 
 be reassured until Mr. Mayor had been fished up out of 
 the depths of his box, and replaced upon his perch. I 
 recollect, too, an ascent of the Donon, one of the peaks 
 of the Vosges, with a charming family of the name of 
 Chevandier, and in the loveliest weather. What a view 
 there was ! All Lorraine, all Alsace, with the spires of 
 Strasbourg — that beautiful country which my forefathers 
 of the old monarchy had made so truly French. Alas ! 
 Alas ! > 
 
 I went back to my duty. I sailed from Brest on the ist 
 of September, under the orders of Admiral Baudin, a man 
 who had a whole career of valiant deeds behind him. One- 
 anPicd, tall in stature and energetic in countenance, he 
 straightway inspired respect, and one soon learnt to 
 recognize him as a commander as intelligent as he was 
 resolute, and even impassioned. His flag was hoisted on 
 the frigate Néréïde. I followed, with a small corvette of 
 which I had been given command, and which I had 
 hastily commissioned. Except for the torpedo-boats, and 
 such small flotilla craft, I do not believe the whole of our 
 present navy contains such a small vessel as she was. She 
 was armed with four thirty-pounders, and sixteen carron- 
 ades, mere children's toys, and her crew amounted to
 
 1 838] 
 
 PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 
 
 lOO men. But how pretty she Avas, careening over, level 
 with the water, with her huge spars sloping backwards ; 
 and how charmingly she was named — La Creole ! She 
 was my first command, and I was twenty ! We were 
 bound on an expedition which might give us a chance of 
 fighting, and I hoped in my turn to follow the example of 
 my elder brothers, Avho had so well upheld the honour of 
 our race at Antwerp'and in Africa. 
 
 My emotion on leaving France under such circum- 
 stances will be readily understood. My old aide-de-camp 
 Hernoux, and Bruat, escorted me outside the entrance 
 to the port, and returned in the pilot's boat. The last 
 link with the soil of the mother-country was broken, 
 Forward then, my boy ! 
 
 In a few days we were before Cadiz, that lovely Andalu- 
 sian city. An African sun had come to heighten its beauty, 
 and it looked like some exquisite carving in the whitest 
 marble, rising fairylilce out of a sapphire sea. My landing 
 in the evening was just as full of charm. I hurried to the 
 Alameda, the public promenade, where the silence was 
 unbroken, save by the plash of the waves breaking at 
 the foot of the ramparts, or the whisper of the breeze 
 amongst the palm-trees. I caught sight of mysterious 
 couples sitting in the shadows of the alamos, black 
 dresses and mantillas blending with the men's " capas," 
 and from these formless groups a stifled murmur rose,
 
 SOUVENIRS OF THE 
 
 [chap. V 
 
 with the noise of fans, hke the beating wings of an 
 imprisoned bird. I wandered through the streets and 
 the Plazo Santo Antonio. I saw delightful balconies 
 and glistening eyes that shone behind the lattices; ex- 
 quisite forms glided over the white flags on which the 
 moonlight fell. I saw, in fine, a city, a whole population, 
 instinct with the breath of love, and I caught the complaint 
 myself. I dreamt of scaling balconies, and of kisses and 
 tender words, jealous rivals draped in black cloaks, and 
 knife-thrusts at street corners under the lamps, and all the 
 struggle and danger and triumph without which life is not 
 life at all. 
 
 W^'f 
 
 ■-■^'Iv' 
 
 There happened to be a bull-fight, during our short stay 
 in this port, at the Puerto de Santa Maria — one of those 
 bull-fights celebrated in that famous song that every 
 Spaniard hums even nowadays, " Los Toros del Puerto." 
 I took good care not to miss it, and I will take still better 
 care not to describe it, although the chief " espada " 
 was Chiclanero, the handsomest of all those handsome 
 fellows, and the one who was said to have roused the 
 most \aolently passionate fondness in the fair sex. Fifty 
 years ago there were no railroads in Andalusia, nor carriages 
 either. Majos and Majas (Goya's Majos and Majas still 
 existed in these daj's; arrived on horseback from all
 
 1S38] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 115 
 
 quarters under the burning September sun, and no words 
 of mine can give any idea of the motley crowd in the most 
 brilliant costumes, the perfect orgie of colour presented by 
 the neighbourhood of the plaza, on which, as a finishing 
 touch to the quaintness of the scene, a squadron of yellow 
 dragoons did duty as police ! From Cadiz we sailed in 
 company with the frigates La Gloire and La Médee and two 
 steam corvettes which we had found there, and reached 
 Cape Saint Antonio, the most westerly point of Cuba, 
 after a thirty-six days' passage. Once there, the admiral 
 took all the water and provisions out of the Gloire and the 
 Créole, and sent us to revictual at Havana, while he went 
 on his way to Mexico and Vera Cruz. With my habitual 
 extreme indifference to politics (having, in fact, always 
 hated them), I have forgotten to say zvhy we were going 
 to Mexico. It was the eternal old story. Demands 
 timidly made and then spurned, insufficient force for 
 action merely increasing the insolence of our opponents, 
 and then the necessity for sending a large and expensive ex • 
 pedition to finish up with. A score of war-vessels, includ- 
 ing four frigates and two bomb-vessels, were soon to be 
 collected before Vera Cruz, with a certain number of troops 
 to be landed, and to deal authoritatively with the Mexican 
 Government. Meanwhile we were to go. Captain Laine 
 and 1, to Havana, to lay in provisions, take everything 
 we could to the squadron on board, and also, so the 
 admiral had told me confidentially, I was to endeavour 
 personally to get together all the plans and information 
 possible concerning the towns on the Mexican coast and the 
 fort of Saint Juan d'Ulloa, which had all once been Spanish. 
 Nothing could have suited me better than this run to 
 Havana, where we anchored four days later, and of which 
 place I had carried away such pleasant memories seven 
 months before. And as soon as I had paid and returned 
 my official visits, I hurried to the Tacon Theatre, where, in 
 a stage box that I knew right well, I beheld the charming 
 woman who had begun my education as a smoker so 
 prettily during my first visit, 
 
 I
 
 114 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, v 
 
 We got the worst of news from Mexico. While Admiral 
 Baudin was hurrying thither by forced marches, as it were, 
 the ships that had got there before us had well-nigh raised 
 the blockade. The frigate Herininie had started for France, 
 which she never was to reach. She w^as wrecked at the 
 Bermudas. The IpJiigcnie, which Captain de Parseval still 
 commanded, had been obliged to depart too, with nothing 
 but a remnant of her crew, the yellow fever, which was then 
 raging, having made terrible ravages on board. I heard of 
 the death of many a good friend. Captain de Parseval had 
 only one ofificer left (Kerjégu, who in later days was my 
 colleague in the National Assembly) and one cadet, to help 
 him to get his frigate away. There had been a tempest 
 too, w^iich had done a great deal of damage to our cruisers. 
 I saw two come in, the Eclipse, Commander Jame de 
 Bellecroix, and the Laurier, Captain Duquesne, which had 
 been dismasted in the gale, and which had rigged up tem- 
 porary spars, by means of which they had contrived to 
 crawl into port. All the sails of the Laurier had been 
 carried away, and she was quite helpless in the storm, so 
 her captain, Duquesne, and his second officer, Mazères, 
 lashed themselves on deck, after having sent the crew 
 below. The violence of the wind laid the ship .so com- 
 pletely over on her beam ends that Lieutenant Mazères, who 
 was carried overboard by a wave, caught hold of the main- 
 top and managed to get back on deck. A moment later 
 the two masts of the brig were broken by the fury of the 
 sea, and thus she regained her balance and was saved. 
 
 Leaving all these cripples to patch themselves up as 
 best they could, Captain Laine set sail with his frigate and 
 gave me orders to follow. We reached Sacrificios, the 
 nearest anchorage to Vera Cruz, after a rapid passage. 
 Here we learnt that the captain of the Médée, M. Leray, 
 had been sent on a mission to Mexico. Then the admiral 
 himself went off to Xalapa, to confer with the Mexican 
 ministers. Meanwhile the blockade went on, enlivened 
 by privations of every kind, short rations of water, yellow 
 fever, and so forth. Our water was brought from Havana ;
 
 1838] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 115 
 
 it came in barrels, and was frequently black and nauseous 
 when it came out of them. Yellow fever stalked abroad. 
 I lingered one night, fishing over the side of the ship, until 
 eleven o'clock, with a strong, healthy, first-class cadet, who 
 had been under me in the watch on board the Didon. 
 A foreboding of some sort seemed to weigh on his mind. 
 I tried to clieer him up, but all in vain. By six o'clock 
 next morning the terrible " vomito " had carried him off. 
 Poor Gouin ! I was very fond of him. We buried him on 
 the Sacrificios islet, that gloomy cemetery which later on 
 the Zouaves christened the " Jardin d'Acclimatation." 
 
 But little happened to vary the monotony of those 
 weeks of waiting. I had gone in my boat one day to take 
 soundings in shore, along the coast stretching from Vera 
 Cruz to Anton Lizardo, when I saw a squadron of Mexican 
 Lancers in their great white hats, looking like a squadron 
 of picadors from a bull-ring, come galloping over the sand- 
 hills. It was more than likely these gentry might fire 
 their carbines at us, and we had no arms to reply with. 
 So I bethought mc of an expedient, which turned out 
 quite successful. Instead cf retiring as fast as we could 
 row, I ordered my crew to lie motionless on their oars, 
 while with the help of two men I made as though I were 
 carefully preparing, loading, and laying a heavy gun, which 
 was nothing more than a large-sized telescope with which 
 I happened to be provided. The effect was electric. We 
 saw the Mexican squadron make off full tear in every 
 direction, to the delight of my crew. One night we had 
 another adventure. The admiral sent me, with Messrs. 
 Desfossés and Doret, and two engineer officers. Com- 
 mandant Mangin-Lecreux and Captain Chauchard, to 
 make rather an odd sort of reconnaissance. To understand 
 its nature, my readers must know that the port of Saint 
 Juan d'Ulloa is set on a great reef, separated from Vera 
 Cruz by a narrow arm of the sea. On the edge of the 
 reef looking towards the town, the walls of the fort, into 
 which huge iron rings for mooring big ships are built, 
 go perpendicularly down into the sea. On the opposite 
 
 I 2
 
 Ii6 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, v 
 
 side the glacis runs into a sort of large lake formed by 
 two arms of the reef, level with the surface of the sea. 
 The admiral wanted to know whether the bed of this lake 
 was level, whether it was fordable, and whether, in case of 
 necessity, the glacis and the walls of the fort could be 
 reached from it, after the}- had been gutted by the big 
 guns. 
 
 We started, then, one fine night, reached the belt of reef 
 far away from the fort, landed, and walking through the 
 water, which was half way up to our thighs at the start, 
 we bent our course towards the fort, taking soundings 
 before us, as we went, with long sticks. We found much 
 the same depth everywhere, and a sandy bed covered with 
 short seaweed. The sea had doubtless cast all the sand 
 by degrees ov^er the coral reef, and the currents had 
 levelled it. After a long and tiring march through the 
 water, during which we had to stop and take breath every 
 now and again, whispering to each other, like Raffet's 
 engraving of a similar reconnaissance, " Smoking is for- 
 bidden, but you can sit down if you like," we had got 
 quite close to the glacis when we heard a shout of " Alerta ! " 
 from the sentries. Commandant Mangin, who was deter- 
 mined to touch the glacis with his hand, was a few steps 
 ahead of us. Suddenly a noise arose within the fort, and in 
 the twinkling of an eye we saw about fifty soldiers appear on 
 the crest of the glacis, with their musket barrels glancing. 
 They rushed down at full speed and sprang into the water 
 after us. We of course made off as fast as ever we could. 
 For some minutes it was a downright trial of speed, and 
 Commandant Mangin was all but caught. But though 
 hostilities were imminent, they had not yet actually begun. 
 So the soldiers did not fire, and they soon tired of pursuing 
 us. We got back without any difficulty, except that great 
 fishes, whose every movement was visible in the phos- 
 phorescent water, would rush between our legs. Sharks, 
 perhaps ! There were numbers of them in those parts. 
 
 The admiral had learnt what he wanted to know. A 
 few days more and the ball opened. The admiral brought
 
 iS3«] PRINXE DE JOINVILLE 117 
 
 the three frigates, Ncréïde, Gloire, and Iphigcnie (this last 
 came back from Havana with her crew completed by 
 that of Duquesne's brig), and the two bomb-vessels, broad- 
 side on, and attacked the fort. I had asked leave to 
 share in the fun, and, to my great grief, he had refused 
 it. He considered my ship too small and insignificant. 
 " I can't possibly take you. I have put the frigate Médée 
 aside too, for I don't consider her guns heavy enough." 
 He sent me to watch the firing of the bomb-vessels, and 
 rectify it if necessary. 
 
 Before the firing began an incident occurred in which 
 I was directly concerned. As the attack appeared im- 
 minent, the ships anchored or moored close to the fort 
 hastened away, and they all passed close to the point 
 where I was posted. At that moment the admiral 
 signalled to me, " Ship in sight looks suspicious ; stop 
 her." Ambiguous as our signalling code is, this order 
 seemed evidently to point to seizing one or several of 
 the vessels just leaving the port. Of these there were 
 four, to wit, a Belgian ship, chartered by the admiral to 
 take off the French subjects resident at Vera Cruz if 
 they should be threatened. It could not be that one. 
 Then there was an American vessel, a quasi warship, 
 flying a pennant and armed, what is called a revenue 
 schooner. Thirdly, the British steam-packet Express, also 
 armed and flying* a pennant, commanded by a lieutenant 
 in the British Navy, and borne on the Navy List as a ship 
 of war. It could be neither of these two, to my thinking. 
 There only remained a Hamburg vessel, which I ordered 
 to go and anchor under the guns of the corvette Naïade. 
 But at this instant a lieutenant in one of the Néréïde's 
 boats came to me and shouted, " The admiral desires 
 you will take the Mexican pilots off all ships going out of 
 port." 
 
 " Off the English packet too .^ " I inquired. 
 
 " The admiral gave no details, he said all pilots." 
 
 Though it seemed a serious matter to me, considering 
 the touchiness of the English, to take a man off one of
 
 ii8 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, v 
 
 their warships, 1 h;ul no course but to act. The Express 
 had passed astern of me, and I had exchanged friendly 
 greetings with her captain. Lieutenant Cooke, with whom 
 I was acquainted. She was far away ah"eady. I hoisted 
 the British flag, and backed my action with a shot across 
 her bow. She brought to, waited for the boat and officer 
 I sent, and the following conversation ensued : — 
 
 My Officer. — " My orders are to ask you for your pilot." 
 Lieutenant Cooke. — " I want him to get to Sacrificios." 
 My Officer. — " It isn't a mere request I make you." 
 Lieutenant Cooke. — " If I don't give him up, shall }-ou 
 take him by force .'' " 
 
 My Officer. — " We trust you will give him up with a 
 good grace, and that we need have no recourse to 
 violence." 
 
 Lieutenant Cooke. — "That's very well, sir," and the 
 conversation closed with a shake of the hand, once the 
 British commander had cleared himself of responsibility. 
 So the pilot entered my boat, whence the admiral instantly 
 had him fetched. The American revenue schooner gave 
 hers up without making any difficulty, only declaring 
 the admiral responsible for any accident that might 
 happen to the ship for want of a pilot. 
 
 I have related this incident of the pilot of the Express 
 in detail because it gave rise to a heated discussion in the 
 British Parliament, during which I was personally taken to 
 task and made responsible for a "violation of international 
 law." 
 
 But the admiral gives the signal to open fire, and the 
 cannonade begins. In one moment I am wrapped in 
 smoke. I not only cannot see to watch the firing, I 
 cannot even see where I am going. The lead gives very 
 little depth, and I see the mud disturbed by my keel rising 
 on the surface of the water. I cannot stay where I am, so 
 I crowd on sail and get out of the smoke. I repeat my 
 petition for leav^e to take part in the fight to the admiral 
 by signal. His heart is touched, and he answered by the 
 welcome word " Yes," and then I go down the line
 
 1838] 
 
 PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 
 
 119 
 
 of frigates, all hotly engaged, especially the Iphigé)iie. 
 Even' minute or two I saw splinters of wood flying into 
 the air, cut out by the shot striking her. She had a 
 hundred and eight in her hull, without counting her spars. 
 There were eight in her foremasts alone. It was a perfect 
 miracle everything did not come by the board. That 
 gallant old fellow Parseval kept walking up and down the 
 poop, rubbing his hands whenever a shot struck near him. 
 It was really a fine sight. We waved our hands to each 
 other, and I went and took up my position at the end of 
 the line of frigates. There I stayed, going to and fro 
 under sail, amid a little racket of my own making. 
 
 There were hard times within the fort. There had been 
 several explosions already, and it occurred to me to load 
 all my guns with shell and turn them on a sort of tower,, 
 called in fortification a cavalier, whence the fire was 
 particularly lively. I had very good gunners, but from my 
 place as commanding officer I could not see where the 
 shots took effect for the smoke. My second officer, who 
 was forward, could judge better than me. At the first shot 
 he shouted to me " Good ! in the cavalier." The second, 
 " In the cavalier." The third, " In the cavalier." The 
 fourth — nothing was to be seen. A huge cloud of smoke.
 
 .I20 
 
 SOUVENIRS OF THE 
 
 [chap. 
 
 white above, black below, rose from the fort, slowly, to a 
 great height above it. When it cleared a little, driven by 
 the wind, there was no cavalier at all. The whole thing 
 had blown up. My crew shouted with delight, and the 
 ■captain of one of the guns performed a brilliant hornpipe. 
 Was it my shells ? Or did the bombs from the bombship 
 ■do the job .-* Not one of my brave fellows on the Creole 
 have the shadow of a doubt. Every man has a right to 
 his own opinion. 
 
 The fire slackened, and I went to take the admiral's 
 orders. The fort surrendered during the night. The 
 garrison, two thousand strong, evacuated the place, and a 
 convention was concluded with the general in command 
 at Vera Cruz for the abstention of both sides from further 
 hostilities. We then occupied the fort, and the admiral 
 gave me orders to moor the Creole under its walls, and 
 together with Comte de Gourdon, commanding the Cuiras- 
 sier, to put prize crews on board the vessels of the Mexican 
 Navy lying there. With the exception of one pretty 
 corvette, the Iguala, which has been incorporated with our 
 own navy, these prizes were not worth much. 
 
 The unlucky fort was in a terrible condition. Shot and 
 shell and explosions had destroyed everything. A horrible 
 smell rose from the numerous corpses buried everywhere 
 under the rubbish. Wherever battle had not done its 
 work the most revolting filfth reigned supreme, and all 
 this under an equatorial sun and in the midst of the yellow 
 fever. The crew of the Créole was at once set to sanitary 
 work, in company with the detachment of engineer sappers 
 attached to the expedition. We dug out the corpses and 
 towed them out to sea, and several very meritorious 
 instances of self-sacrifice occurred which were duly and 
 publicly recognised by the admiral. 
 
 My aide-de-camp, M. Desfossés, had drawn up a little 
 code of signals, by means of coloured shirts, with the house 
 of our consul at Vera Cruz, in case of any emergency. 
 Within five days of the taking of the fort we learnt by 
 these signals that the French subjects within the town
 
 1S38] PRINCE DE JOIiNVILLE 121 
 
 were in great danger. We immediately sent all our boats 
 to the mole, which was thronged by a distracted crowd of 
 men, women, and children, all of whom we received and 
 transferred to the fort. 
 
 At the same time our consul informed us that Santa 
 Anna, who had been appointed generalissimo, had just 
 arrived with troops, that he had declared the convention 
 null and void, &c., &c,, and that we must be prepared for 
 anything. The admiral, who was some way off, with the 
 squadron, at the Green Island anchorage, was at once 
 warned. Luckily it was fine. If it had not been, no 
 communication with him w^ould have been practicable 
 The admiral himself came that very night, and took up 
 his quarters on board the Creole. In his usual resolute 
 way, he had at once decided to forestall the enemy's action, 
 and, taking advantage of its surprise, to execute such a 
 coup de main with the feeble means at his disposal, as 
 would make it impossible for the city and forts of Vera 
 Cruz to harm us for some time to come at all events, Our 
 night was therefore spent in preparation. The boats of 
 the squadron came in one after the other without any 
 mishap, bringing all the men who could be landed. Count- 
 ing the three companies of artillery holding the fort, these 
 amounted to about eleven hundred men. We set out be- 
 tween four and five o'clock in the morning in a thick fog. 
 A portion of the troops disembarked, commanded by 
 Captain Parseval, were to scale the small fort on the left of 
 the town with ladders, and then go round the ramparts, 
 spiking the guns, and destroying everything they came 
 across. Another body, under Captain Laine, was to do 
 the same thing on the right-hand side. And a third 
 column in the centre was to land on the mole, blow up the 
 sea gate, and march on General de Santa Anna's head- 
 quarters to try and seize his person. My own company, 
 numbering about sixty men, formed the advance guard of 
 this last column, the bulk of which consisted of the three 
 companies of artillery. 
 
 We started then, with our oars muffled to deaden the
 
 123 SOUVENIRS OF THI-: [CHAP. v 
 
 noise. Wc could hardly find our way in the twilight, and 
 had to strain our eyes to see the mole through the mist. 
 The great gate of the city was closed, no sentry outside it. 
 Evcr\thing was asleep. We landed in dead silence, and 
 the column formed up. The sappers ran on ahead, laid 
 the powder bag, and masked it, then a sergeant of sappers 
 lighted the match and shrank back behind a projecting bit 
 of wall. Bang ! The mask of the petard just grazed our 
 heads, and one side of the gate lay on the ground. At 
 the same moment firing began in the direction of 
 Parseval's column. " Forward ! God save the King ! " We 
 caught sight of the guard at the gate bolting off, and then 
 lost it in the fog. There wasn't a cat in the streets. The 
 noise of the musketry fire had driven in anybody who 
 might have been out. Led by a guide we passed at a 
 swinging pace down a street which brought us to the 
 Mexico gate. Here the fog lifted a little. A few shots 
 and bayonet thrusts got rid of the guard at the gate. Just 
 at this moment a barouche galloped up from within the 
 town. It was drawn by six mules with picturesque- 
 looking postilions, in broad-brimmed hats. It was the 
 barouche which had brought Santa Anna, trying to get into 
 the open country. We shot down two or three of the mules, 
 but the carriage was empty. 
 
 We then received a heavy discharge of musketry from 
 about a hundred and fifty soldiers who forthwith dis- 
 appeared down a side street. They were the headquarters 
 guard. Off we tore after them, and were just in time to 
 see the last of them go into a big house which my guide 
 informed me was the headquarters of the military 
 governor. A huge court with galleries running round it, 
 and above them on the first floor more arcades, adorned 
 with flowers in pots and climbing plants, met our gaze 
 when we entered. A sharp fire poured from the first 
 floor the instant we appeared in the courtyard. Hesitation 
 would be fatal. We must get upstairs and bring those 
 folk to their senses. A narrow stairway was the only road. 
 Well, every man must own to some weakness ! When I
 
 183S] ' PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 123. 
 
 saw that staircase, up which I should have to go first, and 
 receive the first volley alone when I got to the top, I 
 wavered for a moment, and waving my sword, I shouted, 
 " Volunteers to the front ! " My quartermaster, a Paris- 
 ian, rushed to the staircase, and the sight brought me 
 back to a sense of my duty. I rushed after him. We 
 raced against each other, and I had the satisfaction of 
 getting to the top a good first, followed indeed by my 
 whole company. There was nothing so very terrible about 
 it after all. At first we found ourselves in a sort of 
 vestibule ; an ill-directed fire, which wounded two of our 
 officers only, pouring on us through the doors and windows. 
 Then each of us set to work on his own account. A 
 second boatswain, of the name of Jadot, and I threw our- 
 selves against a door and broke it in with our shoulders. 
 When it gave, I was shot forward by my men pushing on 
 behind me, and hurled into a room full of smoke and 
 Mexican soldiers. One of them, in a white uniform and 
 red epaulettes (I see his straight Indian hair and wicked eye 
 yet), was aiming at me with the barrel of his musket close 
 to my face. I had just time to say to myself, " I'm done 
 for." But no, there was no shot, the gun fell on my feet, 
 and I saw my gentleman roll under a sofa carrying the 
 sword with which Penaud, my lieutenant, had run him 
 through as quick as lightning, stuck between his ribs. 
 
 I believe I rid myself of another great big fellow next, 
 and then, the first start having been given, there was a 
 general rout, and I found myself in another room at the 
 end of which I saw several officers, one a general, standing 
 together very calmly, wdth their swords sheathed. I rushed 
 forward with the boatswain Jadot, to protect them from 
 my men, who were somewhat excited, and the fight was 
 over. The name of the general, a tall fair handsome 
 fellow, was Arista. In later days he became President of 
 the Mexican Republic. He surrendered his sword to me, 
 and I had him taken downstairs, and left him in the hands 
 of artillery Commandant Colombel, who sent him to the 
 fort. As for Santa Anna, we could not find him, though
 
 12V!^' SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, v 
 
 his bed was still warm. We took his epaulettes, and his 
 commanding officer's baton, and Jadot the boatswain, who 
 had lost his own straw hat in the scuffle, put on his gold 
 tipped one. 
 
 I lost no time in quitting the house, which was full of 
 blood, and where I was sickened by the sight of the bodies 
 of two wretched women who had been killed by the fire 
 through the doors. Once outside I met Captain Laine, 
 coming by the ramparts, and carrying out his task of de- 
 struction as he went. He urged me to march with my 
 company on a point in the town where Parscval's column was 
 keeping up a steady fire, keeping an eye meanwhile on the 
 churches, the towers of which were reported to be armed with 
 cannon, I set out on this true ''course an clocher" and pre- 
 sently got to a large building from which we were fired upon. 
 
 We entered. It was the hospital. There was another 
 shindy in a big room on the ground floor, full of sick, 
 standing up or kneeling on their beds, scantily covered with 
 red blankets, and all shouting " Gracia ! " " Mercy ! " It was 
 a. horrible sight. All the poor wretches were more or less 
 far gone in yellow fever. We went in at one door and 
 hurried out at the other, and at last we got into a long 
 straight street, at the end of which we saw a large house 
 with musketry fire crackling from every window like a great 
 set piece of fireworks. This huge and solid building, set 
 astride on the ramparts, with doors on to the town, and 
 doors into the country, was called the " la Merced " barracks. 
 Full of troops as it was, and with reinforcements constantly 
 coming in from outside, it had stopped Parseval's column 
 ever since the morning, and was soon to stop Laine's cis 
 well. One great door faced the street up which we were 
 going. Of course it was shut. We brought a gun to bear 
 on it, and sent a shell into it. Amid the smoke of the dis- 
 charge, mingled with the sort of fog that was still hanging, 
 we thought the door was broken in, and rushed forward. 
 But when we got near we found the cursed thing was intact, 
 and we were forced to throw ourselves back into the side 
 streets for shelter, for in one instant the whole head of our
 
 183S] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 125 
 
 column, six or seven being officers, had been killed or 
 wounded. We then set to work, sappers, artillerymen, 
 sailors, and all, to throw up a barricade across the street, so 
 as to bring up a battery of guns, and break that door right 
 down before beginning the attack afresh. But just on this 
 the admiral arrived and the chiefs in command took counsel 
 with him. Considering half our crews were on shore and 
 that the slightest change in the weather might prevent their 
 getting back on board ship, and considering too that the 
 admiral's object had been attained, he gave orders for us 
 to re-embark. The return journey offered no difficulty, 
 except at the very last moment, when nobody was left on 
 the mole but the admiral and a few officers. Then, a great 
 sound of cheering and of warlike music was heard in the 
 town. It was Santa Anna coming to drive the Frenchmen 
 into the sea. Out he came, on horseback, on to the mole, 
 at the head of his men, but the launches from the frigates 
 which were still lying on each side of the jetty fired grape 
 shot into the head of the column, and laid everybody low, 
 — Santa Anna and the rest of them. Some fanatics rushed 
 to the end of the mole in spite of this, to try and shoot the 
 admiral point blank, and he was in great danger. His 
 coxsv/ain and the midshipman on duty, Halna Dufrétay 
 (an admiral and a senator when he died), covered him with 
 their own bodies and were both severely wounded. His 
 secretary, who was with him, and who carried a double- 
 barrelled rifle, killed two Mexicans in two shots. A great 
 friend of mine was killed there too, a charming young 
 fellow who had a great future before him — Chaptal, a first- 
 class cadet, it was known that I was much attached to 
 him and I was given his aiguillettes (which I sent to his 
 family) as a remembrance of him. When I got back to the 
 Creole, bringing two of my midshipmen, Magnier de 
 Maisonneuve and Gervais, with me, both severely wounded, 
 the admiral sent me orders to fire a shell into the " la 
 Merced " barracks every five minutes. This closed the 
 day of my baptism of fire. The military operations of the 
 campaign were over. The fort of Saint Juan d'Ulloa
 
 126 
 
 SOUVENIRS OF THE 
 
 [chap. V 
 
 remained in our hands in pledge. It was the diplomats' 
 business to complete the work. The admiral dismissed 
 the greater number of his ships and soon sent me off to 
 Havana, which place I did not reach without falling in 
 with two of those violent squalls which are called iiorte in 
 the Gulf of Mexico. I was to lie there on the watch, ready 
 to attack privateers if the Mexican Government should 
 resort to that form of warfare — the fleetness of the Creole 
 fitting her specially for such service. Meanwhile my visit 
 was very pleasant to me, after the horrors of Sacrificio and 
 the yellow fever. The commander of an English corvette, 
 the Satellite, gave a dinner to M. de Parseval, two other 
 captains and myself, which was so cordial that towards 
 dessert one of the captains, who shall be nameless, passed 
 
 his hand gently across his brow and, murmuring " I don't 
 feel very well," sank straightway underneath the table. 
 We took him by the legs and shoulders, Parseval and the 
 English captain and I, but Parseval and the Englishman 
 laughed so much that we had some trouble in getting him 
 to a bed, on which we laid him and where he slept till 
 morning. 1 know not whether it was for this wound and 
 feat of arms that his native town raised a statue in his 
 honour. 
 
 Of course I sought and found all my former Havanese 
 acquaintances. One alone was invisible, the lady of the 
 cigarette. In vain I placed myself night after night before 
 her box. Nobody there ! In vain I paid visits to houses 
 I knew she frequented. The covers were all blank. I was 
 sorely grieved. So then I bethought me of a stratagem.
 
 1S38] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 127 
 
 The Créole set sail hurriedly, with much bustle, to go and 
 look for a Mexican ship, reported, so they said, to be at sea. 
 As soon as the day closed in I made all sail for the port, 
 and leaving my second officer in command, with orders to 
 pick me up at four o'clock next morning at a certain dis- 
 tance and in a certain line from the harbour lights, I 
 jumped into my boat and went ashore. With a bound I 
 was in the theatre. There she was ! And I laugh still 
 when I think of her grandparents' faces when they saw me 
 appear; but they raised the quarantine forthwith, and when, 
 soon after, I gave a ball on board the Iphigénie, that charm- 
 ing young lady was its chief ornament. Beautiful and 
 quaint that ball was, breezy with victory and duty well per- 
 formed, the glorious scars of the old Iphigénie mingling 
 with the splendour of the flowers and the lights. 
 
 After staying a month at Havana, as there was no 
 question of pirates, I was ordered to take the Creole back 
 to Brest, where I arrived in March, 1839. My monkey 
 was the first to see and point out the land from the top of 
 the rigging. I had hardly got into the roadstead before 
 the maritime prefect boarded me to tell me I was made a 
 knight of the Legion of Honour. The worthy admiral 
 insisted on receiving me as such before the guard, which 
 had been turned out. He drew his sword to give me the 
 accolade, and made me a little speech, under the fire of 
 which 1 did not flinch, though he was deeply moved.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 1839 
 
 Scarcely had I landed from the C^'cole when I received 
 the distressing news of the death of my sister Marie 
 Duchess of Wurtemberg. It was the first mourning in our 
 family, the first break in that numerous circle of tenderly 
 attached brothers and sisters. I adored my sister, who 
 was a most remarkable woman, witty, as passionate in her 
 antipathies as in her affections, an artist to the very tips of 
 her fingers. Her death was a deep sorrow to me, and it 
 saddened my short stay among my own people. A short 
 stay it was indeed, for I only came ashore in March, and 
 June found me at the entrance of the Dardanelles, attached 
 to the staff of Admiral Lalande, commanding our squadron 
 in the Levant. 
 
 I had rather a funny little adventure on my way to take 
 up my duty. I had asked the then Minister of the Inte- 
 rior, M. Duchatel, to give orders that there should be no 
 official reception when I passed through Toulon — no 
 firing of guns, nor authorities waiting at the city gates, nor 
 troops drawn up, all that wearisome and commonplace 
 ceremonial which I had been through I know not how 
 many times already. The minister had given his promise, 
 and, strong in his assurance, I was just getting there quietly 
 in my travelling-carriage, when the sight of a mounted 
 gendarme, who galloped off the moment he caught sight 
 of us just after we got through the pass of Ollioules, 
 made me suspect some treacher)- or other. Without a
 
 i839l SOUVENIRS OF PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 129 
 
 second's hesitation I jumped out of the carriage, the mo- 
 ment the gendarme was out of sight, and desiring my 
 valet to go on with it, struck across the fields on foot to 
 the harbour. I had not been mistaken, for soon I heard 
 twenty-one guns greeting the entrance of my empty vehicle 
 into Toulon, doubtless amid what the stereotyped official 
 phrase would call, and with good reason this time, a scene 
 of indescribable enthusiasm. 
 
 Important events were occurring in the east in rapid 
 succession at the time I joined Lalande's squadron. The 
 recommencement of the struggle between ancient Turkey 
 and that youthful Egypt which the genius of Mehemet AH 
 had created, had just ended in the final defeat of the Turks 
 in the battle of Nezib — a defeat which was closely followed 
 by the death of Sultan Mahmoud, the last of the deter- 
 mined autocrats of the race of Othman. Action on the 
 part of the European fleet might arise at any moment, 
 owing to these complications and the rivalries thereby ex- 
 cited between England and Russia — great Eastern powers 
 both of them. Our sole preoccupation therefore during 
 our cruise in the Dardanelles was to get our ships into 
 such condition that they might make a good show in the 
 event of anything of the kind occurring. I have related 
 elsewhere how we succeeded, under the powerful will of 
 Admiral Lalande, in reconstituting such a fighting fleet as 
 we had never possessed since the Revolution swept away 
 at one fell swoop the whole of the navy of Louis XVI., 
 with its body of first-class ofiicers, and all that collection 
 of traditions both as to discipline and knowledge which it 
 had gradually acquired. 
 
 The admiral's great merit lay in reconstituting these 
 traditions, which have taken deep root and are carefully 
 treasured still. And the curious thing, the peculiar trait, 
 about him was that, though he desired certain results, he 
 would have nothing to do with the means to attaining them. 
 This state of warlike efficiency was not obtained without 
 trouble. Constantly under sail, and overtaxed with rough 
 and unaccustomed forms of drill as the crews were 
 
 K
 
 I30 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, vi 
 
 demoralized too by accidents — men killed or arms and legs 
 broken — the result insisted on by the chief in command 
 Avas only reached by treating them with extreme severit}-. 
 On board the Icna, the flagship, corporal punishment — 
 nowadays found useless, and therefore very properl)- 
 abolished — was of daily occurrence, But the admiral 
 ignored it, never would have it even mentioned to him. 
 He left all that to his flag captain, my friend Bruat, a most 
 energetic officer. I never heard one word of reprimand 
 from Admiral Lalande's lips, and once I saw him get into 
 a fury with one of his captains, who had appealed to his 
 disciplinary authority. The scene is worth describing. 
 
 This worthy captain (his name was Danican) commanded 
 the ship Jupiter, on which I had taken passage from 
 Toulon to join the squadron, and one of my earliest duties 
 was to present the new comer, with his staff, to the admiral. 
 These gentlemen stood in a circle in the great cabin round 
 Captain Danican, armed to the teeth, cocked hat in hand, 
 and his sword-belt buckled high up round his little body. 
 There they waited, " Père Danican," as he was familiarly 
 called, a veteran sailor, whose name is borne by one of the 
 streets in St. Malo, had the most splendid service record, 
 with this item in particular, that he had been reported as 
 killed in a fight with the English. He had been struck in 
 the belly by grape-shot, lost consciousness, and laid out 
 with the rest of the dead, of whom a list was being made 
 before throwing them overboard one after the other, when 
 the battle was over. They were actually swinging him 
 backwards and forwards to heave him over the side, when 
 one of his comrades called out, " Hold on. Let Danican 
 alone. We'll give him a funeral " — to which ceremony the 
 old Breton owed his life, though it did not soften the by 
 no means placid character of the strict old disciplinarian. 
 
 And accordingly, something in his eye, when the admiral 
 came skipping in smilingly, with a commonplace " Good- 
 day, Danican," " Good-day gentlemen," warned me we 
 were going to have a scene. " Admiral," he shouted in a 
 voice of thunder, " I have the honour to present the staff
 
 1839] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 131 
 
 of the ship Jupiter to you — and I take this opportunity, 
 Admiral, of telHng you that it would be impossible to be 
 more dissatisfied with these gentlemen than I am ! " This 
 tirade concluded by a violent v/ave of his cocked hat, while 
 the officers stood motionless and stared at the deck. A 
 thunderbolt falling out of heaven would not have startled 
 the admiral more than this speech. I never saw any man 
 so put out of countenance. He shuffled his feet, gave a 
 forced laugh, and not finding anything to say, stammered 
 some disconnected words, " I trust .... my dear . . . 
 Danican .... a regard for duty .... these gentlemen 
 ....!" We put a stop to the distressing scene by low 
 bows of dismissal, and everybody went off in a rage — the 
 officers with their captain, the captain with the admiral 
 for not supporting discipline, and the admiral with every- 
 body, including, it may be, his own self. 
 
 Nobod}' was satisfied, which is indeed the invariable 
 consequence of weakness, for the love of vulgar popularity 
 was the weakness of our eminent chief, so deeply respected 
 on other accounts. This same weakness caused him to 
 end his days as a Deputy of the most colourless opinions. 
 
 I cruised for six months outside the Dardanelles, first 
 with the Icna and afterwards with the Belle-Pouky 
 which had joined the squadron and of which I had been 
 given command — six months which offered nothing in the 
 way of wild gaiety, beyond the routine of my duty. True, 
 we saw the sun rise over Mount Ida every morning, but 
 we never saw the shadow of a goddess. The utmost we 
 did in the short breathing spaces between our drills and 
 cruises between Cape Baba and the Isles of Tenedos, 
 Lemnos and Imbro, was to land at the slaughter-house of 
 the contractor to the squadron, irreverently styled Charog- 
 nopolis, for an excursion to the ruins of Troy, to shoot snipe 
 in the marshes of Simois, or get a hare on the tomb of 
 Patroclus. 
 
 This monotony was broken, howev^er, by the appearance 
 of the Turkish fleet, which we saw issuing, forty strong, 
 from the Dardanelles, sailing along in confusion, driv- 
 
 K 2
 
 132 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, vi 
 
 ing before a strong breeze — altogether a most stately 
 sight. 
 
 We took station abreast of the squadron, saluting the 
 Capitan Pasha, who on his side ordered his fleet to heave 
 to — a manœuvre which was performed amid a fine con- 
 fusion. A steam launch at once came towards us. It 
 bore the second in command of the fleet, Osman Pasha, 
 sent by the Capitan Pasha to request an interview with 
 Admiral Lalande. He consented and boarded the 
 Turkish ship, taking me with him. 
 
 During our passage to the Capitan Pasha's flag-ship, 
 Osman Pasha led us below, closed all the cabin doors with 
 an air of mystery, and with the help of a young Armenian 
 dragoman he told us a long story, which I will sum up in 
 a few words. Constantinople, so he said, was being laid 
 waste by fire and sword. On the death of Sultan 
 Mahmoud, Kosrew Pasha, who was no better than a 
 Russian agent, had seized the reins of power. He stuck 
 at nothing, so long as he kept them. The real Turks, the 
 faithful Mussulmans, were losing their heads by the hun- 
 dred ; the head of the faith himself, the Sheik el Islam, 
 had not been spared. He refused to consecrate the new 
 Sultan until he wore the venerated turban of Othman 
 upon his head instead of the revolutionary fez, and for 
 this he was strangled at midnight, with great pomp it 
 is true, and amid the salvos of artillery due to his exalted 
 rank (a poor consolation, I thought to myself!). The lives 
 of Osman Pasha himself and of his chief, the Capitan 
 Pasha, hung by a thread. Wherefore they had both 
 resolved, instead of fighting against Mehemet Ali, as 
 everybody believed they would, to make common cause 
 with him, so as to unite all the Mussulman strength in 
 one single alliance, and make one of those concentrated 
 efforts which have been the dream of every period and 
 every country which has been torn by revolution. In 
 plain English, the two chiefs in command were carrying 
 the unconscious fleet into an act of defection which was 
 intended to save their own heads. They wanted the
 
 1 839] 
 
 PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 
 
 133 
 
 admiral's approbation, which he refused. Then they 
 asked for a French war-ship to go with them as a sort of 
 Hfeboat, which he promised them, and above all, they 
 begged that no word, glance, or gesture of ours, during the 
 visit we were about to pay, might betray the secret confided 
 to us. We then boarded the Capitan Pasha's flagship, where 
 we had a reception that was truly oriental in its mingled 
 pomp and duplicity — we alone, amidst the crowd of cour- 
 tiers, officers, and foreign representatives surrounding this 
 commander-in-chief, about to turn traitor, being possessed 
 of his secret. Not to mention that as we went along 
 the gun decks, we saw the Turkish gunners smoking 
 their pipes beside the heaps 
 of cartridges piled between the 
 guns. A highly oriental sight 
 also, and far from tranquil- 
 lizing ! 
 
 By evening the Turkish fleet 
 had disappeared over the hori- 
 zon, and the only other re- 
 collection my memory holds of 
 this period is that of a recon- 
 naissance along the northern 
 coast of the Dardanelles, and 
 the peninsula between Gallipoli 
 
 and the Gulf of Saron, which reconnaissance I made with 
 several other officers, under colour of a sporting expedition 
 in a Turkish boat called a sakolève and with a view to an 
 ultimate military occupation of the peninsula. Mayhap 
 the notes made during this expedition were of use when 
 Gallipoli was occupied in 1854, at the beginning of the 
 Crimean War, 
 
 In the course of the autumn, I beheld Constantinople, 
 that most wonderful of landscapes, for the first time in my 
 life. And to begin with, the thing which struck me most 
 were the sunsets over the huge city. Nothing can give any 
 idea of how magnificent they are, with the towers and thou- 
 sand mosques of Stamboul standing out like a mysterious
 
 134 
 
 SOUVENIRS OF THE 
 
 [chap. VI 
 
 vision in the mist)- golden haze, an enchanted cit}' of 
 aerial palaces hanging in mid-air. In tho.se days the soft 
 evening mists I speak of were ideal in their transparence, 
 which no smoke ever dimmed, for the factories and steam- 
 boats which now hang their 
 black plumes over Constanti- 
 nople were then unknown. 
 Instead of steamers, there 
 were only those delightful 
 caiques, laden with brightly- 
 dressed passengers, gliding 
 silently along in their thou- 
 sands, and leaving as it were 
 tracks of glistening spangles 
 in their wake. Nothing can 
 ever efface that sight from my recollection. 
 
 Among the caiques, which are quite peculiar to the 
 Bosphorus, was one I met many a time, and which was 
 indeed well known to everybody. It belonged to a sister 
 of the late Sultan Mahmoud, celebrated in Constantinople 
 for her love affairs — a sort of Marguerite de Bourbon, for 
 whose fleeting favours several people had paid with their 
 heads. Three oarsmen, splendid white-skinned fellows 
 
 with long fair moustaches, and athletic frames scarcely 
 concealed beneath their white drawers and striped silk 
 gauze shirts, sent their mistress's caique flying through 
 the water. She was a tall woman, with piercing eyes and 
 an aristocratic air — always seated between two lovely 
 maids of honour. I say lovely, for the Turkish woman, 
 when she is unobserved, when she knows her own beauty 
 and meets eyes whose admiration she desires to rouse, 
 always finds means of permitting her veil the most delight-
 
 1839] 
 
 PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 
 
 135 
 
 fui if indiscreet revelations. Consequently I was always 
 on the look-out to try and get a sight of the Sultana's caique. 
 It must be remembered I was just off a cruise after long 
 months spent in warlike solitude on board ship. So, though 
 St. Sophia, with its size and its legend, had struck me as 
 being the most profoundly devotional edifice I had ever 
 seen — an impression which the sight of St. Peter's at Rome 
 and of the Cathedral of Seville has never removed — my 
 attention and curiosity were much more drawn to the 
 earthly representatives of the houris promised to the faith- 
 ful, than to the monuments of the Faith. 
 
 The curiosity I speak of led me on a certain Friday to 
 
 the Sweet Waters of Asia. I found the loveliest of scenes 
 lying before my eyes that delicious afternoon towards the 
 end of August. Imagine an immense meadow, broken up 
 by clumps of trees, sloping down to the swift blue waters 
 of the Bosphorus, on the other side of which ran wooded 
 hills dotted with mosques and minarets and gaily painted 
 country houses. Close to the edge of the water stands a 
 kiosk, and an elegantly-carved marble fountain. And 
 around the kiosk is a sort of promenade shaded by huge 
 plane-trees. Under these plane-trees a hundred, or there- 
 abouts, gaily adorned and plumed arabas, now standing 
 unharnessed in the meadow, had deposited an army of the
 
 136 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, vi 
 
 smartest Turkish ladies. Some of them sat beside the 
 water, others round the fountain, others again followed 
 little pashas mounted on ponies led by eunuchs. What 
 with the richness of the landscape, the truly oriental light, 
 and the variety and splendour of the dresses, the whole 
 sight was really fairy-like. We were very desirous of 
 studying it in detail, and at close quarters. A line of 
 soldiers cut off the portion of the grove of plane-trees 
 reserved to women only. But our ambassadress and 
 her daughters, who had come at the same time as our- 
 selves, had a right to enter it, and we hurried after them. 
 At first the officer commanding the guard tried to stop 
 us. However, after a colloquy with the dragoman of our 
 Embassy, he contented himself with begging us to go 
 through quickly. The ladies of the Embassy having 
 seated themselves among the Turkish ladiçs, we did like- 
 wise, and, in spite of the angry glances of the eunuchs, b}' 
 dint of mutual curiosity and a little flirtation we spent 
 several hours quite delightfully. Lots of pretty women, 
 and forbidden fruit into the bargain. No more veils, no 
 more férédjés. We could scrutinize the exquisite costumes 
 at our leisure. 
 
 When I say " No more veils " I ought rather to sa}- 
 nothing but an excuse for a veil — a gauze chin covering 
 leaving nose and eyes and eyebrows bare, and so trans- 
 parent across the mouth, that where that mouth w^as a 
 pretty one, to cover it at all was but an extra piece of 
 coquetry. 
 
 All these women were chatting, eating, amusing them- 
 selves, some sitting, some lying down, going and coming, 
 hanging about near the ladies of the Embassy, to examine 
 the details of their dresses too. If instantaneous photo- 
 graphy had existed in those days, what an infinity of 
 charming and picturesque groups might have been snatched. 
 I did venture to make one or two rapid sketches on the sly; 
 but there were too many eyes upon me, and besides it was 
 an abuse of the toleration which was being shown us. I 
 could not tear m}-self awa}- from this most exceptional
 
 iS39] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 137 
 
 sight, which will never be seen again, now the Turkish 
 ladies have adopted European fashions — boots and petti- 
 coats, and stays, deceiving stays ! 
 
 But every good thing comes to an end, and besides, as 
 the day wore on, a great cloud of smoke rose over 
 Constantinople, and steadily increased in volume. It was 
 evidently a fire. In that country, where all the buildings 
 except the mosques and a house here and there are wooden 
 — a fire is a terribly serious thing. Was it Stamboul, or 
 was it Pera, and with Fera our hotel, that was blazing .'' 
 Carried along by the sinewy strokes of our caïqchis, and 
 aided by the current, we went swiftly down the Bosphorus, 
 landed at Dolma-Batché, and rapidly climbed the Cemetery 
 Hill. Thence I saw a striking sight. The whole quar- 
 ter below, called Kassim Pasha, lying between Pera and 
 Galata, was in flames. Over three hundred houses were 
 alread}' burnt out. The wooden houses, kindled by falling 
 sparks, crackled like faggots, and we could see the confla- 
 gration spreading like a spot of oil. Fifty houses away 
 from those actually on fire, people were turning out, throw- 
 ing doors and windows and furniture into the streets, with- 
 out warning of any kind. Drawing nearer the scene of the 
 fire, we came upon a troop of vile-looking fellows, the 
 rioters of our country, grafted onto the Mussulman fanatic — 
 kavasses were raining blows with their sticks on this crowd 
 of volunteers (or thieves) ; firemen, bare-armed and turban- 
 less, hurried along, with their fire pumps on their shoulders, 
 shouting shrilly and knocking over people as they went ; 
 troops kept coming up from all quarters, horsemen trotted 
 up at full speed, and packs of terrified dogs tore wildly 
 through the streets, howling with pain. It was a singular 
 sight indeed. 
 
 Seeing the flames kept gaining ground, and were already 
 licking the first houses in the European quarter in Pera, I 
 sent orders for the crews of two of our ships, anchored at 
 Tophana, to land, slipped on my uniform, and put myself 
 at their head, resolved to try and save the Frank town. 
 Luckily it was calm, or the attempt would have been quite
 
 138 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap.'vi 
 
 hopeless. But the sun had set red, and that presaged 
 wind. There was no time to be lost. I hurried up with a 
 hundred and fifty sailors. The first houses on each side of 
 the street of Fera were in flames, but a spot was pointed 
 out to me, twelve or fifteen houses off, where, the street 
 narrowing between a stone mosque and some gardens, 
 one might hope to clear a space to stop the fire, by 
 pulling down the five or six intervening houses. I had no 
 hesitation in giving the order for this, my men set eagerly 
 to work, and all the active portion of the Frank population 
 of Pera were seconding our efforts, when one of the 
 generals of the garrison, Selim Pasha, came up with his 
 men, and fell into a fury at the sight of what we were 
 doing. I forthwith seized him by the hand and dragged 
 him, the dragoman of the Embassy, M. Lauxerrois, follow- 
 ing us, to the top of the minaret of the mosque. Here I 
 said to the dragoman, " Do show this fool of a pasha that 
 the clearing we are making is our only chance of saving 
 Pera ; " and as M. Lauxerrois began to translate this into 
 Turkish, " Don't trouble," said Selim Pasha, in v^ery good 
 French, " I understand." I begged his pardon for the 
 epithet, but he had passed suddenly already from rage to 
 enthusiasm. He tore down stairs four steps at a time, and 
 I shortly saw him without his coat, in trousers and list 
 braces, helping us to pull down the houses, and setting an 
 example of the utmost activity to his own men. 
 
 Down came the houses, one after the other. Our sailors 
 behaved splendidly. They climbed up on to the roofs and 
 fastened ropes, to w'hich we harnessed the whole of the 
 population, while the frameworks were being sawn through 
 below till the whole thing came down with a crash. 
 Indeed I saw one house come down with five or si.x sailors 
 perched on its roof. I rushed forward in horror, thinking 
 they must all be maimed or killed. Not a bit of it ! Only 
 a few hands and feet torn by nails ! Truly God watches 
 over the brave ! The fall of one Turkish house caused a 
 pretty scene ! The proprietor was determined to prevent 
 it. He struck and swore at us, — pulling out his beard.
 
 iS39] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 139 
 
 The anticipation of the destruction of his property drove 
 him wild. Finding nobody paid any attention to him, he 
 called his women folk to his assistance. They hastened 
 up like furies, at first. Then, changing their tactics, they 
 cast themselves on my officers, clasping them in their arms, 
 covering them with kisses and caresses, and trying '" the 
 power of their charms " on them in every imaginable way. 
 It was a curious sight truly to watch by the light of the 
 flames, and amidst such a cacophony of races, a handful of 
 sailors stopping the passers-by, Turks as well as the rest, 
 setting them to work, snatching the fire-pumps from the 
 firemen, carrying soldiers and generals too along with 
 them, and in fact ruling the roast in the very middle of 
 Constantinople. 
 
 At last, thanks to the fire-pump and thanks to our own 
 selves, the fire stopped just where we had fought it. I 
 went off then towards the cemetery, where it was still 
 burning, and where the sight was most singular. An 
 immense crowd of people, the whole population of the 
 burnt-out quarters of the town, in every imaginable cos- 
 tume, and silent like true fatalists, herded on the hill and 
 the plateau, together with whatever had been saved out of 
 the disaster. Under the red light of the conflagration, the 
 flames of which shot up in great jets into the skies, the 
 huge bivouac made a splendid picture, reminding one of the 
 works of the English painter Martyn, the Last Judgvient, 
 BelsJiazsar' s Feast, and so forth. Stamboul, with her 
 forest of minarets and her thousands of lights, stood out on 
 the horizon against a lovely starry sky, and in the fore- 
 ground the Seraskier sat in a big armchair, surrounded 
 by an immense staff, seeming very philosophically resigned 
 to the catastrophe over which he appeared to be presiding. 
 In one hand he held his pipe, and in the other a slice of 
 melon. We were already well acquainted, and when he 
 saw me coming up, all blackened with smoke and ashes, 
 he roared with laughter. But he gave me a slice of his 
 melon, and very grateful it was to my parched throat. 
 The fire was under control — that is to say, there was
 
 I40 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, vi 
 
 onl}' one block of houses left burning, and this had no 
 communication with either Galata or Pera. But the 
 disaster was a great one. Over fifteen hundred houses 
 had been burnt. The exact number was never known. 
 First because nobody counted them — that would have been 
 quite contrary to oriental indifference and fatalism — and 
 then because it would have been excessively difficult to 
 make them out, in the confused ash heap which had taken 
 their place. The number of families reduced to destitution 
 must have been very considerable, but individual charity 
 is very liberal amongst the Mussulmans, as indeed amongst 
 all people possessed of religious faith. I got home, at 
 one o'clock in the morning, worn out. Shortly afterwards 
 the wind rose. If it had begun to blow a little earlier, 
 nothing would have remained of Pera, of the Prankish 
 town, nor of the Embassies. 
 
 A very few days had gone by when I was bidden to 
 quite a different sort of entertainment. After the disease 
 of adopting the Gentile's trousers and frock-coat, yet 
 another disease seized upon Turkey — that of having a con- 
 stitution in imitation of the constitutions in vogue amongst 
 the Giaours, and the Sultan had the kindness to ask me to 
 see one proclaimed. Concerning the constitution itself, 
 which bore the altogether Turkish name of " Hatti Schereef 
 de Gulhané," I will say nothing. First of all because 
 I never read it, and secondly because I have been told 
 it was " liberal," that is to say, fitted, like M. Prudhomme's 
 sword, to organize government, and if necessary to destroy 
 it, this last more frequently — and that is quite enough for 
 me. But the proclamation ceremony was likely to be 
 curious. So on the appointed day I started forth in 
 full uniform, to be present at it. It was to take place 
 within the Seraglio. The first incident in the day was that 
 my boat met the Russian Minister's caique at the landing- 
 stage, and as neither of our coxswains would yield to the 
 other there was an awful bump, which damaged the dignity 
 of our attitudes by knocking us down like card houses. 
 Then we had to ride rather frisky horses in Turkish saddles,
 
 iS39] 
 
 PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 
 
 141 
 
 and this, what with our cocked hats, dangling swords, 
 and unstrapped trousers, was yet another trial to the 
 dignity of some of my sailor comrades. Nevertheless, we 
 got without hindrance to a kiosk, the upper story of which 
 was to be occupied by the Sultan and his harem, and the 
 lower by the diplomatic corps. A special window had 
 been reserved for me. Bands began to play, loud shouts 
 were heard. The Sultan was coming, on horseback, 
 preceded by a crowd of officers and pashas, in full dress. 
 Between him and them, dressed in a sort of blue blouse with 
 epaulettes, hobbled a little lame man with a big red head, a 
 white beard, and a spiteful-looking face. It was Kosrew 
 
 .%K 
 
 Pasha, the Grand Vizier, he who had caused so many 
 heads to fall, the strangler of the Sheik el Islam. He 
 bowed low several times as he passed me. After him came 
 the Sultan's pages, handsome young fellows, carrying 
 halberts and wearing gilt shakos with immense plumes of 
 peacocks' feathers, aigrettes, or birds of Paradise. In the 
 centre of them was the Sultan himself, almost hidden by 
 their plumes. He kept his head thrown back and wore a 
 black cloak trimmed with diamonds and a fez with an 
 aigrette adorned with the same stones. He dismounted. 
 The Grand Vizier and the new Sheik el Islam held up the 
 corners of his cloak, while a hideous negro, with hanging 
 lips and haunches like a woman, covered with embroideries,
 
 142 
 
 SOUVENIRS OF THE 
 
 [chap. \i 
 
 advanced to receive him. This was Kislar Aga, chief 
 
 eunuch and governor of the harem. 
 
 And now evcr)'body has come, "Let the sport begin." 
 
 From my window I look out on a broad space, surrounded 
 by beautiful umbrella pines and 
 sloping gently down to the sea. 
 Beyond is the Asiatic shore of the 
 Bosphorus and the pretty village of 
 Kadi-Keni, This space is full of 
 troops, twelve splendid battalions 
 of the Imperial Guard, Lancers and 
 Artillery. These form a circle, in 
 the centre of which rises a pulpit 
 covered with some yellow stuff, and 
 around it the pashas and the whole 
 
 — body of Ulemas and Mollahs, wear- 
 
 - ing the ancient costume — coloured 
 kaftans, and big white or green 
 
 turbans, crossed with broad gold bands — shortly collect. 
 The chief dervishes and the heads of all the religious 
 sects are there also. All this clergy stands there motion- 
 less, impassive, with lowered eyes, not over pleased, I fancy, 
 at bottom. Then the crowd makes 
 a rush, which infuriates the Grand 
 Vizier. He makes towards it, lift- 
 ing his little leg very high and 
 waving his handkerchief. At the 
 very sight of him everybody flees, 
 and retires humbly within bounds. 
 Then the manuscript of the Hatti- 
 Schereef is brought to him. He 
 carries it respectfully to his lips and 
 forehead, and hands it over to Res- 
 chid Pasha, who ascends the pulpit 
 and reads it out. That over and 
 
 finished midst the deepest silence, an Imaum takes 
 Reschid Pasha's place in the pulpit. He stretches out 
 his arms. All present do the same, the soldiers stretch-
 
 iS39] PRINCE DE JOIXVILLE 143 
 
 inj out but one on account of their weapons, and he 
 intones the prayer for the Sultan, which every one repeats 
 in chorus. After which every man passes his hand 
 across his eyes and beard and the troops shout " Allah " 
 three times, with unequalled fervour and passion. Hundreds 
 of cannon are fired in all directions, and the beautiful sight, 
 lighted up b}-the most brilliant of sunshine, has come to an 
 end. The Sultan has departed. The Sultana Validé sends 
 me a posse of officials, bearing cakes and sweetmeats. I 
 take leave of Kosrew Pasha and depart also, thinking 
 sadly that if this Turkish people, so brave on the field of 
 battle and apparently still so devoted to its sovereign, and 
 so firm in its religious faith, is truly, in spite of all, a rapidly 
 decaying nation, the miserable rag of paper read out this 
 day will certainly not save it. 
 
 The Sultan gave me an uninteresting audience in the 
 pretty Top-Kapou Palace — now burnt down, I believe — 
 which stood on the extreme end of the Seraglio point. I 
 had vàsited the palace, which was then unoccupied, with a 
 very witty Pasha who spoke French admirably well — and 
 whom I had known in Paris — Namick Pasha, commander 
 of the Imperial Guard. We had gone over all the rooms 
 in the harem, and this visit, with the explanations and 
 commentaries given me by such a guide, had been most 
 interesting. One room was a perfect gem, and I cannot 
 resist the pleasure of describing it. It was very large, 
 circular, the floor covered with very fine matting. All 
 round it was a little raised platform, covered with divans. 
 The walls were entirely formed of great mirrors, in splendid 
 rococo frames of carved wood, gilt. It was evidently the 
 room in which the harem festivals were held. Between the 
 mirrors were eight little doors, every one leading to a small 
 apartment for one woman, fitted with mirrors and divans 
 and each hung with a différent stuff. To complete the 
 whole thing, there was a passage leading to a bath-house, 
 consisting of several very pretty marble bath-rooms. The 
 master of all this must have had a good time ! All sorts of
 
 144 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, vi 
 
 details were given me while I was there. The Sultan had 
 no legitimate wives except those who bear children — so the 
 competition may be imagined. Mahmoud had had thirty- 
 five children, but only five were left, two sons and three 
 daughters. The rest had died in infancy. The actual 
 Sultan, Abdul-iVIedjid, who was very young at the time of 
 my visit, had only one wife with child, but his mother, the 
 Sultana Validé, had just presented him with six young 
 ladies, said to be charming, as an encouragement. Besides 
 this, every year, at the Feast of Bairam,the Sheik el Islam 
 gives the Sultan a beautiful slave to whom he is compelled 
 by the Law and the Prophet to give proofs of his affection, 
 that very day, on pain of incurring the wrath of Allah. 
 Only nobody knows whether Allah, up in his celestial 
 home, has reason to be pleased or not. 
 
 Having still a few spare days before I rejoined the squad- 
 ron, I took advantage of an Austrian steamer to cross the 
 Black Sea as far as Trebizond, whence I gazed admiringly 
 on the splendid chain of the snowy Caucasian peaks. I 
 should much have liked to get as far as Erzeroum, in the 
 heart of Asia Minor. But as time failed me I contented 
 myself with travelling at full speed for one day, along the 
 road leading thither, with the Tartar or postman who 
 carried the mails, so as to obtain some idea of the country. 
 When I say road I speak figuratively. It was not even a 
 path. It was a mere track across the woods and rocks 
 and ravines of that mountainous region, but along that 
 track the Tartar galloped imperturbably, never stopping 
 however terrible the ground might be. When the post- 
 carrying experience was over, my comrades and I were 
 more done up than we had ever been in our lives. The 
 least weary of the party was the son of our consul at Tre- 
 bizond, Maxime Outrey, a charming lad, brought up and 
 dressed à F orientale, whom we had taken with us as our 
 dragoman, and who vied with the Tartar in speed and 
 boldness the whole day long like one possessed. On the 
 way back from Trebizond our steamer was crammed with
 
 iS39] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 145 
 
 passengers coming from every corner of Asia, the strangest 
 medley of Circassians, Persians, and cat merchants, and one 
 pasha. I bought a splendid Angora during the passage, 
 and the pasha bought himself a wife. The whole of the 
 negotiations for the latter acquisition, the discussions, the 
 examination and verification of the merchandize, took place 
 in our cabin, and very amusing it was. The young lady 
 belonged to a Tcherkess family which had eluded the 
 Russian cruisers, and come alongside of us at Trebizond 
 in big boats with triangular sails, spotted like a tiger's hide. 
 The head of the family, a tall old man, was going to Mecca, 
 to seek a cure there for the horrible agony caused by a 
 Russian bullet which was still in his head. His sons, 
 handsome fellows in splendid costumes, with fine features 
 and shoulders broad out of all proportion to waists that 
 were like girls', were going with him. There were a dozen 
 women besides, and do you know, my reader, what that 
 pack of women was ? Letters of credit, bank notes, by 
 means of which the old man with his wound expected to 
 pay the expenses of his journey ! Having no cash, he had 
 brought the twelve best-looking girls in his family with 
 him. He had just disposed of one on board, and he 
 reckoned on doing the same with the rest all along the 
 road. We soon made the acquaintance of the party. The 
 girls were huddled together on deck in a sort of cage or 
 trelliswork, where they remained, drenched by the sea, four 
 days and three nights, without their chatter and their out- 
 bursts of merriment ever ceasing for a single instant. They 
 all dreamt of becoming the wives of sultans or pashas and 
 of living in palaces. As the old man fed them with 
 nothing but millet, to fatten them, we used to bring them 
 our dessert after each meal, and so we were soon good 
 friends. Thanks to some triflling sei'vice I rendered the 
 old man, he consented to bringing the prettiest girl into 
 my cabin, and allowing her to unveil, so that I might do 
 her picture. I thought the model and her costume both 
 equally lovely, but the sitting was a very short one. 
 
 L
 
 146 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, vi 
 
 Whether it was shyness or sea-sickness I know not. But 
 she complained of the heat, began to cry, and I had to 
 send her awa}-. 
 
 I merely passed through Constantinople on my way 
 back. It was the middle of Ramadan, all the mosques 
 lighted up at night, and the women promenading in the 
 square of the Seraskier in the daytime — a regular persi/. 
 I went there one day with Paul Daru, Lavalette and Cyrus 
 Gérard, all members of the embassy M. de Sercey was 
 taking to Persia. They came from Paris and told me the 
 news from there. In my turn I told them all about the 
 battle of Nezib, a very interesting description of which I 
 had had the good luck to hear from two young Prussian 
 officers, eye-witnesses of it, one of whom became the cele- 
 brated Marshal von Moltke ; and also all I learnt about the 
 Eastern question on my visits to the Embassies, to Therapia 
 and Buyukderé. There I had met all the chief members 
 of the diplomatic corps, which consisted during my stay 
 of two French ambassadors, succeeding each other, both 
 of them instability personified — one was Admiral Roussin, 
 a distinguished sailor, the other M. de Pontois, a pro- 
 fessional diplomat — both of them very kind, but neither, 
 as a result of their instability, having any real influence. 
 Beside them two men of tenacit)' and steadfastness 
 admirably personified two great powers. Lord Ponsonby, 
 a tall, blunt, haughty, unsociable old man, represented 
 British perseverance and Lord Palmerston's prejudices, 
 while M. de Boutenieff, a charming, kindly, and witty man, 
 liked by everybody and making game somewhat of all, 
 stood for the great destinies of the Russian people, and the 
 mighty will of the Emperor Nicholas. An armed Russian 
 intervention in the Bosphorus was no longer in question, 
 but it was unforeseen as yet that Russia and England 
 would agree to ruin the work of Mehemet Ali, the last 
 strength in reality of the Mussulman world, and that the 
 whole of Europe would join these two powers in their wil- 
 ling alliance for the isolation and humiliation of P'rance,
 
 1839] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 147 
 
 revolutionary France ! No more allies for us, since we have 
 gone into that mill ! We sacrificed 200,000 men in the 
 Crimea. What did we get by it ? The garter for Napo- 
 leon III. One word or deed of sympathy for all our 
 reverses.'' Not the shadow of one ! Revolutionary France 
 has been asked for help. But none has ever been given 
 her. Would it be rendered her now .-' God grant it !
 
 CHAPTER Vil 
 
 1 840 — 1 84 r 
 
 I LEFT Constantinople with a farewell glance, full of 
 pleasant memories, over its forest of minarets, over the 
 Bosphorus and the smiling Princes Islands, and at the 
 snowy peak too of Mount Olympus, which, with my 
 taste for mountaineering, I had climbed but a short time 
 previously. An interesting ascent it had been, first of all 
 through that Eastern Switzerland around the pretty town 
 of Broussa, and then over the snow and rocky debris to the 
 summit, whence a matchless panorama is to be seen. 
 The squadrons, one French and one English, forming a 
 strong force of ships, were at that time on guard at the 
 mouth of the Dardanelles. I w^ent back to my duty in 
 ours, which was still as active and incessantly drilled as 
 ever. The English squadron, commanded by Sir Robert 
 Stopford, a handsome white-haired old man, was less 
 restless. But the fleets dispersed before long. Ours sailed 
 for Smyrna, whence the Admiral sent the Belle Poule 
 under my command, and the Triton, Captain Hamelin, 
 back to France. We sailed in company, and after a 
 somewhat lengthy winter passage, we got to Toulon 
 only to find ourselves put into thirty-five days of quaran- 
 tine. Five and thirty days of prison and solitude and 
 uselessness imposed on a crew without a single sick man, 
 which was daily inspected by its officers as to cleanliness, 
 whose health was looked after by three doctors, and which 
 had just gone through the best and safest of purifying 
 operations — a long sea voyage. Five and thirty days
 
 1840— i84i] SOUVENIRS OF PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 149 
 
 during which 400 men ate and drank and Hved at the 
 expense of the National Budget without doing the smallest 
 work for the country — the whole thing inflicted by the 
 Sanitary Board — a purely local and irresponsible body 
 with its eternal round of red tape. A good thing it is 
 indeed that such a monstrous and intolerable abuse should 
 have been abolished ! The only reason it lasted so long 
 is, that it brought in a revenue to the members of the 
 board. To begin with, they filled the inn they kept under 
 the title of " Lazaretto " by force, and then they sold the 
 disinfectants. " Gentlemen," the sanitary officer would 
 say, with his provençal accent — " Nous allons faire le 
 parfum." The crew were shut up below, the officer lighted 
 a sort of pastille which made a great smoke, everybody 
 pretended to sneeze at once .... and we were dis- 
 infected ! The farce was over ! There was a great dinner 
 too, which the board gav^e itself at Saint Roch, at the 
 expense of the persons in quarantine, which put the 
 finishing touch to the scandal. Wherefore, during my 
 own detention, I always had the band on deck as soon 
 as the boat belonging to the board appeared in the port, 
 and greeted it with the most horrible and discordant of 
 music. Further, I asked guilelessly for leave to carry on 
 my ship's firing drill in the Lazaretto Bay, and I took care 
 to open fire so close to the Lazaretto itself that I heard 
 all the glass in the windows fall out with a crash. As I 
 expected, I was forbidden to do it again, the board being 
 furious, and having lodged a complaint, stating that I used 
 bad cartridges, but I had a delicious moment of vengeance 
 all the same. 
 
 The quarantine came to an end at last, I was given leave, 
 and once more, with joy, beheld my family, and Paris too. 
 I had spent the greater part of my existence for the past 
 four years at sea, and I confess I thirsted somewhat for 
 Paris, dear unrivalled Paris ! I got there in the heart of 
 the winter of 1839, and left it in the first days of June of 
 the same year. What recollections have I of those four 
 months of repose ? In vain I tax my memory, I can find
 
 ISO SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, vir 
 
 nothinsr, or hardly anything at all. As far as exterior 
 events go, none but the most infinitesimally small — the 
 eternal wearying struggle between ministers ni esse and 
 ifi posse, which left the bulk of the public exceedingly 
 indifferent. If the situation from the external point of 
 view had grown more serious, at all events it did not 
 inspire anxiety. The strength of the monarchical prin- 
 ciple still made itself felt, in spite of the hitch in 1830. 
 People reckoned on the King, on his wisdom and far- 
 sighted patriotism, to ward off the dangers, present and 
 future, with which the ambition of the permanent and 
 persevering' governments around us threaten us, but of 
 which our short-sighted democracy takes so little account. 
 The King was indeed shortly to justify this confidence b)' 
 saving France from a war with a European coalition, about 
 the Eastern question — a war into which we were being led 
 by the imprudence of M. Thiers and the bragging of our 
 press and which could have ended in nothing but disaster. 
 The governmental machine worked meanwhile, as a whole, 
 with tolerable smoothness. The House of Peers, the 
 members of which were permanent, and therefore strangers 
 to electoral compromise, discussed with weight and authorit)' 
 laws which were really progressive, respecting as they did 
 the interests and liberties of all concerned ; while the 
 Chamber of Deputies, consisting of unpaid members, voted 
 with much more care for the public weal than is possible in 
 an assembly of men enslaved by their election committees, 
 and perpetually haunted by the nightmare of re-election. 
 An independent magistracy, according to President 
 Seguier's fine expression, gave sentences, not services,. 
 " rendait des arrets, et non pas des services',' while the 
 administration, which was almost as permanent as the 
 magistracy, had time to do good work and did it. In short, 
 except for the criminal classes, and those incorrigible revo- 
 lutionists who ask perpetually for the impossible, every- 
 body felt that his security, his liberty, and his faith, were 
 well protected, and, as I heard said on all sides when I 
 came back from my voyages, people felt they were well
 
 iS4o— 1S41] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 151 
 
 governed. It is true that if I opened the newspapers I 
 generally read to the contrary in them — but if there were 
 some few serious organs of public opinion among these 
 journals, edited by courageous and talented men, who 
 did their best to serve their country by their writings^ 
 whatever their opinions might be, how many more had 
 editors who were mere slander-mongers, and columns 
 all the more eagerly read, the more calumnious they 
 were, and the more they pandered to every envious and 
 subversive passion. Such men were the spokesmen of 
 that increasingly numerous class of speculators, who 
 relinquish any useful career to seek fortune in the 
 chances of politics. According to them, oppression and 
 corruption had grown intolerable, and would never cease 
 until power passed into their own imm.aculate hands. 
 They alone possessed the secret for turning France into a 
 terrestrial Paradise, by applying in all sincerity the great 
 and high-sounding principles, liberty, equality and 
 fraternity. This sincerity of application, which has been 
 so frequently announced, dallies somewhat in its coming, 
 especially as regards equality, which to so many people 
 merely means, " That which I have not nobody else shall 
 have." The word equality is seductive truly, and in every 
 self-respecting community equality before the law must 
 be utterly absolute for all men. But so long as science 
 discovers no means for making all men equally intelligent 
 and all women equally beautiful, I shall continue to look 
 upon universal and blind equality as the most absurd and 
 the most dangerous of chimeras. These reflections did 
 not occur to me at the period I speak of. I was far too 
 careless in the year 1840 to bother my head about the 
 conundrums set by our office-seekers, " place-hunters " as the 
 Americans call them. While they were amusing themselves 
 with the fancies, envious, irreligious, unhealthy, and above 
 all self-interested, which they posed as deducing from the 
 principles of 1789, a far more terrible revolution than 
 the French one — for it was to strike the poor as well as 
 the rich — was shortly to burst upon us ; the revolution
 
 IS2 
 
 SOUVENIRS OF THE 
 
 [chap. VII 
 
 brought about by the use of steam and electricity and 
 rapidity of communication. Few people in those days 
 foresaw the complete subversion of all the conditions of 
 labour and food supply and life itself, which was to over- 
 take all the peoples gathered together in old-established 
 communities on worn-out soil, a subversion which is only 
 in its beginning as yet, and the remedy for which we 
 cannot discover. 
 
 One of the first results of the use of steam was to make 
 it essential for all nations having war fleets to transform 
 their arsenals and their naval stores. It was absolutely 
 necessary to be able to oppose an enemy, whose means 
 
 \! 
 
 1« 
 
 y^ 
 
 ? m: ■: Ï I 
 
 
 of attack could overcome wind and tide, with defensive 
 means of equal power. That was as clear as A B C. 
 This transformation interested me keenly — for the future 
 of the arm of the service to which I had fervently devoted 
 my whole life, and which I desired to see become once more 
 a redoubtable weapon of our country's power, was bound 
 up with it. But, to carry it through, we had to war 
 with routine, with the obstinacy bred of old habit, and with 
 the narrow ideas which were taught in the naval schools. 
 It was a continuous dail}- struggle in which I bore an 
 assiduous part. 
 
 Apart from this naval question, my time was spent 
 between my home life, my worship for the fine arts, and
 
 iS4o— iS4i] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 153 
 
 the theatre, and also in boar-hunthig, of which I grew 
 passionately fond ; and what makes this curious is that 
 before I tried it I scorned the idea to such an extent 
 that my brothers tied me up and took me by force the 
 first time. Every incident of the hunt, the attack, the 
 pursuit, all the unforeseen occurrences of the chase, 
 leading }^ou nobody knows whither, so that you even lose 
 yourself in the dark sometimes in strange places, has still 
 all the charm of struggle and action to me. And what a 
 pleasant party of sportsmen we used to be, during our 
 visits to Compiègne, to Chantilly, and above all to 
 Fontainebleau ! My brothers and I, the two Greffuhles, 
 Caumont, Morny, Valewski, Edgard Ney, La Rochette, 
 Casimir Pcrier, d'Albuféra, Wagram, the de I'Aigles ; 
 foreigners too, Bedmar, d'Ossuna — and officers — and some 
 
 ladies, — amongst these the beautiful Duchess of Somerset, 
 who always hunted in a mask, and was invariably escorted 
 by the charming Prince Labanoff. There were painters 
 too amongst the most assiduous sportsmen — -Jadin and 
 Decamps. Decamps, of whom I was a fanatical admirer, 
 was just in his best period — so too were Delacroix and M. 
 Ingres; and all that pleiad of great artists, young then and 
 in the full flush of their powers — Leopold Robert, Horace 
 Vernet, Delaroche, my own master Ary Scheffer, Flandrin, 
 and the landscape painters Marilhat and Corot — this last, 
 in his first manner, dry and rectilinear, like that of Poussin. 
 Nobody nowadays has any idea of the eager discussions 
 aroused by the opening of the Salon and the superior merit 
 of such a picture or statue. Nobody was indifferent : 
 everybody was cither for or against ; each man either
 
 154 
 
 SOUVENIRS OF THE 
 
 [chap, vu 
 
 attacked the artist or lauded liim to the skies. Works of 
 art bring more money now, according as they are produced 
 by this man or that, but they are less discussed. Which 
 is the best inspiration for an artist, money or passion .'* 
 
 The theatres too, the X'audeville, Variétés, Français, the 
 Opera, were dehghtful. At the Vaudeville, which had 
 migrated after the fire in the Rue de Chartres to the 
 Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle, Arnal, the inimitable, quaint- 
 est and cleverest of comic actors, was playing. At the 
 Varieties they Avere acting the Saltimbanques, a play every 
 line of which has passed into proverbs, which all my 
 
 generation have been repeating for the last forty years. A 
 woman of genius, Mademoiselle Rachel, had brought back 
 its long forgotten glory to the Théâtre Français. For my 
 part I never saw anything so absolutely perfect on the 
 stage. With hardly any gesture, simply by the play of her 
 countenance, her expressive glance, and the intonation of 
 her voice, she expressed all the passions with an intensity 
 that affected all her audience. She had a genius for dress 
 and drapery. In her peplum she might have been taken 
 for an anti(jue statue, and she knew how to endue herself 
 with the most incomparable womanly charm in all her
 
 1S40-1S41] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 155- 
 
 parts, even the most savage ones. If she had committed 
 murder you would have loved the murderess, and, strangely- 
 enough, this extraordinary woman was never witty except 
 with her pen. 
 
 As for the Opera, the production of the great composers 
 who had made its glory some years before had ceased. 
 Of that trio of wonderful artists. Nourrit, Levasseur, and 
 Mdlle. Falcon, only one, Levasseur, remained. The art 
 of music was taking a rest. To make amends for this, the 
 opera shone in ballet, fairy-like performances in which 
 pantomime and trap-doors played as important a part as the 
 actual dancing. Nothing could have been more enchant- 
 ing than the Diable Boiteux with its many and various 
 tableaux and its dresses, and Fanny Elsler dancing the 
 " cachucha," or the Sylphide or the Révolte du Sérail with 
 Taglioni. I saw my brother Nemours in great danger 
 during a performance of this last-named ballet. At a 
 certain point the dancers, representing the l'evoltées, armed 
 themselves with bows and shot a cloud of arrows into the 
 wings. Now in the heat of action one of these arrows, 
 launched with extraordinary vigour but uncertain aim by 
 a charming young lady, one of the principal dancers, 
 Mdlle. Duvernay, stuck in the column which separated the 
 Royal Box in the old Le Pelletier house from that of the 
 Marquis du Hallay, only a few inches from my brother's 
 head. There was an exclamation from all parts of the 
 house, great confusion on the stage and many comments 
 made. But " all's well that ends well." That happy time 
 of youth and carelessness and hunting and theatre-going 
 was not to last long. Two of my brothers started for 
 Africa — Chartres (as we always called our eldest brother 
 the Due d'Orléans) was to take over the command of a 
 division in the column which, under the orders of Marshal 
 Vallée, was to check the rising prestige of Abd el Kader 
 for ever at the Mouzaia Pass. My younger brother 
 Aumale, was to have the opportunity during this expedition 
 of breaking his first lance right brilliantly. I saw them 
 depart with envy, and to add to my annoyance I shortly
 
 156 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, vu 
 
 fell ill of a violent attack of measles. One day, as I la}- 
 in high fever, I saw my father appear followed by M. de 
 Rémusat, then Minister of the Interior. This unusual 
 visit filled me with astonishment, and my surprise increased 
 when my father said, " Joinville, you are to go out to St. 
 Helena and bring back Napoleon's coffin." If I had not 
 been in bed already I should have fallen down flat, and at 
 the first blush I felt nowise flattered when I coinpared the 
 warlike campaign my brothers were on with the under- 
 taker's job I was being sent to perform in the other 
 hemisphere. But I served my country and I had no right 
 to discuss my orders. And there were two sides to the 
 question, besides. Above Napoleon, the enemy of my house, 
 the murderer of the Due d'Enghien, who at his fall had 
 left that dangerous game of chance wherein the ignorant 
 herd is so often the dupe of the political croupier — universal 
 suffrage — as his legacy to ruined and dismembered France, 
 — there was the matchless warrior whose genius, even in 
 defeat, had shed immortal glory on our arms. To fetch his 
 ashes from a foreign land was in a manner to wave the flag 
 of vanquished France aloft once more — that at least was 
 what we hoped for — and this view of the case reconciled 
 me to my mission. As soon as I was on my legs again I 
 started for Toulon, provided with full orders and instruc- 
 tions, both royal and ministerial, and re-took command 
 of the Belle-Poule, a command I was to hold in man)- 
 seas, during three consecutive years, I felt some regret at 
 leaving Paris, but the delight at being back amongst the 
 faithful and worthy fellows who made up my crew, my 
 second family, soon made me forget what I had left behind 
 me. Presently a certain number of passengers came on 
 board. They formed what was called the St. Helena 
 Mission. Almost all of them had been comrades of 
 Napoleon in his greatness and in his misfortunes. There 
 Avere Generals Bertrand and Gourgaud, M. de las Gazes, 
 &c., &c. During the long passages of the voyage, the 
 conversation of these gentlemen, who had been present at 
 so many events and followed the Emperor through so
 
 iS40— 1S41] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 157 
 
 many adventures, was most deeply interesting. Every day 
 there was a running fire of anecdote and traits of character, 
 m.uch closer to the truth doubtless than many a leisurely 
 prepared history. I have often regretted we had no short- 
 hand writer with us. 
 
 During the first days of our voyage we touched at Cadiz 
 to get our last dispatches before starting across the ocean. 
 I was as glad as ever to see the white walls of Cadiz again, 
 and I made a pilgrimage to the Cortadura, to the Troca- 
 dero (this in memory of the brilliant exploits of the Royal 
 Guard in 1823), and also to the battle-field of Chiclana, 
 which witnessed a terrible struggle between ourselves and 
 the English in February 181 1, some of the actors in which 
 I had known. Coming back from Chiclana after a some- 
 what cheery luncheon, Arthur Bertrand, the general's son, 
 well known at that time in the gay world of Paris, gave us 
 a specimen of the maddest equestrian prowess. He 
 galloped at full speed across the Alameda at Chiclana, 
 which was paved with slippery flags, standing upright on 
 his English saddle. There is a providence that watches 
 over madmen ! 
 
 A characteristic incident occurred on leaving Cadiz. In 
 case of delicate negotiations with the English authorities 
 at St. Helena, and also in order to draw up the protocol 
 for the surrender of the body, a young diplomat, the Comte 
 Philippe de Rohan Chabot,^ had been associated with me. 
 We had hardly got out of the port of Cadiz, and cut our 
 last communications with France, when I saw him ap- 
 proach me, looking very much embarrassed. He offered 
 me a paper to read, saying it was only on account of his 
 orders he had not communicated it to me before. I cast 
 my eye over the signature at the foot of the paper and saw 
 the name of M. Thiers, President of the Council. By these 
 secret instructions, which were not to be imparted to me 
 till we got to sea, M. Thiers informed M. de Chabot that 
 he, Chabot, was his direct agent and that he invested him 
 
 ^ This gentleman died in London as French Ambassador, under 
 the title of Comte de Jarnac.
 
 158 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, vu 
 
 with superior authority to mine for as long as the mission 
 fihould last. Such was the strange missive, aimed not 
 only at the captain in command of the ship, but also, 
 with an evident intention to wound, at the King's 
 son — an application in a very small way of that maxim 
 so dear to M. Thiers, " the King reigns but he does 
 not govern." Stranger still was the care he took to 
 keep it secret until, being cut off from France, I was no 
 longer in a position to make any observation on the 
 contradiction between these fresh instructions and the 
 precise orders I had received previously. Friends from 
 ■childhood as we were, Philippe and 1, no idea of conflict 
 between us was admissible. I made no complaint to any 
 ■one and treated M. Thiers' behaviour to me with contempt, 
 but from that day the sympathetic and almost affectionate 
 relations I had previously lived in with that statesman 
 came to an end — they were replaced by a sense of deep 
 ■distrust and a scanty esteem for his character. 
 
 The Belle Poule put in at Teneriffe to take in provisions 
 and water, and I took advantage of this stoppage to finish 
 the ascent of the famous Peak which I had had to break 
 off in 1337. The last cone, all of crumbly pumice stone, 
 and at a very acute angle, is tolerably tiring. On the 
 summit i-; a small plateau, the soft soil of which is 
 covered with flowers of sulphur and creviced with smoke 
 holes from which scalding steam keeps escaping. Having 
 got up in two days, we descended rapidly to the smiling 
 little town of Orotava, built amidst the most lovel)- 
 vegetation in a sort of ravine opening out on the sea. 
 The female population of Orotava has a well-deserved 
 reputation for beauty, and we were very kindly met by 
 an invitation to make sure of the fact by being present 
 at an afternoon dance, a sort of "garden party" got up in 
 our honour — a great temptation truly, but a great per- 
 plexity as well ! People coming back off a mountain 
 climb, including two waterless bivouacs and a pull 
 through the smoke and ashes of a volcano, are not in ball 
 •trim, either as to costume or to cleanliness. After a hasty 
 
 I'
 
 iS40— iS4i] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 159 
 
 council of war, it Vv'as decided that we should draw lots for 
 the names of three of our party, who were to wash them- 
 selves, and to whom each of the non-chosen should furnish 
 the least damaged articles of his own clothing, so as to 
 put them in proper condition to go to the ball and keep 
 up the honour of our flag before the belles of Orotava. We 
 retired into a wood to proceed to draw lots and embellish 
 the elect. Fate did not favour me. I did not go to the 
 ball, but my boots did, and our comrades came back full of 
 admiration of all they had seen. 
 
 From Teneriffe our passage was a slow one. We had 
 calms, storms, even gales, and then a fresh delay in port 
 at Bahia in Brazil. I had been advised on leaving Paris 
 to arrange the progress of the mission so as to make the 
 return of the ashes of the Emperor to Europe coincide 
 with the opening of the Chambers in the end of December. 
 Indeed I believe the chief importance of the return of the 
 ashes of Napoleon, in M. Thiers' mind, lay in this coinci- 
 dence. It was the tom-tom by beating which he hoped to 
 drown all those reports and inklings of ministerial changes 
 which always sprout at such moments in the parliamentary 
 soil. But it was somewhat difficult to time our arrival to a 
 given moment, with a sailing ship, and after such a long 
 voyage. Originally I was to have called at the Cape 
 before going to St. Helena. I thought it better to replace 
 our stoppage at the Cape by one at Bahia, so as to shorten 
 the journey and save time. Very uninteresting our stay 
 at Bahia was, save for the following picturesque incident. 
 
 I had chartered a small steamer on which I used to go 
 on sporting expeditions with some of the officers. They 
 were somewhat in the nature of voyages of discovery up 
 the rivers which fall into Bahia Bay. During one of these 
 excursions we had got some considerable distance up the 
 Cachoeira without seeing a sign of any inhabitants, and 
 leaving our boat at anchor, we had landed and spent our 
 day in slaying toucans, parrokeets of all colours, and all 
 the strange birds and beasts peopling the virgin forest, 
 when at sunset we fell upon a cleared path, which led us to
 
 i6o SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, vii 
 
 a wide j^ladc and then to a village, the existence of which 
 had been hitherto quite unsuspected by us. We entered it 
 and found it deserted, the doors of all the houses shut. 
 We went towards a very large square in the middle of the 
 " Pueblo " — it was deserted too. We entered a fine church, 
 the door of which stood open — not a soul within it, though 
 the smell of the incense at some recently performed religious 
 ceremony still hung in the air. In the middle of the square 
 stood a kiosk, evidently intended for concerts ; the instru- 
 ments of an orchestra were still there, lying on the chairs 
 before the desks, as if the music had only been broken off 
 a few minutes previously. This suddenly deserted village 
 rather puzzled us. But in the hope of bringing the popula- 
 tion back to life, and with a certain spice too of mischief, 
 we laid down our guns, and seizing on the big drum, and 
 the abandoned trombones and clarionets, we raised a most 
 alarming noise. It was mere waste of time, nobody came. 
 The evening was falling, it was time to get back on 
 board our steamer, and we quietly retook our way towards 
 her. Night — a moonlight night it was — had completely 
 closed in, when wc got to the mangrove creek, where we 
 had left the small boat which was to bring us back on 
 board. We were crowding into the little craft, half aground 
 on the mud, when a great clamour rose from the forest, 
 and we saw weapons glint through the foliage on all sides. 
 In the twinkling of an eye, before we had time to 
 get over our surprise, a crowd of people armed with guns, 
 swords, and pikes, rushed up at top speed, yelling loudly, 
 and surrounded us, some remaining on shore and others 
 throwing themselves into the water. We were instantly 
 carried off, disarmed, separated, soundly thrashed, and 
 dragged into the forest. Anybody who has looked at the 
 picture of the savages attacking Captain Cook, in the 
 history of his voyage, will have an exact idea of the scene. 
 It was not otherwise than picturesque in the moonlight, and 
 under that tropical vegetation ; and it really was an attack 
 by savages too, most of them negroes, and the rest mulattoes. 
 Very luckily for us, our surprise and our unloaded guns, and
 
 1840— iS4i] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 161 
 
 the way we were crowded into the boat, prevented our 
 making any resistance, otherwise we should certainly have 
 been massacred, surrounded as we were by 200 armed 
 men. Each of us had his own little experience in the 
 scuffle. I, for my part, jumped into the water, knocking 
 up the pikes of two negroes, who looked as if they were 
 going to spit me, with my gun, and hurriedly caught a man 
 — with a civilian's hat on his head, a sash over his shoulder, 
 and a big sword in his hand, who seemed to me to be the 
 leader of the band — round the waist. I gave him to under- 
 stand, in a few words, in bad Portuguese, that I com- 
 manded the French warships anchored at Bahia, and that 
 if harm came to any of us, he and his fellows would live to 
 repent it. But before I could finish my speech the angry 
 crowd fell on me, carried me off, and dragged me to a 
 mound, against which, as I seemed to understand, they 
 meant to back me and shoot me. Indeed five or six 
 negroes stationed in front of me hastily loaded their guns. 
 The situation was far from pleasant, for those who know 
 the negro race know what they are capable of when 
 swayed by the paroxysms of excitement into which they 
 work themselves, whether from drunkenness, or rage, or 
 fear. Fouchard, whom two or three men were holding a 
 few steps off from me, seeing what was happening, threw 
 off his captors by a superhuman effort and sprang to my 
 side. We clung fast to each other, and this caused a fresh 
 struggle and a respite of a minute's duration, during which 
 the man in the sash, who had quickly understood this was 
 becoming a bad business for himself, charged at the head 
 of the most reasonable of his mulattoes. We were 
 captured and recaptured several times, but victory at last 
 rested with the man in the scarf, and an explanation 
 became possible. It appears there had been an election 
 with considerable disturbances — blessed be elections in 
 all places and countries! — in the village, on the preced- 
 ing day. The inhabitants in their over-excitement, had 
 been struck first with surprise, and afterwards with terror 
 on hearing us firing at the parrokeets. Their terror reached 
 
 M
 
 i62 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, vu 
 
 its height when seven or eight white-skinned men, oddly 
 armed and accoutred, were seen to enter the village. 
 The whole population fled into the woods. Then noting 
 from afar how small our number was, and more especially 
 observing our retreat, valour took the place of fright, and 
 arming itself, it rushed to the enemy's pursuit ! We were 
 set at liberty of course, and apologies were duly made ; 
 but that did not mend the blows received, especially by 
 one of the lieutenants of the Belle Potile, Penhoat, who 
 had been half murdered. We boarded our steamer, and 
 found the English engineer in charge of her completely 
 drunk. When we told him our story he rushed below to his 
 engine-room, and fetched out a huge pistol that must have 
 dated from Cromwell's time ; and we had all the trouble in 
 the world to prevent him from going on shore alone to 
 take signal vengeance on " those damned niggers." 
 
 Leaving Bahia, we had to go a long way down the 
 Southern Atlantic before we got a favourable wind. We 
 reached St. Helena at last — a great black rock, a jagged 
 volcanic island resembling Martinique, minus its splendid 
 vegetation — a scrap of Scotland set in mid-ocean, and 
 swept incessantly by the Trade wind, which blows with 
 wearisome continuance and gathers a thick and permanent 
 cloud-clap above the isle. It looked gloomy from the sea, 
 and the impression on arrival there was gloomy too. 
 James Town, the capital, is simply a wretched village, 
 stretching along a narrow valley, shut in by dreary-looking 
 rocks crowned by forts, to which you climb by staircases 
 counting six hundred steps. The countrj- around Planta- 
 tion House, the Governor's residence, the valley of the 
 Tomb, the Tomb itself with the legendary willows, and 
 Longwood, the prison house, all are equally gloomy, and 
 equally calculated to kill the great genius banished thither, 
 by inches. 
 
 The business which had brought me was quickly settled 
 between myself and the Governor, General Middlemore. 
 The orders of the British Government were clear and 
 precise, and the local authorities showed great goodwill in 
 
 I'
 
 iS4o— iS4i] 
 
 PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 
 
 163 
 
 carrying them out. They undertook the exclusive care of 
 the exhumation and transport of the remains over British 
 territory, and it was all done with the utmost propriety. 
 The only request I made and obtained was, that the coffin 
 should be opened before it was handed over to us, so as to 
 be sure that we were taking neither a hotbed of infection 
 nor an imaginary corpse on board. The Governor himself 
 
 being ill I saw but little of him. He commissioned the 
 officer in command of the troops, Colonel Trelawny, of 
 the Royal Artillery, to represent him. He was a pleasant 
 man, but decidedly eccentric. His great mania was the 
 study of genealogy, and he never failed to explain when we 
 met that he was my cousin, and that we were both related 
 to the late Sultan Mahmoud on the female side I 
 
 When all was ready the exhumation took place, and 
 
 M 2
 
 i64 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, vii 
 
 very imposing it was. Everybody felt impressed when the 
 coffin was seen coming slowly down the mountain side, to 
 the firing of cannon, escorted by British infantry with arms 
 reversed, the band playing, to the dull rolling accompani- 
 ment of the drums, that splendid funeral march which 
 English people call The Dead March in Saul, but which is 
 really no other than the ancient Catholic chant of Adesfe 
 Fidèles. General Middlemore, dropping with fatigue, 
 formally handed over the body to me ; and the coffin was 
 lowered into the long-boat of the Belle Poule, which then 
 started for the ship. The scene at that moment was very 
 fine. It was a striking moment. A magnificent sunset 
 had been succeeded by a twilight of the deepest calm. 
 The British authorities and the troops stood motionless on 
 the beach, while our ship's guns fired a royal salute. I 
 stood in the stern of my long-boat, over which floated a 
 magnificent Tricolour flag worked by the ladies of St. 
 Helena. Beside me were the generals and superior 
 officers, M. de Chabot and M. de las Cazes. The pick of 
 my topmen, all in white, with crape on their arms, and 
 bareheaded like ourselves, rowed the boat in silence, and 
 with the most admirable precision. We advanced with 
 majestic slowness, escorted by the boats bearing the staff. 
 It was very touching, and a deep national sentiment 
 seemed to hover over the whole scene. 
 
 Two days later we set sail for France, which was 
 reached after a passage of forty-one days. During the 
 passage, feeling anxious at having had no news from 
 Europe for four months, I spoke several ships, and amongst 
 others, south of the line, I spoke a Dutch man-o'-war on 
 her way to Java, w^hich gave us details of the coalition 
 apparently directed against Mehemet Ali, the Egyptian 
 Viceroy, but aimed, in reality, at F'rance. Not knowing 
 what might result from the performances of the allied 
 naval forces on the Syrian coast, we on board the frigate 
 and her consort, the Favorite, determined to take all 
 usual precautions in case of war ; and each of us made 
 ready, after his own fashion, for his eventual departure
 
 1840— 1841] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 165 
 
 to another world. There was, in most cases, a great 
 destroying of souvenirs, papers, and compromising corre- 
 spondence. General Gourgaud attracted our attention by 
 the trembling care with which he re-read a perfect 
 mountain of notes in a feminine hand, which he burnt 
 one by one in a basin, gathering up the ashes and 
 preserving them in a bottle — not a bad way of keeping 
 tender memories quite safe from any inquisitiveness. But 
 all these warlike preparations were thrown away. When 
 the Belle Poule cast anchor at Cherbourg on November 
 30th, the storm had passed by. My mission closed at 
 Cherbourg, but I found orders there to tranship the coffin 
 on to a steamboat, and then take it round to Paris by the 
 Seine, my crew and that of the corvette Favorite to form 
 the escort. I will not tell the story of this conveying of 
 the body. At St. Helena things had on the whole been 
 done by the British army on the one part and our naval 
 forces on the other, with all the chivalrous seriousness and 
 dignity which always attend international relations when 
 confided to those who wear the sword. In France the 
 conveyance of the remains of Napoleon took on quite 
 another character. It was first and foremost a show, in 
 which, as always happens in our country, many people 
 desired to play a part which was inappropriate and some- 
 times ridiculous, I had often to interfere to get things put 
 to rights again. At La Bouille, for instance, which we 
 reached at nightfall, to meet the river flotilla to which we 
 were to be transferred, I was shown, as the vessel which 
 was to receive the coffin and the staff of the escort, a fright- 
 ful-looking boat on which a sort of hideous dais had been 
 built, with all the frippery and plumes of the Pompes 
 Funèbres, an official catafalque worthy of Carpentras or 
 of Biives-la-Gaillarde. I immediately gave orders for this 
 masterpiece of bad taste to be destroyed, a coat of black 
 paint given to the boat, and everything cleared forward, so 
 as to place the coffin there well in sight, and covered with a 
 violet velvet pall. My men at once fell to work at this trans- 
 formation, when a gentleman in evening dress advanced, and
 
 i66 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, vii 
 
 in a tone of great authority, forbade my sailors to touch 
 anything. " I got my orders from M. Cave (the Director 
 of the Beaux Arts) and from the Minister. All the decora- 
 tion was designed by me, and carried out under my direction, 
 I hold to it, and I forbid anybody to touch it," he said. 
 *' But, my good sir," I replied, " my orders have been given, 
 and will be carried out." My gentleman became so violent 
 that I desired him to leave the vessel instantly. " But surely 
 you are not going to put me ashore at this hour (it was almost 
 dark) in the open fields .'' I don't know where I am ; I don't 
 see any houses." " That's nothing to me, you have been inso- 
 lent, so it is your own fault. Put this gentleman ashore." 
 Four sailors advanced, but he gave in, and nobody ever heard 
 of him again. By the following morning the transformation 
 wascompIete,andthecoffin moving unsheltered up the course 
 of the river, as though to take possession of the stream, was 
 much more striking than all the tinsel and canopies ima- 
 ginable. The whole voyage up to Courbevoie, the point 
 of arrival, was a mere classic reproduction of the usual 
 official journey — flags, authorities girt with tricolour sashes, 
 clergy pronouncing blessings, shaking with terror all the 
 time, horses, gendarmes, curious crowds of holiday makers, 
 the only thing lacking being the speeches. From Cour- 
 bevoie the body was taken in procession through the 
 Champs Elysées to the Invalides, with the usual cere- 
 monial, which I had already witnessed in the cases of 
 Charles X. and the Duchesse d'Orléans, but with one extra 
 point, the cold, and it was terrible. 
 
 At the Invalides four-and-twenty non-commissioned 
 officers advanced to carry the coffin into the church ; but in 
 spite of the most desperate effijrts the veterans could not 
 succeed in lifting it, and I had to make my sailors carry 
 it. The King received the body at the entrance to the 
 nave, and there rather a comical scene took place. It 
 appears that a little speech, which I was to have de- 
 livered when I met my father, and also the answer he 
 was to give me, had been drawn up in Council, only 
 the authorities had omitted to inform me concernino- it.
 
 1840 — 1 84 1 J 
 
 PRINCE DE JÛINVILLE 
 
 167 
 
 So when I arrived I simply saluted with my sword, 
 and then stood aside, I saw indeed that this silent 
 salute, followed by retreat, had thrown something out ; but 
 my father, after a moment's hesitation, improvised some 
 appropriate sentence, and the matter was afterwards 
 arranged in the Moniteur. The Church of the Invalides 
 was full to overflowing, the Chamber of Peers and the 
 Chamber of Deputies being seated in the choir. The 
 success of the day fell to my brave sailors. Everybody 
 was curious to see them. Their athletic forms, easy gait, 
 and kindly sunburnt faces at once won over the general 
 public, especially the feminine portion of it ; and then 
 
 they were something new to that sight-loving Parisian 
 population, to whom so many have been given since then, 
 that for want of a better the only thing offered them at 
 the 'present moment is Dinah Salifon and the danse dit 
 ventre. What a fall here too, compared with the past ! 
 During the triumphal passage of the Emperor's ashes 
 down the Champs Elysées between two ranks of soldiers 
 and National Guards, who kept back an immense multi- 
 tude, 1 had constantly amid the various shouts caught one 
 of " Down with traitors," which, at first, I did not under- 
 .stand. I had been so far away. But it was explained to 
 me that this demonstration was aimed at my father and 
 his^ ministers, guilty as they were of having refused to
 
 l68 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, vii 
 
 launch France into a general war about the Eastern 
 question. I fancy my father troubled his head little 
 about these would-be-wise demonstrators, worthy fore- 
 runners of the Boulevard braggarts who, at a later date, 
 in 1870, so appositely shouted "à Berlin." He had other 
 matters to preoccupy him. The ease with which all the 
 Governments in Europe had leagued themselves together, 
 to inflict a moral check on France, under cover of the Pasha 
 of Egypt, betrayed the latent hostility of all those powers 
 to our own country. Let us say it outright. In the eyes of 
 the European monarchies, the Government of July, by virtue 
 of its origin, and however wise and courageous the policy of 
 the King, my father, might have been, had always remained 
 a revolutionary, and therefore a hostile government. Nothing 
 else was possible ; and so at bottom it always will be, as long 
 as we continue to run in the rut along which we have been 
 floundering for the last hundred years. Look at any country 
 in Europe, no matter which, and see against whom the 
 established Government carries on the domestic struggle. 
 Against Nihilists in Russia, Socialists in Germany, anarch- 
 ists and unquiet spirits of all kinds everywhere, imitations of 
 those of our own country, and by them encouraged to press 
 on the same course of demand, and spoliation, and licence. 
 And hence the necessary consequence, that sovereigns and 
 organized societies, whose first desire is to exist, and neither 
 to be overthrown nor despoiled, are always ready to make 
 common cause against that hotbed of bad example. Revo- 
 lutionary France. The events of 1840 showed this with the 
 utmost clearness ; and in face of that demonstration the 
 path of duty lay clear. It was to lose no time in taking, 
 without boastfulness, but also without weakness, all the ne- 
 cessary measures against the danger which was constantly 
 threatening, although for the moment it was warded off 
 Among these measures was one my father passionately 
 desired, and which he snatched from the Chambers by 
 sheer tcnacit)- — the fortification of Paris. This tenacity was 
 necessary, for the struggle was long, bitter, and inexplicable. 
 While it lasted the heroes of the cafes greeted my father
 
 i84o— i84i] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 169 
 
 in the streets and at reviews with insulting shouts. The 
 cry, " Down with the Bastille," had succeeded that of 
 " Down with traitors," and all the fainthearted section 
 would have knuckled down. All the energy of the King, 
 of my brother the Due d'Orléans — as eager as himself on 
 the question — and of the ministers, was needed to bring 
 them back into fighting line. The aid too of those 
 patriots of all shades — and thank God there still are some 
 such ! — who put national independence and honour above 
 party questions, had to be invoked. And so Paris was 
 fortified. Who dares nowadays to say, that this was not a 
 convincing proof of the King's foresight as a ruler ? Who 
 dares to say, that if hesitation, and desultoriness, and 
 incapacity, and evil chance, had not clung to the command 
 of our armies in 1870, the German invasion might not 
 have been broken up upon those ramparts .'* 
 
 The winter of 1841 was also spent in raising our 
 battalions of Chasseiirs-à-pied, the personal work of 
 my eldest brother. I used often to go and keep him 
 company in the camp at St. Omer, while he was employing 
 all his great powers in organizing this force. When it was 
 done he gave a splendid fete, to which he invited the 
 ofificers of the English garrisons on the opposite coast, 
 deputing me to receive them. A few days later the 
 population of Paris was surprised and delighted by the 
 sight of these ten splendid battalions, in their simple but 
 elegant uniform, pressing through the streets with swinging 
 step, filling the courtyard of the Tuileries, and forming up 
 in the space of a few minutes to be inspected by the King. 
 These fine troops, with their strong esprit de corps, have 
 since then earned glory by many exploits in all quarters of 
 the globe. The number of battalions has been raised from 
 ten to thirty. The organization, given them at the outset 
 by a vigorous hand, has remained intact. Their uniform 
 even is unchanged, having escaped the prevalent mania for 
 bringing everything down to the same level of ugliness. The 
 only thing gone is the original name, Chasseurs d' Orleans ; 
 but what miatters the name when the service remains !
 
 SOUVENIRS OF THE 
 
 [chap. VII 
 
 My memories of the winter of 1841 are full of recol- 
 lections concerning our national defence. Mingled with 
 them, however, are some others of a less austere nature. 
 INIasked balls were the rage that year. They were given 
 in all directions. I wasonly three-and-twenty, and thought 
 them all delightful. Just at that moment Chicard — the 
 famous Chicard — shared the sceptre of the opera-balls with 
 Musard, the chief of the orchestra. A quiet-living worthy 
 tradesman on weekdays, on important occasions an officer 
 in the National Guard, 
 
 Monsieur L. " le grand • 
 
 Chicard," dressed in 
 the most eccentric of 
 costumes, led inde- 
 scribable farandoles 
 to the sound of broken 
 chairs and pistol shots, 
 
 <-^:n 
 
 accompanied by Musard's orchestra, at these entertain- 
 ments. There were balls in the Opera House, at the 
 Renaissance, the Salle Ventadour, the Variétés — these last 
 the prettiest and the most fashionable and amusing. Not 
 an evening coat in the whole ball-room ; everybody, men 
 and women alike, in costume, and everybody acquainted 
 with everybody else. And what gaiety and go there was 
 about it all 1 You asked your partner in the upper-boxes 
 to dance with you, from the floor of the house ; and she, to 
 lose no time, came down outside the balustrades, faithfully
 
 iS40— iS4i] PRIN'CE DE JOINVILLE 171 
 
 passed down by friendly hands. When the quadrille was 
 over you met jolly comrades everywhere, with their 
 partners astride on their shoulders, shaking hands as it 
 were two stories at a time. But there is an end to all 
 things. My two brothers — Nemours and Aumale — went 
 off to fight in Africa under General Bugeaud ; and, in the 
 month of May, I myself was sent out to the Newfoundland 
 station.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 1841-1842 
 
 I LEFT Cherbourg for Newfoundland on May 19th, 1841. 
 It had been arranged that I was to go by the North Sea, 
 to put into the Texel, and to go to the Hague to pay my 
 respects in person to the King of the Netherlands, Almost 
 as soon as I had disembarked at the Helder, I went on 
 board the royal yacht, which was to take me to Alkmaar 
 by the Noord Holland Canal. This yacht, commanded by 
 a very pleasant fellow, a naval lieutenant, M. Dedel, was 
 really charming. She had been built in the seventeenth 
 century, and had been used by Admirals Van Ruyter and 
 Van Tromp when they went to take up their commands. 
 She was covered all over with gilt carvings, the deckhouse in 
 the stern especially, and looked as if she had started freshly 
 painted out of one of Backhuysen's pictures. Once on 
 board her, a legion of horses towed her along, full trot, 
 and I went to bed. When I awoke, I found the yacht 
 moored beside the quay at Alkmaar, the city of cheeses, 
 w^hence a carriage took me to Haarlem and Amsterdam, 
 along the Haarlem Zee, which has been drained dry since 
 then, and transformed into splendid meadow land, as the 
 Zuider Zee will some day be. At Amsterdam I rushed to 
 the museum, where I was received by M. Apostol, the 
 director, who had known the Scheffers' father intimately 
 at Rotterdam. Oh that museum ! Oh those prints'! 
 But M. de Bois-le-Comte, the French Minister, was pitiless. 
 He tore me away from all those masterpieces, and forced
 
 iS4i— 1842] SOUVENIRS OF PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 173 
 
 me to follow the millround of the programme he had laid 
 out for me. He dragged me off to Zaandam (Saardam in 
 French). This pretty Japanese-looking village, in the 
 midst of a wide polder, surrounded by over five hundred 
 windmills, looking like a row of gigantic sharpshooters, is 
 a resort of pilgrims, and the holy spot is the hut of Peter 
 the Great. The wretched wooden house, shut up in a sort 
 of casemate, was the property of the Queen, sister of the 
 Emperor Nicholas, and the shanty was never mentioned 
 by her or to her but in the most feeling manner. Flect- 
 anms genua ! Leva .... ate ! Amongst other inscriptions 
 there, I found the names of two French actors, Dormeuil 
 and Monval, which recall anything but pious memories 
 to my mind. 
 
 From Zaandam I went to the palace, to Van Ruyter's 
 tomb, to the pelicans in the Zoological Gardens, and then 
 I escaped from the furious Bois-le-Comte, who would have 
 liked me never to go about except in a glass case labelled 
 " Ecce the Prince de Joinville.'' Very kind and very witty 
 he was, all the same, one of those finished diplomatists of the 
 old school — 2l disciple of M. de Talleyrand. He had been 
 everyv/here, seen everything, observed everything, and he 
 kept me under the charm of his conversation all through my 
 hasty trip in Holland. During the last preceding years he 
 had represented France in Portugal and Spain successively, 
 and had been with the two Queens — my future sister-in- 
 law — Dona Maria in Portugal, and the Regent Christina in 
 Spain, through all the most violent disturbances, struggles, 
 and dangers of the military conspiracies in those countries. 
 He never tired of talking about the courage of these two 
 ladies, the nature of which was very different in each case. 
 The courage of the Queen of Portugal, he said, was resolute, 
 but mournful and gloomy. The example she set was good, 
 but she cast a chill on officers and men alike. Queen 
 Christina — passionate, a woman to her finger tips, care- 
 less of danger, but shedding tears of nervous excitement 
 when the bullets smashed her windows and flew hither and 
 thither about the apartments — magnetised her defenders. In
 
 174 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, viii 
 
 the one case }-oii cried " Welcome, Death ! " in the other 
 you shouted " Forward ! " \'ery interesting indeed was the 
 description Bois-le-Comte gave me of the La Granja con- 
 spiracy. How, having been warned in the middle of the 
 night of the danger threatening Queen Christina and her 
 daughters, he got up in haste to hurry to their assistance, 
 but desired, first of all, to warn the British Minister and 
 carry him along with him. How, when he reached the 
 house of the minister, Mr. Villiers, afterwards Lord 
 Clarendon, he rushed without meeting a soul into his 
 bedroom, where the bed-curtains shook convulsively at the 
 noise of his entrance, and the head alone of the minister 
 appeared, saying, " I'll follow you," while a soft voice 
 tried to detain him, with all the tenderest appeals in the 
 Spanish language. " I took myself off double quick," said 
 Bois-le-Comte to me ; " but I had recognised the voice." 
 
 From Amsterdam we went to the Hague, and as soon 
 as I got there I asked to sec the King. " Let him come 
 at once " was the reply. 
 
 King William, young-looking still, with a graceful figure 
 and a kindly engaging face, framed with a fringe of grizz- 
 ling beard, had a loud voice and a hearty laugh. He 
 was witty in conversation. The Queen, whom I never 
 saw laugh, nor even smile, talked cleverly too, but she 
 picked her words too obviously. Her daughter, the young 
 Princess Sophia, now Grand-Duchess of Saxe- Weimar, was 
 clever too. I was watching her dance at a ball one night, 
 wearing a pretty gown, the chief adornment of which was 
 an eastern scarf, when her father, to whom I was talking, 
 said, " Marmotte (her pet name in the family) looks like 
 a Bayadere to-day." And indeed she had all the grace 
 and charm of one. 
 
 My stay at the Hague w^as one succession of gatherings, 
 dinners, balls, at w^hich the cordiality of my reception 
 never failed for one minute. It touched me much, and I 
 have kept a grateful memory of it, for there was some 
 merit, on the King's part, in its being so. Had we not 
 largely contributed by our support of the Belgian revo-
 
 1841 — 1S42] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 175 
 
 lution to lessening his kingdom by one half? And there 
 had been }-et another wound to his vanity. In his }'OLith 
 King WilHam, then Prince of Orange, full of eager braver}', 
 had gone to serve in Spain under the Duke of Wellington. 
 He had been wounded in the ranks of the British army at 
 Waterloo, and on the strength of these antecedents he had 
 offered himself in 181 5 as a candidate for the hand of 
 Princess Charlotte, heir-presumptive to the Crown of 
 England. He had been ousted. And by whom ? By 
 Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, whom we had just made 
 King of the Belgians. In spite of these causes for coldness, 
 at all events, the welcome I was given by the King, his 
 family, and b}' every class of that honest and well-behaved 
 Dutch race, was marked by a constantly increasing kindli- 
 ness, which filled Bois-le-Comte and his very witty 
 secretary, La Rosière, with delight. Just at the moment 
 of parting, the King made me a present of an admirable 
 copy in reduced size of Rembrandt's Anatomy Lesson^ 
 which hung in his study, sa}-ing, " You are going to 
 Newfoundland ; you shall bring me back a dog in 
 exchange," which commission I faithfully executed. 
 
 To finish up my visit to Holland, I paid a visit to the 
 Naval Arsenal at Flushing, and as I passed through Zee- 
 land I saw from afar, and not without emotion, the belfr\' 
 towers of Bergen-op-Zoom, a town which witnessed the 
 performance of two of the most brilliant exploits in our 
 annals. The first — the taking of the stronghold by assault, 
 by Marshal de Lowendal's army, in 1747. The second — 
 the assault delivered on it on the 8th and 9th of March, 
 1 814, by the whole English army, and triumphantly 
 repulsed by a handful of soldiers and sailors commanded 
 by General Bizannet. The assault under Marshal de 
 Lowendal has been commemorated first of all in a 
 celebrated song, and later by an admirable drawing in 
 body colour by Van Blarenberg, which is to be seen in the 
 Versailles Museum. But the exploit of 1S14 has been 
 almost lost sight of amid our disasters and the subsequent 
 invasion. Very few people are aware that the British
 
 176 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, viii 
 
 army made a forcible attack on Bcrgen-op-Zoom, getting 
 into the town by the port at low tide, and scaling the 
 ramparts, led and backed up by the inhabitants, who had 
 risen in favour of the House of Orange, and that the enemy's 
 columns got as far as the middle of the town, whence, 
 after twelve hours' fighting, they were driven over the 
 ramparts by the resolute bravery of the defending force, 
 leaving more prisoners in its hands than its own fighting 
 men numbered. The details of this splendid page of 
 military history should be read as told by Colonel Legrand 
 of the Engineers, who commanded under General Bizannet. 
 In them, among other dramatic incidents, will be found an 
 episode about a bellringer, which is almost identical with 
 the one Sardou has incorporated in his fine play Patrie. 
 
 From the Texel, or, to be more exact, from Neu-Diep 
 to Newfoundland, by the north coast of Scotland, the 
 passage, though we made it without disaster, was terribly 
 trying to both our crews and our ships, which last were 
 much damaged, and lost nearly all their sails. An 
 incessant series of gales kept us under green seas nearly 
 all the time. Upon these followed thick fogs, and finally 
 we fell among numberless icebergs. So it was with a 
 lively sense of relief that I found myself anchored at last 
 within the haven of Le Croc, the headquarters of our 
 squadron during the fishing season. The haven was itself 
 so obstructed with ice that on the very night of my arrival, 
 with the help of my cook and some tins of jam, I was able 
 to serve up Neapolitan ices to my staff, like Tortoni 
 himself.
 
 1841 — 1842] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 177 
 
 There was very near being a serious breach of discipline 
 on board the frigate during our passage, A sailor refused 
 to obey, and threatened one of the midshipmen — a serious 
 act of insubordination, which, according to the laws then 
 in force, entailed corporal punishment on its perpetrator. 
 I immediately called a court-martial, which, having heard 
 witnesses and defendant, according to regulations, sen- 
 tenced the man to a certain number of strokes with the 
 rope's end. The hour for carrying out the sentence came, 
 the crew was mustered, the officers in their places and 
 under arms. I was in my cabin, just buckling on my 
 sword, when my second in command came in like a whirl- 
 wind. " They are going to ask for mercy," he cried ; " it's 
 your own fault. The men know your hatred of corporal 
 punishment. They are going to presume on it. I beg 
 you'll give me leave to run the first man that opens his 
 mouth through with my sword." Up till that time I had 
 avoided the use of corporal punishment, a matter which 
 had been made all the easier for me by the good feeling 
 and quiet behaviour of the crew I had had under my 
 command. But this time the scandal had been noto- 
 rious, the punishment must be exemplary, and the law 
 applied without mercy. What would become of the 
 authority of an isolated handful of officers, on the high 
 seas, among hundreds of seamen, if they had no possible 
 recourse to force, to punishment drill, or to long terms of 
 imprisonment ? What, again, would become of that purely 
 moral influence, which is indispensable on board a ship 
 which is practically always at sea, if the maintenance 
 of discipline was ever liable to the slightest failure ? 
 Filled as I was with even more than the ordinary sense 
 of the imperious claims of duty on the officer in command, 
 I reassured my subordinate. " Make your mind easy," I 
 told him. " I would be brayed in a mortar sooner than 
 tolerate one moment's hesitation in carrying out the 
 sentence. I shall stand at the head of the crew, and have 
 the punishment carried out in front of me. The men will 
 read my countenance and nobody will stir, I'll answer for 
 
 N
 
 178 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, viii 
 
 it!" And so it was. I took my place, all eyes turned on 
 me, and everything passed off according to rule. To say 
 the scene was not a painful one to me would be to tell a 
 lie. But duty has to come first. 
 
 As my second in command had said, I had a horror of 
 corporal punishment as laid down by the Convention, a 
 relic of another age, when navy crews were recruited 
 amongst a set of vagabonds picked up in all quarters. I 
 thought it degrading. Often, among my brother officers, I 
 had blamed the unmeasured use I had seen made of it on 
 board ships I did not command. And glad indeed I was 
 when it was done away with. A commanding officer 
 invested, and justly so, with unlimited authority on board 
 his own ship, is sure by intelligence, firmness, and sense of 
 duty, to find other means than the lash of making the 
 saving law of absolute obedience to superiors respected, 
 without going such lengths as the captain of an American 
 warship, who, on his own responsibility, hanged one of 
 his midshipmen, nearly related to the Minister for Naval 
 Affairs, who had been guilty of attempted mutiny, from the 
 yardarm. 
 
 I will not enlarge here on what has become the New- 
 foundland Question, which I have naturally had to study in 
 all its aspects. Suffice it to recall the fact that when the 
 Island of Newfoundland became British territory, the con- 
 querors ceded the exclusive right of fishing on half the 
 coast to France, with the reservation that we were only to 
 remain temporarily, during the fishing season, and have no 
 permanent establishments on the island. When these fishing 
 rightswere conceded to us (and theysoon became very impor- 
 tant, employing as they did over twenty thousand sailors, 
 and turning the Newfoundland fisheries into one of the chief 
 training grounds for our service sailors) the island was well- 
 nigh uninhabited. There are no opportunities for conflict 
 in a desert country. But little by little the island grew 
 populous. On the part where we had the fishing rights, the 
 " French Shore," a very limited, almost insignificant, Eng- 
 lish population gathered, and, oddly enough, we ourselves
 
 i84i — 1842] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 179 
 
 brought it there, desirous as we were to leave caretakers to 
 look after and keep in order, from one season to the other» 
 the indispensable establishments for the curing, drying, and 
 salting of the codfish, which we ourselves could not occupy 
 permanently. Everywhere, during my cruise, I found this 
 English population, living by us, and on excellent terms 
 with our Newfoundlanders. To such a pitch was the ex- 
 cellence of these terms occasionally carried, that paying a 
 visit one day to a worthy sea-captain from St. Malo, who 
 had laid up his ship during the fishing season, and settled 
 on shore, in an English house, I saw two chubby children 
 burst in, shouting " Papa, papa ! " while a young and pretty 
 Englishwoman, sitting by, never lifted her eyes from her 
 work. " The little geese," said the worthy Breton, " see me 
 so often, they've got into the habit of calling me papa ! " 
 
 This entente cordiale would no doubt have continued 
 indefinitely, and nobody would have heard any mention of 
 a Newfoundland Question, endangering the international 
 relations between the two countries, if the southern portion 
 of the island, entirely English as it was, and with a tem- 
 perate climate, had not increased so rapidly in population 
 as to have a constitution, liberal institutions, a Parliament,^ 
 and the consequent elections. The electioneering agents 
 forthwith found they needed a sensational popular plat- 
 form, and this platform has ended by becoming something 
 like the " Irredenta " movement in Italy, a claim for 
 national rights over the national soil. " Newfoundland for 
 the Newfoundlanders." There lies the whole of the New- 
 foundland Question. Locally, nobody bothers their head 
 about it, but in the press, and on the phantom-haunted 
 ground of electoral politics, it has kindled many passions, 
 and may very likely engender ruin and bloodshed some of 
 these days. 
 
 These facts taken for granted, I return to my personal 
 recollections. Unlike most of my brother officers, I found my 
 stay in Newfoundland (in the summer months, during which 
 we were stationed there, be it understood) very pleasant. 
 The island is a hilly one, covered with pine forests. Where 
 
 N 2
 
 i8o SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, vill 
 
 the woods fail, there are lakes and rivers, admirably clear, 
 and swarming with salmon and trout. There was plenty 
 of game, and all this in the midst of the uninhabited 
 region where every one can enjoy the completest liberty» 
 with no limits but those imposed by his own tastes and en- 
 durance. If there were no drawback to all these advan- 
 tages, Newfoundland in the summer-time would be a 
 paradise, and there is no such thing as that upon our globe. 
 The drawback is the flies, little black ones, called the 
 " black fly," the pest of all northern countries, against which 
 one is quite defenceless. They get in everywhere ; no pre- 
 servative stops them ; no ointment nor any daubing repels 
 them. During a hunting excursion I made to the Isle of 
 Groix, so christened by some native of L'Orient, which 
 is about eight miles off Le Croc, I 
 saw some of my comrades with their 
 heads swelled up like a hydrocephalous 
 patient's, so that their eyes had dis- 
 appeared, half mad with pain from the 
 stings of that infernal fly, and one of 
 our sailor servants lay on the ground, 
 refusing to move, and begging us 
 with tears to put a rifle to his head 
 and end his agony. 
 
 This Isle of Groix swarmed with creatures that had come 
 over the ice from the mainland in the winter season. Its 
 steep edges, covered with an impenetrable arborescent 
 growth, enclosed a great treeless plateau, a " lande." We 
 used to get on to this lande by walking up the bed of a 
 rivulet, and once on it we had perfect massacres of 
 winged game, especially of that sort of gray grouse called 
 ptarmigan by the English. It was these birds' pairing 
 season. They never flew away, and when we killed one the 
 other would ruffle up its feathers in a fury and fly pecking 
 at our legs. The wooded sides of the island must have been 
 full of reindeer, to judge by the quantities of tracks to be 
 seen on every side. If we had had one or two hounds to send 
 into the thickets we might have made hecatombs of them. 
 
 i
 
 i84i— 1842] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 181 
 
 From Le Croc I went round all our neighbouring fishing 
 stations — Saint Julien, the Baie Rouge, &c. Cod were 
 extraordinarily numerous that year. One haul of the seine 
 at the Baie Rouge brought in eighty-four thousand cod-fish 
 in one day. It was the golden age of the fishery. Now 
 the fish have deserted the eastern coast of Newfoundland. 
 Our fishermen have to take their boats and anchor on the 
 big bank, and there they stay for months, tossed about by 
 every tempest. They go out line-fishing in small boats, 
 which are frequently lost in the fog and never heard of 
 again. Often, too, the fishing vessel herself is cut in two, 
 in fog or darkness, by some transatlantic liner steaming 
 seventeen knots an hour, which is out of sight in a few 
 seconds, while the unlucky boat founders with all hands. 
 A hard and a risky life our bank fishermen lead. But 
 they come back vien, and well-seasoned men too ! 
 
 From the eastern coast of the island the Belle-Po2ile 
 took her way to the western side, passing through the 
 Straits of Belleisle, a narrow channel which parts New- 
 foundland from Labrador. The amount of difficult navi- 
 gation we met with going through the straits was really 
 extraordinary. The channel was full of ice-floes, either 
 stranded or driven about by the currents. A thick fog 
 came down on us, with zenithal aurora borealis, the 
 electric action of which threw out every compass, standard 
 and otherwise, on board. No seeing, no steering ! After 
 having been in a very critical position at the entrance 
 of Forteau Bay, a point on the Labrador coast celebrated 
 for wrecks, I took the frigate into the haven of Ingorna- 
 choix, where we made some considerable stay, necessitated 
 by the condition of my crew's health. For some time it 
 had been suffering from the exceptional fatigues of the 
 cruise. During our stay in Le Croc, in spite of its 
 being a breathing time, and of every kind of care, many 
 men had been ailing, and the sickness ended by taking the 
 form of a somewhat serious epidemic of smallpox. The 
 best thing we could do to stop the mischief and prevent 
 it from increasing and becoming permanent (which would
 
 iS2 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, viii 
 
 have resulted in closing almost all foreign ports to us) was 
 to isolate the sick. I therefore lost no time in having a 
 hospital constructed on a pretty wooded isle, which 
 lay just at the entrance to the place where we were 
 anchored, and in it I settled all my sick men, doing every- 
 thing in my power to dry and disinfect the frigate mean- 
 while. This double measure was successful, and when we 
 left the bay my crew was completely restored to health 
 and vigour. 
 
 I learnt several things during this long period in har- 
 bour, the first of which was the discovery of the immense 
 quantity of lobsters frequenting the coast. The first day 
 my men went to walk on shore they brought back nine 
 hundred, which they had caught among the rocks, and that 
 without the least difficulty. I do not know whether the 
 Ingornachoix lobster was like Bayard, ivitJioiit reproacJi, 
 but zvit/ioiit fear he most certainly was. It was quite 
 enough, when one caught sight of him in shallow water, to 
 poke a stick at him. He instantly sprang furiously forth, 
 laid hold of it with his claws, and absolutely refused to 
 let go. This abundance of lobsters, turned to com- 
 mercial account later, when it became known, gave rise to 
 the Lobster Fisheries Question, one of the stalking-horses 
 of the English Irredentists. Furthermore, I discovered 
 that since the codfish were becoming rare on the French 
 Shore of the Straits of Belleisle, our fishermen, to remedy 
 the scarcity, went over and poached on the English coast 
 of Labrador — the principal drawback to which contra- 
 vention of the agreement was that it gave the English 
 a pretext for doing the same thing. As the English 
 ■cruisers not unnaturally shut their eyes to irregularities 
 which created precedents that might be harmful to us, 
 our ships of war had cither to sanction them by their 
 presence, or, by opposing them, to exercise in a foreign 
 country a right of keeping order which was questionable, 
 to say the least of it ; both of them things to be avoided, 
 if possible. And our orders, in fact, were never to be seen 
 at Labrador, This regulation I conformed to; but behold.
 
 1841 — 1842] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 183 
 
 one fine day, a schooner from our local station at St. 
 Pierre Miquelon casts anchor alongside of me, and the 
 following colloquy ensues between the lieutenant in 
 command and myself: — 
 
 " Where are you going ? " 
 
 *' To Labrador." 
 
 " But you know the state of things. There are the 
 gravest objections to taking one of our warships there." 
 
 " I know ; but I have special and precise orders from 
 the Minister for Naval Affairs." 
 
 " What orders ? " 
 
 " I have been ordered to go to Labrador to buy a dog 
 for one of the secretaries to the minister." 
 
 " That's what you have been sent from St. Pierre 
 Miquelon for ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 I had to bow to this. I could not set up my authority 
 as commander-in-chief against that of the minister, so 
 let the schooner go on her compromising mission. Soon 
 after, and not without regret, I set sail to continue our 
 cruise. Time had passed swiftly by, between the attention 
 of every kind the health of the crew had necessitated, the 
 drill of every sort we had devoted ourselves to, and the gun 
 practice in the virgin forest, during which the ancient trees 
 had been mown down by our projectiles. We had liv^ed a 
 Robinson Crusoe sort of life on the largest scale — it is a 
 sort of life I have always had a weakness for. After 
 building our hospital, we had made limekilns for disin- 
 fecting the frigate, we had been wood-cutters, and charcoal 
 burners, and carpenters. We had made ourselves spare 
 masts and spars. We had drained ponds too ; explored 
 in all directions, hunting and fishing, and discovered lakes 
 and rivers. 
 
 Though we made good bags during these excursions, 
 they consisted of small game only. Once I fired at, and 
 to my deep regret I missed, a silver fox — the animal 
 dressed by nature in the richest and rarest of all her furs. 
 There were abundant tracks of bear and caribou. We
 
 i84 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, viii 
 
 caught sight once of a huge gray wolf, striped like a zebra. 
 Ikit none of these larger beasts fell to our guns. We 
 could not have got at them even with hounds, so contin- 
 uously far stretching and impenetrable the forest was, and 
 the only thing we had to help us was Fox, the ship's dog, 
 an excellent pointer by the way, the pet of everybody on 
 board. He fell into the sea one day when there was a 
 strong breeze, and was picked up, still swimming sturdily 
 along to catch up the frigate, on board of which he had 
 a regular ovation when he got back. 
 
 We wound up our Newfoundland cruise with St. 
 George's Bay, the last on the French Shore, and the only 
 point at which any difficulty was raised about the exercise 
 of our rights. We there found, in fact, a large fast-grow- 
 ing and increasingly prosperous Anglo-Canadian village, 
 and in the presence of its inhabitants we went through the 
 ceremony of formally forbidding them to fish, which cere- 
 mony was greeted by protests both amicable and banter- 
 ing. Amicable, because half the population were French 
 Canadians, talking our own language with a strong St. 
 Malo accent, and in spite of everything else, the similarity 
 of origin, language, religion, and habits, established friendly 
 relations between us and them. Bantering, because first 
 of all our fishermen no longer frequented St. George, and 
 secondly, because the prohibition, which was compulsory 
 during the four or five days in the year during which our 
 warships were present, became simply a dead letter during 
 the other three hundred and six days of the year. It was 
 easy, of course, to see that our exclusive right to fish could 
 not be maintained when once a sufiicient indigenous popu- 
 lation had settled there, but it was no less easy to judge 
 that some local arrangement concerning these exceptional 
 places, conciliating every interest, might easily be made. 
 Would that be possible nowadays, when electioneering 
 palaver has embittered the whole business ? After leaving 
 St. George, we spent a long time hunting for our colony 
 of St. Pierre Miquelon in continuous fogs, and only 
 succeeded in finding it by means of a plan of my own
 
 i84i— 1842] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 185 
 
 invention. The weather happening to be moderate, I 
 had several triangular soundings made while we were 
 under sail, and then endeavoured to make the mathe- 
 matical triangle thus obtained tally as to depth and 
 nature of bottom with Captain Lavaud's chart of the 
 Newfoundland soundings. So excellent is the chart in 
 question, that the plan was successful, and gave us bear- 
 ings by which we got a direct line for the shore. St. 
 Pierre Miquelon is a bare, wild, hideous islet, but with a 
 first-class port. Admirable as a victualling station and 
 mart for our fishermen, its military value as far as our 
 trade is concerned is absolutely nil. Whatever may be 
 done for it, it will always be at the mercy of whoever is 
 master of the seas in time of war. 
 
 At Halifax, whither I went to meet the ofiîcer com- 
 manding the British naval station, we were put into 
 quarantine on account of three convalescents, relics of the 
 epidemic we had been suffering from. But it was taken 
 off, thanks to the generous intervention of the Governor- 
 General of Nova Scotia, Lord Falkland, a splendid-looking 
 man, well known in Parisian society. Nobody could have 
 been more obliging nor kinder than this " grand seigneur " 
 and his wife, the daughter of William IV., were to us. 
 
 If Nova Scotia as seen from the sea, with its gloomy 
 coast guarded by numberless black reefs, recalls that of 
 Brittany, the same resemblance strikes the traveller who 
 pushes towards the interior of the country, through its 
 deep and smiling bays ; and Halifax Bay in particular, 
 when its fresh and verdant surroundings are lighted up by 
 brilliant sunshine, leaves nothing to be desired in the way 
 of charm. I saw it thus when I arrived, in all the excite- 
 ment of a regatta, with the peculiar feature of a race for 
 birch-bark canoes, paddled with incredible vigour by Mic 
 Mac squaws, or Indian women, in blue blouses and floating 
 black hair. What a splendid colony Nova Scotia is, too ! 
 the advance post of the huge Canadian territory, protected 
 by its almost insular position from the rigours of the 
 northern climate, with all its ports open (not only Halifax,
 
 i86 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, viii 
 
 where the fleets of the whole world could find absolute 
 safety, maritime and strategic, at once, but Sydney too, 
 surrounded by immense beds of coal), while the St. 
 Lawrence is still choked with ice. 
 
 Our short stay in port was wound up by a great dinner 
 given by my gunroom officers to those of the English 
 frigate Winchester. The meal was of the merriest, if I 
 may judge by the toasts, the cheers, and the songs I 
 heard ; and the merriment continued on shore, whither the 
 young people betook themselves together. One of the 
 English midshipmen, a good-looking lad with a thick crop 
 of carroty hair, returned on board his own ship with 
 beautiful jet black locks, to the great astonishment of the 
 first lieutenant ; while I beheld two of my cadets appear 
 at a ball given by the officers of the garrison and indulge 
 in such a remarkable style of dancing, that I was forced 
 to give them immediate orders to return on board the 
 Beile-Poule. One of these cadets, by the way, was a Turk, 
 called Saly. His story was rather a strange one. He was 
 the son of Saly Pasha, the pasha of Athens, and was a 
 child in his mother's arms when the city was carried by 
 assault by the Greeks and their philhellenic supporters, in 
 I know not which year of the Greek insurrection. All the 
 defenders were put to the sword, and in the excitement 
 of the fight Saly's mother was murdered, but she had 
 strength, as she died, to throw her infant into the arms of 
 a Wurtembergian officer. He, much embarrassed by the 
 gift, passed the child on, having previously christened it 
 Gottlieb, to a French naval lieutenant of the name of 
 Ouernel, who commanded a vessel off that coast. When 
 Ouernel returned to Toulon, my Aunt Adelaide heard 
 the incident mentioned. She interested herself in the little
 
 i84i— 1842] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 187 
 
 Turk, and had him brought up amongst us. The boy 
 turned out well, entered the navy, and was a post captain 
 when he died. From Halifax we went to New York, the 
 frantic bustle and stir in which place contrasted strangely, 
 in my eyes, with the calm of the Newfoundland deserts 
 and the placidity of the Blue Noses, as the inhabitants of 
 Nova Scotia are nicknamed. We were at New York to 
 do some indispensable revictualling, consequent on the 
 exceptionally rough voyage we had had. Besides much 
 other damage, we had lost all our sails ; they had been 
 carried away one after the other, and it was absolutely 
 necessary to have at least one set in good trim, instead of 
 the patched rags still remaining to us, before undertaking 
 our winter voyage across the ocean. 
 
 I took advantage of the time these repairs took up to 
 go and pay my respects to the President at Washington 
 and thence to make a rapid dash into the West, in the 
 footsteps of our ancient pioneers, and up to the farthest 
 limits of civilisation (as they were then, in 1841). 
 
 The thing that strikes one most on arriving in the 
 United States, and in New York in particular, as I have 
 already said, is the extraordinary bustle that reigns every- 
 where, and which really stuns one at first. One feels so 
 bewildered that any idea of a picturesque description 
 disappears. The only thing one is aware of is bustle. 
 Bustle on land, where everybody seems to rush as if they 
 were demented — bustle on the water, where one keeps 
 wondering why the ships of all sizes passing at full speed 
 in every direction do not collide every other minute. In 
 complete contrast to our boulevards, Broadway, when you 
 walk along it, does not seem to contain a single idler. Are 
 there any idle men in America .'' Yes, there are some 
 millionaires, who pull up when they have made their 
 fortunes. Their fellow-citizens assert that they are always 
 ill at ease, amidst the general activity, and that they go 
 and settle down in their idleness in Paris, among people 
 like themselves, whose frivolity they end by copying. They 
 are looked upon as " demoralised Americans." But they
 
 i88 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, viii 
 
 arc few in number. As each man has only himself to 
 reckon on, as he has no hoped-for inheritance to wait for 
 and discount in idleness, seeing- the man in possession owes 
 nothing to his children, nor to anybody else, and is free to 
 dispose of his property as he chooses, everybody being free 
 to make his will as he likes, so each man feels that if he 
 wants to get on he must work. And is not this the chief 
 cause of the vigour and energy of the great American 
 nation ? If Broadway is a tumult of business, that in 
 the port of New York is worth seeing too. This port is at 
 the confluence of two arms of the sea, in front of the public 
 walk called the Battery. Here, towards five o'clock in the 
 evening, when the steamboats start, the huge floating 
 palaces may be seen shooting off in every direction, shriek- 
 ing hoarsely. It is a maritime pandemonium. In it the 
 American is in his element. Dressed in black, with a stove- 
 pipe hat, the quid in his cheek causing him to look as 
 though he grinned sardonically, with one hand on the 
 steering wheel and the other on the engine-room bell, he 
 drives his ship full speed through the throng with an 
 audacity, decision, and coolness which made me shiver at 
 first! 
 
 In this manner I left New York and passed along the 
 coast of New Jersey on my way to Washington, but not 
 without receiving a very friendly welcome from the naval 
 officer commanding there. Commodore Perry, a remarkable 
 man, who, half by persuasion and half by force, concluded 
 the first treaty with Japan, thus opening up that interesting 
 country — I will not say to civilisation (for I do not know 
 that Japan has progressed on that account), but to trade, 
 and intercourse with nations of European origin. 
 
 In the very first train I got into I found myself opposite 
 a big man wearing a moustache and imperial, with a huge 
 walking stick between his legs, and was told he was the 
 King, or rather Prince, Murat. Next we passed a fine 
 country property belonging to King Joseph Buonaparte, 
 and involuntarily I thought of a certain passage in the works 
 of Voltaire, where Candide meets all the dethroned kings at
 
 1841 — 1S42] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 189 
 
 Venice. There were others even then whose names I might 
 have added to those of Murat and Joseph, and the number 
 was to be increased before long. " Special line of Paris 
 goods," we might almost say, in commercial phrase ! Has 
 this sort of export trade answered with us ? 
 
 I saw Philadelphia once more, as charming as ever. 
 There was a fine performance, that night, in the Chestnut 
 Street Theatre, and I had sent to take places for it. But 
 when I arrived I saw a huge poster over the door — 
 " Prince de Joinville at 8.30," and beat an instant and hasty 
 retreat. As soon as I got to Washington I repaired to the 
 White House to pay my respects to General Tyler. He 
 was a blunt-spoken man with a big nose, who had 
 successively filled the posts of governor of his own State 
 (Virginia) and of President of the United States, in each 
 case in consequence of the death of the actual incumbents, 
 whose deputy he was. He could not have done better in a 
 hereditary monarchy ! Our time at Washington was 
 taken up with an interchange of compliments of all sorts. 
 A dinner at the President s, visits to and from the 
 diplomatic corps, a huge reception, at which I shook 
 hands at least three thousand times, at the White House. 
 And bouquets, too, in the " language of flowers ! " 
 
 We paid a visit, too, to the Naval Arsenal. A very nice 
 little arsenal it was, in a bad situation, but admirably 
 arranged, and only put in that particular place to serve as 
 a sort of school of elementary instruction to the ignorance 
 of Congress, and interest its members in naval matters. 
 When I say Congress, I should rather say the Chamber of 
 Representatives. In the United States the Senate is the 
 body which has the real power, and which actually governs. 
 This assembly, very few in numbers, especially at the time 
 of which I speak, chosen by the Chamber, and of which the 
 members were almost invariably re-elected, had leisure to 
 learn the necessities of administrative government and to 
 become a permanent body, whose action was both lasting 
 and intelligent, like the Council of Ten at Venice or the 
 committee of the Comédie Française. But the Represen-
 
 I90 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, viii 
 
 tative Chamber, full as it was of journalists, who had never 
 studied anything beyond the art of attracting subscriptions 
 to their papers, knew nothing whatever. Luckily it only 
 formed a second wheel in the Constitution, but, in spite 
 of that fact, anything likely to add to its enlightenment 
 was useful. 
 
 I left Washington highly gratified with my reception, 
 but glad to have got it over, and carried away a most agree- 
 able recollection of our minister, M. de Bacourt, a most 
 delightfully witty man — a family virtue, it would seem, 
 to judge by his niece and grand-niece, Madame de Mirabeau 
 and Madame de Martel (Gyp). 
 
 From Washington 1 went to Buffalo, the train running 
 off the rails on the way, and that, too, on a viaduct, on 
 which the engine, having broken through the roadway, was 
 hung up in the framework, like a fly in a spider's web. I 
 was anxious to go, via the great lakes, to Green Bay on 
 Lake Michigan, and thence starting from Mackinaw, the 
 old Indian Michillimackinac, to follow up the track of our 
 ofiicers and soldiers and missionaries, who pushed on till 
 they discovered the Mississippi. 
 
 It was in 1672 that Talon, the Superintendent of " La 
 Nouvelle France," having heard from the Indians of the 
 existence of a great river, sent out an expedition to discover 
 it under Father Marquette, who had great influence over the 
 Indian tribes. Crossing the great lakes, he landed at 
 Green Bay, and pushing westwards, he soon reached the 
 " Father of Waters." It was for Green Bay that I too 
 embarked, at Buffalo, on Lake Erie, on board the staunch 
 steamer Columbus, the last boat to go to that place so 
 late in the season (in mid-winter). Our boat was staunch 
 indeed, some consolation for the slowness of her pace. Of 
 this she soon gave us proof, for she ran with an awful shock, 
 going eight knots an hour in the dark, on to a reef of rocks, 
 stopped short, and heeled over. A big wave caught her 
 and lifted her a second time; there was another bump. 
 But with the third wave she got across the reef. I rushed 
 towards the engine, thinking everything must be smashed
 
 1841— 1S42] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 191 
 
 and the side of the ship gaping open. But no, not 
 at all ! 
 
 The captain, who had been taken aback for a moment, 
 merely sent his quid from one cheek to the other, without 
 saying a word. The whole thing was over. And, indeed^ 
 
 that was not the only unforeseen incident during our voyage. 
 We spent one whole night aground in the St. Clair Lake. 
 Nothing I can say will give any idea of the recklessness 
 with which the ship was navigated. To begin with, there 
 were no charts ; you went at haphazard, according to in- 
 formation that had come down by tradition, and yet these 
 lakes are really small oceans, with currents, and fogs, and 
 squalls coming off the coasts, just like the sea. The 
 navigation must have been just the same in 1679^ 
 when Lassalle, an officer in the Canadian army, launched 
 the first ship, which he called the Griffon, in honour of the 
 griffin in the arms of his commanding officer, the Marquis 
 de Frontenac. 
 
 To danger by sea must be added danger by fire for our 
 staunch ColiLinbus. The boilers were heated with wood — 
 aloevvood — out of which pencils and cigar-boxes are made. 
 It made a very pleasant smell, but being piled up pell mell 
 in the hold, against the furnaces, it caught fire several 
 times in my presence, and the stokers would just throw a 
 little water on it to put it out. On the deck the very high 
 pressure engine worked exposed and unprotected, amidst 
 sheep and oxen and packages of all kinds, which were 
 frequently shot against it by the roll of the waves, and 
 above the whole there rose two stories of cabins, built of 
 light planking, as thin as paper, quite incapable of standing 
 against the most moderate seas, but which caught the wind.
 
 192 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, viii 
 
 and made the ship exceedingly unsteady. During a squall, 
 luckily for us a short one, which caught us on Lake 
 Michigan, in the middle of the night, the whole fabric began 
 to give way. I w^as woke by the water coming in and the 
 crackling sound of the damage going on in all directions. 
 So I got up, and found all the Americans on board wearing 
 lifebelts, and greeting me with the remark, " Sir, you are 
 a sailor, but there are more risks on our lakes than on the 
 ocean ! " and quite right they were. 
 
 It was a long passage, and we put in to several places 
 on our way. First into Detroit, formerly the French Fort 
 Pontchartrain, and now become the capital of Michigan 
 State. Opposite Detroit runs the Canadian shore, to which 
 we are borne by a steam ferry boat, and where the same 
 contrast strikes me as at Niagara. On the American side 
 I find a very pretty town, with all the comforts of civilisa- 
 tion, a scene of hard-working activity. On the Canadian 
 shore I see a village of poor cottages, surrounded with 
 apple orchards, like a village in Normandy, in front of 
 which the red sentry marches up and down, as stiff as an 
 automaton. The inhabitants of the said village, French 
 both in feature and appearance, hurried up in delight when 
 they heard us speaking the language of their forefathers. 
 " It's the only tongue we know. We don't want our 
 children to learn any other ! " And yet they have been 
 English for over a century ! A strange contrast, indeed, 
 this fidelity to the memory of their national origin, to their 
 not less sincere fidelity to the conquering régime, which 
 assures to them the right of willing their property as they 
 choose, and has freed them from the administrative tyranny 
 which seems, unfortunately, to cling to us under every 
 régime. 
 
 From Detroit we went up the St. Clair River to Lake 
 Huron. The great river was a magnificent sight, with its 
 banks covered with mighty forests in all the splendour 
 of their autumnal colouring. Here and there, on the 
 American side, stood some log cabin, an emigrant's first 
 shelter. Then we would come on a sawmill, that first of
 
 1841— 1842] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 193 
 
 ail necessaries in such a country. On the British side, 
 now and again, we saw Indian wigwams, Huron or Chip- 
 pewa. At the entrance of Lake Huron bad weather came 
 on ; it snowed, and we took shelter in a bay, where we 
 moored the ship to the shore close to one of those 
 American forts that fringe the Indian frontier. They are 
 all alike, these forts ; a battlemented wall of thick planks, 
 with banquettes for riflemen, and loopholed for heavier 
 guns. Within each are the barracks and the officers' 
 quarters. This particular fort was called Fort Gratiot. 
 In 1688 its name was Fort St. Joseph, and it had a French 
 garrison, commanded by Baron de Houtou. During this 
 stoppage we had an amusing adventure. Our only 
 fellow passengers on the Columbus, some five or six in 
 number, were an American officer on his way to take 
 command at Fort Winnepeg ; a Methodist missionary and 
 his wife, who spent the day singing hymns together, and 
 retired to their cabin at night with all the eagerness of 
 the most enthusiastic fondness ; a young dressmaker going 
 to join her family at Green Bay; and finally, Miss Mary, 
 the chambermaid, a handsome, fair, freckled girl, liked by 
 everybody on board. Tired of being on shipboard, the 
 whole band of passengers, male and female, and Miss 
 Mary into the bargain, went off to walk and amuse them- 
 selves on shore. Suddenly the people in the fort got wind 
 of our presence. The major commanding and his officers 
 hastened up, asking where the prince was, and invited us 
 all into the fort, to rest and refresh ourselves with them. 
 It was impossible to refuse such a kind and cordial invi- 
 tation. It was equally impossible to break up our party — 
 that would have been unmannerly, and contrary to American 
 ideas of propriety and equality alike. So we entered 
 a drawing-room, in which the wives and daughters of the 
 officers quartered in the fort were assembled. They 
 seemed to falter for a moment, when they beheld our 
 lady companions. They scanned the Methodist and his 
 wife, and took their measure at once. But the dressmaker 
 and Miss Mary, hanging on the arms of two of m}' com- 
 
 O
 
 194 
 
 SOUVENIRS OF THE 
 
 [chap. VllI 
 
 panions, seemed to puzzle them. Anyhow they hastened 
 towards them, took them by the hand, led them to the 
 place of honour on the sofa, and began the conversation 
 with " Do you speak English .'' " I don't recollect now 
 how it all went off, but I know we were soon back on 
 board. Miss Mary and all, under a salute of twenty-one 
 guns. 
 
 Mackinaw, a small wooded island, with high shores, and 
 a fort over which the stars and stripes of the Union 
 floated, looked very picturesque as we approached it. 
 
 There was a ruin on one side of the American guard- 
 house, to which we lost no time in climbing through the 
 woods. It was the old French fort, and our hearts swelled 
 at the thought that the French flag was the first to float 
 over this little Gibraltar, when, some hundred and sixty 
 years previously, our officers took possession of this 
 magnificent country in the name of their king. 
 
 Once more, with the eye of fancy, we saw our white- 
 coated soldiers mounting guard on those ramparts, whence 
 their gaze must have wandered over the confluence of the 
 three great lakes and the immense empire they had won
 
 i84i — 1842] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 195 
 
 for France, while the Indian tribes hurried from all 
 quarters to bend the knee to the Great Chief of the 
 Pale Faces. It was a great and glorious epoch ; and 
 what traveller would not feel deeply stirred when he comes 
 upon such bitter memories of the vanished grandeur of 
 his country ? 
 
 Our good ship Columbus got to Green Bay at last, and, 
 stirring up the mud which obstructs the entrance to Fox 
 River, bore us up that fine stream and deposited us in 
 front of a large store, surrounded by fifty houses, there or 
 thereabouts. This settlement was not in the United 
 States, but on Wisconsin Territory, an embryo State, not 
 populous enough as yet, nor sufficiently organised, to be 
 called a State, nor have a voice in the deliberations of the 
 American Union. The country on the left bank of the 
 Fox River was not even a Territory ; it was a No-Man's 
 Land, where any man might settle where and how he 
 pleased. Like all the places I had passed through, Green 
 Bay, the " Baie Verte " of our forefathers (and it still 
 deserves its title) was occupied in the first instance by 
 the French. After Father Marquette's exploring journey, 
 twenty soldiers, two sergeants, and four bandsmen, under 
 the command of Lieutenant du Roussel, were sent thither 
 in 1684 by M. de Beauchamptrelle, commanding the 
 king's troops at Mackinaw. Now, as I have said, it pos- 
 sessed a hotel and about fifty houses, inhabited for the 
 most part by merchants trading with the Redskins, 
 Everybody talked French, and everybody hastened for- 
 ward when the boat arrived to ask for news from the 
 civilised world. 
 
 A few Indians, silent and motionless, wrapped in their 
 blankets, looked on indifferently at the bustle. Squaws 
 shod with moccasins, and the toes of their little feet turned 
 in, passed by without raising their heads, their papooses sit- 
 ting astride on their backs. The somewhat numerous Indian 
 tribes inhabiting the country were the Menoménis, the Win- 
 nepeg Indians, and the Iroquois, which last had emigrated 
 from Canada to escape the English yoke. I much regretted 
 
 O 2
 
 1 96 
 
 SOUVENIRS OF THE 
 
 [chap, vir 
 
 not having time to pay a visit to their wigwams. To the 
 very last they were our most devoted alHes in our wars with 
 the EngHsh. I had a talk with one of the chief's sons, who 
 
 told me he still had Montcalm's 
 sword in his possession, and pre- 
 served it as a sacred relic. Accord- 
 ing to his story, during the battle 
 of Quebec, probably just at the 
 moment when Montcalm was mor- 
 tally wounded, his sword was hung 
 up in a tree, whence it was taken 
 by one of his faithful Indian fol- 
 lowers, and it has always remained 
 with his tribe. 
 
 After a great deal of difficulty 
 we succeeded in procuring saddle 
 horses for ourselves, and a farmer's 
 waggon for our baggage, and we set forth for the Missis- 
 sippi. The whole journey was most interesting. There 
 were no roads — the merest track through woods inter- 
 spersed with prairies — along which we went to the lake 
 and fort of Winnepeg. Beyond that lake we knew there 
 would be nothing but prairie, stretching far and wide, 
 over which we must steer as though we were at sea, or 
 else be guided by the mysterious instinct of some trapper. 
 We met many Redskins in the woods, all busy hunting. 
 Game was very abundant — waterfowl on the streams, 
 flights of prairie hens (a sort of grouse), and herds of 
 buck, which constantly crossed our line of march. Here 
 and there was a clearing or first attempt at cultivation, 
 round a squatter's log cabin. 
 
 We were following the first skirmishing line of that army 
 of civilisation which is overrunning in its steady advance all 
 that wild country which was once the Indian's sole domain. 
 When this advance guard collects at anj^ given point, a 
 hotel rises, and beside it the store where a trader will deal 
 in every kind of merchandise, and especially in brandy, 
 that most destructive of poisons to all indigenous races,.
 
 1841 — 1842] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 197 
 
 After the hotel will come the bank, and then the church 
 and school, and before long the whole will grow into a 
 village or town, of which the United States will take pos- 
 session by law. As for the original squatters, they will 
 make over their log cabins and their bits of cultivation to 
 new arrivals, of more sedentary tastes than their own, and 
 will move on further, with their wives and children, to 
 make a fresh settlement, often exchanging rifle shots with 
 the Redskins the while, in some spot where they can find 
 that absolute independence which they prize above all 
 other goods. Thus does the tide of civilisation, which shall 
 soon cover the whole American continent, move ceaselessly 
 onward. 
 
 But on our own particular road we had got no further 
 than the squatters, and of them, after the day's march was 
 over, we asked a hospitality which was always cordially 
 granted. 
 
 They were an energetic and a singular race. Here you 
 might come on a pupil from West Point (the military and 
 polytechnic school of the United States), a former captain 
 in the army, who had married an Indian wife, and had to 
 learn French to make himself understood by her and the 
 other Indians in the neighbourhood, who could speak no 
 other language. A whole family of little half-breeds, more 
 red than white, swarmed about him. There again, both 
 father and mother would be white-skinned, with splendid 
 children, whom the mother rocked to sleep in the intervals 
 of preparing an excellent dinner for us with a haunch of 
 venison we had bought from an Indian who had just killed 
 a buck. Their log cabin, like all the others, indeed, con- 
 sisted of one large room below, with a big fireplace on 
 which perfect tree trunks were burning, and a loft above 
 it. In these lofts passing travellers like ourselves slept. 
 And they were not over warm, for the doors and windows 
 only fitted tolerably, and the weather was frosty. In the 
 evening the sons of the house — huge fellows who crushed 
 your hand when they shook it, and who used their axes 
 as well as they used their guns — would come in from work
 
 igS SOU\'ENIRS OF THE [chap, viu 
 
 and the evenings would be spent sitting smoking and 
 talking round the fire. 
 
 " There are a great man)' Indians still," I was told, " and 
 they are rather turbulent ; they killed a white man quite 
 lately. The squatters are very far apart too. But then 
 we haven't to bother our heads or put ourselves out because 
 of anybody." 
 
 At one place, called Fond du Lac, the house was 
 somewhat less primitive than at our previous halting- 
 places. Our host was a doctor of cultivated mind, living 
 alone with his family, of whom two, girls, were very pretty. 
 They made us a cranberry tart, on the memory of which 
 my grateful palate lingers yet. The worthy doctor was 
 armed to the teeth, for he had no white neighbours, and 
 over two hundred Indians, so he told me, prowling around 
 him. He lent me a gun, with which I went out shooting, 
 and as a matter of fact I did meet a considerable number of 
 Redskins. As long as they can find game, and here it was 
 plentiful, they are, as a rule, tolerably inoffensive. Yet 
 these were the remnant of warlike tribes which had never 
 been thoroughly subjugated, and there was a hill, not very 
 far off, called " Deadman's Butts," in memor\- of a fight 
 waged between them and the French army, backed by three 
 thousand Chippewa Indians, which ended in a terrible mas- 
 sacre. Notwithstanding the presence of such neighbours, my 
 host had chosen the spot where he had pitched his tent right 
 well, for I saw on a map of Wisconsin, which I chanced to 
 look at many years later, that Fond du Lac had become a 
 town, with railways running to and from it. 
 
 Leaving Fond du Lac, we found ourselves on the prairie, 
 stretching wide as far as the eye could see ; dry yellowish 
 grass (it was the end of October) covered the slightly un- 
 dulating plain, with here and there a scanty clump of trees. 
 It constitutes the plateau (not a very high one) which 
 separates the Mississippi river system from that of the St. 
 Lawrence. Our horses cantered gaily over the frozen 
 ground. All at once we saw a big animal running away 
 from us at a kind of amble. We ureed forward our mounts
 
 1S41— 1842] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 199 
 
 in pursuit, and got up just in time to see it enter a clump 
 of brushwood, not fifty paces across. An Indian, who 
 acted as our guide, went into the thicket after it, gun 
 in hand. A dreadful roar, 
 which terrified our horses, 
 was followed by the appear- 
 ance of the infuriated animal. 
 It was a puma, or panther 
 without spots, which gallop- 
 ed in a circle round M. de 
 Montholon's horse, and then 
 
 retreated into a larger clump of trees, where we thought it 
 prudent to leave it, as our only arm was a single-barrelled 
 small-bore rifle. Somewhat further on we saw a big cloud 
 gather on the horizon and rapidly approach us. The prairie 
 was on fire. We then took the well-known plan of setting 
 it on fire ourselves just where we were. Within less than 
 five minutes our fire had run a mile before the wind, going 
 as fast as a horse can gallop, with a noise like a distant 
 rattle of musketr)-. We and our horses entered the space 
 we had set on fire ourselves, while the big conflagration in 
 the distance, finding no food in front, fled away to our 
 right and left. I afterwards saw the same sight at night. 
 It was most beautiful. 
 
 As we neared the Mississippi we got into less wild 
 country. I remember the first hotel where the host said 
 to me, " You have come just in good time. You'll have 
 something out of the common for dinner. We have been 
 killing a sheep." Since leaving Green Bay we had been 
 living exclusively on venison and prairie hens and wild 
 duck. A sheep was a great rarity. We came upon the 
 Mississippi at Galena in Illinois, so called on account of its 
 lead mines. When I say mines, I use an expression which 
 was quite inappropriate at the time of my visit, for the 
 galena, or lead-ore, lay on the surface of the soil. You saw 
 its metallic brightness shining out everywhere, and so rich 
 was the ore, that it yielded seventy-five per cent, of lead, 
 even under the most summary of processes. Added to this
 
 200 SOUVENIRS O?' THE [chap, viii 
 
 fact, the expense of transport being infinitesimal, as the 
 huge artery of the Mississippi River ran a few paces from 
 the beds, the working of them was so profitable that nobody 
 took the trouble to extract the silver from it. But the 
 result of this mineral wealth was that everything one eat 
 and drank at Galena was impregnated with lead, so much 
 so, indeed, that one of my companions had a fainting fit, 
 caused by the sediment which the eau de Botot he used for 
 his toilet deposited in his glass. He thought he had been 
 poisoned. I had not time, when I got to the Mississippi, to 
 go down it to New Orleans, like our soldiers and explorers, 
 when they made their first journey across this splendid 
 country, and by it united a French Canada with a French 
 Louisiana. The journey I had just taken had lasted longer 
 than I had thought for, and as my duty as a sailor recalled 
 me imperiously to my ship, my only thought was to rejoin 
 her as soon as possible. But means of communication in 
 the West were few and far between — railroads were un- 
 known, roads hardly laid out. We were fain to go down 
 the Mississippi to where the Ohio falls into it, go up that 
 river to Cincinnati, and thence get by mail-coach to the 
 railroads in the older Atlantic States. This return journey 
 was not altogether uneventful. Our boat ran aground 
 several times during the descent of the Upper Mississippi. 
 On one of these occasions we were delayed for some time near 
 the confluence ofthatstreamwiththe Des Moines River, flow- 
 ing through an exquisite country called Iowa, which in those 
 days had not yet been annexed by the Union. It swarmed 
 with game. I remember one shooting expedition I made 
 with the ship's engineer, a young Kentuckian of colossal 
 stature. We flushed thousands of prairie hens and other 
 creatures, on whom we poured a hot but harmless fire. In 
 our own justification I must add that the Kentuckian was 
 shooting with a bullet, using a huge carbine, so heavy that 
 it took him half a minute to aim with it, and I with a 
 single-barrelled gun, lent me by a bar-keeper, with this in- 
 formation, "The barrel is all twisted. You must aim three 
 or four yards to the right, if you want to hit anything ! "
 
 iS4i — 1S42] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 201 
 
 The territory of Iowa was still disputed for by squatters 
 and Indians. These latter, who f exceeded the whites in 
 number, belonged to a great tribe, both turbulent and war- 
 like, the Saxes and the Foxes. They were at peace with 
 the Government at the time I speak of, but a deputation 
 of their chiefs, numbering thirty or forty, came on board 
 our boat, on their way to Washington, where they desired 
 to lay their grievances before the President. They arrived 
 on board in full war paint, their faces painted half red 
 and half yellow, and their heads dressed, like a cuirassier's 
 helmet, with horsehair and big feathers, their bodies 
 naked, but hung about with baubles, their legs thrust into 
 leather breeches, and big blankets over all. Their squaws 
 were with them. They were ugly, but the men were 
 splendid, with the most resolute and impassive counten- 
 ances. They behaved with the greatest dignity while on 
 board, and never showed any excitement except just as we 
 w^ere passing by the confluence of the Missouri with the 
 Mississippi. Whether it was some superstitious feeling 
 that attached itself to that spot, or the impression made 
 on them by the grandeur of the scene, the meeting of the 
 two great rivers forming a sort of lake, lighted up by a 
 splendid sunset, I know not, but they all assembled in the 
 stern of the boat, and repeated a sort of invocatory prayer. 
 It was a perfect picture. 
 
 I did no more than pass through St. Louis, already a 
 large town and the capital of Ohio. An accident hap- 
 pened to us as we were going up the Ohio (" La Belle 
 Rivière " of our forefathers), such as does not occur nowa- 
 days, when the Federal Government has caused the 
 engineer regiments, which add to their other functions 
 those of our " ponts et chaussées." a simple and economical 
 plan, worthy of general imitation, to clear the rivers of 
 their different obstructions. We were snagged. 
 
 Herewith I explain the expression and the fact. As a 
 consequence of inundations and falling in of banks and 
 such like, many big trees had, from time immemorial, been 
 carried dov/n the American rivers. Many of these trees
 
 202 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, vim 
 
 had ended by catching in the river beds b}' their roots. 
 Stripped of their branches, and sharpened to a point b\- 
 the action of the water, and bent sloping by the current, 
 they formed, as it were, huge invisible subaqueous chevaux 
 de frise, on which steamers going up stream frequently im- 
 paled themselves, and this often to the destruction of the 
 ship and great loss of life. We ran against one of these 
 trees, somewhat sideways luckily for us, but it stood up on 
 end, and amid a frightful noise, and a little momentary 
 consternation, carried away one paddle box and wheel. A 
 snag is only one of the numerous sources of accident in 
 American river navigation. But one soon gets accustomed 
 to the carelessness of danger which characterises the 
 Americans, and on the whole travelling on their river 
 steamers is very pleasant. The sleeping cabins are invari- 
 ably clean and comfortable. On certain boats some are 
 very elegant. I have seen zvcdding cabins, that is to say 
 cabins decorated all over with mirrors and brilliantly 
 lighted up, intended for couples on their wedding journey. 
 And truth compels me to state that the strict regularity of 
 these honeymoon couples is not too severely inquired into. 
 At Cincinnati, the city of porkers, I took to the stage, 
 at Pittsburg to the canal. Across the Alleghanies I 
 travelled in a coach crammed with passengers of both 
 sexes. It was a merry journey, during which I was cease- 
 lessly haunted by memories of the little Danaids, and 
 Père Lournois and his forty sons-in-law, getting out of the 
 Auxerre coach to the sound of the chimes of Dunkirk. 
 " Tutu . . . tutu .... mon père." At New York I found 
 the Belle-Poide done up as good as new, thanks to the 
 excellent care of my second in command, M. Charner. 
 But before setting sail I had to get through a certain 
 number of banquets, followed by toasts, and even to 
 go to Boston for a great ball in the old town hall, 
 called the Faneuil Hall, the cradle of American Indepen- 
 dence. I made my entry at that ball preceded and 
 surrounded by an army of solemn stewards, wearing huge 
 wigs, and with rather a good-looking woman, whom nobody
 
 1841- 1842] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 203 
 
 knew, on my arm. She called herself America Vcspuccia, 
 and she began to swear like any heathen when somebody 
 spilt a glass of lemonade over her fine velvet gown. 
 
 The Belk-Poiilc weighed anchor at last, but before we 
 got past Sand}- Hook a snowstorm came on. We could 
 not see a yard ahead, and in a few minutes we had a foot 
 of snow on deck. The rest of our return voyage was to 
 match, in other words, it was awful. We ran, during its 
 course,one of those totally unforeseen risks of which a sailor's 
 life is full, and which, once past, constitutes one of its chief 
 charms. Let my readers try the following experiment : — 
 Put two small bits of paper in a basin of water, and 
 disturb the liquid. By what learned men call capillary 
 attraction the two scraps of paper draw nearer to each 
 other and finally join together. It was this same capillary 
 attraction which nearly lost me my frigate and another 
 battleship, the Cassard, which was our consort. A violent 
 south-easterly squall had come down on us, and the sea 
 was very heavy. All at once, just as night fell, over a sky 
 as black as ink and an angry-looking sea, the wind 
 suddenly dropped. The Cassard, driven by the last puff 
 of wind, and drawn too by capillary attraction, had got 
 very near us, and soon this nearness became alarming. 
 We could not get about, for there was not a breath stirring. 
 We could not launch boats in such a sea to try and tow 
 the ships apart. Soon the frigate and her consort were 
 tossing convulsively in the heavy sea, with only the breadth 
 of one wave between them. In another moment they must 
 crash into each other, and that at night, in mid-ocean, far 
 from any succour. It was a solemn moment. Although 
 one watch had been sent to turn in, nobody had cared to 
 stay below. All were on deck, men and officers alike, with 
 serious faces. The only sound to be heard was the noise 
 of the sails flapping wildly against the masts and my 
 voice as I gave the other ship's captain his orders in case 
 a puff of wind should come from this quarter or that. 
 Night had come on, and in our heart of hearts we were 
 both of us beginning to despair, when the longed-for
 
 204 
 
 SOUVENIRS OF THE 
 
 [chap. VUl 
 
 necessary to furl them 
 
 breath of wind came, and the ships drew apart. Two 
 hours hiter we were at the mercy of another gale, a north- 
 westerly one this time, with a bitter frost, which would not 
 have left a timber of the Belle-Pouk and the Cassani 
 if they had been in collision, but which gave me 
 occasion once more to admire our brave sailors' courage 
 and devotion. We had to set all sail so as to catch 
 the first puffs of wind. When the gale came on it became 
 
 again. But having been soaked 
 by the rain of the south- 
 easterly storm, they had 
 turned under the action of 
 the frost into perfect icicles. 
 They cracked like glass, 
 cutting the men's fingers 
 and tearing out their nails. 
 It was a frightfully difficult 
 job to take in the maintop 
 sail — a very heavy hempen 
 one — which I had kept out 
 as long as possible, and 
 which had to be furled just 
 when the storm was at its worst. I watched my poor 
 fellows clinging to the yard for over half an hour, shaken 
 by the terrible gusts, and still not able to manage it. 
 
 At midnight, when the watch changed, fearing that with 
 limbs benumbed by the cold as theirs were, they would not be 
 able even to continue holding on, I sent them orders to come 
 on deck and let fresh men take their places. But no! they 
 would not ! and slowly, surely, they finished their work. 
 Only when they got down from aloft they came on to the 
 quarterdeck cap in hand, with bleeding, swollen hands 
 and faces, saying, " Captain, we have taken the maintop 
 sail in," with that indefinable but touching look that a 
 man has who has done his duty to the very end in spite of 
 danger. 
 
 My brave sailors, I could have kissed them ! But I did 
 what they appreciated more than that ! I had good hot
 
 i84i— 1S42] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 205 
 
 mulled wine ready for them, and sent them to bed on it ! 
 Some days afterwards, in another gale, between two snow- 
 showers, I saw that rare electric phenomenon called St. 
 Elmo's fire — jets of electric fire appearing at the points 
 of all the ship's masts and yards. A spontaneous, unex- 
 pected, and most effective illumination. 
 
 And then we entered Toulon harbour, where we saluted 
 the flag of Admiral Hugon, commanding the squadron to 
 which the Belle-Poule was about to be attached.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 1842 
 
 As the squadron was to go into winter quarters at 
 Toulon, and as the Bel/e-Pon/e had to repair a great many 
 damages, I went back to Paris towards the end of January, 
 1842, and plunged joyfully into that most precious of 
 all possessions amidst the storms and vicissitudes of 
 politics, my home life. This notwithstanding, the 
 pleasures of the gay world, then a fairly brilliant one 
 were by no means indifferent to me. There was a 
 numerous succession of festivities. My brother, the Due 
 d'Orléans, gave a magnificent fancy ball in the Pavilion 
 Marsan. All the elegant and artistic world of Paris was 
 there, dressed either in historical costumes, faithfully copied 
 from pictures in the museums, or else in fantastic garments 
 which especially set off the beauty of their feminine 
 wearers. Mesdames de Contades, de Murât, and Place 
 had adopted Eastern dress. Madame Thiers wore a rich 
 moyen age costume ; Madame de Plaisance headed a 
 whole quadrille of hunters and huntresses. The Comtesse 
 Duhesme another, in which both gentlemen and ladies 
 wore the charming costumes brought into fashion by 
 Giraud's picture, La Pertnission de Dix Heures. The 
 beautiful Madame Liadières shone in a quadrille of light 
 cavalry men of the time of Louis XV. and shepherdesses 
 dressed à la Pompadour. The foreigners and members of 
 the diplomatic body of both sexes were for the most part 
 in dresses taken from their own national history. Among
 
 1S42] SOUVENIRS OF PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 
 
 207 
 
 the artistes, Eugène Sue, Henriquel-Dupont, Tony Jo- 
 hannot, and Louis Boulanger had chosen the style of 
 Louis XIII. Eugène Delacroix wore a Moorish dress, 
 Horace Vernet an Arab costume. Winterhalter represented 
 a Florentine of the fourteenth century, while Amaury 
 Duval, Jadin, Eugène Lamy, Gudin, Rafifet, &c., &c., were 
 all got up with the most studied correctness. When wc 
 went into supper the band of my brother Aumale's 
 regiment, the 17th Light Infantry, transformed into a posse 
 of Arab musicians, stationed on the staircase, played a 
 whole series of Algerian airs, which the good fellows had 
 learnt at Mouzaïa and Medeah, in the olive woods, or 
 under the blaze of the sun and the heat of the Arab fire. 
 The guests took their seats round a table on which was 
 the famous centrepiece, executed after Chenavard's design, 
 by Barye, Pradier, Klagman, Moine, my sister Marie, and 
 by Ary Scheffer and Paul Delaroche as well, who laid 
 aside their painters' brushes for the nonce, and wielded the 
 sculptors' point. It was an admirable piece of work, 
 worthy of Benvenuto Cellini, 
 broken up, alas ! cast to the four 
 winds of heaven, and lost to France, 
 after the revolution of February. 
 
 This fête was the fete of that 
 winter. One of those unique and 
 original entertainments the memory 
 of which lingers with one for long. 
 But there were others besides. 
 
 The King gave a series of con- 
 certs and large and small dances 
 every winter. At these last only 
 a very restricted number 
 of guests assembled, chosen '- • - 
 exclusively among the dip- 
 lomatic body, the foreigners ^ - ^ '- 
 chancing to pass through 
 
 Paris, and young dancing people, especially those young 
 ladies who ranked high for elegance and beauty. People
 
 2oS SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, ix 
 
 used to crowd, at these small dances, to watch the Princess 
 de Ligne dancing the mazurka with her incomparable Polish 
 grace ; just as at the big balls, which were rather crushes, 
 there would be a crowd, more curious than admiring, to watch 
 the steps and capers of the Prince de Craon, the last remain- 
 ing exponent of that pretentious school of dancing of which 
 Trénis had been the leader, under the Directoire. These 
 large crowded balls used to be a great bore, especially to 
 us, who had to take it in turn to do the honours to the 
 very end of the evening. Yet I recollect laughing heartily 
 one evening, when this duty had fallen to me, at seeing an 
 officer of the National Guard, in his cocked hat and big 
 feather, whose vision had somewhat suffered from the 
 supper he had Just consumed, trying to insist on per- 
 suading the Suisse standing at the door of the ball-room 
 with his cross belts and halbert, to be his partner in the 
 dance. He made frenzied attempts to drag him awa}-, 
 and only interrupted them to tr}- the seductive power ot 
 the most eccentric of dancing steps, which he performed 
 before him. 
 
 Nowada)s the race known as the Grand Prix de 
 Paris marks the close of what people are pleased to call 
 the season. Under the July Monarchy it was the "Fête 
 du Roi "with its firework display, and its official receptions, 
 which were tiresome to the last degree. Revolutions may 
 succeed each other, governments may change, but all the 
 tiresome things go on for ever. Under the monarchy, the 
 empire, or the republic alike, it is indispensable, so it 
 would appear, that once in the year at least, the diplomatic 
 body, clergy, Chambers, officers of the land and sea 
 forces, and companies and corporations of every kind, 
 should pass before the chief ruler, whoever he may be, 
 and make a series of official speeches to him, expressing 
 good wishes which are for the most part utterly lacking in 
 sincerity, and which the unlucky recipient is obliged to 
 acknowledge in every sort of commonplace formula. My 
 father had quite a special talent for varying these answers 
 of his, which he always extemporised. They were taken
 
 1842] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 209 
 
 down in shorthand, and made over to Vatout to have a 
 final polish put on them before being sent to the Moniteur. 
 The witty academician abhorred this duty, which he 
 irreverently styled " dressing the royal macaroni." For 
 lay figures like myself, the only interest about these re- 
 ceptions, which were practically got up for effect, lay in 
 watching the personages we saw pass. Two long-haired 
 peers of France, who always were among the last of their 
 Chamber to pass by, used to attract our attention par- 
 ticularly. They were Victor Hugo and Montalembert ; 
 then among the members of the Paris Municipal Council, 
 Victor Considérant, too, used to be pointed out to us. 
 Then there was a member of the Institute in a green coat 
 and black breeches, whose advent we looked forward to 
 with delight. This worthy gentleman used to come up 
 with three or four deputations in succession. He would 
 arrive with the first, bow, applaud enthusiastically after 
 the address, and then, while his deputation was leaving by 
 the door of exit, he was stepping backwards to the entrance 
 door to reappear with a second and third party, coming 
 forward each time with the same low bows and the same 
 demonstrations of enthusiasm. 
 
 Among the general officers and diplomats out of active 
 service who took part in these ceremonies, I used to 
 remark two British admirals. Sir Sydney Smith and Lord 
 Cochrane, who never failed to attend. They had each had 
 a brilliant career. The first, with Djezzar Pasha, had de- 
 fended St. Jean d'Acre against General Bonaparte's forces. 
 The second, a tall, fine, bold-looking man, had covered him- 
 self with glory by the most gallant behaviour, both in 
 Europe and Chili, where the tradition of his valour still 
 survives. Both had done great service to their country, yet 
 neither, it was said, could return to it. Wherefore } 
 
 The reception of the clergy had a quaintness all its own. 
 The archbishop's discourse was invariably and utterly in- 
 audible. Whether by accident, or by an unlucky coin- 
 cidence, it was always drowned by the noise of the 
 tremendous morning serenade given in the courtyard by 
 
 P
 
 2IO SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, ix 
 
 the twelve or fifteen hundred drums of the National Guard 
 and the Paris garrison, all beating in unison under the 
 guidance of a single drum-major. 
 
 Finally, in the evening, we had the don of the per- 
 formance, the reception of the diplomatic bod}-. There 
 was a certain amount of pomp about it. The members of 
 the corps assembled in a drawing-room near the Pavilion 
 Marsan, where a collation was prepared. Thence the King's 
 aides-de-camp went and fetched them, conducting them 
 through all the galleries of the Tuileries to the Throne- 
 room, near the Pavilion de Flore. When all these 
 ambassadors and ministers, with their suites, appeared at 
 the door of the Throne-room, in their varied uniforms, all 
 glistening in the candle-light, and slowly moved towards 
 the King, with three successive bows, the scenic effect was 
 really superb. The only shadow on the picture was the 
 Introducer of Ambassadors, who filled the part of master 
 of the ceremonies. I never could make out why, for that 
 xery theatrical part, we had chosen a hideously ugly man 
 with no nose ! We ought to have had some fine handsome 
 fellow to face those representatives of all the nations in the 
 world. When once the speeches had been made, and the 
 King and Queen had gone round the circle, the diplomatic 
 body retired backwards with the same three bows as on 
 entering, and passed out very slow!}-, for at the time of 
 which I speak it was exceedingly numerous. Besides the 
 ambassadors of the Great Powers there were famil}- 
 ambassadors. And then there were ministers from every 
 country in the world, including those of the small German 
 and Italian States, which have now been swallowed up in 
 German and Italian unity. All these embassies and 
 legations had innumerable attachés, generally young men 
 of great families attracted by the gaieties of Paris, and 
 glad to have a uniform and the right of admittance to 
 all the entertainments at court, at the embassies, and in 
 society in general. P^or in those days society did still 
 exist, our divisions and revolutionary laws having not yet 
 succeeded in destrovin»' it.
 
 1842] 
 
 PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 
 
 Of all these diplomats, the most liked and the most 
 likeable, beyond all contradiction, was the Austrian 
 Ambassador, Count Apponyi, a magnificent Hungarian 
 magnate. The long duration of 
 his mission, his truly high-bred 
 kindliness, and the salon which 
 his wife, his winning daughter, 
 his sons, and nephews had been 
 clever enough to make the first 
 in Paris, had combined to 
 render Count Apponyi most 
 congenial to us. His English, 
 Russian, and Prussian col- 
 leagues confined themselves 
 exclusively to their official 
 duties and to the coolest polite- 
 ness. It would have been hard 
 
 for Lord Cowley (a Wellesley), even had he desired it, to 
 wipe out the memory of his predecessors, Lords Granville 
 and Stuart de Rothesay, and above all of the charming 
 daughters of the last-named peer — beautiful, lovable, and 
 artistic — who became Lady Waterford and Lady Canning 
 respectively. Among the ministers I still seem to see the 
 form of Coletti, resplendent in his Greek costume — a true 
 patriot and a devoted friend to France — and then there 
 was the Swedish Minister, Comte de Lœvenhielm, a 
 charming old gentleman, who had been page-in-waiting 
 on Gustavus HLthe night he was murdered. The Spanish 
 Ambassador changed with every proniinciamiento. I do 
 not remember the name of any one of them. 
 
 As a novelty, we had a Turkish Ambassador. For 
 centuries there had been none but temporary Ottoman 
 missions. The first permanently appointed ambassador 
 we had, before Namick and Reschid Pashas, who both 
 spoke French very well, was Ahmed Fethi Pasha. He did 
 not know a single word of our language. I was present at 
 a great dinner in his honour at the Tuileries, and this is 
 what took place. Of course he had been placed on mj- 
 
 P 2
 
 SOUVENIRS OF THE 
 
 [chap. IX 
 
 mother's right hand at tabic, with a Foreign Office 
 interpreter, all gold lace and decorations, on his other 
 side. As soon as dinner began, the pasha conceiv^ed it in- 
 cumbent on him to address my mother with a fine Turkish 
 compliment, which, judging by the way he turned up his 
 eyes, and laid his hands on his heart, and the bows he 
 made her, must have been adorned with every flower 
 of Oriental poetry. When his speech was finished, the 
 pasha turned to the interpreter for him to translate 
 it to my mother, and this he proceeded to do, the 
 pasha accompanying and accentuating his remarks with 
 
 
 ru^. 
 
 more bows and grimacing and pressure of his hands to his 
 heart. 
 
 Now, behold the translation, which the dragoman, 
 who no doubt had perused the Bourgeois Gentilhomme^ 
 delivered to the Queen. "Madam, I have a daughter 
 whom I am very anxious to get into the Maison de 
 St. Denis. To do that I need your Majesty's powerful 
 support. Your Majesty will understand my seizing this 
 unequalled chance of making my request." 
 
 And all the time the good pasha kept on making- 
 agitated bows, and my mother had to keep on smiling at 
 him and returninc: them !
 
 1842] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 213 
 
 As regards the condition of things in general, it appeared 
 pacific enough in that year of grace 1842. The tempest in 
 the East was almost forgotten, a breath of peace seemed 
 to be passing over Europe, under the influence of which 
 calm and prosperity reigned in France. We had a mag- 
 nificent army, in which my brothers took as much interest 
 as I did in the navy. And the head of the army was an 
 eminent Minister of War, Marshal Soult, who, although he 
 looked on M. Thiers as a tiresome little fidget, emplo)'ed 
 the fruits of his great experience and long service in the 
 Ministry in bringing every branch of our land forces to 
 perfection gradually, and in the most admirably consistent 
 spirit. This army was waging an incessant war in Africa 
 under a commander no less eminent than the Marshal 
 himself, General Bugeaud, thus carrying on the conquest 
 of our splendid Algerian colony, which would have been 
 peerless indeed if we could have filled it with that excess 
 of population which other nations still possess, but which 
 has been dried up, in our case, by our revolutionary laws. 
 Our naval forces were in good condition too, so far as they 
 could be, on the eve of that great duel between sails and 
 steam which was to end by revolutionising everything, in 
 spite of all the delays of the red tape faction. 
 
 Of politics, my pet aversion, I will not speak. I had 
 sufficient curiosity, before writing these lines, to look 
 through the back numbers of the Moniteur for that period, 
 and started in horror at the terrible accumulation of useless 
 chatter I came upon. In contrast to these torrents of 
 fairly inoffensive eloquence, the unofficial press indulged 
 in a large amount of intemperate writing, far more dan- 
 gerous, seeing that it flattered more passions, and that 
 the calumnies thus spread were much farther reaching. 
 The Government, honest, useful, and enlightened as it was, 
 consistently patriotic and far-seeing, was able as yet to 
 thread its way amongst the obstacles cast in its path. 
 Six more years were to elapse before it was to be com- 
 pletely hemmed in, and the deluded mob to dance wildly 
 round the throne it had overturned singing the democratic
 
 214 
 
 SOUVENIRS OF THE 
 
 [chap. IX 
 
 creed, the chorus of every revolution we have had the last 
 hundred years. 
 
 Démolissons 
 Tant que nous pourrons ! 
 Après, nous verrons 
 Ce que nous ferons. 
 
 But my winter in Paris slipped swifth' by, and towards 
 the end of May Admiral Hugon's squadron prepared to 
 go to sea, the repairs to the Belle-Poulc were finished, and 
 I started to join my ship. 
 
 At Lyons I embarked on a steamer to go to Toulon, and 
 this vessel brought me to Aries under a lovely sunset. 
 Nothing could be prettier than the scene on arriving at 
 this picture of an old town, with its tall towers and the 
 great walls of its amphitheatre, its stone houses set in the 
 Rhone, and its port full of boats with long graceful lateen 
 yards. It was Sunday, besides, and the promenade was 
 crowded with pretty women. I am very fond of the little 
 
 town, and am always glad to get 
 back to it. So I lost no time about 
 jumping on shore, and making 
 over my baggage to the porter 
 from the Hôtel du Foruvi, I took 
 advantage of the long twilight to 
 see what changes three years had 
 wrought in my old acquaintance. 
 The women of Aries, a Greek 
 colony, still preserve the type of 
 countenance so much admired by 
 the ancients, undeteriorated b}' 
 their slight admixture of Cata- 
 lonian blood. The magnificent 
 monuments of the Roman city, 
 the theatre and the arena, show 
 the rank it held in ancient Gaul. In the present day 
 it is a well-to-do, gay, careless town, with a lively and 
 frivolous population, fond of pleasure, and indulging freely 
 in it. Night overtook me during my walk, and under the
 
 1842] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 215 
 
 splendid moonlight I could have fancied myself in some 
 Arab town ; I was in a labyrinth of lanes, where the 
 heat of day still hung. The women sat before the 
 doors in their pretty Sunday dresses, chattering with 
 the young men, and no carriage nor any sound dis- 
 turbed their low talk in that harmonious tongue on which 
 the poems of the trouvères have shed such glory. It was 
 exquisite. What a beautiful, nay, what an adorable 
 country is France in all her varied aspects, east and west, 
 north and south ! What endless enchantments they 
 afford, if only one can get rid of the sickening politics 
 that break up and destroy everything they touch ! 
 
 On the morrow I travelled down the Rhone, through the 
 Camargue, with its droves of oxen and its flights of 
 flamingos, lost in dreamy reverie as though foreseeing even 
 then that beautiful poem of " Mireille," which Mistral and 
 Gounod have since rendered immortal. 
 
 We sailed from Toulon, a splendid squadron, twenty 
 strong, to manoeuvre at sea. We were under the orders of 
 Admiral Hugon, " Le Père la Chique," as the men called 
 him. The soubriquet bears its own explanation with it. 
 Born at Granville and thoroughly Norman in character, 
 the admiral concealed the most unshakable determination 
 under an appearance of the greatest good-nature. I never 
 met a more thorough-born sailor. He divined what 
 weather was coming, foretold it long before the barometer 
 did, and took all the necessary precautions in advance. 
 He was the very personification of the seafaring instinct. 
 Besides this, he had a long record of bravery behind 
 him. At Navarino, where he commanded the Arniide, he 
 came up and lay with true fraternal chivalry between the 
 Turkish ships and a British frigate that was suffering very 
 much from their fire, which same service the British cor- 
 vette Rose rendered him in return, and with equal gal- 
 lantry, towards the close of the engagement. 
 
 The consequence of all this was that we all felt ourselves 
 well led, and had the most absolute confidence in our 
 chief, and I myself was particularly fond of him. It really
 
 2i6 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, ix 
 
 was a fine sight both from the picturesque point of view 
 and from that of a justifiable national pride, when our 
 twenty white-sailed ships manoeuvred all together, under 
 the admiral's signal, on the blue Mediterranean waters, with 
 no sound to break the silence except the shrill voices of 
 the officers of the watch. 
 
 We went on in this fashion, sailing and manœuvring and 
 firing our guns, and gauging day by day the respective 
 values alike of officers and men, till we got to the Gulf of 
 Naples, where we cast anchor, so as to give everybody a 
 spell of rest and recreation. Very complete the recreation 
 was, every class of the population joining to give us the 
 kindliest of welcomes. We sent our crews ashore, and 
 there the Frenchman's gaiety soon went into partnership 
 with the Neapolitan's. Everywhere corricoli were to be 
 seen galloping along carrying clusters of merry sailors. 
 Our ambassador, the Due de Montebello, who kept great 
 state and the most open house at the Rothschild palace, 
 introduced our officers into the most delightful society of 
 Naples, and there was a succession of parties and merr)'- 
 makings. By wa}" of response, the admiral gave a very 
 pretty afternoon party on board his three-decker, the 
 Ocean, and I a ball on board the Belle-Poulc. I had found 
 a goodly number of old acquaintances, besides my cousins 
 of both sexes, and especially I frequented the society of a 
 certain charming Tertullia, who held her daily court at the 
 Palazzo Fernandina, a place of meeting which all of my 
 generation at Naples must recollect. It was a Spanish 
 house, belonging to the Toledo family, numerous branches 
 of which were represented in it, such as the X'illafranca, 
 the Alcanicez, the Bivona, the Sclafani, &:c. What 
 charming women of every nationality one met there ! 
 What pleasant parties we organised thence, with Isabella 
 Colonna, Teresa Sclafani, and that exquisite creature 
 Lauretta Acton, who afterwards became Madame Min- 
 ghetti, and many another ! Now it would be a night ascent 
 of Vesuvius, in eruption, and then again a moonlight ex- 
 cavation at Pompeii. Show me the man who would not
 
 i842j PRINXE DE JOINVILLK 217 
 
 have fallen in love in such company, beneath that exquisite 
 sky, environed and intoxicated by the indefinable enchant- 
 ments in which the landscape and the very air you breathed 
 were steeped ! But the signal to get under way is hoisted 
 at the mainmast of the Océan, and we must tear ourselves 
 away from these delights, and start forth with hearts that 
 are heavy, but full of sweetest memories. And whither ? 
 That is the Admiral's secret ! 
 
 A few days after our departure we were in the open sea, 
 absorbed in professional duties and daily drills, when afar 
 off we saw the smoke of a steamer. Soon the vessel came 
 in sight and hoisted signals for our admiral, who ordered 
 the fleet to bring to. The sea being calm, an officer from 
 the steamer boarded the Ocean, and immediately after- 
 wards we saw the admiral's barge lowered, and he got into 
 it and steered for the Belle-Poitle. Amid the general 
 astonishment and numerous conjectures caused by this 
 unusual incident, I received my chief at the companion- 
 ladder. He grasped my hand, squeezed it tight, drew me 
 into the cabin, and said, "Your brother, the Due d'Orléans, 
 is dead, killed in a carriage accident. My orders are to 
 send you to Paris at once." The rough old sailor's face 
 betrayed his deep emotion. But how shall I describe my 
 own, under such a terrible and unexpected blow t This 
 world's sorest sorrows are those that tear the human heart- 
 strings, and mine was even more bitter than an ordinary 
 grief, for I do not believe there ever was a more attached 
 family than ours, and not only had I lost the most beloved 
 of brothers, but the confidant, the guide, and the com- 
 panion of my whole life. I seemed to see and feel the 
 despair of my father, above all of my mother, and of my 
 brothers and sisters, too, under this awful blow, and 
 their sorrow added to my own. For a moment I stood 
 thunderstruck. Then the admiral left me alone .... I 
 gave over my ship to my second in command, and within 
 an hour I was on my way to Toulon, the gloomy faces 
 round me betraying the general feeling that this was a 
 public misfortune, and that the loss to France was very 
 srreat.
 
 2i8 SOUVENIRS OF THP: [chap, ix 
 
 It was indeed immense, irreparable. For the past ten 
 years we all, and with us the whole of France, had looked 
 to my brother as our leader, the " cJief de demain',' our 
 chief in the great days that were to come. We had of 
 course the tenderest affection, the most entire devotion, the 
 deepest respect for the King, Le Père, as we always 
 called him amongst ourselves, but it was to Chartres we 
 turned for guidance always. There was not one of us who 
 would not from childhood upwards have unhesitatingly 
 accepted his advice and his authority. How often had 
 we discussed with him all the chances the future might 
 bring ! How often, too, had he pointed out the various 
 parts he destined each of us to play, every one of them, 
 we felt, stamped with the good sense and profound under- 
 standing of a born leader of men ! And what we, his 
 brothers, his heutenants, so to speak, felt about him, the 
 country felt as well. The King was in the breach, val- 
 iantly carrying on the battle of life, to preserve the peace, 
 calm, and prosperity she was enjoying to France, and 
 all those who were not blinded by democratic envy were 
 grateful to him for so doing. But he was growing old, 
 great complications might arise, and, like us, all had looked 
 confidently to the young leader who, without ever mixing 
 himself up in the barren struggles of everyday politics, was 
 ceaselessly preparing himself for great and important con- 
 tingencies. For every one else, as well as for us, I repeat, 
 the Due d'Orléans was the chef de demain. His in- 
 cessant care for the good organisation and perfecting of 
 our military forces, and the pains he took to select the 
 most deserving men from their ranks without a shadow of 
 favouritism or regard for birth — such men as Lamoricière, 
 Cavaignac, Canrobert, and MacMahon — and to advance 
 them to the highest positions, had been appreciated by the 
 public. All this was pour demain, for the morrow. So 
 too in matters civilian. If he did stretch out his hand, not 
 indeed to incorrigible revolutionaries, but to men of ad- 
 vanced opinions, who were in opposition to the King's 
 Government, that too was " for the morrow." It was so as
 
 1842] PRINCE DE JOEWILLE 219 
 
 to be able, in the hour of his country's peril, to serve as the 
 patriotic link between all the living forces in the nation. 
 The general feeling, alas ! both our own and that of the great 
 majority of thinking men, was that the bond that might 
 have held these forces together against revolution, over- 
 flowing from within, as well as enemies attacking from 
 without, had just been snapped. Death had destroyed the 
 anticipated and universally accepted successor, and with 
 him the chief prop of the July Monarchy. Thenceforward 
 the ship was to toss uncommanded, objectless and compass- 
 less, at the mercy of every tempest. Men and principles 
 alike had failed us, and we were to relapse once more into 
 a state of unstable government. This sad presentiment 
 was only too well justified by ultimate events. 
 
 Physically, my eldest brother was tall, with a slight and 
 exceptionally elegant figure. In uniform and on horse- 
 back he looked magnificent, and his soldierly presence 
 pleased the troops as much as it did the populace. As for 
 bravery, he was downright reckless, another cause for 
 popularity with the masses. Everybody knew he had re- 
 ceived a wound in Africa, before Mascara, by throwing 
 himself boldly among the skirmishers at a critical moment. 
 It was known, too, that at the Mouzaia Pass, when the whole 
 army was wearing a cap covered with black oilcloth, he 
 alone insisted on wearing a bright red one, which marked 
 him out to all the men as their commanding officer, but 
 which also exposed himself, and those near him as well, 
 to the enemy's bullets. To the charm of valour my 
 brother added that of speech, that music of the tongue to 
 which all men, but especially Frenchmen, are so sensitive. 
 And to this he added another quality not less seductive, 
 especially in a prince — he was a good listener ; listening, 
 in fact, was one of his foremost qualities. Surrounded, as 
 he always was, by eminent men of every nationality, he 
 would assimilate with extraordinary facility and wonderful 
 retentiveness not only the fruitful ideas, which he gleaned 
 from their conversation, but the very words which 
 struck his fancy. And these words, as well as those
 
 220 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, ix 
 
 with which his cultivvated and thoroughly French mind 
 and his heart inspired him, he knew how to use with mar- 
 vellous effect. What more eloquent than the toast he 
 proposed at a farewell banquet in the open air, at which 
 his whole division, officers and men alike, were gathered 
 round him, after their return from the expedition to the 
 Iron Gates .'' 
 
 " In the name of the King, who four times over has sent 
 his son to serve in its ranks, I drink to the army of 
 Africa and its general-in-chief, Marshal Vallée, under 
 whose orders it has accomplished such great deeds. 
 
 " To the army which has conquered a vast and splendid 
 empire for France, opening a boundless field to that 
 civilisation of which it is the vanguard, and that 
 colonisation of which it is the first pledge. 
 
 " To the army that has handled rifle and pick in turn, 
 fighting Arabs or fever as they came, facing an inglorious 
 death in hospital with stoic resignation, and which by its 
 brilliant valour has preserved the most famous traditions 
 of our arms among our youthful soldiers. 
 
 " To the army, the flower of that greater French army — 
 the nursery, on the one battlefield reserved to us alone, of 
 our future military chiefs — whose heart swells with a just and 
 noble pride in those w4io have already risen from its ranks. 
 
 " To the army, which, distant as it is from the father- 
 land, knows happily nothing of the intestine conflicts 
 waged there, except to curse them, and which, being as it is 
 the refuge of those who flee them, asks nothing but to fight 
 nature, Arabs, and the climate, in the general interest of 
 France. 
 
 "And to the illustrious leader, the captor of Constantine, 
 who has stamped French Africa with the indelible seal of 
 permanent possession, and planted our flag where the 
 Romans dared not carry their eagles." 
 
 The reception given by the soldiers, whose toils and 
 dangers he had just been sharing, to this vigorous language 
 may be imagined. He had the supreme charm, both for 
 soldiers and for artists, who always found a (I'iend and pro-
 
 1842] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 221 
 
 tector in him, and for women as well. But here I touch a 
 delicate subject, and the most inviolable secrecy checks my 
 pen. Old Baron James de Rothschild was heard to say in 
 his old age that he yet had to meet the lady who could re- 
 sist him. I fancy he boasted somewhat. I fancy, too, 
 that if he had not met her then, he ended by knowing such 
 a lady. But I am certain, without going so far as the 
 baron did, that my brother met few women, in the course 
 3f his radiant youth, who did not respond to his homage, 
 at all events with a secret but tender emotion. Into what 
 adventures that personal charm of his carried him ! He 
 was saved on one such occasion, from a very risky situa- 
 tion, by his own sangfroid and boldness. It was at a 
 period when attempted risings were continually occurring 
 in Paris. Either Jie or she had had the somewhat original 
 idea of meeting at a house in a far from poetic street 
 which still exists — the Rue Tiquetonne. Presently alarm- 
 ing sounds were heard, and then died away, only to begin 
 again, louder than ever. Soon the distant rolling of drums 
 sounded, followed by rifle shots. It was the situation in 
 the fourth act of TJie Huguenots. They rushed to the 
 window. The street was full of armed rioters, busily en- 
 gaged in building up barricades. How was he, the Prince 
 Royal, known as he was by everybody, to get away } " I 
 turned up the collar of my overcoat," he told me, "and I 
 was lucky enough to get into the street just as they were 
 dragging up a carriage to upset it and make it the nucleus 
 of the barricade. I caught hold of it at once, helped to 
 turn it over, and to pile paving-stones and stuff of all sorts 
 over and round it, with an amount of zeal that disarmed 
 all suspicion. And then I watched my opportunity and 
 slipped away." In an hour he was in uniform and on 
 horseback, and the Municipal Guard was carrying his 
 barricade at the bayonet's point.^ 
 
 Such, under his various aspects, was the brother I had 
 lost. 
 
 I reached Neuilly in time to be present at his solemn 
 ^ Translator' s note. — What became of the poor lady ?
 
 222 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, ix 
 
 funeral, which took j)hice at Notre-Dame amid the most 
 touching proofs of the t^eneral sorrow. We took him to 
 the mausoleum at Dreux, and then we shut ourselv^es up 
 at Neuilly to cHng to each other and mourn him in silence 
 and retirement. 
 
 But though my brother Nemours, upon whom the 
 eventual duties of Regent fell by the Due d'Orléans' 
 death, was by that fact prevented from going away, neither 
 I nor my other brothers, who wore the King's uniform, 
 were able to remain long in idleness. 
 
 Aumale was appointed to the command of the Province 
 of Tittery, in Algiers. The Belle-Potile was ordered on 
 a cruise along the Guinea Coast and to South America, 
 touching first of all at Lisbon, and it was settled that 
 Aumale should take passage on board her as far as that 
 port. So after a sad farewell we started together to join 
 her at Brest. As our mourning exempted us from all 
 ■official receptions, we took the longest way round, by the 
 Loire Valley, with its ancient castles, the wild country of 
 Morbihan, and the picturesque scenery of Finistère. Our 
 first stage was to Blois, where we went to see the castle, 
 an historic gem, then on to Amboise, Saumur, Angers, 
 Pont-de-Cé, and Nantes. Everything about that journey 
 — scenery, monuments, memories, legends — is delightful. 
 It is a touching unfolding of the history of old France — 
 that France of bygone days, which, with her faded glories 
 and her chivalrous adventures, consoles those who love 
 her for the calamities born of revolution. We made a 
 short stay at Nantes, whence Aumale went to Chateau- 
 briand to look at his property with M. de la Haye- 
 Jousselin, while I went to Karheil to see the château of 
 the Coislin family. This was for sale, and my father was 
 anxious to buy it as a centre to the sandy tracts of Saint 
 Gildas and Lanvaux, w-hich he owned already, and which 
 previous to the year 1830, he had planted with trees, 
 which had done well. 
 
 On my way to Karheil I passed through Blain, where I 
 saw the ruins of the famous castle of the Rohans, the
 
 1843] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 223 
 
 cradle of that mighty race. Only two out of the nine 
 towers adorning it are still standing. The rest were pulled 
 down during the Revolution. The heart tightens at the 
 sight of these ruins scattered in all directions and the 
 inevitable repetition of the phrase, " Destroyed during 
 the Revolution." The Saracens and Huns did no worse 
 things. 
 
 In the company of an aged man with powdered wig and 
 side curls, the picture of an old-fashioned henchman, and 
 armed with full powers from the Coislin as well as from 
 the Rohan family, I went to see Karheil, a castle perched 
 on a rock, encircled by a pretty stream. The glades of 
 the fine park were obstructed by fences, hedges, and 
 •ditches, and other artificial obstacles, which turned them 
 into a steeplechase course — an arrangement, so M. Bizeul 
 told me, of M. le Marquis " for the amusement of the 
 people coming to the château." Then he looked at me. 
 I know not what he read in my eyes, but a paroxysm of 
 grief seized him, and he was almost in tears as he confided 
 to me the sorrow he felt at seeing one of the oldest and 
 most venerated families in Brittany go down the hill. And 
 the old friend of the family had good reason to be grieved. 
 There was good stuff in the Marquis de Coislin of that 
 •date. As a young man he had put himself at the head 
 ■of his devoted partisans, like a gallant knight, in the 
 Duchesse de Berry's insurrection. Later on, I had met 
 him in Paris, a splendid gentleman, whose deep glance 
 breathed passion, and no doubt inspired it too. Many 
 years later yet, in 1871, those who saw Charette's Zouaves 
 fighting with the army of the Loire noticed in their ranks 
 -a tall old white-bearded man, a simple Zouave indeed, 
 but an exemplar of courage and devotion. That was the 
 Marquis de Coislin. Sad it is that it is through our revo- 
 lutions and divisions the services of such men should be 
 lost to France. 
 
 From Nantes too I went to see the naval workshops at 
 Indret, where I was received by exceedingly capable and 
 intelligent chiefs of departments, and where I saw a body
 
 224 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, ix 
 
 of artificers quite out of the common, but all of them mis- 
 placed in a badl}^ situated establishment, the original plan 
 of which was utterly defective, and in which they were 
 forced to vegetate uselessly in spite of their own impotent 
 efforts and endeavours. Thence we took our way across 
 the Morbihan to Vannes, which during the whole of my 
 father's reign was administered by the same prefect, and 
 that with the esteem of every party. An exceptional case 
 this (especially when the state of latent civil war in which 
 the department was, is considered), and one much to the 
 credit of the gentleman in question, M. Lorois. Our journey 
 was so hurried that we had barely time to kneel at the 
 shrine of St. Anne d'Auray, so highly venerated by Breton 
 pilgrims, and to give some hasty alms to the crowd of beggars 
 clustered on the steps of the sanctuary. They all limped 
 off at once, with a great clatter of crutches and wooden 
 shoes, to fetch us water from the Bonne-Merc to wash our 
 faces and eyes with. The journey across 
 Brittany from Nantes to Brest, by Auray, 
 Rosporden, and Quimper, is a delight- 
 ful one. Smiling and picturesque scenery 
 everywhere, old churches too, surrounded 
 by fine trees, and at the period of which 
 I speak, 1842, the quaintest of costumes 
 as well. Here withy-cutters, or salt- 
 - marsh workers from Guérande, in 
 blouses, breeches, and long white gaiters, 
 with broad-brimmed hats laden with charms on their flowing 
 hair. There people from St, Pol-de-Leon, all in black. 
 Further on, a group of women, in embroidered bodices and 
 quaint headdresses, kneeling on the open heath, at the foot 
 of a stone cross. How pretty those little Breton women are 
 with their well-shaped waists and their short petticoats, 
 showing glimpses of neat blue stockinged legs, and fresh rosy 
 faces under their white caps ! Those eyes of theirs are cast 
 down devout!}' at their prayers, but on feast days they are 
 raised and shine with passionate fire. On such occasions, 
 if we may believe report, the pretty little devotees follow
 
 1842] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 225 
 
 the guidance of that eleventh commandment, which, ac- 
 cording to the late Lord Clarendon, sums up all the rest : 
 
 D'être pincé te garderas, 
 Afin de fauter librement — 
 
 or, in the English version, " Thou shalt not be found out." 
 We reached Lisbon after a swift passage. The Tagus is 
 a fine river, certainly, but, to my mind, the much vaunted 
 panorama of Lisbon does not merit its reputation. The 
 Tower of Bclem alone, with its curious . architecture, 
 enchants the eye, and the enchantment is prolonged, on 
 landing, by the sight of the exquisite church standing 
 behind it. But there it ends. All the rest is ugliness. 
 We went ashore in the royal launch {Falua), a vessel adorned 
 with gilt carvings, and w^ith a silken awning over her stern. 
 The crew were men from Algarve, with tanned skins, dressed 
 in short drawers and jackets of amaranth-coloured velvet, 
 with Venetian caps on their heads. They stood upright to 
 row, keeping their strokes in time to a sort of litany in the 
 Queen's honour, which they sang in chorus. 
 
 This was not my first visit to Lisbon. I was rejoiced 
 to see the Queen Dona Maria again. She was one of my 
 childhood's friends, and I was eventually to become her 
 brother-in-law I know not how many times over. I also 
 renewed my acquaintance with King Ferdinand, of whom 
 I had not seen so much. The King, who was an artist to 
 his finger tips, a distinguished musician, water-colour artist, 
 etcher, and ceramist, hated politics. This and some other 
 little failings common to us both, drew us together, and our 
 friendship endured up to his premature death. I have often 
 been in Portugal since those days, and have always received 
 a welcome for which I feel the liveliest gratitude. I have 
 met distinguished men there, and charming, well-informed, 
 and kind-hearted ladies. I have vowed the sincerest 
 affection alike to both Portugal and the Portuguese, and 
 my best wishes follow both country and people all over the 
 world, but I will not commit myself to any opinion as to 
 their political life. 
 
 Q
 
 226 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, rx 
 
 At the time I speak of, the country possessed two illus- 
 trious soldiers, Marshal Saldanha and Marshal Terceira. 
 On these two, in turn, hinged the alternate changes made 
 in its constitution, whether by military insurrection, or other 
 and less unparliamentary means. Such was the national 
 habit, and the country did not seem the worse for it. As 
 in our own case, there were two dynastic parties, but what 
 was strange was that the Miguelists, who opposed Queen 
 Dona Maria, and who, by the way, were few in numbers, 
 set up for being Legitimists, although they claimed the right 
 of government for Don Miguel, the representative of the 
 younger branch of the reigning family. Let wise politicians 
 explain that as best they may. 
 
 I do not recollect whether it was on the occasion of this 
 particular visit to Lisbon, that at a reception of mine 
 for the diplomatic body at Bclem, the Duke de Palmela, 
 who presented its members (as Minister for Foreign Affairs), 
 asked me to excuse his hurrying through the ceremony, as 
 his Duchess was in the act of bringing her fifteenth child 
 into the world. A palpable proof this, given by the head 
 of its Foreign Office, of the vitality of the Portuguese 
 nation ! Some days later the Duke, a diplomatist of the 
 old school, who added to his own considerable wit and clever- 
 ness the advantage of having rubbed shoulders with the 
 greatest diplomatists of the century, such as Talleyrand 
 and Metternich, asked me to dine with him. It was a 
 splendid banquet. On our arrival we found the royal 
 archers (so called because they carried halberts!) lining 
 the staircase. Thence we passed into a splendid suite of 
 rooms, at the end of which, after we left table, a great door 
 was thrown open, revealing a magnificent state bed on 
 an estrade with several steps up to it. And in this bed 
 the newly confined Duchess, to whom all the guests 
 hastened to pay their duty ! 
 
 I noticed some fine rifle battalions at a review of the 
 Portuguese troops, and I had a very amusing talk with the 
 celebrated admiral, Sir Charles Napier, who was present 
 on horseback, in a British post-captain's uniform, but with
 
 1 842] 
 
 PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 
 
 227 
 
 
 a little hat, â la Napoléon, with a Portuguese cockade, his 
 trousers all worked up, huge spurs on his feet, and an 
 enormous cudgel in his grasp. 
 
 Finall}-, the King took us on a sporting expedition to 
 Mafra, among the mountains which 
 stretch towards Torres Vedras. They 
 are not high, but steep, and covered 
 with stunted vegetation. It was a 
 picturesque sight this shooting party, 
 in that mountain country, some of 
 it very beautiful, where the eye con- 
 stantly lighted on scenes that w^ere 
 like pictures of guerilla or partisan 
 warfare. Hundreds of beaters, in their 
 brilliant costumes, wearing breeches, 
 
 and with handkerchiefs tied round ■-■ - - ■. ^ - 
 
 their heads, and cloaks flung over 
 
 their shoulders, climbed up through the gorges, slipped 
 swiftly along the mountain ledges, and drove a host of 
 small deer, stags, wild boar, and foxes down to the 
 sportsmen. Even after the sun had set the firing was 
 still going on. 
 
 But both Aumale and I were very eager to see something 
 more of Portugal than the pleasures and official and politi- 
 cal life of Lisbon. So as soon as we were back from the 
 shooting excursion we started on a whimsical expedition of 
 our own, which we hoped to carry as far as the ancient and 
 celebrated university town of Coimbra. All means of 
 communication being most primitive at that time, we 
 travelled on horseback, escorted by a former captain on 
 the French staff, who had been aide-de-camp to the Duke 
 of Ragusa in 1830, who had succeeded his uncle, Hyde de 
 Neuville, as Marquis of Bemposta in Portugal, and who 
 had ended by becoming aide-de-camp to King Ferdinand. 
 We formed a regular caravan, the transport service of which 
 had been undertaken by a native "Almocrève." 
 
 The first day we crossed a sort of desert country, of 
 evil repute, covered with heather as far as the eye could 
 
 Q 2
 
 22J 
 
 SOUVENIRS OF THE 
 
 [chap. IX 
 
 sec — the lowest spurs of the Sierra d'Estrella, a long 
 mountain chain which rises in Spain, near Segovia and 
 Avila. Passing through a wild gorge, at a place called 
 Mecheira, we came upon a band of evil-looking men, gun 
 on shoulder, who seemed to be out shooting in an easy- 
 
 going fashion. Our party was both well-armed and 
 numerous, and I fancy they looked on it as too heav}- 
 game for their rifles. I am all the more inclined to this 
 opinion, because we met some cavalry patrols a little fur- 
 ther on, who had been sent out in a great hurry, some 
 travellers having been stopped and stripped 
 at Mecheira that very morning. Two days' 
 travelling brought us to Alcobaca and 
 Aljubarota. My reader will notice these 
 names beginning with Al. The Moors 
 have passed this way ! Aljubarota is 
 famous for the battle there, which estab- 
 lished the autonomy of the kingdom of 
 Portugal in 1385. The army commanded 
 by the Grand Master of Avis, Don Jaô, 
 had to do with a Spanish force using fire- 
 arms (the " needle-gun " of that date !), which were quite 
 unknown to the Portuguese troops. These last had botli 
 wind and sun and dust against them. But buoyed up by their 
 
 1^4^-
 
 1S42] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 229 
 
 native bravery, and by the example of Don Jaô, and of the 
 Bishop of Braga, who rode down the ranks with helmet on 
 head and lance in hand, they put the Spanish army to 
 flight, and the Spanish King never stopped till he got to 
 Seville. As for the Grand Master of Avis, who became 
 King of Portugal, he founded the church and convent of 
 Batalha, which we had come to see, in memory of his 
 victor}'. 
 
 I know not how to describe ancient buildings. I am no 
 architect ; but things which are stately always strike me 
 deeply; and there is no doubt about it, Batalha is stately, 
 simple, severe, with that religious stamp about it which I 
 look for vainly in the churches of our own day. The door- 
 way, delicately carved, and in beautiful preservation, repre- 
 sents terrestrial paradise, and every one of the statues of 
 the saints is a little masterpiece. Behind the church there 
 is a chapel begun by Don Emmanuel, and which he was 
 never able to finish. This is much to be regretted, to judge 
 by what already exists. There is some sculpture of the 
 most extraordinary delicacy — almost like a spider's web. 
 But, alas '. vandals have come upon the scene. The stained 
 glass has gone, and ever so many statuettes are missing 
 from their niches, sold to collectors or to passing tourists. 
 Close to the church stands the convent, similar in style to 
 the convent at Belem. There is one huge Gothic hall, which 
 I thought superb. The story goes that the vaulted ceiling 
 gave way three times, and that when it had been built up 
 again the fourth time the architect stood himself under- 
 neath it just as the last scaffolding was knocked away. 
 The vault stood, and he had his own face carved on one 
 of the pendentives, thus forming a statuette which is by no 
 means one of the least beautiful in that splendid building, 
 all the more to be admired, to my thinking, on account 
 of its being absolutely untouched by the barbarous hand 
 of the restorer. 
 
 We went on to Leiria, where a great market gave us an 
 opportunity of admiring the beauty of the country women 
 and their charming costumes. We put up in a posada^
 
 230 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, ix 
 
 in which the stable was on the first floor and the kitchen 
 on the second, and where we shared rooms with geese and 
 pigs and a party of travelh'ng gelders from France. After 
 
 Leiria came Pombal. These 
 little Portuguese towns are all 
 charming. They seem as if 
 they belonged to another 
 period altogether. The pillory 
 is still to be seen in them, 
 and the gaol too ; this last a 
 sort of wild beast cage, with a 
 huge grated window level with 
 the public square, through 
 - which every one can talk, 
 without any surveillance, with 
 the prisoners, condemned or otherwise, w^ho are all huddled 
 together pell mell. There were only two young women in 
 the gaol at Pombal. We entered into conversation with 
 them. By dint of questioning them, and the passers-by as 
 well, we learnt that they were sisters — and then came the 
 eternal old tale. The eldest had a lover, and all the rest 
 of it ! She had not courage to put the child out of the 
 way, and her young sister buried it alive. The unhappy 
 girls had been five months in that cage waiting their 
 sentence, exposed to all the insults, jests, and coarse 
 remarks of the populace. What torture to those poor 
 women, who, to judge by their features and appearance, 
 were evidently of a superior class to the mere peasants ! 
 The elder one, the mother, was very beautiful, though pale 
 and seemingly weakened by suffering. Her expression was 
 so gentle it pained me to look at her. " Ah, let no man 
 insult a woman who has fallen," says the poet. 
 
 After the pillory and the gaol we had another memory of 
 the Middle Ages. Shortly before we got to Coimbra we 
 met one of the great local families, the Pinto-Bastos, 
 travelling along the road, the ladies in litters, each borne 
 by two gaily-caparisoned mules, the gentlemen on horse- 
 back, in the costume of the country, and escorted by
 
 1 842] 
 
 PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 
 
 231 
 
 numerous serving-men, also mounted, and wearing big 
 caps, breeches, and handsome velvet jackets with silver 
 buttons. Each man carried his striped wrapper over his 
 shoulder, and was armed with the huge stick the Portuguese 
 know how to wield so well. The whole caravan made a 
 
 fine effect. Looking at it pass by, you might fancy your- 
 self in the sixteenth century. All at once, from the crest 
 of some rising ground, we caught sight of the beautiful 
 and smiling Mondego Valley, with Coimbra rising in 
 terraces along the river 
 against a fine mountain 
 background. It was most 
 picturesque. We descended 
 towards a long stone bridge 
 leading to the town, and 
 each member of our cara- 
 van made himself ready as 
 best he could to give the 
 least handle possible to the 
 jests with which the students 
 habitually salute all newly- 
 arrived strangers. The whole 
 corporation was under arms, 
 
 indeed, in the sable costume, doublet, breeches and cloak, 
 with which the "Estudiantinas Espagnoles" have familiar- 
 ised us, only in this case the Spanish cocked hat and spoon 
 was replaced by a sort of black Phrygian cap. To our 
 astonishment, these young gentlemen, instead of poking
 
 232 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, in; 
 
 fun at us, got off the parapet on which they had been 
 sitting, pulled off their caps to us, and welcomed us with 
 the most kindl)- politeness. They knew, perhaps, that we 
 too had worn our breeches out upon school benches, and 
 thus saluted us as comrades ! 
 
 Beyond this friendly row of men in black, we saw the 
 river dotted with white sails, and on its banks, among the 
 willows, we beheld not a few of those well-shaped washer- 
 women with turned-up skirts, whom Camoens christened 
 the nymphs of the Mondego. At the far end of the bridge, 
 between tall irregular walls, stood a gateway as dark as the 
 entrance to a Turkish town ; and just as we would have 
 passed through it, mournful objurgations and sorrowful 
 appeals from some invisible mortals rose around us, while 
 baskets hanging on pulleys came down upon our heads, 
 and porringers fastened to long reeds started out of holes 
 in the walls and terrified our horses. The prisoners shut 
 up within those walls were thus beseeching us to deposit 
 our alms, pecuniary or other, in their baskets or their 
 porringers ! Having dismounted at a good inn, we dis- 
 covered that the " Mesonero " (in other words, our host) 
 was the possessor of two pretty daughters, whom he kept 
 in a tower under lock and key, so dangerous a town is 
 Coimbra ! But we set our wits to work to catch a sight 
 of the beautiful recluses. By means of a nosegay tied to 
 the end of a long stick we drew two sprightly faces, well 
 worthy their reputation, to the window, and so we made 
 acquaintance. Then we were fetched to go over the 
 university, the honours of which were done us by the 
 "grand master" in a blue and gold gown, assisted by two 
 professors who spoke F"rench admirably well. Aumale, 
 being much more lettered and academic than myself, kept 
 the conversational ball rolling brilliantly. The huge 
 institution, in which professors and students alike seemed 
 to me to know their work thoroughly, is admirably organ- 
 ised, and is venerated throughout the whole country on 
 account of its great antiquit}-. To the Portuguese mind 
 it is the fountain-head of all knowledge ; and we were told.
 
 1S42] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 233 
 
 in the most artless manner, that if our universities in 
 France were good it was because they were managed by 
 professors from Coimbra ! From the university we went 
 on to see an ancient mosque which had been turned into a 
 cathedral, but which still preserved its thoroughly Moorish 
 character. In Spain and Portugal alike the Moors have 
 left indelible traces of their passage, both in the buildings, 
 in the language, and in the types of the two races. Our 
 stay at Coimbra ended with an expedition to the " Ouinta 
 das Lagrimas " (the Villa of Tears). In the shadow of the 
 gigantic cedars which shelter this villa, standing in a lovely 
 spot on the banks of the Mondego, the romantic story of 
 the loves of the Infant of Portugal, Don Pedro, and of 
 Inez de Castro, as sung by Camoëns, and ending in that 
 murder of Inez, to the punishment of which the whole life 
 of Don Pedro "the Avenger" was devoted, unfolded 
 itself. The proprietors for the time being of the villa gave 
 me some of Inez de Castro's hair, which they had collected 
 when her tomb was violated during the Napoleonic wars. 
 It is fair hair. 
 
 We returned to Lisbon by a different route, over terrible 
 roads, scarcely more than tracks, across a land of moors 
 and pine-woods, picturesque enough, but wild and lonely, 
 where we came in broad daylight on huge wolves, prowling 
 round the flocks of goats, which the goatherds still call, as 
 in the most primitive times, by blowing on conch shells. 
 Two days' march brought us within sight of the little town 
 of Thomar, and at nightfall we reached our halting place, 
 — a horrible " hospedaria," in the kitchen of which we 
 took refuge, chilled, and aching with fatigue. Aumale 
 dandled the children in the chimney-corner, thereby win- 
 ning their fond affections, while I set to work to make 
 love to the mistress of the establishment, a stout and 
 not altogether illiterate lady — for she could swear in any 
 language. 
 
 Thomar ! Were you ever at Thomar .' Did you ever 
 even hear of it .'' Yet how many a journey has been made, 
 how much trouble has been taken, to see what is much less
 
 234 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chai>. ik 
 
 worth seeing ! The object of my admiration there is a 
 convent, sacked, alas ! antl pkmdercd — well-nigh utterly 
 destroyed, but still the most singularly remarkable building 
 conceivable. The nucleus of the convent is formed by a 
 round mosque, with coloured pillars, and a " mirhab," 
 which I still see in my mind's eye, full of long-robed and 
 turbaned Mussulmans, plunged in solemn meditation. With 
 the Christian conquest, the mosque became a Christian 
 church, and the mirhab in its centre the high altar. 
 After the Moors came the Templars, and then the Knights 
 of Christ, who bravely defended the convent against an 
 attempted Moorish recapture. A gate is still shown, called 
 the " Gate of blood " on account of the carnage of which it 
 was the scene. The Templars and the Knights of Christ 
 have both left their mark upon the edifice. Later in the 
 day came Don Emmanuel, and with him the rich and quaint 
 style of his period. A choir and a wonderful doorway 
 were added to the old mosque, the cloisters were length- 
 ened, and beautiful halls were erected. Then the Spanish 
 Philips, during their suzerainty over Portugal, made 
 Thomar their residence, and in the new cloisters they 
 added to the edifice, the severe and heavy style of 
 architecture which the gloomy character of Philip II. 
 brought into fashion is exemplified. The convent is at 
 once an architectural and historical museum, and the most 
 striking of religious monuments. The silence of the im- 
 mense cloisters — there are six or seven of them — is deeply 
 impressive. I could not tear myself away, every moment 
 seemed to reveal some new and striking detail. I was 
 roused from my admiration and my reverie by a volunteer 
 guide who had attached himself to me, and who, seeing me 
 pause before an exquisite statuette, said, " I'll take it down 
 for you to carry away with you," adding, when I exclaimed 
 in horror at the idea, " But everybody takes what they like 
 here ! " I am happy to be able to add that we denounced 
 this vandalism as soon as we got back to Lisbon, at the 
 same time so exciting King Ferdinand's truly artistic 
 feelings by our description of Thomar that he went there
 
 1842] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 235 
 
 in his turn, and, thanks to him, the preservation of that 
 unique edifice was thenceforth assured. 
 
 We made a dehghtful journey from Thomar to Lisbon, 
 by Abrantès, at which place I saw an old gentleman in an 
 antediluvian uniform, wearing his sword transversely like a 
 powdered marquis in a play, advance towards me, and 
 throw himself on his knees, embracing mine, and exclaiming, 
 " Let me embrace the man who brought back Napoleon ! " 
 {Le conducteur de Napoléon), an allusion to my St. Helena 
 expedition, which somewhat amazed me. When we got 
 back to Lisbon I bade a sorrowful farewell to Aumale, 
 who departed on board a steamship for Algiers, there to 
 commence the brilliant campaign which ended in the 
 capture of Abd-el-Kader's smalah. Horace Vernet's fine 
 picture in the Versailles Museum perpetuates the memory 
 of this splendid exploit. 
 
 My readers are aware that having started to capture the 
 smalah, my brother got up to it with nothing but his 
 cavalry and far from his supports, after several night 
 marches, which he contrived to steal on the enemy. 
 " The enemy is very strong," said Colonel Yusuf, a 
 gallant officer, who was with the advance guard, hurrying 
 back. " No prince of my race has ever turned back," was 
 the answer. " Forward ! " and the little force, with the 
 general at its head, threw itself unhesitatingly on the mass 
 of warriors in front. Its audacity was justified by its 
 success. 
 
 As for me, while Aumale was steaming towards Algeria 
 I was bidding farewell to my excellent friends and relatives. 
 Queen Doila Maria and King Ferdinand, and setting sail 
 for Senegal and the Guinea Coast, where I was to make 
 the round of our colonial settlements.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 184: 
 
 The canoe manned by four paddlers in which I had 
 crossed the bar at Guet-n-dar was carried high up on the 
 sand on the crest of a huge wave. A crowd of blacks 
 rushed forward before the wave could come back, lifted me 
 out, and put me down, with loud shouts of " Petit roi pas 
 goutte d'eau " (Not a drop of w^ater on our little king), at 
 
 f^jC^ 
 
 the feet of Bobokar, King of Guet-n-dar, a tall negro, 
 dressed in a striped cotton gown, and with a laced cocked 
 hat on his head, which had seen better days on a general 
 officer's or a coachman's. 
 
 As soon as I was landed, the King of Guet-n-dar (I 
 only call him king in obedience to the African custom
 
 1843] SOUVENIRS OF PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 237 
 
 which bestows the title on every chief who has a right to 
 beat other people) — the King, I say, set himself to work 
 to make way for me through his subjects crowding round, 
 with heavy blows from his cudgel, and crossing the 
 tongue of sand between the Senegal river and the sea, 
 which forms his kingdom, I entered St Louis, the capital 
 of our possessions on the West African coast. While 
 nobody talks anything but sugar at Martinique, nor cod in 
 Newfoundland, at St. Louis the only subject of conversa- 
 tion \5 gjim. It is its staple product, and indeed is found 
 nowhere else, except in Arabia. 
 
 The gum forests are in country belonging to the 
 Arabs, on the right bank of the Senegal river, and are 
 consequently in the hands of the Moors, who carry the 
 produce to the river. The various stations we have 
 established along its course are intended for the protection 
 of the traders or coloured agents, acting as intermediaries 
 between the natives and the white merchants, unable 
 themselves to face the deadly climate, and also to close 
 the road to the British markets on the Gambia river 
 to the Moors. To the garrisons of these stations, 
 regular charnel-houses, our officers and men come out to 
 die, or else to catch the germ of some incurable illness. 
 I learn that nowadays, by dint of using quinine as a 
 preventive, and of improvements in some other respects, 
 the effects of the unhealthy climate have been somewhat 
 reduced, but when I was there the condition of things 
 was really terrible. So my first care, when I reached St. 
 Louis, was to go and see the victims of duty in the 
 hospital into which they were crowded, and my heart 
 swelled at the sight of all the poor yellow wasted faces 
 many of them already bearing the signs of approaching 
 dissolution. Poor brave fellows ! How I wished I had 
 crosses to pin on all their breasts, to soften the last 
 moments of the life they had given for their country, by a 
 sign of its remembrance of them ! But I had not one, and 
 I could not help feeling furious at the thought that we 
 were close on New Year's day, and that a perfect rain of
 
 238 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, x 
 
 honours was about to fall on a heap of theatrical directors 
 who had done special service to the government, and 
 private secretaries, and political writers, who had never 
 been off the Boulevards, the favoured elect of the world of 
 politics — those odious politics ! The dismal, ill-built, 
 rickety hospital was perfectly well managed at all events, 
 thanks to our naval surgeons, and also to our admirable 
 sisters of charity, whose names I cannot pronounce with- 
 out indulging in another and an indignant digression. 
 
 Can we really have fallen so low as to tolerate that 
 these holy and noble women, who have lightened so much 
 suffering, and so worthily sustained the good name of 
 France all over the world, should be sacrificed in these 
 latter days to a pack of public-house reformers and would- 
 be strong-minded freethinkers ? 
 
 From the hospital, that ante-chamber of death, I went 
 to the barracks for the living, mere dens, built by St. 
 Routine to sealed pattern, at so much a foot, identically 
 the same in every climate, and absolutely unsuitable for 
 any. How different from the spacious, airy, comfortable 
 edifices raised by the English for the comfort and well- 
 being of their colonial garrisons ! 
 
 St. Louis is built beside a river, the fîat banks of which 
 are seen stretching away hedged in by masses of green 
 vegetation. In the mornings the town is usually wrapped 
 in an unhealthy fog. Yet this is the moment at which the 
 inhabitants are to be seen languidly dragging themselves 
 along the straight sandy streets, between the negro huts 
 and a few white houses with terraces before them. When 
 the fog lifts the place is nothing but a scorching desert. 
 I was to have gone up the river to inspect our militar)' 
 stations and their garrisons, but the only available boat 
 was detained outside the bar across the mouth of the 
 river, which was absolutely impassable. After waiting for 
 it in vain for several days, I left St. Louis for Goree and 
 Dakar. 
 
 At Goree I once more saw the pretty signares, a 
 regularly enlisted company of mulatto women, which
 
 1843] 
 
 PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 
 
 239 
 
 furnishes our officers, civil and military, with wives and 
 housekeepers during their turn of colonial service. Then I 
 came again upon my friend the King of Dakar, an old 
 acquaintance of mine, who 
 sent me his compliments b}- 
 his " general of cavalry," a 
 perfect giant in stature, ex- 
 cessively thin, who wore a 
 stock and a cocked hat, and 
 no breeches. 
 
 At Goree 1 embarked on 
 board the colonial despatch 
 boat Galibi to inspect our sta- 
 tions on the Gambia and the 
 Cazamanze. This vessel was 
 herself a curiosity, not indeed 
 as a ship of war, for she was a 
 fine little steam despatch boat, 
 armed with four guns, but 
 
 on account of the organisation and composition of her 
 crew. There were only four whites on board — the lieu- 
 tenant in command, a poor fellow who was soon to fall a 
 victim to the climate and die at his post, a clerk, an 
 engineer, and a master-gunner. All the rest of the crew 
 were negroes, hypocritically denominated Government 
 prisoners, whose whole costume, as a rule, consisted of a 
 monkey-skin cap and a string of grigris, or charms, round 
 their waists. " Haven't you ever tried to dress them .'' " 
 said I to the lieutenant. 
 
 " Oh yes, but as soon as they get on shore they instantl3' 
 sell their things, or give them away to their women, and 
 come back naked. So I have given it up." 
 
 When it was time for us to start, the captain owned to 
 me that none of the crew had ever known how to steer, 
 except one negro, who acted as his butler, and he could 
 only steer in a river, by keeping the ship at an equal dis- 
 tance from the two banks. He had never been able to 
 understand anything about steering by the compass at sea.
 
 240 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, x 
 
 As wc had to go a certain distance at sea before reaching 
 the mouth of the rivers, I took on board a whaler and crew 
 from my frigate, and my men went to the wheel. But 
 now a fresh difficulty arose. The single engineer could 
 not stop by his engine for ever, without taking any rest. 
 Now and then the care of the machinery had to be con- 
 fided to a negro, whom he had trained after a certain 
 fashion, and I confess I felt far from easy when I saw him 
 handling the levers and taps with all the self-confidence of 
 a monkey showing off a magic lantern. Besides our negro 
 crew, there was a perfect menagerie of creatures loose on 
 board. Gazelles, which were inoffensive enough, I must 
 grant, a legion of ill-behaved monkeys, and a tame civet. 
 The monkeys never stopped playing spiteful tricks on 
 everybody all day long, and at night they all huddled 
 together, clasping each other, with their tails sticking out 
 like the rays of a star or the spokes of a wheel. If by any- 
 body's fault or misfortune one of those tails got trodden 
 on, the whole cluster of monkeys yelled for an hour, just as 
 journalists do if a finger is laid on one of their fraternity. 
 As for the civet, she used to offer her company as bed- 
 fellow to each of us in turn, and it was of the most stinking 
 and disagreeable kind. 
 
 We soon reached the mouth of the Gambia River, and, 
 entering it through a labyrinth of sandbanks, we saw a wide 
 stream with flat shores covered with mangrove swamps, 
 behind which aquatic form of vegetation huge trees rose, 
 fantastically tall, and in all the splendour of their tropical 
 growth. All the rivers of the West African coast present 
 this identically same appearance. We had hardly entered 
 this one before we were confronted by one of those inter- 
 national questions which swarm on the coast in this part of 
 the globe. The Gambia is a British river, but on its banks 
 is a territory belonging to us, called Albreda, which I was 
 about to visit. Had we a right to go there direct, up the 
 English waters of the Gambia, or ought we to stop first of all 
 at St. Mary Bathurst, the capital of the British possessions 
 on the river, to ask permission to do so .'' If a merchant
 
 iS43] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 241 
 
 vessel, French or otherwise, tried to get up to Albreda, the 
 British stopped her by fair words or force, to maintain their 
 right. But this we were contesting, and as the business 
 was still in suspense, I passed St. Mary Bathurst without 
 stopping, and anchored at Albreda. It is not a very im- 
 portant factory. I was received by four white men and a 
 crowd of negroes. The white inhabitant stretched on a 
 couch under the veranda of the one-storied house in which 
 he dwells, has no society beyond that of the signare, who 
 acts provisionally as his wife, and the crowd of slaves of 
 both sexes who go and come around him. Fever lurks 
 on every side, and carries him off on the slightest 
 imprudence. But it is a rich country, for it is inhabited by 
 a race of negroes, fervent Mussulmans, who are industrious 
 workers, and the produce of their industry is a lucrative 
 article of barter. In the evening, after a long walk through 
 the woods, balmy with a thousand sweet scents, where 
 flights of lovely birds, long-tailed parrokeets, and black- 
 plumaged widow birds, perched in the trees, I saw a small 
 British vessel approach, and an officer put off from her 
 He had been sent by the governor, who was on board, 
 and had been going up the river to call on the captain of 
 the French ship, and express his regret at not having seen 
 him at Bathurst in the morning — a covert complaint, in 
 fact. On hearing who I was, and that I expected to go to 
 Bathurst the following day, he sent me word that he would 
 return and receive me there. 
 
 The flagstaff on which our colours had been hoisted 
 having fallen down, I had it set up again. It was necessary 
 in a disputed country, such as this was, and pending the 
 Government's decision, that our flag should wave over 
 our colonists, and protect them from all insult. 
 
 Then I landed at Bathurst. Our captives, anxiously 
 directed by the master-gunner, contrived somehow or other 
 to fire a salute of twenty-one guns, which was instantly re- 
 turned from the British forts, and I went ashore in the whale- 
 boat I had brought from the Belle-Poule. The commander 
 • of the Galibi, who wanted to escort me, had manned a boat
 
 242 
 
 SOUVENIRS OF THE 
 
 [chap. X 
 
 and rigged out his men for the nonce in smart striped 
 shirts and red caps. Wonderful to relate, they were so 
 electrified by the reception I was given, and the example 
 of my white crew, that they brought both shirts and caps 
 faithfully back ! I was received on the beach by a company 
 of what in those days was called the Royal African Corps — 
 splendid black troops, officered by white men. I had a 
 great deal of conversation with the governor, a very sen- 
 sible man, who expressed the hope that my visit would 
 result in a prompt settlement of a state of local affairs 
 which might give rise to the most serious difficulties. He 
 was exceedingl}' civil to me, and gave me a very fine 
 dinner-party, before which I was somewhat astonished to 
 see " the ladies " appear in the drawing-room, in the shape 
 of three very dark mulattoes, in full evening dress — low 
 bodices, lace pocket-handkerchiefs, and fans. The doors of 
 the dining-room having just been thrown open, the 
 governor indicated to me by a gesture that I was to take 
 one of these ladies into dinner. Not knowing which of them 
 
 should take precedence, I held 
 m)- arm out in the middle 
 of the drawing-room, and one 
 of the dark-skinned ladies 
 blushingly put hers within 
 it. Many years afterwards, 
 dining at Washington 
 with that agreeable 
 .. _ _^ man, Charles Sumner, 
 the great abolitionist, 
 and some very charm- 
 ing ladies, I amused myself by telling him about m>- 
 Bathurst dinner, and asked him whether he had ever given 
 his arm to a negress. I awaited his answer with some 
 curiosity, to see whether he would dare answer in the 
 affirmative before the American ladies, who are so 
 sensitive on the colour question, but he got out of it 
 very adroitly. " My dear Prince," said he, " in every 
 religion each man has his own share of work. I preach 
 
 
 
 T?
 
 iS43] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 243 
 
 and you practise. Don't let us mix the two things up 
 together." 
 
 As we were steaming out of the Gambia I saw the com- 
 mander of the Galibi on his bridge, in a state of violent 
 excitement, with all his crew mustered before him, and 
 appealing in the most vehement manner to his capitaine 
 de rivière (river captain), the title borne by the chief of 
 the negro crew. I joined him, and he said, " I've just 
 been mustering the men. I can't recollect all the fellows' 
 names, so I count heads, I've done it over again four or 
 five times, and there is always one man too rnany." And 
 then he began to yell again, " Capitaine de rivière! What's 
 the meaning of this.'' There's a man too many!" The 
 capitaine de rivière, who had stationed himself well for- 
 ward, pretended not to hear, but, driven at last from his 
 refuge, he came aft, pulling off his bell-crowned hat, the 
 distinctive sign of his authority, and, uncovering his shock 
 of gray hair, like a woollen travelling cap, murmured in his 
 gentlest tones, " Please, sir, he's a little present I was given 
 at Bathurst !" 
 
 We were soon in the Cazamanze, after having very nearl}^ 
 been lost on the sandbanks obstructing the entrance to 
 the river, on which the sea breaks furiously. The river is a 
 fine one, wide and deep. I steamed up it for about a hundred 
 miles. After the few villages near the mouth we came to 
 a desert country, covered with impenetrable forest and 
 jungle. We steamed along between two walls of green, 
 and our only excitement as we went was to watch the 
 numerous hippopotami, who seemed very much put out by 
 the passing of the Galibi. As wc neared our station at 
 Sedhiou, which I was going to inspect, we noticed several 
 villages, the inhabitants of which greeted us with }'ells. 
 The jungle had been cleared around the houses, over 
 which the great trees stood like huge parasols. So 
 gigantic was the growth, that sometimes a whole village 
 was sheltered by one and the same tree. The post of 
 Sedhiou — a brick-built fort, with a little bastion armed 
 with a gun at each corner — is placed at a point of great 
 
 R 2
 
 244 
 
 SOUVENIRS OF THE 
 
 [chap. X 
 
 importance on the caravan line from the interior, I was 
 received by an infantry captain, M. Dallin, who had done 
 the most excellent service there, but ruined his health, and 
 
 by two white soldiers, both 
 wasted by fever. The rest 
 of the garrison consisted 
 of black soldiers, splendid 
 fellows, brave and faithful, 
 and excellent workmen, 
 who had done, and were 
 still doing, all the work on 
 the station. 
 
 Thinking of those fine 
 soldiers, and then cast- 
 ing back my memory to 
 the services recently ren- 
 dered by their successors, 
 the Senegalese Riflemen 
 — first-class troops, use- 
 ful anywhere, like our 
 Algerian Turcos, who have 
 already proved what they 
 are worth — I ask myself 
 why we should not utilise the considerable recruiting 
 opportunities Western Africa offers us to raise a number of 
 negro battalions. They might if properly enlisted be most 
 usefully employed, especially in those unhealthy countries 
 where we now squander so many invaluable lives. I will 
 even go further, for it is my conviction that in thus 
 acting we should be preparing for the future, and 
 outstripping the march of events. The state of armed 
 preparation which now exists in Europe— with every man a 
 soldier, and forced to be a soldier, with every man's career 
 interrupted, and each man's existence hanging on the 
 chance of an electoral surprise or a parliamentary incident — 
 cannot possibly last. It is unhappily to be feared that to 
 escape from this insane condition of things some violent 
 shock will be necessary, which will make a clean sweep of
 
 i843] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 245 
 
 the false notions dressed up in fine names which we have 
 been accumulating for the past century. When that crisis 
 is over, people will want to be free, as Americans are free 
 — free to do and to be ivhat they choose, and, especially, free 
 not to be soldiers unless they choose. There can be no 
 doubt at all that those inventions of revolutionary tyranny, 
 conscription and compulsory service, will become the 
 object of universal horror, and that the first person who 
 dares to take the initiative in abolishing them will be 
 saluted by the blessings of the entire human race. Where- 
 fore every government will perforce have to come to what 
 is right and just — to armies consisting of volunteers and 
 auxiliaries. And who knows whether we shall not then 
 find the real strength of our army in our black regiments, 
 just as Russia would in her yellow-skinned ones and 
 Great Britain in her Indian troops .'' But I must bring 
 this digression to a close. 
 
 As we steamed down the Cazamanze we ran aground, 
 and while the ship was being got off I went ashore, in a 
 creek, where at the very outset I disturbed the slumbers of 
 a couple of crocodiles sleeping on a stone. A moment 
 later I was nearly knocked over by a big boar with reddish 
 bristles and up-curved fangs, a " wart hog." Then I got 
 into the brush, tall grass much higher than myself, above 
 which hung the green roof of the giant trees. Pushing my 
 way along I came to a place where the ground was trodden 
 and the branches broken, and on which I saw the traces and 
 fresh tracks of a herd of elephants. Close to me, too, I 
 heard the crackling caused by the passage of some big 
 animal which I could not see. We followed the elephants' 
 path, but hindered by the grasses they had trodden down, 
 and our feet catching in the holes made in the damp soil by 
 their huge feet, we were soon forced to beat a retreat. 
 Another wild beast's track led us to an immense glade, 
 like a small plain, hemmed in by the woods, where we saw 
 herds of antelope quietly feeding. We started in pursuit 
 of them, but like the ducks on the ponds, the creatures 
 seemed to have a very correct appreciation of the distance
 
 246 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, x 
 
 our guns would carry, and the iinpotent fire we poured on 
 them disturbed them not. Not a single beast even left the 
 plain to take shelter in the woods, where we could hear 
 the greater wild ones howling. Ah ! if we had possessed 
 long-range weapons, what a shoot we should have had, 
 and what a paradise of sport that virgin country was ! 
 But one victim only fell to our rifles, a big monkey, which 
 one of our sailors killed, and which he and his comrades 
 eat. It was, so it would appear, a dish to lick your lips 
 over ! 
 
 For want of game we brought something else back with 
 us from this expedition up the Gambia and Cazamanze 
 rivers — fever. Not a soul escaped it, and in spite 
 of the care of the surgeon-major of the Belle-Poule^ w4io 
 was particularly skilful in treating the malady, we took a 
 long time to get over it. I went back to Goree, where I 
 was to see another sad sight. One of our gunboats had 
 come in from a river-station with only four healthy men 
 out of seventy-five. Typhus fever was decimating the 
 crew. I had to present the Cross of the Legion of 
 Honour to the lieutenant in command, M. de Langle, who 
 had behaved like a hero. I went alongside his ship to see 
 him in the lonely creek to which the infected vessel had 
 been relegated. A crowd of spectral figures crept to 
 the ports to look at me. It was a pitiful scene. 
 
 I had by this time gone the round of nearly all our 
 possessions along the West Coast of Africa, and the im- 
 pression I was carrying away was far from being a good one. 
 On this coast, as elsewhere, France originally outstripped 
 all other nations, and the first European expeditions to the 
 Black Continent were sent out from Dieppe during the 
 fourteenth century. The principal merchandise they 
 brought back consisted of ivory, and the branch of in- 
 dustry occupied by working this substance still exists in 
 that town at the present day. Up to the eighteenth 
 century all the important factories on the coast were in our 
 hands. After that date, just as in India and America, 
 where also we had been the earliest colonists, everything
 
 1843] 
 
 PRINCE DE JOIXVILLE 
 
 247 
 
 began to go to ruin, and our possessions dwindled to the 
 unimportant posts I had just been to see. Since my 
 visit an effort has been made to recommence some ex- 
 tension of our factories and trade in the locahty. The 
 question is whether it will be successful, and, above all, 
 whether, amidst the vicissitudes of our politics and the 
 constant state of provisional arrangement in which we live, 
 w^e possess the coherence and connectedness of design and 
 system necessary to that success. I pray it may be so ! 
 But there are two insurmountable obstacles which will 
 
 always prove stumbling-blocks to us — the unhealthy 
 climate, deathly indeed to white men, and the black popu- 
 lation, a childish race, who may be disciplined into being 
 good soldiers, but who will never work except when made 
 to by force, and that brute force. 
 
 Before continuing our cruise along the African coast, 
 the squadron (the Belle Poule and Africaine, frigates, and 
 Coquette, corvette) went to the Cape Verd Islands, both to 
 give the crews change of air, to test the speed of the 
 various vessels, and to take in fresh provisions. This last 
 object was defeated, in consequence of a curious cir- 
 cumstance, A Portuguese station in the Bissasfo Archi-
 
 248 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, x 
 
 pelago had been attacked by the negroes, and when 
 reinforcements had been asked for, the government at 
 Lisbon had answered by sending two transports to fetch 
 troops from the Cape Verd Islands, — from Porto-Praya, 
 where we had anchored, in particular, — and to conve}' them 
 to the threatened spot. But before embarking troops 
 the}- had to be found, and there were none, or rather the>' 
 existed on paper onl}-. To supply the want and respond 
 to the pressing appeal made to him the governor could 
 devise no better plan than to set an ambush at the 
 gates of the different towns, seize the country people as 
 they came in, and send them away as soldiers. Of course, 
 when once wind of this got about, nobody came in, the 
 markets were deserted, and the towns were famine- 
 stricken. Although the Cape Verd Islands appear 
 from sea to be nothing but arid mountains, with bare 
 rocks and rugged slopes, they really are furrowed with 
 delightful valle}-s, covered with leaf)- woods, where 
 innumerable monkeys peacefully dwell, and in which 
 the flocks of guinea-fowl inhabiting the open spaces on 
 the islands take refuge from pursuit. There is no more 
 curious sight to be seen than these mobs of birds, two or 
 three hundred of them together, tearing along like a 
 contingent of Arab horsemen, at such a rapid pace that it 
 is impossible to come up with them, on that rocky soil, 
 even with the best of horses. A native of the island 
 gave us a luncheon in one of the valleys of which I 
 speak. His house, which was reached through an avenue 
 of cocoa-palms, stood in the middle of a grove of 
 enormous orange-trees, over sixty feet in height. Wc 
 were waited on at table b}' handsome négresses, slaves ; 
 and these, according to our host, were the conditions of 
 their life. Their time, except on Sundays, belonged to 
 their master, who, in return, gave them their food, and, 
 when necessary, an occasional beating. They dressed 
 themselves out of the money they earned — Heaven knows 
 how ! — lodged where they best could, and were given a 
 bonus whenever they had a child — a young slave to add to
 
 i843] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 249 
 
 their owner's stock. It was a simple arrangement enough. 
 On my return to the African coast, I was to tumble head- 
 long into all the questions contingent on the slave system, 
 the suppression of the slave trade, which still existed, and 
 the whole future of the negro race. 
 
 Sierra Leone, our first port, differs from the rest of the 
 invariably flat African coasts by reason of its background 
 of high mountains, and the green hills which run down 
 right to the seashore. Between these hills lies the mouth 
 of a great river, forming an excellent haven, and a first-rate 
 military and commercial station. But the place is terribly 
 unhealthy. To give us a taste of local colour, we were 
 surrounded, before we got into the river, by hosts of sharks, 
 and in a few minutes we had hoisted five of the huge fishes 
 on board. Then no sooner had we cast anchor before 
 Freetown, than a gentleman of a certain age, in a blue 
 coat and white nankeen trousers and a top hat, appeared, 
 asking speech of the captain. He was sent to me. 
 " Captain," said he, " I've come to know how many ladies 
 will be wanted for the frigate .''" 
 
 " Why, sir," I replied in some astonishment, " I don't 
 know ; I've not thought about it yet." 
 
 " You see I make it my business, sir, when a man-o'-war 
 comes into port, to come and offer my services." 
 
 " Well, sir, I'm much obliged to you, I won't give you 
 any special order ; I'll leave the business completely to 
 itself" 
 
 I never heard why he was so anxious to make sure of a 
 monopoly in his line of business. Apart from this little 
 incident, our stay in this port, during which we were 
 treated in the most friendly manner by the kindliest of 
 governors and his lady, was in no way different from any 
 other. 
 
 Yet Sierra Leone was interesting as being the head- 
 quarters of the British naval station, established to suppress 
 the slave trade, and as being the place where the slave 
 cargoes found on board the captured slavers were landed. 
 Freetown and its neighbourhood was full of these poor
 
 250 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, x 
 
 wretches, who were denominated, somewhat hypocritically, 
 liberated Africans ; but the government took good care not 
 to liberate them, and there indeed it was right. To have 
 turned out these human cattle, swept up in distant raids, 
 now far from home and country, would have been to cast 
 them infallibly into the clutches of cruel and pitiless native 
 masters, who would keep back what they could not sell 
 for human sacrifices or cannibal banquets. It was mere 
 common humanity therefore, to keep them safe, once they 
 had been caught. But to avoid feeding useless mouths, 
 the finest men were enrolled as soldiers — the British 
 government^ ever in advance of others, applying a law 
 of compulsory service, unlimited in period, to their case. 
 The recruiting service once satisfied, the rest of the poor 
 devils were turned, willy-nilly, into " free labourers," and 
 the greater part of them were sent as such to the British 
 Antilles. The ship that bore them thither was no longer 
 called a slaver, and her cargo were not slaves. But if the 
 names were changed, the things themselves were terribly 
 alike. Yet philanthropy and sentimentality were satisfied. 
 And so were the captains and crews of the British cruisers, 
 for hunting slavers is a lucrative business, and the prize 
 money earned made them forget the unhealthiness of the 
 climate and the monotony of the blockade. 
 
 The passion for lucre excited on both sides gave rise to 
 actions which bordered on sheer piracy, concerning which 
 many a tale fell on my ear all along the Guinea coast. 
 Thus one Frenchman I met had been in command of a 
 Spanish slaver, which was lying becalmed. He victori- 
 ously repulsed the attacking boats of a British cruiser, and 
 killed the lieutenant in command of her, who was the first 
 to board the slave-ship, with his own hand. A slight 
 breeze and the fall of night enabled him to make good his 
 escape. But no more of this. The negro trade and the 
 suppression of it, the abuses on both sides, are all of them 
 bygone things, bereft of interest. Slavery is the one thing 
 that remains. It always has existed in Africa, and the 
 steady progress made in that part of the globe by the
 
 iS43] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 251 
 
 Mohammedan religion, which admits slavery, as the basis 
 of the social system, will no doubt still further help to 
 perpetuate it. Should all the black tribes merge into 
 one huge Mussulman body, stirred at once by religious 
 fanaticism and by a passion for slavery, a formidable 
 difficulty will be added to those which already confront 
 European action in the continent inhabited by the sons 
 of Ham. 
 
 From the liberated Africans of Sierra Leone we came 
 to another category. A negro republic, with all the 
 necessary impedimenta — elections, assemblies, newspapers, 
 and the most exaggerated form of Protestant Puritanism 
 to boot. This Liberian Republic, founded by an American 
 religious body, is a sort of El Dorado for the exclusive 
 benefit of freed negroes from the United States, and is 
 absolutely forbidden ground to the white race. After great 
 difficulties to begin with, after being abandoned and re- 
 populated more than once, after times of scarcity during 
 which the miserable freed men bitterly regretted their lost 
 servitude, the republic has ended by taking root. There 
 were about ten thousand inhabitants, doing nothing at all, 
 for the free negro thinks and says, like his slave brother, 
 " Work no good ! " What did they live on then ? First of 
 all, on the sunshine, and then by doing a kind of broker's 
 work between passing ships and the natives. They vege- 
 tated in fact, and if they did not actually rot in idleness, 
 they owed it to a tall Virginian mulatto, a very intelligent 
 fellow, extraordinarily like Alphonse Karr in appearance, 
 *' Governor Roberts," with whom I had several long and 
 interesting talks. He had been sharp enough to get hold 
 of the key of the cashbox, and by that act had become the 
 sole representative of the sovereign people. In spite of 
 the constitution, in spite of laws and regulations, all power 
 was concentrated in his hands, and, save for the name, his 
 republic was transformed into a tidy little dictatorship. 
 
 Leaving Liberia, we slipped away down the Ivory Coast 
 and the Gold Coast, driven gently along by a scorching 
 wind called the Harmattan. Our charts were primitive
 
 252 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, x 
 
 and incomplete, the information they gave quite inadequate. 
 We had to steer by soundings, very cautiously. The coast 
 was uniformly low and green, with no distinctive signs 
 upon it. If we wanted to know where we were, we had to 
 go after some canoe full of fishermen, and ask our way, 
 hat in hand, as one does in the street. It was a funny 
 sight to see the great black hull of the Bdle-Poiile, with 
 her white sails scarcely filled by the light breeze, hugging 
 the land, amongst a crowd of canoes full of noisy stark 
 naked savages, hung with necklaces, and with arrows stuck 
 in their heads of fuzzy hair, looking like handfuls of horse- 
 hair pulled out of a mattress and clipped into any number 
 of different shapes. A regular market went on alongside. 
 Our sailors would pass down a biscuit or some other thing 
 in their caps, and haul them up again with pineapples, or 
 bananas, or fish, or perhaps a gray parrot. Thus we sailed 
 along till we came to some great forts, whose white walls 
 bristled with cannon — Axim, Elmina, Cape Coast Castle — 
 the two first flying the Dutch, the last one, the British flag. 
 All along the Gold Coast and the Slave Coast we were to 
 come upon these forts, originally constructed to ensure the 
 humane management of the slave trade, nowadays become 
 very burdensome stations, of no value but as marts for the 
 barter of palm oil, oleaginous nuts, and ivory on the one 
 part, against gunpowder, brandy, glass beads, matches, and 
 the blue cotton cloth known as " guinea cloth " on the other. 
 I went from Elmina, where the Dutch officers were most 
 friendly, to Cape Coast, b}' land, in a palanquin. M)' 
 companions travelled in baskets shaped like Egyptian 
 mummies, which tall negroes carried on their heads, with- 
 out putting their hands to them. It was not safe to stir ! 
 At Cape Coast, I found yet another mode of locomotion. 
 Governor Maclean took me for a long expedition along the 
 road towards Coomassie, the Ashanti King's capital. We 
 travelled in a small victoria, to which was harnessed a 
 four-in-hand of splendid negroes, whose backs bore the 
 marks of terrible floggings. In spite of the sandy road, the 
 team went gaih' along full trot, urged forward by the
 
 iS43] 
 
 PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 
 
 253 
 
 Governor's incessant cry of " Get on faster, boys ! " Then 
 I went back onboard and steered for Accra, another group 
 of forts. Thence to Crèvecœur, a Dutch fort, and Christian- 
 borg, a Danish one, the governor of which, a charming 
 young fellow, came off to see me. Living as he did alone 
 amongst the blacks, he was delighted to find himself 
 amongst people of his own kind again, for a few minutes. 
 
 The following day we landed in canoes, for the bar was 
 rough, and 1 had been charitably warned not to put 
 my arm or hand into the water. Only a few days 
 previously an unlucky French sailor, who had wanted to 
 get back his hat, which had fallen into the water, had had 
 
 an arm seized and taken off by a shark. I did as I was 
 bid ; we plunged into the surf, and got through without any 
 drawbacks. Just as I reached the shore a tremendous 
 fusillade began. It was a reception after the local fashion, 
 which had been prepared for me : over three thousand 
 dancing natives doing a sort of Arab fantasia on foot. 
 They wore shell necklaces and bracelets on their arms and 
 legs. Some had caps made of wild beasts' skins, or 
 circlets of turkey's feathers on their heads; others again 
 had gold horns on their foreheads. Everybody was 
 shouting and writhing about and firing off guns ; the 
 elders of the tribe pressed round me with dancing at- 
 tendants behind them, who held huge coloured parasols 
 over their heads. The women exerted themselves as much 
 as the men, performing the most extravagant and peculiar
 
 J 
 
 254 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, x 
 
 dances to the sound of twent}' or thirt\- tomtoms, or great 
 drums, six feet long. The whole thing made the most 
 extraordinary clatter and uproar. When we got near the 
 fort, the crowd executed a sham assault on it, the big gun 
 in the citadel was fired, and I made my triumphal entry 
 between two rows of soldiers in red Danish uniforms. 
 Nothing could ha\'e been more picturesque. 
 
 The governor gave us a splendid lunch, in the European 
 style, in a big room in the fort. The only thing that was 
 African about it was the waiting, which certainly did not 
 lack local colour; for it was done by a score of young 
 négresses, selected for the irreproachable beauty of their 
 forms, which no veil, not even the very tiniest, concealed. 
 There they stood, plate in hand, and napkin under arm, 
 without the smallest shyness, seeing indeed the)- wore the 
 dress (!) of the countr\-. Imagine the bronze caryatidae 
 round the new Paris Opera House come down off their 
 pedestals, and handing round the dishes at a big Parisian 
 dinner-party! All these young ladies' coquetry had gone 
 to the dressing of their woolly hair, which was clipped, like 
 garden shrubs, into the most fanciful shapes, and to the 
 fineness of their skins, which were as soft and shin\' as 
 satin. This resulted from the daily baths the}- were in the 
 habit of taking, rubbing themselves also with fine sand. 
 But, unluckih', the rubbing could not get rid of the negro 
 scent. I have never been able m)'self to endure the odour 
 of negroes of either sex ; but I have known people whom 
 it quite intoxicated, and who were always tr}-ing to get re- 
 appointed to Senegal, so as to get back to it, in spite of 
 having had their health shattered b}' African fevers. It is 
 said, too, to attract sharks, and that if a white man bathes 
 with a negro where they swarm, the negro is always seized 
 first. I have no personal experience of this fact. 
 
 A hundred miles west of the forts of Accra we found 
 ourselves opposite Widah, the chief mart of the kingdom 
 of Dahomey. From the sea we looked on a sort of sand)' 
 dyke, on which the waves broke furiously. Behind the 
 dvke lav a wide lagoon, some of it a mere marsh, and
 
 i843] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 255 
 
 beyond the lagoon the flags of France, Spain, and I3ra/il 
 floated over some forts and large white European houses. 
 It was the first time we had seen our flag waving on any 
 spot on the coast since leaving Senegal, and we were ver}- 
 eager to go and see the station it sheltered. Landing was 
 no easy matter, and I waited a long time in a big canoe, 
 manned by twenty paddlers kneeling forward, before the 
 old negro in the stern decided the attempt to be possible. 
 He never stopped invoking every fetish under the sun, and 
 sprinkling the sea out of a brandy bottle, keeping his eye 
 the while on the waves as they came rolling in. Then all 
 at once he gave a great shout, loudly responded to b}- the 
 twenty paddlers, who )-elled in cadence, while the canoe 
 flew before the united and frenzied strokes of their paddles. 
 Two enormous waves passed, leaving us undamaged ; but 
 a third approached, huge and threatening. Should we get 
 to the shore before it ? Would it rise upright and capsize 
 us, or would it break on us and swamp us ? Neither. It did 
 reach us, indeed, but the old steersman had calculated well ; 
 it lifted us up unharmed and carried us on to the beach, 
 where a hundred negroes laid hold of the canoe and 
 dragged it high and dr}\ I was seized myself before I had 
 time to collect my ideas, and put into a hammock hung 
 upon a long pole, which five or six tall negroes held hori- 
 zontally, with arms outstretched above their heads, during 
 the time it took to cross the lagoon, where the water was 
 waist high. They set me down at last, at the gate of the 
 French fort, in the middle of an immense crowd, much ex- 
 cited at the arrival of a French squadron — there were three 
 ships. 
 
 Widah had been, and still was, a very important slave 
 station. France, England, and Portugal had in former 
 days possessed forts there, and had successively aban- 
 doned them. The Portuguese, Spanish, and Brazilian 
 factories alone remained in possession of the trade in that 
 country. They sold European goods to the King of 
 Dahomey, taking slaves, of whom they had formerly ex- 
 ported large numbers, in exchange, and this was a source
 
 256 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, x 
 
 of great riches. Ikit at the time I speak of, with the 
 British cruisers about, hardly one slaver got through out 
 of every ten. The King of Dahomey had a glut of slaves 
 on his hands, and cleared them off by massacring them 
 as human sacrifices at idol feasts. One Fi'enchman, M. 
 Provençal, of the firm of Régis, at Marseilles, had lately 
 rehoisted the national colours at the French fort, rebuilt 
 the dwellings, and set to work to do legitimate trade, offer- 
 ing his goods to the King of Dahomey, and taking 
 nothing in exchange but palm-oil and similar produce- 
 If the slave trade is put down — and when I was on that 
 coast its days seemed already numbered — that enterprising 
 and plucky Frenchman will have done more to civilise 
 those countries than all the more violent measures have 
 accomplished. I was very glad to notice his action, and 
 gave him the heartiest encouragement to persevere in it. 
 The courtyard of the station was already full of casks of 
 palm-oil, which augured well. 
 
 Immediately on my arrival I received a visit from the 
 Avogal, the King of Dahomey's governor at Widah, a big 
 healthy-looking negro, with whom the only conversation I 
 had was of the most commonplace description. He was 
 accompanied by two other blacks, with intelligent faces 
 and sharp eyes, who sat on each side of him without 
 speaking a word, and departed equally silently. " Those 
 are the censors," said M. Provençal. " Each of the King's 
 officials is always attended in that fashion to report all he 
 says and does. If the King should be dissatisfied with him 
 he has his head cut off." If this habit was universal there 
 would be fewer office seekers. This king ruled after the 
 antique pattern. He had kept all his seignorial rights. If 
 any of his subjects married a wife the lady had first to be 
 presented to him, and if he liked her he kept her. His 
 authority was unlimited in fact ; nevertheless, powerful 
 though he might be, he was likely to find it hard to change 
 his subjects from slave-hunters into oil growers. 
 
 After the Avogal's visit I went to pay one in my turn to 
 a strange individual, more of a king in Widah than the
 
 i843] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 257 
 
 King of Dahomey himself, who could not do without 
 him, — for he suppHed him with guns and gunpowder for 
 his wars, and brandy wherewith to intoxicate his Amazons. 
 This personage, a Brazih'an of the name of Don Francisco 
 de Souza, but known invariably as Cha-Cha, had been 
 settled at Widah for forty-three years. He was a veteran 
 slaver, from whom the British had captured thirty-four 
 ships, two of them quite recently. A little old man, 
 with quick eyes and an expressive countenance, he was 
 credited with having two thousand slaves in his barra- 
 coons, and with being the father of eighty male children — 
 the girls had never been thought worth reckoning up. 
 All his sons had been properly brought up. I saw them 
 walking about in all directions, uniformly dressed in white 
 suits, and wearing Panama hats. Most of them were very 
 handsome mulattoes. 
 
 The state of the surf, which was impassable, prevented 
 me from getting back on board, so it was settled that I 
 should dine with Cha-Cha, and sleep at the French fort, 
 where I installed myself in the former quarters of the 
 governor, which I shared with M. Provençal. Rather a 
 comical adventure befell me there. A very aged negro, 
 formerly gatekeeper of the fort, when M. Dagneau com- 
 manded it for the King of France, had been to pay his 
 respects to me in the morning, and I had caused him to 
 be given a present for himself and his family in the shape 
 of a demijohn of brandy, which they first danced round 
 and then carried off, with great rejoicings. Well, the 
 enthusiasm increased in measure as the contents of the 
 demijohn disappeared, and towards evening the courtyard 
 within the fort was invaded, to a great beating of tomtoms 
 and clucking of women's tongues, by a huge crowd of 
 Dahomeyan negroes, preceded by a sort of corps de ballet of 
 young négresses, wriggling themselves about in every con- 
 ceivable manner. At their head marched the ci-devant 
 porter in a great state of excitement. He began a fresh 
 harangue in negro French. 
 
 "Croire Anglais tués tous Français. Voir Français 
 
 s
 
 2s8 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, x 
 
 Trouver père. Contents, tous contents. Envoie comman- 
 dant à nous. Pitit-Roi. Contents, tous contents. Tous 
 femmes, tous filles à toi, tous contents ! " " Think English 
 killed all French. See Frenchman. Find father. Glad, all 
 glad. Sent captain to us. Little king. Glad, all glad. AH 
 women, all girls for you. All glad ! " And the young ladies 
 smiled still broader, and contorted their bodies still more 
 violently, while the tomtoms crashed louder than ever. It 
 was clear the crowd expected something, and as it did not 
 see any sign of what it desired, the old negro became yet 
 more explicit both in speech and gesture. The populace 
 actually expected me to provide them with a scion of the 
 royal race ! And the commander of the Favorite, Larrieu, 
 flew at me instantly. " Come, Monseigneur," he cried, 
 " here's a chance of distinguishing yourself. Noblesse 
 oblige !" 
 
 " My dear fellow," I replied, " I leave you to represent 
 me," and I beat an ignominious retreat, which the crowd 
 did not misunderstand, to judge by the grunts of disap- 
 pointment I overheard. 
 
 That night I dined with Cha-Cha off silver plate, under 
 the light shed by church candelabra and candlesticks ; 
 and the toasts of the King and Queen, and Prosperity to 
 P""rance, were each saluted by twenty-one guns, for Cha- 
 Cha's factory and harem, in which he was said to keep a 
 thousand women, formed a real fortress, bristling with can- 
 non, and with the additional natural defence of the lagoon 
 before it. Most of Cha-Cha's children were present at the 
 dinner, and several captains of slave ships, brimful of stories 
 of their adventures. Cha-Cha made me a present of a 
 box of Havanas, the like of which the King of all the 
 Spains had never smoked. I handed it over to Larrieu, 
 and the next day I returned on board my ship, not without 
 having one or two encounters. 
 
 The first of these was with the freshly-landed crews of 
 the slavers which had been captured the week before, 
 about fifty determined-looking men of all nationalities, 
 who stopped me and requested in the most arrogant
 
 1843] PRIN'CE DE JOINVILLE 259 
 
 manner to be taken to some port where they miglit re- 
 engage — an impossible thing for me to do. 
 
 The second encounter was more painful. A crowd of 
 lame or sickly slaves escaped from the barracoons and 
 threw themselves at my feet, clinging to my clothes, wail- 
 ing and beseeching me to buy them. The poor wretches, 
 who had no market value, and whom therefore the King 
 did not care to feed, expected to be sent shortly to 
 Abomey for human sacrifices. There were hundreds of 
 them — a most distressing sight. 
 
 After Widah our cruise took on a different aspect. We 
 had come to that part of the coast called the Bights, 
 consisting of the Gulfs of Biafra and Benin, between 
 which lies the huge Niger Delta. The weather, which 
 continued as scorching as ever, became excessiveh' op- 
 pressive. The sky was always dark and the rain never 
 ceased. Sometimes a rift was seen in the clouds in the 
 distance, it would rapidly increase in size, taking a funnel 
 shape, and then a tornado would burst, like a tempest in 
 miniature, lasting only three or four hours, but of ex- 
 traordinary violence. During one of these the Belle-Poiile 
 had to scud along under bare poles at the rate of twelve 
 knots an hour. The weather was excessively unhealthy, 
 but in the whole course of this long cruise I never lost 
 but one man, who was carried off by a violent inflamma- 
 tion of the liver. I attribute this good fortune in the first 
 place to the undoubted cleverness of our surgeon-major, 
 Dr. Loze, whose whole career had been spent in tropical 
 waters. His theory was that quinine was only absolute!}' 
 efficacious if administered at a very fleeting moment in 
 the course of the fever, between the hot and cold fits, and 
 he always sat up with his patients himself, so as to catch 
 the favourable opportunity. In the second place we took 
 quite exceptional hygienic precautions, especially against the 
 night damp. The crew wore their winter kit from sunset 
 to sunrise. No man was allowed to lie down on deck 
 duringthenight watches, especially while the dew was falling. 
 They had to walk up and down the whole time, under an
 
 26o SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, x 
 
 awning, which was ahvays kept up over the deck. In 
 order to carry this out, we never had more than half 
 watches on duty at night. W'e had to navigate carefull}- 
 and slowly, being short of hands, but the result was well 
 worth the temporary departure from the usual regulations 
 for life on board a ship of war. 
 
 I went up one of the arms by which the Niger pours it 
 waters into the Gulf of Guinea on board the Fine, a 
 schooner belonging to the station, commanded by Captain 
 Lahalle. This arm known as the Bonny River, is the 
 trading branch, the one down which passes all the produce 
 which the mighty Niger — a completely navigable river, with 
 neither cataracts nor rapids, the great future artery of 
 Equatorial Africa — brings from the interior of the 
 continent. A negro king of the name of Pepel, more in- 
 telligent than his fellows, had constituted himself broker 
 to this important trade. The European merchantmen 
 coming up the river anchored before his town, made over 
 their cargoes to him, and shipped palm-oil, the chief riches 
 of the country, in their stead. The drawback was that 
 anything you do with negroes is slow work. Whether it 
 was that the palm-oil, which came in canoes, and very 
 irregularly, from high up the river, did not arrive in 
 sufficient quantities, or whether it was deliberate delay on 
 Pepel's part, a year would sometimes elapse before the 
 return cargo was completed, and sickness was meanwhile 
 decimating the crews. Some cases there had been in 
 which everybody had died, in others, ships had set sail in 
 despair, without completing their full cargo, and Pepel had 
 triumphed in his bad faith, until a man-of-war came and 
 made him disgorge. Several times already the authorities 
 of the French station had had to chastise him, and it was a 
 service to the trade of every nation to go and show him 
 one's teeth now and again. This object it was, together 
 with a certain amount of curiosity, which had brought us 
 to the Niger River. 
 
 When we got to Pepel's town we found eight large 
 Liverpool merchantmen, partly dismantled, and covered
 
 1843J PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 261 
 
 with roofs made of plantain leaves, surrounded by canoes 
 going incessantly to and from the shore, where hundreds 
 of negroes loaded them with casks of palm-oil. There 
 was a stir and commercial activity such as I had not yet 
 seen anywhere on that coast. The whole trade was 
 exclusively English. To avoid the mortality to their 
 crews, the English captains had their ships dismantled as 
 soon as they got into the river, roofed the decks over, and 
 sent their sailors back to England. The unloading and 
 loading of the ships were then done by negro labour, 
 as soon as a ship's cargo was completed, she was manned 
 and sent back to Liverpool with the crew of some new 
 arrival, and so on ad lib. It was very sensible, very well 
 suited to the circumstances of the case ; but to carry out 
 such a plan the commercial houses must have had a great 
 many ships, ver\' large capital, and a spirit of consistency 
 in business affairs no longer existing in our country. What 
 with our unstable regime, and the invariably provisional 
 conditions under which wc live, we could never think of 
 such a continuous struggle. 
 
 As soon as we had anchored and were preparing to go 
 ashore, a great uproar attracted my attention, and caused 
 me to hurry out of my cabin on deck. An unhappy 
 negro v/ho had been bathing close to us, wuth numerous 
 companions of both sexes, had just been seized and carried 
 off by a shark. We could still see the eddy above the 
 spot where the monster was devouring him. It was the 
 second time I had witnessed such a scene. These horrible 
 creatures are " fetish " at the mouth of the Bonn}-, where 
 its waters join those of the new Calabar River, and human 
 sacrifices are offered to them. In other words, on certain 
 days of the year, the people go in procession to the river 
 bar and throw in some wretched children, who have been 
 told they were being taken to a festival. The sharks have 
 a fine feast, to the joy of the onlookers, and amid much 
 beating of tom-toms. This Jew-Jew, or shark-worship, is 
 one of the most abominable superstitions I have ever met 
 with. At Widah the snakes were " fetish." Here at
 
 262 SOUVENIRS OF THE [c haï-, x 
 
 15onny it was the lizards, which is less cruel. Yet they are 
 hideous enough, those Bonny lizards, huge creatures over a 
 yard or a }-ard and a half long. They have temples of 
 their own, where they are fed, and whence they sally out 
 for walks, constantly waving their rose-coloured forked 
 tongues, and walking all sideways, so as not to set their 
 feet on their huge bellies, like great bags, which they drag 
 after them like trawl nets. One has to go about with 
 lanterns at night, for to step on these " fetish " gentry 
 would excite the population into taking the law into its 
 own hands. 
 
 During a visit to the English sea-captains, we heard 
 that a French ship, the Julie of Bordeaux, had just 
 sailed in despair, without having completed her cargo, 
 paid for in advance, after waiting nine months in 
 the river, and that Pepel, thinking that we had come on 
 that account, was shaking in his shoes. But on making 
 inquiries we could find no trace of any complaint, official 
 or semi-official, having been made, and further, the Julie 
 was accused of having tried to dabble in the slave trade. 
 Here was a puzzle for us. What were we to do } Say 
 nothing to Pepel } Then he would laugh us to scorn, for 
 his conscience pricked him, we knew. AH his canoes had 
 taken to flight when we arrived, and not a single negro had 
 boarded us. Threaten him t But with what } And why .-' 
 To tell how we got out of this hole would be to betray . . 
 . . a professional secret. All I can say is, that the next 
 morning, in a huge straw hat, and with a big striped parasol 
 in my hand, I performed the functions of dragoman to his 
 Excellency Commander Lahalle, full lieutenant, represent- 
 ing France and the French navy. 
 
 We began by crossing a swamp, covered with huge 
 mangrove trees, through which small canals had been cut 
 to allow of the canoes getting up to the houses. Under 
 the dark mangrove shadows the long canoes, full 
 of fierce-looking stark-naked blacks, looked like huge 
 crocodiles, ready to fly at us. After a time we came along- 
 side Pepel's house, a sort of labyrinth of clay and straw-
 
 iS43] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 263 
 
 built huts. I announced his Excellency the Commander 
 to a negro who spoke Spanish. We were invited to sit 
 down, a crowd of blacks assembled, and the elders of the 
 tribe arrived. Lastly appeared a tall young man wearing 
 a blue cotton shirt and trousers, with amulets strung round 
 his neck, and a sceptre covered with a tigerskin in his 
 hand. This was Pepel himself. He understood English 
 and spoke it a little. We had what is called in those 
 parts a palaver with him. I spoke very slowly, and the 
 King answered me. We went over a great many sub- 
 jects. We were severe — but just ! Nothing concerning 
 the result of this conference ever transpired, but the 
 diplomatic action of France made itself felt. Something 
 else made itself felt as well, and that was the horrible 
 smell in Pepel's town, a filthy place, inhabited by a 
 numerous and hideous population. 
 
 When I got outside it I stopped short before a striking 
 sight — a semi-circular clump of trees so huge that men 
 looked like pigmies beneath them, giving me much the 
 same impression as the mosque of St. Sophia at Con- 
 stantinople had formerly made on me. The trunks of 
 these trees were like the pillars of some strange cathedral, 
 and it was as dark beneath them as in some ancient 
 church. The bare sandy soil swarmed with women, some 
 naked, some clothed, and all tattooed and painted and 
 striped in various colours, scraping up the earth to find 
 fresh water, the rarest of all commodities on the African 
 coast. It was a picture worth painting. 
 
 On leaving the Niger (which is British, irrevocably 
 British), fierce tornadoes drove us swiftly to Fernando Po, 
 a lovely island covered with forests, over which rises a 
 huge peak, much like the Peak of Teneriffe, and like it too, 
 almost always lost in the clouds. I anchored close in shore 
 in an excellent haven, and seized the opportunity to send 
 my crew to amuse themselves and do their washing on 
 shore. A pretty stream, which tumbled in one waterfall 
 after another through the masses of tropical growth, was 
 soon the scene of numerous laundry operations, in which
 
 204 
 
 SOUVENIRS OF THE 
 
 [chap. X 
 
 CITIZEN OF FERNANDO PO. 
 
 all the négresses in the neighbourhood insisted on joining, 
 incited thereto no doubt by the desire of seeing how my 
 four hundred strapping fellows set about their work. 
 
 From the top of the hill to its 
 foot there rose one great Africo- 
 European shout of laughter and 
 shriek of delight, which it 
 was a downright pleasure to 
 listen to. 
 
 Officially speaking, Fernando 
 Po was a Spanish possession. 
 But not a single Spaniard lived 
 on the island, and no Spanish 
 flag floated over it. The English 
 indeed had landed several car- 
 goes of their "liberated Africans" 
 on it, and an individual, whether official or not I cannot 
 tell, had also come to govern them. He had built himself 
 a comfortable house, before which he had planted a flagstaff, 
 from which the Union Jack waved. After a time he had 
 assumed the style and title of governor, and I was re- 
 quested to call on him as such, which I absolutel}- refused 
 to do. On my return to Europe, chanc- 
 ing to meet Comte Bresson, our ambas- 
 sador in Spain, I mentioned the state 
 of matters at Fernando Po to him, and 
 soon after received a letter from him 
 from Madrid, in which he told me 
 the Spanish Government had just de- 
 spatched a warship to retake possession 
 of the island. It was well worth while, 
 for if the British Niger, the German 
 Cameroons, and the P^rench Gaboon are 
 some day to develop commercially and colonially, as they 
 seem to give promise of doing, Fernando Po, with its 
 insular position, its comparatively healthy climate, and its 
 excellent anchorage, lying as it does at an equal distance 
 from the three centres of activity, cannot fail to become
 
 i843] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 265 
 
 a most important place both from the commercial and the 
 military point of view. 
 
 I speak of the French Gaboon. It was not French at 
 the time of my visit, but it was soon to become so. We, 
 had important commercial interests there, and the idea of 
 forming a colonial station was already entertained. 
 
 Commander Bouet, who had preceded me on the coast, 
 had taken his gunboat up the river, and had earnestly 
 pressed me to do the same thing with the Bellc-Poule, so 
 as to prove its navigability for the largest ships, which, 
 once acknowledged, would stamp it as a first-class naval 
 station. I resolved to make the attempt, though I had no 
 charts, no levels nor surveys, and the low shores offered no 
 landmarks nor distinctive signs, not even a tree to guide 
 one. Bouet had merely warned me that there were 
 dangerous sandbanks to be avoided. " Pooh ! you'll find 
 your way amongst them all right." And so we did indeed, 
 but it was a regular voyage of discovery. 
 
 While we were creeping along with all due caution, a 
 fleet of canoes joined us from the right bank of the river, 
 where Libreville now stands, with Oua-Ben, king of 
 the right bank, and his suite, on board. The chief 
 boarded us, came and greeted me, and then with a self- 
 important air, established himself, accompanied by the 
 whole of his suite, on the poop of my frigate. He was a 
 small deformed man, with a countenance betraying all the 
 spitefulness usual among dwarfs and humpbacked people. 
 He was huddled into a British naval officer's uniform. 
 Taken up as I was with the management of my ship, I 
 paid no attention at all to him. Presently a top man just 
 come down out of the mizzentop approached me and 
 whispered, " Captain, that king is an awful rascal. I was 
 here last year with a ship from Nantes, and he stripped us 
 of everything." 
 
 " Are you quite sure .'* " 
 
 " Perfectly, sir, it's Oua-Ben. I know him quite well." 
 
 "Very good, call the master-at-arms Master-at- 
 arms, take that king over there, and put him in irons ! "
 
 266 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, x 
 
 Four pairs of sincw)- arms lifted up his sable majesty, 
 under the orders of the master-at-arms, the police officer 
 of the ship, and thus carried, and followed by his dismayed 
 attendants, the king disappeared below. He yelled like a 
 dog who has had his paw trodden on, and I fancied I heard 
 the words " Bouet ! Bouct ! " here and there. That was 
 indeed the name he was invoking. When he had once been 
 laid out on his plank couch, we extracted a complete 
 confession of his misdeeds through the medium of several 
 interpreters, and we learnt also the fact, which a summary 
 investigation confirmed, that Commander Bouet had already 
 chastised him and made him disgorge his plunder once. 
 .So I had him set at liberty, and advised him to meditate 
 on his second warning, and behave accordingly for the 
 future. 
 
 He lost no time in taking himself off, while the Belle- 
 Pouk cast anchor near the left bank of the river, before a 
 town belonging to another native king known as Denis. 
 This Denis was by no means an ordinary individual. Some 
 of his predecessors, too, had been illustrious in their w^ay. 
 His father, who had been kidnapped when very young and 
 taken to Europe, had played the Chinese bells in a military 
 band under the first Napoleon's empire, had returned to his 
 own country, and had finally been called to the highest 
 place in the State. His son had inherited his father's 
 honours. He was a fine-looking negro, with grizzled 
 woolly pate, who spoke French fairly well, and seemed much 
 inclined to come to an understanding with us and open up 
 his country to trade and civilisation. He came to call on 
 me in great state, dres.sed in the handsome uniform of a 
 general of the French Republic, the cast-off garments of 
 some performer at the Cirque Olympique. He had a tri- 
 colour plume in his hat, a gold laced coat with lapels turned 
 back on the chest, white breeches, and top boots. He 
 wore the decoration of the Legion of Honour, which he had 
 been given for some service or other he had done our 
 fleet in those waters ; and a large gold medal of Queen 
 Victoria, given him by the English, hung down on a thick
 
 iS43] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 267 
 
 chain between his knees. His son — who Hved close to the 
 landing-stage in a big hut with a hoarding round it, like 
 what you see in Paris round pullcd-down houses, on which 
 was written, instead of the usual warning, " Petit Denis, 
 Fils du Roi " (Little Denis, the King's Son) in letters a foot 
 high — was anxious to come too. He had a Hussar uniform, 
 but not knowing how to put it on, he sent at the last 
 moment to ask for somebody to go and help him to get 
 into it. I lost no time in detailing the midshipmen of the 
 frigate for this duty, which they performed with the greatest 
 gusto, dressing up "Petit Denis" just as the tailor's 
 assistants dress up M. Jourdain in the Bourgeois Gentil- 
 homme. But the scamps tightened him up to such an extent 
 in his jacket and belts that he was more dead than alive, 
 and on the brink of an apopletic attack, by the time he got 
 on board. We gave the royal family the best welcome 
 at our command. My bandmaster, M. Paulus, entertained 
 them with his noisiest tunes ; but whenever the band 
 stopped the king cried " Encore ! encore ! " When the 
 bandsmen got tired out I shut his majesty up in a little 
 cabin with the three ship's drummers, and told them to 
 keep rolling till he had enough of it. But the drummers 
 gave out in their turn, and I had to send the insatiable 
 melomaniac and his family on shore at last, whether he 
 would or no. 
 
 In return for m}- handsome behaviour to him he invited 
 me to join him in an elephant hunt. These animals were 
 very numerous in the vicinity, and were devastating the 
 plantations. But the season was particularly unhealthy, 
 everybody was ill ; we should have had to spend the 
 night in pestilential marshes, where we were certain to get 
 fever, and as I had hardly got clear of that we had 
 caught in the Cazamanze River, I had to refuse the 
 tempting offer. We spent several days in the Gaboon, 
 amongst a race of negroes who struck me as being more 
 intelligent and more easy to civilise than any others on 
 the coast. The women, too, had better features than most 
 négresses. Aquiline noses were to be seen among them
 
 268 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, x 
 
 and lips of moderate size, and some had an almost European 
 look. Their necks and arms and waists were loaded with 
 necklaces and bracelets of shells or metal, which rattled 
 every time they moved, a somewhat idle precaution, inspired, 
 so it was said, by the excessive jealousy of their lords and 
 masters. On the whole I carried away a very good impres- 
 sion of the future possibilities of the Gaboon, both naval 
 and colonial. 
 
 When the Belle-Poitle had finished her cruise along the 
 Guinea Coast she had orders to go to Brazil ; so we set 
 sail for Rio de Janeiro. On our way thither we touched at 
 lie du Prince, a Portuguese possession entirely covered 
 with coffee plantations, the produce of which connoisseurs 
 reckon to be the best in the world. Almost the whole of 
 the island belonged to one lady, who did all in her power to 
 induce our purser to give up his profession and come and 
 manage her immense property for her. Failing in this en- 
 deavour she sent him a keepsake, in the shape of a pair of 
 braces embroidered by her own fair hands, just as we were 
 departing. We took in water at He du Prince, and as we 
 had used up all our stores during our long cruise, I shipped 
 a boat-load of yams to take the place of potatoes, and com- 
 pleted my victualling, during a stay of a few hours at 
 Ascension, by taking a large number of turtle on board. 
 'Ihey weighed about six hundred pounds each, and did us 
 quite well instead of fresh meat. 
 
 A sudden change came over my life at Rio de Janeiro, one 
 which my parents had long desired. I married. My bride 
 was the second daughter of the Emperor Dom Pedro, 
 Princess Françoise, whose acquaintance 1 had made some 
 six years previously, during my first visit to Brazil. The 
 official request for the princess's hand was made in the 
 King's name by the Baron de Langsdorff, who was sent over 
 as ambassador extraordinary for that purpose in the 
 Ville de Marseilles. The wedding was celebrated at the 
 San Cristofero Palace, and a few days afterwards we started 
 for Brest, which place we reached after a slow passage of 
 sevent)'-two days against contrary winds. 
 
 II
 
 i843] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 269 
 
 On my arrival I had to give up the command of the Belle- 
 Poule, and I did not part from the old ship, which had 
 carried me so well and safely through so many adventures, 
 without a pang of emotion. I felt, when I clasped my 
 ofificers' hands in hearty farewell, that I was sure {then, at 
 least) of meeting them again in the course of my profes- 
 sional career. The painful leave-taking was when I had to 
 say good-bye to my brave crew, a happy family, in which dis- 
 cipline had been so strictly established from the very outset 
 of the voyage, that punishment had become unknown, and 
 whose universal sense of duty had engendered that mutual 
 affection between officers and men which is the foundation 
 of true professional zeal and self-sacrifice. 
 
 The fine body of fighting men which four years of care 
 and unvaryingly consistent management had brought to the 
 highest pitch of perfection, all the brave fellows of whom I 
 felt I could ask anything and be certain it would be per- 
 formed, were to be scattered, every man to his own home. 
 I was never to see them again, except a few, one here and 
 one there. Nowadays even, after the lapse of fifty years, 
 if chance takes me anywhere upon the seacoast, I some- 
 times see some old sailor's eye fixed on me, altered as I 
 am, as though he were searching the far depths of his 
 memory. All at once one hand goes up to his cap, and the 
 other is stretched out to me with a friendly look, and the 
 words " Do you remember such a one, topman of the 
 maintop — such a storm — such an escape 1 " 
 
 Then my heart swells, and I say to myself, as I could 
 go on saying for ever, " There is nothing you cannot do with 
 Frenchmen when they are once saturated with the spirit of 
 obedience, discipline, and duty ! "
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 1844 
 
 I HAD hardly got back to Paris when I was shot on 
 to the Admiralty Board. A great honour it was, no doubt, 
 for a junior like myself to be associated with such veterans 
 in the profession as numbers among its members were. 
 But this gathering of experienced men was merely a 
 body of advisers placed at the disposal of the ^Minister of 
 Marine, to assist him with its counsel on any questions he 
 chose to submit to them. The committee possessed no 
 initiative of its own, and I felt myself misplaced upon it. 
 I had indeed, and always have preserved, the deepest 
 respect for its eminent qualities. It has contributed not 
 a little, by its consistent action and permanent character, 
 to the preservation of our naval organisation — the worth 
 of which has been proved everywhere, in the Crimea, 
 on the battlefields in 1870, in Tunis, and in China — 
 from the results of the conceited ignorance of mush- 
 room politicians. But in the year 1843 we were on 
 the brink of the inevitable revolution worked in naval 
 matters by the introduction of steam. The great object 
 for us was to create, and that rapidly, under pain of being 
 outstripped by others, a new naval force, more appropriate, 
 perhaps, than our former one, to our national genius and 
 resources. Passionately interested as I was in the great- 
 ness of my countr\', having leisure time to dispose of, since 
 nothing called on me to plunge into the paltry bargain- 
 making of electoral politics in which that country was 
 wallowing, having no love of red tape nor excess of
 
 i844] SOUVENIRS OF PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 271 
 
 experience to hold me back, I was ardently anxious to be 
 employed where I could actively assist in creating a power- 
 ful element in the national strength. I therefore merely 
 passed through the Admiralty Board. 
 
 My only recollection of it is of having been present at 
 some very long sittings in a room in the Ministry of Marine, 
 the windows of which look on to the Rue Royale, which 
 apartment one of my colleagues, Admiral de Bougainville, 
 had turned into a sort of stovehouse by means of hot-air 
 pipes, sandbags, screens, and foot muffs. We all nearly 
 died of the heat, and when another colleague of mine, Baron 
 Charles Dupin, made us long speeches, I had the greatest 
 difficulty in keeping myself awake. 
 
 The Minister of Marine decided, at my entreaty, to ap- 
 point a special naval commission on steam, of which I was 
 a member. The chief commission did nothing, or scarcely 
 anything — but a sub-commission did good work. There 
 were five of us — a captain in the navy, M. de Verninac 
 (who was afterwards Minister of Marine under General 
 Cavaignac) ; a very clever engineer, formerly Superin- 
 tendent at Indret, M. Rossin ; an artillery colonel, M. 
 Durbec ; M. Touchard, a naval lieutenant ; and myself. I 
 will not give the full story of our work, and of the constant 
 battle we had to fight with obstinate habit and dread of 
 responsibility. All those early attempts of ours at trans- 
 forming our navy seem almost childish, looked at from 
 the distance of the half-century which has since elapsed. 
 And indeed, though my recollection of them is clear 
 enough, I have no means of verifying it, all my notes and 
 reports, and all my correspondence relating to the under- 
 takings in question, having passed out of my hands, in the 
 following manner : — 
 
 Some months after the Revolution in 1848, while I was 
 residing in England, at Claremont, a visitor's name was 
 brought up to me. The name, de X., was that of a good 
 family, well known in Normandy and in the political and 
 scientific world. But instead of one of the faces I was pre- 
 pared to see, I beheld that of a most unsatisfactory member
 
 272 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, xi 
 
 of the family, whom I instantly remembered having seen 
 in Algeria, wearing a Belgian uniform, and acting as re- 
 porter for the Constitutionnel newspaper. He entered the 
 room and said : 
 
 " Do you remember me .-' " 
 
 '• Perfectly." 
 
 " Well, I've just arrived from your part of the world." 
 
 " What do you mean .'' " 
 
 '■ After the Tuileries were captured, on February 24th 
 (you were in Algiers just then), I took up my quarters in 
 your rooms. They are very comfortable rooms. I stayed 
 in them for two months. They were rather upside down, 
 as you may fancy. Everything worth taking had been 
 carried off, but the floor was littered with books and 
 papers and a whole heap of things that everybody had 
 trodden upon. I amused myself by settling them all up, 
 especially your letters and papers, which I sorted. I ar- 
 ranged them into several classes. Everything referring to 
 your missions and to political matters I sent to the Ministry 
 of Foreign Affairs, and everything touching the navy to 
 the Ministry of Marine. In fact, I disposed of everything. 
 But I put aside a few documents regarding the Princesse de 
 Joinville's business matters in Brazil and your own private 
 journals of your sea-voyages, and brought them with me 
 here." 
 
 He smilingly showed me a packet he held in his hand, 
 then went on : 
 
 " But my journey has cost me a lot of money," 
 
 " Then say how much you want, in plain English." 
 
 " A hundred louis." 
 
 I went and fetched the money, and then showed him the 
 door without another word, though I could hardly resist 
 kicking him through it. Thus it was that I learnt what 
 had become of my papers on naval subjects. I greatly 
 regretted the loss of my private correspondence, and more 
 especially that of my letters from M. Dupuy de Lome, a 
 most talented young engineer, much in advance of his times, 
 with whom I had been in daily intercourse.
 
 i844] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 273 
 
 Our commission did its best. It made a modest be- 
 ginning by altering the fighting armament of our existing 
 ships, placing their guns fore and aft, so as to permit of 
 their developing their artillery power to the utmost possible 
 extent, while at the same time exposing the propelling 
 machinery to as little danger as possible. We turned out 
 ships of various types, such as the Descartes, the Ciivier, 
 the Pluton, &c. Then came the turn of the fabric of the 
 ships themselves, and we had a series of experiments made 
 on the practising ground at Gavres, near Lorient, to test 
 the penetration of projectiles on every sort of substance — 
 wood, coal, gutta-percha, iron plates, and finally on iron 
 plates superimposed one on the other — in other words 
 armour-plating. It was ten years before the armour-plating 
 was actually brought into use, so great was the delay caused 
 by political agitation in the country. 
 
 At Lorient, too, M. Labrousse, a post-captain in the navy, 
 ■made experiments to find out the best form to give to the 
 rams of warships, while a literary man, M. Jal by name, 
 was hunting all the old books and archives for every- 
 thing touching the manœuvres and tactics of ancient rowing 
 ships and galleys. 
 
 Then from paddle-ships we passed on to those with pro- 
 pellers which were submerged, and therefore much more 
 easy to protect, and I went to watch the first trials of 
 the newly-invented improvements at sea — that of our first 
 screw-ship, the Napoléon, a name which was afterwards ex- 
 changed for that of Corse, under which she served as a 
 despatch-boat for over forty years — of our first ironclad, a 
 screw-ship, too, the Chaptal, built at Asnièrcs by M. Cave — 
 and of the Pouione, the first frigate we built with auxiliar}' 
 engines, which was fitted with a screw-propeller designed 
 by a Swedish engineer, Mr. Erickson. But the most 
 interesting of all these trials was that of the Napoleon, first, 
 because, as I have already stated, she was our first screw- 
 ship, and also because that particular mode of propulsion is 
 of French invention. 
 
 An organ-builder at Amiens, of the name of Dallcry, was 
 
 T
 
 ^74 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, xi 
 
 the first person to think (in 1803) of building a boat driven 
 by a screw. He ruined himself over it, and broke up all 
 his machinery in his despair. The idea was taken up again' 
 later by M. Sauvage, a shipbuilder, who made some progress- 
 with it. I had known Sauvage, in 1835, in connection 
 with another invention called a physionotype, by means of 
 which a mathematically correct impression could be taken 
 of the features of any face. But as everybody made an 
 appalling grimace before putting their face into the instru- 
 ment, the result, though strictly exact, was monstrously 
 ugly. 
 
 There was more future promise about Sauvage's work 011 
 the screw-propeller than about his physionotype, but he 
 himself did not reap the benefit accruing from it. It became 
 public property. The English built a trial ship, the Rattler,. 
 and the Americans another, the Princeton. But the Napclcoti 
 was earlier than these, and besides was more successful 
 than either of them. She was originally ordered as a mail 
 steam-packet, from a private shipyard, by the Ministry of 
 Finance, which was much bolder as to introducing in- 
 novations than the Ministry of Marine, and her construc- 
 tion was confided to two eminent men — M. Normand, of 
 Havre, for her hull, and an Englishman, Mr. Barnes, for her 
 engines and propeller. Each of these gentlemen was equal!}' 
 successful in his first attempt. 
 
 During the summer of 1843 I was in command of a 
 flotilla, formed for the purpose of making experiments to 
 compare ships of the old-fashioned type with this little 
 vessel, which we tested in every imaginable way. At every 
 change in the condition of the sea, M. Normand, Mr. 
 Barnes, and I myself, who were all three of us escorting the 
 Napoléon on board the P/itton, used to rush on deck to 
 watch her^behaviour. M. Normanci would give us a lecture 
 on her lines and her displacement wave, or the degree 
 of her rolling or her pitching. Mr. Barnes, a great big 
 Englishman, said never a word, but pulled a slide-rule out 
 of his pocket and mumbled algebraic formula;. The ship 
 was commanded in first-rate style by a very efficient naval
 
 i844] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 275 
 
 lieutenant, M. cle ^Nlontaignac, Avho since that time has 
 acted as Minister for Marine Aftairs. 
 
 As nobody had ever seen a screw steamer before, we 
 aroused general astonishment wherever we went. In the 
 course of our cruise we entered the Thames, and ascended 
 the Medway from Sheerness to Chatham. It was in the 
 morning, there was a slight fog. The authorities were 
 informed of our approach, and were preparing to receive 
 us, only delaying assembling for that purpose till they 
 had been warned the ship was close by, either by her 
 being caught sight of, or by the sound of her paddle- 
 wheels striking the water. But the Napoleon, running 
 swiftly up through the fog, making no noise whatever with 
 her screw, took them all by surprise. When the dockyard 
 authorities hurried up they saw her stop, and then, thanks 
 to her screw, she turned almost in her own length, and 
 brought up alongside the jetty — a novel proceeding over 
 which the commodore, an old salt, was still gasping when 
 I went ashore. 
 
 During this visit to the Thames the little flotilla went up 
 to Woolwich, where we were welcomed by the English 
 authorities with that frank cordiality with which they have 
 almost alwa}'S received me. We were shown both the 
 arsenal and the dockyard. In the dockyard basin a steam 
 corvette with paddle-wheels was lying, which had a new 
 arrangement of which I had heard a great deal. The 
 sponsons formed great rafts which could be lowered into 
 the water by an ingenious mechanical contrivance, and 
 which, in case of its being necessary to land troops, would 
 carry a large number at a time, and even save the crew in a 
 case of disaster. This, indeed, did occur in the Crimea and 
 elsewhere, after our ships had all been equipped with the 
 invention. 
 
 Commodore Sir Frederick Collier was good enough to 
 have these rafts experimented with at my request. I turned 
 my opportunity of seeing them to good account. When I 
 was back in Paris, some two or three months later, the 
 English naval captain (his name escapes me, I fancy it 
 
 T 2
 
 276 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, xi 
 
 was Smith), who had invented this raft s)-stci"n, asked me to 
 receive him. He came, so he told me, to offer his phm to 
 the French nav\', and on the strength of the interest with 
 which I had followed the trial of his boat at Woolwich, he 
 begged me to recommend it to the minister for that de- 
 partment of affairs. Further, he f)ffcred to bring me a 
 model of it. 
 
 "Wait one moment," I replied. 
 
 I rang the bell, and sent for an old workman who was 
 in my employment. He came, with a model of m\- visitor's 
 boat and lowering apparatus in his hand, constructed on 
 drawings I had made on m)- return from England. The 
 inventor stood as though petrified at the sight. The onl)' 
 A\ord he said was "Wonderful ! " It appears I had caught 
 the likeness at once. What it is to know how to draw ! 
 
 Let me add, by the way, that the old w^orkman to whom 
 I have just referred had been a ship's carpenter with the 
 fleet commanded by Villaret de Joyeuse in the naval 
 engagement which we call the Battle of the 13th Prairial, 
 and the English that of the ist of June. At my house he 
 often met an academician, as old as himself, of the name 
 of Dupat}', who had also been a sailor, and present at the 
 same battle. The two old warriors would interchange 
 recollections, which amused me much, and often interested 
 me deeply as well. 
 
 From them I learnt that before the fleet sailed from 
 Brest to fight the British it was " purified " {épurée). The 
 captain and two lieutenants of the flag-ship, the Côte d'Or, 
 were guillotined, and the ship's name changed into the 
 terrifying one of the Montague. The captain of another 
 ship, the Jean Bart, had also been beheaded. Thousands 
 of sailors and seasoned marines, whose opinions were not 
 trusted, were drafted into the land-forces, and replaced 
 by others who were pure Republicans, but who did not 
 know their work. Pour encourager les antres, Jean Bon 
 St. André, commissary of the republic with the fleet, and 
 afterwards prefect of Mayence under Napoleon (his verj- 
 name marked him out for the post !), had caused a guillotine
 
 iS44] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 277 
 
 to be erected on board every ship. It was set up forward, 
 at the foot of the foremast. Yet all these terrorising 
 measures and this revolutionary disorganisation did not 
 bring us victory. They brought indeed nothing but de- 
 feat, attended by downright carnage. The valour of our 
 crews often amounted to actual heroism. But they had no 
 skill. They were killed, but they could not deal death 
 themselves. Every English shot told. Every Ercnch one 
 flew wide. It is most distressing, on consulting the annals 
 of the two navies, to notice the enormous losses on board 
 the French ships compared with the insignificant number 
 of men killed or wounded on the English ones. True it is, 
 that at sea, just as on dry land, extemporised arrangements 
 are disastrous things, and that, as I have already asserted, 
 nothing can ever replace professional skill and the long 
 established habit of obedience to superior orders and 
 general discipline. 
 
 That wonderfully dramatic, if sometimes contested 
 episode, of the Vengeur going down into the waves with all 
 her crew, sooner than surrender, is supposed to have taken 
 place at the close of the battle of the 1 3th Prairial. I 
 have often heard the story attributed to Barrère, who, being 
 obliged to give an account of the lost battle to the Con- 
 vention, endeavoured thus to gild the pill. I questioned 
 my two old sailor friends eagerly concerning this in- 
 cident of the struggle wherein they had both played 
 their part. 
 
 On another occasion I made personal inquiries of one 
 of the last survivors of the Vengeur, to whom I had 
 been commissioned to convey the Cross of the Legion of 
 Honour. Putting together what I gathered from these 
 various individuals, and what I collected elsewhere, I 
 believe the exact truth concerning the episode in question 
 to be as follows : 
 
 Towards the end of the fight, after having grappled for 
 a long time, at close quarters, with the British warship the 
 Briinszuick, the Vengeur, riddled with shot on every side, 
 and utterly dismasted, was shipping water through her
 
 278 SOU\^ENIR.S OF THE [chap, xi 
 
 ports with even- roll of the sea. In this condition she 
 must have sunk before long. The engagement was over — 
 it was six o'clock at night. The English warships Alfred 
 and Culloden, and the Rattler, cutter, came to the Vengeur s 
 assistance, and set to work, with the few of their boats 
 which had not been smashed during the fight, to save 
 Renaudin, her pluck}- captain, and his son, first of all, and 
 then take off the crew. The Alfred \.oo\<. off two hundred 
 and thirteen men, the Culloden and Rattler almost as many 
 more ; but the work of rescue was still going on when the 
 ship foundered, carrying with her not onl}' all the most 
 seriously wounded men, but about forty unwounded sailors, 
 who seeing death was inevitable, bravely greeted its 
 approach with shouts of " \'ive la Nation ! Vive la Répub- 
 lique ! " The story is such a splendid one as it is, that it 
 needs no imaginary embellishments whatev^er. 
 
 Let me return fora moment to my excellent academician 
 friend, M. Dupaty, whose acquaintance I had made in the 
 most absurd fashion. In the palm}^ da}-s of the warlike 
 enthusiasm of the Citizen Guard the worth}' Dupat}^ was 
 a captain in the ist battalion of the 2nd Legion, com- 
 manded by Commandant Talabot. One evening, when he 
 was on guard at the Palais Ro}al, he had been reciting 
 some verses in m}' father's drawing-room, and, somewhat 
 intoxicated perhaps by poetic enthusiasm, he begged the 
 King to put one of his sons into his compan}-. His Majest}' 
 burst out laughing and said : 
 
 " There's Joinville, he knows all his rifle-drill very well ; 
 he has had one of the old Invalides to teach him. He'll 
 do for you." 
 
 So I was put into a National Guard's uniform, with a 
 knapsack stuffed with hay on my back (in the ardour of 
 that moment the cJiic companies all wore knapsacks), 
 and was sent to drill with my company on the Rue de 
 Londres drill ground, where the Quartier de l'Europe now 
 stands. A more ridiculous proceeding cannot be imagined, 
 but old Dupaty was perfectl}- enchanted. He was still 
 more delighted when he succeeded in gettinc: one of his 
 
 I
 
 iS44] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 279 
 
 works, a comic opera called Picaros ct Diego given at the 
 theatre in the Château of Compiègnc, in honour of the 
 marriage of my sister Louise and the King of the Belgians. 
 But lo ! at the climax of the piece, the principal performer 
 came forward, before the newly married couple, the 
 Royalties, and all the great personages forming the 
 audience, and burst forth with a gag couplet, which nobody 
 expected. 
 
 Oui, c'en est fait, je me marie. 
 
 Je veux vivre comme un Caton. 
 
 Il fut en temps pour la folie 
 
 Il en est un pour la raison ! ^ 
 
 As King Leopold was not reckoned to have led a life 
 quite devoid of love affairs, the appropriateness of the 
 remark had a wonderful effect. All the grandees hung 
 their heads in a row, and the rest of the audience struggled 
 with a violent desire to burst out laughing. 
 
 But this long digression has carried me far away. I 
 must get back to England and my little flotilla's stay 
 there. My brother Aumale, who had accompanied me on 
 my cruise, went w^ith me to Windsor, where we paid our 
 respects to Queen Victoria. Although in the course of 
 my various voyages I had touched at several English 
 ports, this was the first time I really saw England, hospit- 
 able England, and the first impression it made on me was 
 very deep. Though the gray and smoky tint of both sky 
 and water and buildings, and everything I passed as I 
 Avent up the Thames to London Bridge, looked singularly 
 dreary to my eyes, the immense commercial stir and 
 general activity I saw exceeded anything I had ever 
 expected to behold. And the ineffaceable impression of 
 this greatness and power was quickly succeeded by another, 
 no less profound, and which my long life has only con- 
 
 ^ Rough translation :— 
 
 Yes ! all is o'er, I'm going to wed, 
 
 Like Cato I'm resolved to live. 
 The time for youthful folly's sped, 
 
 My life to Reason now I'll give !
 
 2So SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, xi 
 
 firmed, that here was a nation which had known how to 
 pass through a rev^olution without permitting it to encroach 
 on its social discipHne, nor allowing democratic jealousies 
 to destroy its traditions and sow discord between the 
 different classes of its population. 
 
 I thought Windsor quite superb. The old castle, sur- 
 rounded by its ancient trees, with its foundations lapped by 
 the waters of the Thames, the national river, and seeming 
 to stretch out its protecting arm over Eton and the pictur- 
 esque college — whither the flower of the nation comes to 
 receive the healthiest and soundest of educations at the 
 hands of a purely clerical body — is a true symbol of the 
 calm strength and steady permanence of the English 
 Monarchy. 
 
 I had met Prince Albert several times already, in Paris ; 
 but I had never seen Queen Victoria before. Bright and 
 witty, with an arch and pleasant smile not always quite 
 devoid of mischief, the young sovereign was in all the 
 freshness and brilliance of her youth and the radiance of 
 her happiness. She and her royal husband gave us a 
 welcome of which I preserve the most grateful recollec- 
 tion, and from that day forward I conceived a profoundly 
 respectful affection for her Majesty, which has increased 
 with my advancing years. 
 
 Our visit to Windsor was short and devoid of striking 
 incident, beyond the acquaintance I made there with men 
 of eminence in war or state craft, such as the Duke of 
 Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, and Lord Aberdeen. It was 
 at this time that the Queen of Great Britain's journey to 
 the Château d'Eu was decided on. I went with my flotilla 
 as far as Cherbourg to meet her. 
 
 When she got there, she invited me on board her own 
 vessel, the splendid yacht Osborne, commanded by a son 
 of the late King William IV., Lord Adolphus Fitzclarence, 
 a very good fellow, but a somewhat rubicund specimen of 
 the old-fashioned British sailor, with an eye he had some 
 difficulty in keeping open ; which failing earned him the 
 following reply to his chaffing remark, made to a little
 
 i844] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 281 
 
 schoolboy, already somewhat sensitive about his personal 
 dignity. " Oh, ivJiat a bad hat you have ! " 
 
 " And you, what a damned bad eye ! " 
 
 Lord Aberdeen, the Minister for P'oreign Affairs, was. 
 also on board the yacht, besides Lord Liverpool, Lord 
 Charles Wellesle}', Colonel Wylde, and the ladies-in-wait- 
 ing — that charming Lady Canning whom we had known 
 in Paris as a child, and who died in India, after having 
 shown great courage during the terrible Sepoy mutiny, and 
 a not less charming Miss Liddell, who afterwards became 
 Lady Bloomfield. 
 
 The Queen's entrance into Tréport was favoured by 
 splendid weather ; the little wet dock, crammed with fishing 
 boats, and the old church, were gilded by the rays of the 
 setting sun, while opposite us, on the rock overlooking the 
 port, rose the great cross before which the fishermen's 
 wives go and pray in stormy weather. We went ashore to 
 the firing of cannon and the rattle of thousands of sabots on 
 the shingle, among a good-humoured crowd of sailors^ 
 short-petticoated fishwives, and white-capped Normandy 
 peasant w^omen, all making their comments aloud, while 
 here and there appeared a gendarme's cocked hat, or the 
 broad-brimmed headgear of some country curé. It was a 
 picturesque sight, so gay and noisy, and so thoroughly 
 French, and the young sovereign seemed delighted with 
 its novelty. There was no cavalry escort nor lining of 
 the road from Tréport with troops ; but the splendid 
 squadrons of the ist Cuirassiers, in their copper breast- 
 plates, were drawn up in echelon at regular distances apart 
 in the open fields, and saluted with their trumpets as we 
 went by ; while at the château itself the Guard of Honour 
 was furnished by a battalion of riflemen drawn up in close 
 order, their dark uniform and military air causing Lord 
 Charles Wcllesley, the Duke of Wellington's son, and a 
 thoroughbred soldier himself, to exclaim, " Oh, what 
 splendid little fellows!" 
 
 My father had put the Queen into a huge open vehicle, 
 with room for twelve people in it, like a boat in shape
 
 lS2 
 
 SOUVENIRS OF THE 
 
 [chap, m 
 
 drawn by a team of eight horses, harnessed in the French 
 style, with an outrider, coachman, footmen, and grooms 
 all dressed in red. The postilion, who wore great boots 
 as in a Van der Meulen picture, was the only servant in a 
 blue livery. This contrast in colour arose out of a tradi- 
 tion which had been kept up in the royal stables, that the 
 postilion, being supposed to have taken off his jacket for 
 the sake of being cool, must always be dressed in the same 
 colours as the other servants' waistcoats. The Orleans 
 livery being scarlet with a blue waistcoat, the postilions 
 wore blue. The Condc lix'cry being chamois-colour, with 
 amaranth waistcoats, the postilions must wear amaranth 
 and so on. 
 
 The royal zuaggoji with its eight horses was anything but 
 
 easy to manage on the narrow Norman roads. And one 
 slight accident occurred of which I was the unlucky cause. 
 I was riding beside the carriage door, and I got in the way 
 when it was turning a corner, so that it got locked, and 
 remained so for some minutes. My father stormed, and 
 the Queen went into a fit of laughter; but the poor old 
 coachman, a veteran belonging to the old state stables, 
 cast a look at me that must have been like Vatel's glance 
 before he ran himself through with his sword. I had 
 brought disgrace on him at the most solemn moment in 
 his life ! 
 
 The next day a fresh bit of local colour was provided 
 for the royal guests. The Queen was taken out driving 
 with posters in the forest. The postilions, with their 
 clubbed and powdered hair and gail}- bcribboned hats, 
 
 I
 
 iS44] PRINCE DE JO IN VILLE 2S3 
 
 started at a fairh^ stead}' pace, but once they were clear of 
 the crowd they went off at full tear, with loose reins and 
 a great cracking of whips. The pace was so severe that it 
 was as much as I could do, with my horse at full gallop, to 
 keep my place beside the carriage door. The fun was 
 flavoured with a touch of uneasiness, which increased its 
 charm. The whole period of the Queen's visit was thus 
 spent in drives and excursions, from which we did our best 
 to banish any touch of official formality and constraint. 
 
 In the evenings there would be a concert, with the artists 
 from the Conservatoire to sing the chorus from Armide, 
 ^' Jamais en ces beaux lieux," the orchestra performing the 
 symphony in A, and a solo on the horn by Vivier ; or else 
 Auber would bring the Opéra Comique troupe, Roger, 
 Chollet, and Anna Thillon ; or else Arnot played Z'//?/- 
 nioriste with Mdme. Doche. There were Cabinet Minis- 
 ters there as well. Lord Aberdeen and M. Guizot held 
 conversations, during which they may or may not hav^e 
 confided political secrets to each other. Marshal Soult, 
 the President of the Council, spoke but little, and when he 
 did, the words that fell from his lips were not always of the 
 most good-tempered sort, as one unlucky general found 
 out to his cost. This worthy man, no longer young, who 
 was in command in a neighbouring department, held the 
 grade of brigadier-general, and, feeling the moment of his 
 retirement was approaching, he was passionately anxious, 
 before it struck, to make sure of the three stars that mark 
 the rank of lieutenant-general. He had been watching his 
 opportunity to try and get the marshal to look favourably 
 on his request, and he fancied he had found it one morning 
 when he met him after luncheon, at the entrance of the 
 Galerie des Guise. The marshal was walking along, limping 
 from an old wound, with one hand behind his back, and 
 plunged in a meditation which was the reverse of rose- 
 colour, to judge by the pouting under-lip, which he always 
 wore when this was the case. 
 
 The general approached him, and he stopped short, 
 knitting his brows.
 
 2S4 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, xi 
 
 " I am vcr\- lucky, Monsieur Ic Maréchal, to have this 
 opportunity of paying you my respects." 
 
 "Pooh!" said the marshal, but the poor wretch 
 went on : 
 
 "And as I have this lucky chance, Monsieur le 
 Maréchal, I take advantage of it to inform you of the 
 satisfactory state of the public mind in my department, 
 and the good results of my work there. Do you know that 
 only the day before yesterday I had sitting at my own 
 dinner table, with several people who are devoted to the 
 
 present order of things, a Legitimist and a 
 
 Republican! " 
 
 " Oh, had you indeed .•* Then let mc tell you you 
 asked them to dine to meet an idiot!" 
 
 And off the marshal went, leaving his unlucky interlo- 
 cutor aghast at the sudden collapse of his hopes. I have 
 even heard it said he died of it! 
 
 On her return from Eu, the Queen landed at Brighton, 
 whither I had the honour of accompanying her, and where 
 she was received with that general enthusiasm which has 
 never failed to greet her. I remained for a day as her 
 Majesty's guest in that hideous Pavilion at Brighton, in 
 those days a royal residence, where nobody could move 
 about or open a window without being exposed to the fire 
 of all the opera glasses in the houses opposite. This 
 masterpiece of bad taste has been turned into a casino. It 
 is the one thing it was fitted to be. Then I took those 
 of our ships which had escorted the Queen to Brighton 
 back to Tréport to act as guardships while the King 
 remained at Eu. 
 
 Some years previously a comical scene took place on 
 board one of these guardships. The King had gone, 
 according to his usual custom, to inspect the ship in ques- 
 tion and her crew, accompanied by the then Minister for 
 Marine Affairs, a gallant officer who shall be nameless, but 
 who was better fitted for giving words of command than 
 for extemporising speeches. Once on board the .... 
 Pelican (I will use that name, though it is not the real
 
 iS44] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 285 
 
 one), and the inspection of the crew b^ing over, the King- 
 told the minister he desired to commemorate his vàsit by 
 the bestowal of at least one Cross of Honour. The idea 
 was quite unexpected, but after some consideration it was 
 decided to give the decoration to the surgeon-major, 
 who had behaved with great devotion during a recent 
 cholera epidemic. The crew was still assembled, the King 
 took up his position aft, but the minister, being perfectly 
 ignorant as to the course the ceremony should take, did 
 not open his lips. So the scene opened thus : 
 
 " Come, Admiral ! " said the King. "Tell the drummer 
 to ouvrir le ban!'' 
 
 The admiral in stentorian tones: "Drummer! Oiivrez 
 Ic ban ! " 
 
 A silence. Then the King in a whisper : " Say some- 
 thing, Admiral ! Tell them I am going to decorate an 
 ofificer." 
 
 The admiral made a sign of acquiescence, stepped 
 forward, and began again, in the same stentorian tones : 
 
 " Officers and men of the Pelican ! " — another pause. 
 ''His Majesty" — another pause — "The cholera!" — yet 
 •another pause. " Your gallant surgeon," pointing to him, 
 " your gallant surgeon, I say. The King desires to re- 
 ward the officers and men of the Pelican for the cholera ! '' 
 (He fired off the word cholera like a cannon shot.) 
 "Appoints you Legionary" (" Knight," whispers the King 
 very low). " Yes, Knight Legionary" (the King bent his 
 head in despair). " Knight Legionary of his Majesty's 
 r-r-royal order of the Legion of Honour ! Drummer ! 
 Fermez le ban ! " 
 
 This was done by the only drummer on board ; the 
 gallant surgeon-major came up to receive his cross, which 
 the King, whose gravity never forsook him, presented to 
 him with a few kindly words, while all the spectators 
 made superhuman efforts to control their inclination to 
 laugh. What dozens of scenes of that kind I have 
 witnessed ! 
 
 I wound up my term of service at Eu. All there were
 
 2S6 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, xr 
 
 still full of the Oucen of England's visit, the episodes of 
 which Isabey, Eugene Lamy, Alaux, and Simeon Fort were 
 very busy transferring to canvas. At last my little naval 
 division was paid off. I went back to Paris and re-entered 
 the world, not of politics, but of social intercourse. I 
 even went to Chantilly Races, a meeting which my 
 brothers had just established, and which has now become a 
 standing institution. These races were very different when 
 they first began to what they are in the present day. 
 There was the same beautiful turfy racecourse, opposite 
 the ancient castle of the Condés ; the horses, too, and the 
 trainers and jockeys were much the same ; but the general 
 public was very different. There were no railways then to 
 bring huge crowds in numberless specials and return them 
 to Paris the same evening. The companj' was less numer- 
 ous, but it was more select. People migrated to Chantilly 
 for the race-week, content with what lodging they could 
 find, and ready to put up with all the inconveniences of 
 a sort of huge picnic, and spend every hour both of the 
 day and night amusing themselves as best they could. It 
 was a kind of summer carnival, with country excursions^ 
 dinners, balls, and merry-makings of every description, at 
 which the great world and the devii-mondc, both of them 
 in considerable force, sometimes mingled in somewhat 
 noisy fun. 
 
 I recollect one extra riotous ball, at which the worthy 
 mayor of Chantilly, M. Jaquin, thought it his duty to 
 interfere, with the gendarmerie, to restore order. The 
 worthy magistrate entered, and commanded the noise to 
 be stopped in the name of the law, at the same time 
 inquiring who was the proprietor of the house. " Brochet 
 is ! " chorused a hundred voices. 
 
 Now Brochet was the surname of a certain fascinating 
 cocotte. " Well," said the good mayor paternally, " I should 
 like to speak to M. Brochet." 
 
 " That's me ! " shouted the same hundred individuals at 
 once. Then there was a shout of " Long live Jaquin ! " 
 and the worthy man was carried round in triumph, while
 
 1S44] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 2S7 
 
 the fair ladies hastened to exert their blandishments upon 
 the gendarmes. How could anybody be angry ? The 
 representatives of law and order fraternised with those of 
 — the other thing ! and it all ended in smoke ! 
 
 So much for our evenings. In the daytime there was 
 hunting. Everybody followed in merry parties, on horse- 
 back, in carriages, or on foot, to the sound of the horns of 
 the red- coated piqiieiLvs of the Orleans family hunt. The 
 whole thing was full of " go," and I remember seeing one 
 very pretty woman, out of patience with the slowness of 
 her carriage, entreat a friend to lend her his horse, and 
 start off on it astride, not in her riding habit, but in 
 ordinary outdoor costume. The fair lady's name was 
 Lola Montes, and she later on attained some considerable 
 celebrity in the kingdom of Bavaria. 
 
 After this fashion the lovely month of May was spent. 
 But June brought me more serious occupation. I was 
 appointed to the command of a squadron ordered to the 
 coasts of the Empire of Morocco, where we were on the 
 brink of important events, affecting alike the consolidation 
 of our Algerian conquests and our relations with other 
 Great Powers. Driven to extremity by the blow given 
 to his prestige by the capture of his smalah, Abd-el-Kadir 
 was playing a last and desperate card. He had once more 
 kindled all the Mussulman fanaticism and hatred of the 
 foreign invader against us. We had to fight in every 
 direction. While m}- brother Aumale had several sharp 
 engagements, in one of which my younger brother, Mont- 
 pensier, was wounded, on the Constantine side of the 
 country, General Bugeaud was carrying on a daily struggle 
 with the warlike tribes of the Province of Oran. These 
 tribes, whenever they were repulsed, crossed the River 
 Moulouia, which was the frontier line of Morocco, at 
 which our troops had to stop short, on account of European 
 susceptibilities, and thus escaped all chastisement. 
 
 The enemy concluded, from the cessation of our pur- 
 suit, either that we did not dare to brave the displeasure 
 of the Emperor of Morocco, or else that the European
 
 288 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, xi 
 
 Powers, and especially the Power whose flag floated over 
 Gibraltar, protected the soil of that empire from any 
 violation. It thus became a sort of citadel, whence any 
 attempt on us might safely be made without fear of 
 reprisals. There were consequently perpetual irruptions 
 into our territory, not only of the fanatic Moorish element, 
 but, covertly, of the Emperor of Morocco's own troops, 
 whom he had massed, on pretence of keeping watch, close 
 to our frontier ; and in the long run these attacks, which 
 had to be ceaselessly repulsed at the cost of precious lives, 
 had grown intolerable. This state of things could not go on. 
 The French Government resolved to put an end to it, and 
 its first step was to despatch the squadron I had the 
 honour to command. I was to call on the Emperor of 
 Morocco to withdraw the protection he had given Abd- 
 •el-Kadir up to that period ; not to allow our enemies to 
 organise expeditions against us on his territory ; and, 
 finally, to reduce the considerable collection of troops he 
 had amassed on the frontier — the number and attitude of 
 which both amounted to a threat — to a mere police force. 
 Failing his prompt acquiescence with my demands, I was 
 to use force at sea, in concert with General Bugeaud on 
 land, to force Muley Abderrahman to submit. 
 
 But I had been express!}' desired to carry forbearance to 
 its furthest possible limit, and in case of our being obliged 
 to take action to let it be known in the most public 
 manner that we had no idea of conquest. Above all, I 
 was carefully to avoid an}-thing that might possibly wound 
 international feelings. And herein lay the difficulty of 
 my task, for these same feelings were excessively tender. 
 I need hardly say that this was especially so in the case of 
 England. We had driven away her trade when we con- 
 quered Algeria, and she did not want her commercial 
 relations with Morocco to meet the same fate. Gibraltar, 
 being in a state of perpetual semi-blockade on the Spanish 
 side, is obliged to draw all the necessary supplies for its 
 huge garrison and its smuggling population from Morocco; 
 and this has c^one on for such a length of time that
 
 ^ha] 
 
 PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 
 
 289 
 
 Englishmen have got into the habit of looking on Tangier 
 as being an indispensable dependency belonging to that 
 proud citadel on the Rock, which keeps watch and ward 
 over the gates of the Mediterranean. Add to this a 
 certain national feeling among the English that the sea 
 
 POINT EUROl'A, GIBRALTAR. 
 
 is their special domain, and their consequent jealousy when- 
 ever naval action is taken by any other fleet than theirs^ 
 and some idea of the inflammable elements with which I 
 was about to be surrounded will be gained. The very 
 announcement of the despatch of my squadron to Morocco 
 brought forth a demonstration of the national sensitiveness 
 in the British Parliament. A former minister. Lord Minto,, 
 was the first to echo it in the House of Lords, where he 
 went so far as to do me the honour of complaining that / 
 should have been entrusted with the command of the 
 squadron. It was decided that ships should be sent to 
 watch us. Admiral Owen, Commander-in-Chief of the 
 British Mediterranean Squadron, was ordered to hasten to 
 Gibraltar without delay, and the Press, as may well be imag- 
 ined, was not slow to take its share in all this agitation. 
 
 Meanwhile I was busily organising my little squadron at 
 Toulon. Twelve hundred troops, or thereabouts, for dis- 
 embarkation if necessary, had been sent me, and as fast as 
 
 V
 
 290 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, xi 
 
 I got my ships read}' I sent them on to Oran, where \vc 
 were to muster. Just as vvc were starting a sh'ght accident 
 occurred, which if I had been superstitiously inclined 
 might have cast a gloom over the first days of my com- 
 mand. We had towed the ship Triton, with a body of 
 marines on board, outside the port, one lovely evening. 
 There we met a steamboat coming from ]\Iontpellier with 
 a company of engineers, under Captain Coffinières, who 
 were also to be attached to the expedition. By some mis- 
 take in steering the ships collided. The Triton was 
 slightly damaged; but tlie steamboat lost her funnel and 
 spars, and had her bulwarks stove in. There was no 
 damage to life and limb, beyond an unintentional dip I 
 took, by falling into the sea while getting alongside the 
 two vessels to judge for myself whether the collision was a 
 serious one or not. I recollect, as a small matter of de- 
 tail, that while we wei'e coming back into Toulon at night, 
 on board the tug from which I had seen the accident, we 
 made experiments with the electric light, and that when 
 we turned it on an American corvette lying in the port, 
 her watch bolted in every direction, blinded by the 
 dazzling light darted on them suddenly, they knew not 
 whence. More than forty years elapsed before these ex- 
 periments received any practical application. Such is the 
 power of routine ! 
 
 But I must get back to my ships. Having mustered 
 them all at Oran, and opened communications with 
 General Bugeaud, I went straight to Gibraltar, to confer 
 with the English authorities before I did anything else; 
 and resolved to be the first to offer in the clearest and 
 frankest way any explanation they might desire of my 
 intentions as to peace or war, and the part we expected 
 neutral powers to play. Let me say at once, that from the 
 very first day till the end of the campaign, I never had 
 occasion to speak otherwise than in terms of the highest 
 satisfaction of all my relations with the ofiicers holding 
 command in the ]3ritish naval force, and more especially 
 with Admiral Owen, Captain Lock}'er, and Captain Provo
 
 iS44] PRINCE DE JOIXVILLE 291 
 
 Wallis. Our intercourse was always frank, cordial, 
 ^'straightforward," as English people call it, and very 
 pleasant in consequence. This was not the case when I 
 had to do with General Sir Robert Wilson, Governor of 
 Gibraltar, a bitter enemy to France. In the earliest begin- 
 ning of his career he had been attached to the staff of 
 the Russian army, had been through the campaign of 
 1 8 12, and borne his part in inflicting the disasters which 
 befell us during the terrible retreat from Moscow. He 
 played a very active part as British commissioner with the 
 Allied Armies in 1813, behaving with great personal valour 
 both at Dresden and Leipsic, and doing us frequent 
 mischief by the advice he gave to the Allies. Often, 
 in his very interesting Memoirs, he will be found com- 
 placently reckoning up the losses that we should have 
 suffered if his counsels had been acted upon. Sir Robert 
 afterwards acquired a certain notoriety in Paris by acting 
 as the principal agent in the escape of M. de Lavalette in 
 1815. A man of occasional chivalrous impulses, but pas- 
 sionate and restless, to the extent of being incapable of 
 keeping quiet, he looked on his position as Governor of 
 Gibraltar not as a great military command alone, but as 
 an active political post, and he had directed all this 
 activity, through Morocco, against our conquered Province 
 of Algeria, and so against France herself. His goings to and 
 fro betwixt Gibraltar and the opposite coast were a matter 
 of common knowledge, and his newspaper, the Gibraltar 
 Chronicle, edited by his Colonial Secretary, repeated every 
 statement likely to lower French influence, make little of 
 our arms, or stir up public feeling against us. Arms and 
 war material were openly exported to Tetuan and other 
 towns in Morocco under his very eyes. And, in short, it 
 was easy to trace a great part of the confidence in their 
 impunity which made Muley Abderrahman and his govern- 
 ment so hostile on our frontier-line, and so insolent in its 
 replies to our diplomatic agents, to his behaviour. 
 
 Such then was the principal personage with whom I had 
 to deal from the very outset of my mission. Pîe was 
 
 U 2
 
 292 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, xi 
 
 the object of my first ov^crture. As soon as I arrived, I 
 proceeded to the Convent, as his official residence is. 
 called, in full iinifonn, with all the captains belonging to 
 my squadron. He received me with a politeness that bor- 
 dered on the obsequious, and at once began to talk of 
 the danger he apprehended from the presence of my 
 squadron on that coast and before the Moorish towns ; 
 the danger to peace in general, on account of the conflicts, 
 likely to be provoked ; the danger of still further exciting 
 the warlike passions of the Mussulman population ; the 
 danger to the safet}- of the Christian natives, the European 
 residents, and the consuls in Morocco ; and, finally, the 
 danger to Mr. Hay, the British Consul-General, who had 
 iust started to give personal counsels of moderation to. 
 the Emperor Mulcy Abderrahman. 
 
 " But indeed. General," I replied, " I shall be too glad 
 not to take my ships to Tangier, nor to any other point on 
 the Morocco coast, during the negotiations. We are tired 
 of the state of things caused by the insolence and hostility 
 of the Moors along our frontier. We arc going to present 
 an ultimatum to put an end to it. We will allow them a 
 certain interval to reply in, and when that is up, we shall 
 go to Tangier, either to punish or to forgive them. Unti/ 
 then we shall be very glad of any efforts that may be 
 made to calm public feeling and facilitate the acceptance 
 of our just demands. Until tlicn I am quite prepared not 
 to take my squadron to the coast of Morocco ; but on one 
 condition onl}- — that the British ships do not go there 
 either. We cannot allow our dispute to be discussed 
 under the guns of a foreign fleet, nor that there should be 
 any question of protection or intimidation in the matter. 
 If you, and the naval authorities with you, will promise- 
 that your ships shall not go to Tangier, I will take mine 
 to Cadiz, without touching there either, and await the 
 reply to our ultimatum. Of course I have nothing to say 
 about your small vessels going to Tangier to protect your 
 fellow-countrymen, and mine will do the same thing." 
 
 That ended my lecture, and I was about to take vc\y-
 
 iS44] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 293 
 
 leave, but Sir Robert kept up a conversation on various 
 subjects, till all at once he started and said : 
 
 " Why, I was forgetting the time ! The gates will be 
 shut. If you want to get back to the port, gentlemen, you 
 must start at once. Hurry up ! you haven't a moment to 
 lose." 
 
 I always thought that little scene was a got up thing : not 
 indeed for the sake of the absurd sight of the French 
 admiral and his captains tearing breathlessly along in full 
 uniform like people who are afraid of missing a train, but 
 to give us an idea of the strictness of the regulations under 
 that particular governorship. Of which strictness we had 
 another proof on the following evening. 
 
 A boat coming ashore from the " Jemappes" to take off 
 the officers, who had been dining on shore, at the postern 
 gate known as the Ragged Staff, which had been left open 
 for their convenience, made a mistake in the darkness, and 
 came alongside of another landing stage, the guard of 
 which turned out and fired a volley, which luckily did not 
 hit anybody. 
 
 The proposal I made during my first visit to Sir Robert 
 ivas carried out. I was given a promise that no English 
 ship should appear at Tangier ; and I, on my side, took 
 my squadron to Cadiz, while M. de Nion, our consul- 
 general, presented our ultimatum to Muley Abderrahman. 
 Then came a long period of uncertainty. Warships arrived 
 at Tangier direct from England. As soon as I heard of it 
 I set sail to follow them ; but on my arrival, finding the 
 authorities at Gibraltar had already recalled them, I returned 
 to Cadiz. 
 
 When the answer to our ultimatum did come, it was most 
 iinsatisfactory. The Moorish Government refused to dis- 
 perse the assemblage of troops massed on General Bu- 
 geaud's front ; and even went so far as to demand that he 
 should be punished for having violated their frontier more 
 than once, in his pursuit of the bands that had attacked 
 him. And there was not one word concerning the chief 
 subject of our complaints, Abd-el-Kadir.
 
 294 SOU\'ENIRS OF THE [cHAi". xr. 
 
 We might have taken immediate steps, on the reception 
 of this news, but it was indispensable that the safety of our 
 consuls, and our fellow-countr}-men resident in Tangier, 
 whom the first cannon-shot would expose to all the violence 
 of Mussulman fanaticism, should be ensured first of all. 
 Then there was the presence of the British Consul-Gencral 
 at the Emperor's court to be considered. If his mission 
 was not actually official, it was semi-ofificial at all events ;, 
 and we were obliged to await his return. To give some 
 colour to our delay, M. de Nion sent a fresh summons to 
 Sidi Bousselam, pasha of Larrache, a clear-sighted and 
 intelligent man, whom the Sultan had deputed to negotiate 
 with us. A fresh extension of time was granted. I took 
 advantage of it to get our consuls withdrawn, and went 
 myself to Tangier to sec to the sudden removal of our 
 consul-general and his famil)-. If this had been attempted 
 a few minutes later, the Moors would have tried to prevent it- 
 All the other French subjects and people under our pro- 
 tection, who had put off going on board our ships, were 
 stopped, except one Jew, who rushed up at full speed, threw 
 himself into the sea, and managed to come up with my boat. 
 I should add, that owing to the energetic remonstrances of 
 all the other foreign representatives, and in particular the 
 Neapolitan Consul, M. de Martino — a clever and courageous 
 young man who has since risen to the highest positions 
 in Ital}", and whohad undertaken to look after our interests 
 after our consuls had been withdrawn — the embargo thus 
 laid on our fellow-countr}-men's movements was of very 
 short duration. 
 
 The departure of the French consuls made a considerable 
 impression both on the Moorish leaders and on the foreign 
 representatives, who took alarm at once. The roadstead 
 at Tangier was soon covered, in answer to their appeals, 
 with foreign warships, Spanish, Danish, Swedish, &c. The 
 English men-of-war returned, and I brought back my own 
 squadron. 
 
 But still the time went b)% and Mr. Hay did not appear. 
 General Bugcaud, away on the frontier, was losing patience,.
 
 iS44] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 295 
 
 and wrote me letter after letter, complaining of my "ter- 
 giversation ! " To which I replied, " Well, General, fire off 
 your guns ! If }-ou will begin the fighting I'll follow your 
 example at once." But the general turned a deaf ear to that. 
 He answered that pacific overtures which he could not well 
 ignore Avere being made him on the frontier side, but that 
 things could not go on as they were, that his troops were 
 suffering from the heat, that they were fretting under their 
 enforced inaction. The long and the short of it was that he 
 would not take the responsibility of the international compli- 
 cations that might arise out of overt hostilities in Morocco, 
 and }et he was burning with the desire to throw himself 
 upon the army lying in front of him and inflict a signal de- 
 feat on it. While he neither urged me on nor tried to check 
 me, diplomacy did its utmost to restrain my ardour. The 
 French charge d'affaires in London wrote to point out 
 " the capital importance attached in this country 
 (England) to the business you have in hand. If it were to 
 come to a blockade, an occupation of ports and of the 
 coast, &c., I feel quite convinced that the relations 
 between your Royal Highness and the British cruisers 
 would keep the peace of the world in general in constant 
 peril." And the tide kept rising and rising, higher and 
 higher ! In other words, time was going by — in inaction. 
 And some people were inclined to take inaction for 
 impotence. 
 
 At last, on the 4th of August, M. de Nion received an 
 answer, and not an acceptable one, to his last note, still 
 harping on "the punishment of the general." We had had 
 enough of that sort of thing. On the 5th a despatch-boat 
 brought me news of the safety of Mr. Hay, the British 
 Plenipotentiary, on board an English ship, and of the 
 failure of his mission. On the 6th I attacked the fortifica- 
 tions of Tangier in the presence of ships of war of every 
 nation, British battleships, and Spanish frigates. The 
 object of our demonstration was eminently clear. We 
 were proving to the Moors, whom we chastised, as to the 
 foreisrners who were looking on, that France intended to
 
 296 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap. XI 
 
 ensure her Algerian frontier being respected, and that no 
 foreign protection would save those who violated it from 
 punishment. 
 
 The shelling of Tangier was much more of a political 
 act than of an act of warfare. Though eighty pieces of 
 artillery replied to our first shots, their fire was swiftly 
 silenced by the admirable practice made by our capital 
 gunners. Not a shot went wide of the enemy's embrasures, 
 nor did a single one fall on the dwelling-houses, nor on the 
 consular quarter of the town. Our loss was insignificant. 
 I have not the figures by me, but I do not think we had 
 inore than fifteen or twenty men disabled. No damage 
 was done to the fleet. My ship, the Snffren, had not 
 more than fifty shots in her hull and spars. 
 
 General Bugeaud, with whom I at once communicated, 
 Avrote to me soon afterwards as follows : 
 
 I told you on the nth, that the army would lose no time about 
 honouring the draft the navy had drawn on it. By the enclosed copy 
 •of a telegram to his Excellency the Minister of War you will see it 
 lias kept its word. 
 
 The despatch in question contained the report of the 
 battle of Isly, which had just been fought ; and the letter 
 was dated from the battlefield itself, on August 14th. On 
 that same 14th of August I was before Alogador with the 
 squadron. Having sent out three very intelligent officers, 
 Colonel Chauchard, and Captain Coffinières of the En- 
 gineers, and a post-captain, the heir to a glorious name. 
 Vicomte Duquesne, to reconnoitre, I had resolved, on their 
 information, to choose this particular town and its port, 
 as offering the best chance of a successful attack. Another 
 consideration too had weighed with me — the customs duties 
 at Mogador supplied the greater part of Aluley Abder- 
 rahman's revenue. We had dissipated his illusions at 
 Tangier, and while the general was lowering his pride on 
 the battlefield of Isly, I was going to make a hole in his 
 purse. 
 
 Bad weather, rough seas, serious damage to chains,
 
 i844] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 297 
 
 and anchors broken on the inhospitable rocks, gave us a 
 world of trouble. At last, on the 15 th of August, the sea 
 was calmer, and with a favourable breeze we were able to 
 take up our attacking position opposite Mogadon The 
 town, being strongly fortified, heavily armed, and having 
 besides had time to prepare for us, made a much tougher 
 defence than Tangier. But we mastered it at last, and the 
 fire from the citadel having been silenced by the guns of the 
 Sîiffren, Jemniapes, Triton, and the Bellc-Poulc frigate, I took 
 the flotilla into the channel, and landed five hundred men 
 on the island which forms the port. This was done under 
 a very hot musketry fire, but it was performed in the boldest 
 and smartest manner, the men who were wounded in the 
 boats being among the first to spring on shore. The bat- 
 teries were carried at the double, and the whole garrison of 
 the island, about four hundred men, were either killed, 
 drowned, or driven at nightfall into a large mosque, which 
 they surrendered the next morning. 
 
 There never was a more picturesque sight than the close 
 of that fight, under a sunset like the one I saw Horace 
 Vernet paint in his fine picture of the battle of Montmirail. 
 The jVIoors in their brilliant dresses were retiring, firing as 
 they went, towards the mosque, whose great towers rose 
 tall against the sky ; while our small craft, running along 
 the shore on a golden summer sea, supported our soldiers 
 on land by their fire. I recollect finding myself just at 
 that moment beside a young sub-lieutenant, fresh from St. 
 Cyr, M. Martin des Pallières, whom I had permitted, at his 
 own urgent request, to land as a volunteer, although his 
 company was not detailed for service. He proudly showed 
 me his arm, smashed by a ball, saying : 
 
 "You see, sir, you did well to let me come !" 
 
 The whole of the assault of this island was very well led 
 by Colonel Chauchard and Captain Duquesne, who was 
 wounded in the engagement. 
 
 My first care, the next day, was to send some of my 
 prisoners back to the pasha of Mogador, with an intimation 
 that if he touched a hair on the heads of the British Consul
 
 298 SOU\'EXIRS OF THK [chap, xr 
 
 and his Himil}-, and a few otiicr Europeans wliom he had 
 refused to allow to depart before the attack, I would take 
 reprisals by putting all the rest of my prisoners to death. 
 I had the satisfaction of receiving the consul and his 
 belongings on board iri)- ship, and of transferring them to 
 the English frigate Warspitc, which had been present as 
 a spectator during all our operations. It was none too 
 soon, for the Arabs and Kabyles from the neighbouring 
 countr}- were already pouring into the town to sack and 
 plunder it. The pasha, overwhelmed by their numbers 
 and no longer able to maintain order, was obliged to take 
 to flight himself, and no Christian could have remained in 
 the town without running the gravest risk. 
 
 We soon landed in the town of ]\Iogador to complete 
 the work of destruction begun the day before, spike the 
 guns, smash up the gun-carriages, and destroy all the 
 munitions of war in the shore batteries — all of which was 
 performed without a shadow of opposition being offered. 
 Then I put a garrison on the island, providing it with 
 heav}- guns, to awe the town, which we did not care to 
 occup\-, and I declared the port to be in a state of 
 blockade. 
 
 When all this was settled, I sent back the bulk of the 
 squadron to Cadiz to rcvictual, and get ready to recom- 
 mence operations, if necessar}'. During the whole of this 
 campaign the only staff I had to help me to direct sailing 
 and fighting operations, and above all to supply a naval 
 force numbering seventeen sail, not reckoning my dis- 
 embarkation craft, with food, coal, and munitions of war^ 
 was one first lieutenant, who acted as chief of the staff, 
 aide-de-camp, &c., one second class cadet to go messages 
 and keep the look out, and the purser of my own ship, the 
 Siiffroi. 
 
 It is true all these were first-rate men. The two officers 
 have both become admirals — one is Admiral Touchard 
 and the other Admiral Pierre. The purser's name was 
 Rouffio. I mcrel}- mention this detail because, with the 
 present mania for large staffs, things would be less simply
 
 iSi-L] PRIN'CE DE JOINVILLE 299 
 
 managed nowadays. I should like to add that I found m}' 
 best assistance in the goodwill, pluck, intelligence, and 
 devotion to their countn-'s interests invariably shown b}- 
 everybody, without distinction of rank. In short, the 
 behaviour of the naval force I had the honour of command- 
 ing was even better than I could have expected of it. 
 The service still bears the same good character, and will 
 continue to bear it so long as no one lays a sacrilegious 
 hand on an organisation the value of which has been 
 thoroughly tested, and which now rests on long and 
 splendid traditions. 
 
 But one misfortune befell us. The Groenland, a large 
 transport, was wrecked some way south of Larrache. By 
 some miscalculation or other she ran aground, going nine 
 knots an hour, at high water, on a spring tide, at the foot 
 of a cliff as high as those of the English Channel. When 
 the fog cleared, some Arabs, very few fortunately, on the 
 top of the rocks, saw her, and poured their fire into her 
 with perfect impunity. 
 
 One of our despatch-boats, the J^edette, becoming 
 aware of the catastrophe, hurried to the trooper's assist- 
 ance ; but she was almost powerless, her engines not being 
 strong enough to tow off a big ship stranded in such a 
 deplorable position. The shots fired from below at the 
 Arabs on the summit of the cliff onl}- attracted more of 
 them to the spot. But at all events they were useful in so 
 far as they made me aware of the disaster. 
 
 I was passing b}-, out at sea, on board the Pluton, 
 on my way to Cadiz, when the sound of the guns, which 
 was ver)- unexpected thereabouts, attracted my attention, 
 and steering towards the noise I soon caught sight of the 
 unlucky Groenland lying close ashore, while the rifle- 
 shots flashed from the top of the cliff. It was just getting 
 dark when I reached the spot. I boarded the ship at once, 
 no easy matter, for a heavy surf was breaking on her stern, 
 the only part of her which w^as at all accessible. But they 
 threw me a rope and hoisted me on board. 
 
 The unlucky officer in command, Captain Besson, had
 
 300 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, xi 
 
 done everything in his power after the vessel had gone 
 ashore. He had laid out anchors, lightened the ship, and 
 •cut down her masts and spars. Then, in the pluckiest 
 way, he had tried to go about, under the full fire of the 
 Arabs. Fourteen of his men had been killed or wounded 
 at the capstan bars. But the cables gave way, and the 
 •only result of lightening the ship was that the swell carried 
 her closer in shore. I went down to the engine-room, 
 which was full of water. It was clear to my mind that her 
 side was stove in. It was out of the question to make any 
 attempt to float such a large vessel — a difficult enough job 
 on a friendly coast^ — under the rifle fire of the thousands 
 of Arabs who were sure to gather on the cliff at daybreak. 
 
 If the sea rose, the ship would not only go to pieces, but 
 it would be impossible to rescue her passengers and crew 
 I therefore settled to proceed at once to the removal of the 
 wounded, in the first place, and then of the rest of the 
 soldiers and sailors on board. This was carried out 
 without any accident. Captain Besson was the last man 
 to leave his ship, having first, at my request, set her on 
 fire, so as to leave nothing in the way of a trophy in the 
 enemy's hands. 
 
 On my arrival at Cadiz, besides letters from the [Minister 
 for Naval Affairs, Admiral de Mackau, signifying the 
 approval of his Majesty's Government of what I had done, 
 I found one from General Bugeaud (who had been 
 created a marshal), in which he said : 
 
 I have just received your despatch of 17th August, which has 
 caused me the greatest joy. In spite of the great distance between 
 them, the harmony between our military and naval operations has 
 been complete. The Moorish army was defeated on the 14th, and 
 Mogador was shelled and captured on the 15th. 
 
 Between the two victories, the Princesse de Joinville has made you 
 a happy father. It seems to me that the young Princess ought 
 certainly to receive the name of Victoria. 
 
 I am very happy to assure you that you cannot be more pleased with 
 your tlect than the army is with both it and you. 
 
 I was busy revictualling and refitting, and reorganising 
 my squadron, when M. de Martino sent word that Muley
 
 iS44] PRINCE DE JOIN\'ILLE 301 
 
 Abdurrahman was sueing for peace, and had given Sidi 
 Bousselam full powers for the purpose. 
 
 There was a regular congress of diplomats at Cadiz. M. 
 Guizot had associated young Decazes — known to all the 
 world in later days as Marshal MacMahon's Foreign 
 Minister — with M. de Nion, our dccJiargc d'affaires at 
 Tangier. And then, behind the diplomatic curtain, there 
 was the British Minister in Spain, Mr. Bulwer, who took 
 the deepest interest in our proceedings, and like his chief, 
 Lord Aberdeen, sincerely desired to see the Morocco 
 question dead and buried. Everybody was eager to draw 
 up protocols. But I thought it much better to let our- 
 selves be pressed a little, and make the Moors feel a little 
 keener anxiety to get rid of the blockade on Mogador, 
 which practically cut off all their supplies. I therefore 
 suggested sending the interpreter of the fleet, Dr. Warnier 
 — a brave and clever man, one of the Frenchmen who, 
 with General Daumas, Léon Roche, and others, had, 
 formerly followed the fortunes of Abd-el-Kadir, and quite 
 capable of detecting all the tricks of Arab diplomacy — ta 
 meet Bousselam, with orders to ask whether he really was 
 invested with full powers from the Emperor, and to re- 
 quest him, in that case, to produce an official document 
 in proof of his assertion. In the event of the reply being 
 in the affirmative, the squadron to return to Tangier,, 
 bringing the French plenipotentiaries, and with them a 
 treaty ready drawn up, containing the conditions imposed 
 by France, to be signed within twenty-four hours. 
 
 So matters were settled. 
 
 And what were the stipulations of the treaty } 
 
 Not very many. But it gave the deathblow to Abd- 
 el-Kadir, whom the Emperor of Morocco undertook to 
 proclaim an outlaw. The real treaty of peace had been 
 signed at Tangier, at Isly, and at Mogador. We had no 
 object, once we had gained those victories, in imposing too 
 severe conditions, which would have weakened and even 
 destroyed his authority, on the Moorish Sovereign. It was 
 far better to have a ruler on our frontier who had experi-
 
 302 SOUVENIRS OF I'RINCE UE JOIXVILLE [cnAi-. xi 
 
 encc both of our armed strength and of our generosity, 
 and to whose interest it consequently was to live on 
 friendly terms with us, than to have to keep up a struggle 
 with Mussulman anarchy, which might end in opening the 
 door to international intervention. 
 
 The treaty inspired by these considerations was duly 
 signed, and the order to evacuate the Island of INIogador 
 and raise the blockade was forthwith given. The flag was 
 hoisted once more over the French consulate, and saluted 
 both on shore and by our ships in port. The Morocco 
 dispute was closed. 
 
 In the result, Abd-el-Kadir, hemmed in in Morocco as 
 he had formerly been in Algeria, was forced in 1847, after 
 a short period of wandering and helplessness, to make his 
 submission to my brother Aumale. From the date of the 
 signing of the treaty of Tangier up to the present day, no 
 serious misunderstanding has ever arisen between ourselves 
 and the Fmpire of Morocco. 
 
 The signature of peace was the signal for the dispersal of 
 the squadron under my orders. I myself returned to Paris 
 by Havre, where I learnt that a public reception, which I 
 was not sorry to escape, had been prepared for me at 
 Toulon. Feeling conscious, as I did, of having done my 
 country good service during my four months of cam- 
 paigning, praise and blame alike were equally indifferent 
 to me.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 1 844- 1 848 
 
 There were great festivities at Naples, towards the end 
 
 of 1854, in honour of the marriage of my brother Aumale 
 
 and his cousin, the charming daughter of the Prince of 
 
 Salerno. During the civil marriage, which took place at 
 
 the palace, the King never left off tormenting the syndic 
 
 of Naples, who figured in a full black Spanish suit in 
 
 seventeenth-century style, and a wig with long floating 
 
 curls. At the religious ceremony, numbers of lovely 
 
 women in court dress, and men bearing great and historic 
 
 names — such as the Marquis de Pescaire del Yasto, the 
 
 Princes Colonna and Campo Reale, the Dukes of Ascoli 
 
 and San Cesarea, and many others — gathered round the 
 
 Royal Family. France was represented by Admiral de 
 
 Parseval and the officers of the squadron, and by General 
 
 Durosnel, who was aide-de-camp to my father, after having 
 
 served Napoleon in the same capacity. He was an old 
 
 soldier, the very personification of honour, with a memory 
 
 stored with most interesting recollections. The P'rench 
 
 Embassy, placed beside these gentlemen, made a fine 
 
 figure with the Due and Duchesse de Montebello at its 
 
 head, accompanied by M. Lutteroth and his wife, the sister 
 
 of that Count Batthyani who was executed in Hungary 
 
 under such heartrending circumstances in the year 1848. 
 
 The general public of P^rance was represented among the 
 
 spectators by "SI. Glais-Bizoin, who made a less fine effect, 
 
 as those who have known the triumvir of Tours in 1870
 
 304 SOUVENIRS OF THE chap, xit 
 
 will rcadil}- believe. He was one of the ugliest men in 
 creation. 
 
 Then there was the whole diplomatic body, and foremost 
 among its members the Austrian Minister, Prince Felix von 
 Schwarzenberg, whose acquaintance I was very glad to 
 make. He was an exceedingK- pleasant man, the very t}'pe 
 of a distinguished aristocrat, with a splendid head, clever and 
 proud-looking at once, and a tall slight figure. He looked 
 magnificent in his white uniform, that of an Austrian 
 general, and turned all the ladies' heads. His love affairs 
 were endless, and some of them have become celebrated, 
 such as his elopement with a great lady in English society,, 
 who, when he left her, ended her days under the tent of an 
 Arab chief, near Palmyra, described by Edmond About in 
 Lc Roi des Montagues. 
 
 When once his passion was roused, he allowed no 
 obstacle to stand in his way, and I never saw any man 
 beset a woman with his addresses, in public, whatever her 
 position might be, with such magnificent indifference to 
 what people said, or to the consequences which might pos- 
 sibly ensue. And indeed his audacit}- generall)- paid. Later 
 on he carried it into politics, and with equal success. My 
 readers may know that he came into power in 1848, when 
 the affairs of the House of Austria were at their lowest 
 ebb, Vienna in revolution, Hungary in rebellion, and Lom- 
 bardy invaded. 
 
 P^ull of confidence in the strength of the dynastic 
 principle in the country, he induced two incapable 
 emperors to abdicate, himself took young Francis Joseph 
 to be solemnly invested with his sovereignty at Santa 
 Lucia, among Radetsky's riflemen, just before the battle 
 of Novara, made the alliance with Russia which forced 
 Hungary into submission, and having thus snatched his 
 country from the jaws of revolution and ruin, died on his 
 feet, just after keeping an assignation. He was the man 
 who made the well-known and characteristic remark, 
 "You can do everything with bayonets — except sit on 
 them ! "
 
 i844— 1848] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 305 
 
 Wc had a constant succession of merry-makings. There 
 was a state performance at the San Carlo, with a ballet 
 danced by very pretty figurantes, whose tights were pink 
 to below their knees only, the rest was apple-green. This 
 detail was insisted on to spare the modesty of the manage- 
 ment. I am not aware whether the genuine article pro- 
 fited in any way by the rule. When the San Carlo was 
 over, we had San Carlino or Pulcinella. This character, 
 peculiar to the local stage (who is supposed to have 
 originated in Acerra, as Arlequino did in Bergamo), sup- 
 ported by his inseparable companion Pancrazio, poked fun 
 to his heart's content, and in the raciest of burlesque, at all 
 the latest Neapolitan occurrences and fashions, in a piece 
 entitled Pulcinella alia Strada Ferrata. 
 
 There were balls to go to, when the theatres were over, 
 at the palace, at the academy, and at our embassy. In 
 the daytime there were shooting parties at Capo di Monte 
 or Caserta. Those Neapolitan shooting parties are a thing 
 of the past. I have heard my brother-in-law, King Leopold, 
 tell how once, when he had been invited by the King to a 
 shoot of large and small game at Mondragone, at which, 
 in the course of a few days, three thousand woodcock had 
 been killed, besides other game, he stayed on for a day 
 longer than the other sportsmen, and in one morning he 
 brought down sixty woodcock put up by his dog, on the 
 very ground that had just been shot over. 
 
 To wind up our stay at Naples we christened one of the 
 Due de Montebello's sons. The ceremony was performed 
 after the Italian fashion in a drawing-room belonging to 
 the Prince of Salerno, himself a thorough Neapolitan, with 
 his wit and exaggerated drolleries, and the uproar he made 
 and caused wherever he betook himself This same uproar 
 had already terrified the baby, • when out of a sort of cup- 
 board chapel a worthy chaplain, an old friend of my 
 mother's, Monsignore Corbi, was seen to advance. The 
 monsignore, who was exceedingly ugly, and very short in 
 stature, had a huge mitre on his head, and looked so 
 diabolical altogether that the child writhed in terror at the 
 
 X
 
 3o6 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap. Xii 
 
 sight, and screamed in the most unearthly manner, while 
 to quiet it the dignitary }'elled in a squeaky voice, Bella, 
 belle ! (" Prett}-, pretty ! "), which only terrified it all the 
 more. 
 
 On our wa)- back from Naples we were caught in a 
 violent gale outside the Straits of Bonifacio, which did some 
 damage to the ship and demoralised the ladies. In con- 
 sequence of this, instead of going straight to Marseilles, 
 where a brilliant reception was awaiting the Duchesse 
 d'Aumale, we put in at Toulon. There the Duchesse 
 landed and went on to ]\Iarseilles by land, while I went 
 round by sea. 
 
 But this did not suit the official masters of the cere- 
 monies, and put out all their preparations for an ovation. 
 The arrival had been planned to be by sea, and by sea it 
 must be, or everything would be spoilt. So the poor 
 Duchesse was taken quietly b\- a roundabout road to the 
 old wet dock, where she was put on board, and after a 
 slight dctoiw, she arrived in approved nautical fashion, and 
 disembarked at the foot of the Cannebière "amidst a scene 
 of indescribable enthusiasm," as the official descriptions 
 would say. 
 
 The only recollections I have of those Marseilles/èV^'j' are 
 musical ones. First of all that of King Rene's band, with 
 tabour,pipes,and tambourines, escorting the '^ pnidliomvies" 
 fishermen dressed in Henri Quatre costumes. And secondly,, 
 that of a violoncello solo, admirably played by Offenbach, 
 who was then quite young, and a musician in heart and 
 soul, but who had not }'et shown his great talent as a 
 composer. 
 
 I tore myself, however, from all these rejoicings, which 
 bored me very much, to go and see the haven of Bouc, the 
 Martigues, and the pool of Berre, where but very little is 
 required to complete a matchless piece of Nature's work, 
 and turn it into the finest port in the whole world. I was 
 deeply interested in all I saw, in company with Admiral 
 Baudin and engineers, both military and naval, who had 
 brought all the plans with them. But our trade still goes
 
 iS44— 1S4S] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 307 
 
 to Marseilles and our warships to Toulon, and the two 
 habits have taken such deep root that it is hopeless to fight 
 against them. And the conclusion u^e came to was that, 
 save as regarded deepening the entrance to the haven of 
 Bouc (which has since been done), matters were not likely to 
 alter to any very great extent. I seem yet to hear a young 
 engineer des ponts et chaussées, who was a member of our 
 party, grumbling between his teeth, as he rolled up his plans, 
 that there were a good many other things in Provence that 
 nobody could alter — notably the purity of outline of the 
 Arlesian girls. He pronounced pureté badly, and it 
 sounded like dureté. He may have done it out of mis- 
 chief, for when he looked at me he burst out laughing. 
 
 All this coming and going between Morocco and Naples 
 had kept me far away enough from Paris and the battle- 
 field of politics. When I got back, in the winter of 1845, 
 the July Monarchy had still three years of life before it, but 
 an odour of sickliness hung about it already. 
 
 The St. Vitus's dance of parliamentary politics gave no 
 satisfaction to anybody except the Jerome-Paturots, to 
 whom it gave a social standing. But how many envious 
 individuals were there to every one who was content } 
 Parliament gave no strength then to the Government, 
 which was the object of almost unanimous attack on the 
 part of the Press ; and, by a strange contradiction, the 
 chief reproach cast at an order of things which every one 
 was striving to discredit and overthrow was its want of 
 energy. How often, since that time, have I heard that cry 
 " Be strong," which is the invariable death-knell of govern- 
 ments in extremities ! 
 
 While the love of destruction, which is the essence of the 
 revolutionary spirit, aided by democratic jealousies, and 
 political speculators — was openly pursuing its destruc- 
 tive work, unopposed and unfettered save by empty 
 verbiage and futile restrictions, the healthy appearance of 
 the daily social life of the capital seemed unchanged. The 
 peaceful régime oi 1830, which had been fortunate enough 
 to endow France with her first railways, and which was 
 
 X 2
 
 3o8 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, xii 
 
 extending them with wise activity, was soon to see the 
 dawn of one of the most fruitful discoveries in science — 
 the electric telegraph, the first practical application of 
 which dates from 1845. The fine arts shone brilliantly 
 under the encouragement of an enlightened ruler. Eugène 
 Delacroix sent splendid canvases, the Entrée des Croisés 
 à Constantinople, among others, to the Versailles Museum, 
 the generous and personal creation of King Louis Philippe. 
 Mcissonier's masterpieces were spreading his reputation 
 far and wide, and near him clustered a swarm of great 
 landscape painters — Corot, Jules Dupré, Rousseau, Troyon. 
 Henriquel Dupont, that prince of engravers, was send- 
 ing out wonderful proofs, such as Giistavns Vasa and the 
 Hémicycle. And what actors there were on the boards ! 
 Not to mention the Théâtre Italien, with that incomparable 
 trio Grisi, Lablache, and Mario — Parisians by adoption — 
 and then in the heyday of their talent ; the Français, 
 the Porte-Saint-Martin, and the Gymnase, all offered us 
 representations which approached very nearly to perfection. 
 
 The recollection of Le Metiteiir, as played in the 
 Tuileries Theatre by Firmin, Samson, and Régnier, with 
 Mdmes. Plessy, Anaïs, and Augustine Brohan, is con- 
 stantly with me. At the Porte-Saint-Martin were Frédéric 
 Lemaître and Madame Dorval, startling in their poignant 
 truthfulness and dramatic power in that terrible drama 
 Trente Ans, ou la Vie d'iin Joueur. And at the Gymnase 
 we had Rose Chéri. 
 
 If I talk so much about theatres, it must be remem- 
 bered that the theatre is one of our glories. What other 
 country has a Comédie Française — an institution two 
 centuries old, miraculously respected, so far, amidst all 
 our ruins, by the hammer of the revolutionary destroyer. 
 
 I talk of theatres, too, because I spent many an even- 
 ing in them. The rest passed peacefully away in the 
 " family drawing-room," which well deserved its name, 
 for we all met there, old and young, big and little, after 
 the evening meal, which was always partaken of in 
 common.
 
 1844—1848] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 309 
 
 In that drawing-room, on the first floor of the Tuileries, 
 between the Pavilion de Flore and the Pavilion de 
 l'Horloge, my mother used to sit doing her fancy work 
 at a round table lighted by shaded candles, with my 
 aunt Adelaide, the young princesses, and the ladies-in- 
 waiting near her. The King sat on a window seat in 
 the billiard-room adjoining the drawing-room, and there 
 received the despatches brought him by his secretary. 
 Baron Fain, and read the Times, the only newspaper he 
 was in the habit of reading daily. It was there the gentle- 
 men visitors, chiefly diplomats, who wanted to speak to 
 him, joined him ; while the lady visitors sat round the 
 Queen's table, at which the conversation was general, if 
 occasionally soporific. It used to brighten up again with 
 the arrival of any ladies whose wit or beauty attracted 
 the men who had scattered about the drawing-room. 
 This was always the case on the appearance of Mesdames 
 de St. Aulaire and de Castellane, of some charming mem- 
 bers of the corps diplomatique, the Princess de Ligne > 
 Mesdames Firmin Rogier and de Stockhausen, or again 
 of three sisters, daughters of M. de Laborde, Mesdames 
 Delessert, Bocher, and Odier. Three magnificent English- 
 women, the Sheridan sisters, had formerly caused a great 
 sensation. Now it was the turn of Princesse Mathilde, 
 then at the height of her beauty ; and there were many 
 others besides. 
 
 Among the gentlemen, a strong contingent of our 
 visitors was furnished by the foreigners passing through 
 Paris — Prince Paul of Wurtemberg, Prince Max of Bavaria, 
 Prince Paul Esterhazy. Amongst the English were Dis- 
 raeli, Bear Ellis, Charles Fox, Monckton Milnes, &c., &c. 
 There were numbers of Spaniards. Sometimes M. von 
 Humboldt would give us a reading, not invariably amusing. 
 However, to make up for that, I have heard Prince Belgio- 
 joso, the husband of the beautiful deep-eyed Trivulce, 
 sing, with a voice that was exquisite. But the catalogue 
 of visitors would be an endless one. Yet I cannot pass 
 on without mentioning among our most constant habitues
 
 3IO SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, xii 
 
 at that time Marshal Sebastiani, one of a circle of intimate 
 friends presided over by my aunt Adelaide. 
 
 This little gathering, of which M. de Talleyrand had been 
 an assiduous member, and where Marshal Gérard, M. 
 Dupin, Flahaut, a certain General de Lavœstine (who down- 
 right toadied my aunt, her 7'û/et de chambre, and her very 
 parrot), and a few other faithful friends were in the habit 
 of meeting, took place in the morning, in that charming 
 set of rooms on the ground-floor of the Pavilion de Flore, 
 the windows of which looked on the corner of the Pont 
 Royal and on the gate into the Tuileries gardens. From 
 these windows the quaintest sights were to be seen, not the 
 least entertaining of which were the Homeric struggles 
 of the sentries of the National Guard, absolute slaves 
 to their orders, to prevent dogs which were not led by a 
 string from following their owners into the Tuileries 
 gardens, in which struggles the bold city guard, in spite of 
 prodigies of valour, not unfrequently got beaten. 
 
 My good aunt Adelaide started, towards springtime in 
 1845, to pay her first visit to an estate she owned at Arc- 
 en-Barrois, in the Haute-Marne, and as she intended 
 leaving it to me in her will she took me with her. The 
 property in question, originally belonging to Vitry, the 
 Captain of the Guard under Louis XHL, who killed the 
 Maréchal d'Ancre, had afterwards passed into the hands 
 of the Penthièvrc family, and then into the possession of 
 mine, like all the rest of the Penthièvre inheritance. My 
 great-grandfather, the Due de Penthièvre, had lived there a 
 good deal in a fine house, which was of course plundered 
 and destroyed during the Revolution, notwithstanding the 
 fact that the good prince had done a great deal of good in 
 that country, where his name is still venerated. 
 
 All the local authorities flocked around to pay their 
 respects on the occasion of that first visit, and amongst 
 others the prefect of the department, M. Romieu, who had 
 made himself some celebrity in his youth by reason of a 
 variety of carnival pranks performed in the company 
 of a well-known band of boon companions. I recollect
 
 i844— 1S4S] 
 
 PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 
 
 them perfectly well. Among them was Lord Henry 
 Seymour, who paraded the boulevards, surrounded by 
 ladies in the most elegant costumes, in a carriage and 
 four, with powdered and beribboned postilions, stopping 
 at the public squares to harangue the crowd in flowery 
 language, to delighted shouts of Vive milord rArsonille ! 
 (Long live the blackguard lord !). And then there was 
 another Englishman, Lord Cianricarde, the most inimitable 
 of Pierrots, in a black skull-cap, with his melancholy face 
 
 whitened, playing a series of nocturnal jokes, with the roof 
 of a fiacre for his platform. Count d'Alton, too, M. de 
 Châteauvillard, and others, were the authors of all kinds of 
 witty fooling. Romieu's best-known exploit was his having 
 laid a friend, who had been indulging too freely, one fine 
 night, in the middle of the street, with a lighted lantern 
 laid on his chest to save him from being run over. 
 
 But our prefect was not fond of that particular story, for 
 I remember a very indirect allusion to it which I was un- 
 lucky enough to make in familiar conversation, during a 
 shooting-party, at which he appeared in a blue blouse and 
 leather cap, was strongly resented by him. Drawing him- 
 self up, he thus apostrophised me : 
 
 " I beg your Royal Highness will give me credit for being 
 a very serious prefect."
 
 312 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, xii 
 
 I took the hint, and only talked to him about the damage 
 done by cockchafers, and the difficulty of getting hard 
 enough stone for the macadam roads, thenceforward. The 
 poor gentleman, after having played a certain part in the 
 reaction after the Revolution of 1848, by the publication of 
 a sensational pamphlet entitled Le Spectre Rouge, died of 
 grief at the death of a son who was killed at Sevastopol. 
 
 I was obliged to make a cure at Vichy during the summer, 
 the successive fevers I had suffered from in hot climates 
 having affected my liver. For this purpose I went to the 
 Château de Randan, where I endured cruel anguish of 
 mind, for my daughter fell dangerously ill. She made a 
 happy recovery, thanks to the care of a young military 
 doctor, at once a clever physician and one of the kindest 
 of men, named Alphonse Pasquier. He was murdered by 
 the Communards after the siege of Paris, 
 
 From Randan I went to Eu, for a second visit from 
 Queen Victoria, which was favoured by splendid weather, 
 and was as simple and affectionate in its nature as her first. 
 
 The year 1845 came to an end, and the first recollection 
 that comes back to me in 1846 is that of a hunting-party, 
 which was marked by a fresh attempt on my father's life. 
 It was on the 15th of August. We were all at Fontaine- 
 bleau, whither the King was fond of going, to watch the 
 progress of the splendid restoration of the galleries of 
 Francis the First and Henri H., which he was having 
 carried out. I was boar-hunting that day with Henri 
 Greffulhe's pack. 
 
 During a check we had met the King, who had got out 
 of his carriage at the cross roads at the Monts de Fays 
 and was amusing himself in a somewhat Yankee fashion 
 of his by whittling small sticks with his penknife. 
 
 " The quarry is over there, away in the country," he said 
 with the chaffing air he always took on when there was any 
 question of hunting, which he detested. He had a way, 
 when the sport was mentioned before him, of defining it 
 thus : 
 
 " A nice sort of amusement, indeed ! I used to hunt
 
 i844— 184S] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 313 
 
 once upon a time, to please my father! You get ûhy 
 horsemen together. Everybody is got up in the smartest 
 style. First of all there is a general kicking of horses 
 all round. All at once somebody shouts ' Found ! ' 
 and in one minute every soul is covered with mud from 
 head to foot. You tear along as hard as your horse can go 
 for two hours without seeing a single thing. Then there 
 is another whoop, and every soul goes home completely 
 knocked up — a very fine amusement indeed ! " 
 
 We left the King to his little sticks, we killed our boar, 
 and we were on our way home, when, as we were going 
 down the hill from Franchard, a Hussar officer came gallop- 
 ing up to us, and called out : 
 
 " The King has been fired at. He's not hit." 
 
 If Providence ever watched over a man it did so that 
 day. The would-be assassin, Lecomte, a royal forester 
 who had resigned his place, angry because he had not been 
 given the capital sum producing his pension, instead of 
 the pension itself, of which he was in receipt, and over- 
 excited as well by the calumny, abuse, attacks, and threats 
 of all kinds with which the daily press overwhelmed the 
 King, had determined to kill his Majesty. 
 
 He was an excellent shot, and he went and built himself 
 a platform behind the wall of the Parquet d'Avon, by 
 which he knew the King's c/mr à bancs must pass. When 
 the carriage went by, at a slow trot, ten paces from his 
 ambush, he rested his rifle on the wall, and fired. But at 
 the very instant of the crime his hand must have trembled, 
 for nobody was touched, neither the orderly officer on 
 duty. Captain Brahaut, who was riding between the King 
 and the wall, nor Montalivet, who was sitting talking to m}' 
 father, on the front seat of the carriage, nor my mother, the 
 Duchesse de Nemours, my aunt Adelaide, and the Prince 
 and Princess of Salerno, who were on the other seats. All 
 the bullet did was to cut the fringe of a sort of awning, 
 which covered the carriage, just above the King's head. 
 
 At the sound of the shot, the intended effect of which 
 nobody mistook, the two orderly officers, Brahaut and de
 
 314 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, xii 
 
 Labadie, followed by Colonel Berryer, and several Hussar 
 officers who were in attendance on the royal party, dashed 
 off at a gallop to surround the enclosure, before Lecomte 
 could escape from it. At the same moment, one of the 
 grooms named Millet, who had brought his horse up against 
 the wall, and stood up on his saddle, saw the assassin 
 making off. He sprang boldly after him, and had a fearful 
 struggle with him till the officers came up to his assistance. 
 
 When I got back to my father and the Princesses, I found 
 them much distressed at this fresh attempt at regicide, 
 but calm and self-possessed to an extent which was far 
 from being my own case. So true is it that our sharpest 
 anxieties are caused by the suffering, and dangers of those 
 we love ! 
 
 About this period I was restored to active duty, being 
 called to command our evolutionary squadron in the 
 Mediterranean. During the two years' duration of this 
 command, I only had to follow in the footsteps of my 
 predecessors, so far as the organisation and instruction 
 of the ships' crews were concerned, and the maintenance 
 of that spirit of discipline, devotion, and obedience to 
 superiors which still constitutes their chief excellence. 
 
 But a new duty was cast upon me by the addition, now 
 made for the first time, of a certain number of steamships 
 to the squadron. I had sailed already with several squad- 
 rons. Whatever the number of ships composing them, the 
 manoeuvring of the vessels and their tactics, both in sailing 
 and in action, all depended on one and the same element 
 for all alike — viz., the strength and direction of the wind. 
 And these tactics, which were the result of centuries of 
 experience, we all of us had put into practice, and we had 
 them at the tips of our fingers. Wc knew them as well as 
 our catechism in fact. But this new art of simultaneously 
 navigating ships for whom the laws of wind did not exist, 
 and which could move in any direction, and with great 
 swiftness, according to the will and fancy of their cap- 
 tains, without allowing them to collide, was in its earliest 
 infancy.
 
 iS44— 1S48] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 315 
 
 My duty then was to make experiments, so as to begin 
 to regulate this new form of navigation. At once I set 
 about making numerous test manœuvres, drawing on the 
 tactics of the ancient galleys, and also on cavalry move- 
 ments, at the slow march and at the gallop, for my 
 inspiration. Then we tried towing in every form. First 
 of all we harnessed a steamboat to every two war- 
 ships. In the second year of my command each floating 
 citadel had her own "spare horse." From that time out 
 calms and light breezes were vanquished, and the celerity 
 of naval operations correspondingly increased. Yet, the 
 more we tried it, the more obviously did the dangers and 
 difficulties caused, especially at night, by fastening two 
 ships together, one of whom is necessarily a passive agent, 
 stare us in the face. The union of the tug and the 
 " towed " was not far distant. The advent of the war 
 steamer, the swift battleship, independent alike of wind 
 and sea, was close at hand. 
 
 The creation of such a ship had preoccupied M. Dupuy 
 de Lome for a long time past. He had gone to Eng- 
 land to see and study everything there — both in the 
 State dockyards and the building yards at Liverpool and 
 on the Clyde. We had often talked the whole thing over 
 together, and our views on the subject were in perfect 
 agreement. At last, during an interval of leave from my 
 command, he came to me one morning with a great roll 
 containing two complete designs under his arm. The 
 first for an armed frigate, built entirely of iron, the 
 second for a wooden line of battle ship — both to be 
 exceedingly swift. The first design, for the iron frigate, 
 was Dupuy de Lome's pet scheme. 
 
 " Iron-built ships will be the ships of the future," he used 
 to say, and he was quite right. 
 
 But the experiments we had been making at Lorient 
 upon iron plates had been disastrous. The damage done 
 by oblique firing on them was terrible. Experiments were 
 indeed being made at the same time, with a view to armour- 
 plating the hulls of ships, but all that was still in the
 
 3i6 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, xii 
 
 dimmest and mistiest future. How were we ever to 
 induce naval committees, as timid as they were, un- 
 doubtedly, all powerful, to assent to the building of a 
 steam frigate every single detail about which was to be 
 new and improved .-' 
 
 "The very utmost we shall get," said I to Dupuy, "will 
 be leave to build your wooden ship. The introduction of 
 the submerged steam propeller will be their concession to 
 the innovators, and the old-fashioned wooden hull and 
 spars and gundecks will satisfy the supporters of the old 
 traditions." 
 
 " V^ery well," he replied, " I'll go and propose my wooden 
 ship." 
 
 He did, and he failed. They gave him plenty of smooth 
 words and compliments, but refused to order his ship to 
 be put on the stocks. The poor fellow came back to me 
 in despair, and we were mingling our sorrows, and casting 
 about as to how we had better return to the charge, when 
 a lucky ministerial crisis threw the Ministry for Naval 
 Affairs, ad interim, into the hands of M. Guizot. There 
 we saw our chance. 
 
 I want to see him and told him all our story — explaining 
 to him how a real and material step in naval progress was 
 being adjourned on mere questions of form ; and how the 
 outgoing minister had not dared, in spite of his own good- 
 will, to shake himself free of administrative procrastination 
 in this particular. 
 
 M. Guizot heard me out, and then asked me what had 
 better be done. 
 
 " Why, simply take your own line, and the whole navy 
 will applaud you. You have full right to do it, so pray 
 sign an order to put a steamship after M. Dupuy de Lome's 
 designs on the stocks." 
 
 He did it, forthwith, and that step gained, our first 
 war steamer was at once begun. Though Dupuy had a 
 right to all the honours of paternity, I might have claimed 
 those of the ship's godfather. But she was still unnamed 
 when the Revolution of 1848 broke out, and christened her
 
 i844— 1848] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 317 
 
 le 24 Février, which name was swiftly exchanged for that 
 of Napoléon — a notion that makes me laugh even yet. 
 
 I must now return to my personal recollections of my 
 -command, which began, as usual, with a sojourn at the 
 Salins d'Hyères, to knock the crews into shape a bit. 
 Thence I was expected to take the squadron to Tunis, 
 thus following the usual custom. 
 
 These two anchorages, Hyères and Tunis, had been for 
 a considerable period the only ports in which the squad- 
 ron was allowed to lie. It oscillated between the two ; 
 a most tiresome bit of navigation it was. In the open 
 roads at Tunis, too, we could only lie and roll, a long 
 way from shore, with no possibility of giving our crews 
 any relaxation whatsoever. I do not hesitate to say 
 that I objected to being tied to this rigorously circum- 
 scribed field of operations, beyond which it looked as if 
 v.-e dared not go. 
 
 " Crews," said I to the minister, " are like schoolboys. 
 If you want them to work well you must divert their 
 minds, and give them something to think about and look 
 at. Give me leave to fight efinui^ and the despondency it 
 brings with it, by taking the squadron about, showing 
 fresh ground to my young fellows, and taking them into 
 ports where I shall be able to send them ashore to amuse 
 themselves, and thus break the enervating monotony of 
 life on board ship." 
 
 I gained my point, and we went first of all to the Golfe 
 Jouan. Will it be believed that our squadrons never went 
 near that excellent anchorage and lovely spot .'' They 
 used to be at the Islands of Hyères. They used to go out 
 to drill in the open sea, and every Saturday they went 
 straight back to those same islands, so as to let the married 
 men in the squadron get back to Toulon to their family 
 duties on the Sunday. I was the first admiral to break 
 through this rule. 
 
 The Golfe Jouan and Cannes, and all that lovely 
 country, were not at that time what they now are. There 
 was only one single villa at Cannes, the Villa Eleonore,
 
 318 
 
 SOUVENIRS OF THE 
 
 [chap. XII 
 
 built by Lord Brougham, the Christopher Columbus of 
 the locality. He always came to the Tuileries on his way 
 backwards and forwards between his villa and lùigland ; 
 and he invariably sang the praises of that exquisite 
 coast to us. One evening he made a sketch of his villa 
 for my mother, which I still possess. 
 
 The only gaieties at Cannes in those days consisted in 
 village festivals, which are known in Provence as Romer- 
 ages, the equivalent of the Pardons in Brittany. People 
 went to them on foot, there not being a carriage in the 
 country. I remember I went to the Romerage at Valauris. 
 The little Provençales in their short petticoats and brown 
 
 stockings, and their broad-brimmed black hats, enjoyed 
 themselves to their hearts' content in the shade to the 
 sound of the galoubet, while my eyes wandered between 
 the umbrella pines across the wide sea horizon, of that 
 lapis-blue peculiar to the Mediterranean. It was more 
 primitive then than it is nowadays, but not a whit less 
 lovely. 
 
 From Cannes we w^ere obliged to go to Tunis, but we put 
 in, on our way, at the Balearic Islands, and at Palma in 
 Majorca, where the Spanish authorities gave us an ex- 
 cellent reception, and granted me permission, with the 
 best of grace, to practise some very interesting disembark- 
 ation drill. The captain-general \\\\o authorised me to do 
 this bore the name of Tacon, and had received the title
 
 1S44-1S48] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 319 
 
 of Diigne de la Union de Cuba in recognition of tlie services 
 he had rendered as. governor-general in that island. 
 
 He was a very superior man, under whose most 
 enlightened, but at the same time most absolute, of 
 governments, the colony rose to the highest degree of 
 prosperity. Some difficulties with the Home Government 
 had led to his recall, and he was at Majorca in a state of 
 semi-disgrace. No longer a young man, he wore a wig of 
 the deepest black, which, so local tradition affirmed, was 
 made out of the hair of a lady friend whom he had had 
 shaved in a fit of jealousy. 
 
 The King of Aragon, Don Jaime, is buried in the fine 
 cathedral of Palma. His body rests in the sacristy, in the 
 drawer of a kind of press, in which I saw it lying, while 
 one of the canons, to impress me with a sense of its perfect 
 preservation, drummed with his fingers on the stomach of 
 the corpse ! 
 
 On our way to the Balearic Islands we fulfilled a pious 
 dut}'. After the unhappy capitulation of Baylen and its 
 shameful violation, our unfortunate soldiers, victims of this 
 piece of weakness and disloyalty, were cast upon an island 
 called Cabrera, a bare and desert spot, where most of them 
 died of hunger, abandoned and forgotten by the whole 
 world. Having heard that their bones were lying scattered 
 about unburied on the isle, I had them laid in consecrated 
 soil, and over them, through the agency of our consul, M. 
 Cabarrus, we raised a monument, subscribed for by the 
 whole squadron, with this inscription : 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF THE FRENCH SOLDIERS WHO DIED AT 
 CABRERA. 
 
 ERECTED EY THE EVOLUTIONARY SQUADRON, 1 847. 
 
 We made a short stay at the inevitable Tunis, and left 
 it under a shower of presents, from the Order of the Nicham 
 in diamonds to six thousand dozens of eggs. But the 
 shortness in duration of our visit was new, and requires 
 some explanation.
 
 320 SOUVExNIRS OF THE [chap, xii 
 
 One of our first cares, after the completion of our con- 
 quest of Algeria, had been to insure tranquillity on its 
 Moorish frontier to the west, and its Tunisian boundary 
 on the east. On the Morocco side we had been forced to 
 have recourse to heavy ordnance for this purpose. On the 
 Tunisian frontier, where the population is both less fanatical 
 and less warlike, we had followed a different course of pro- 
 cedure. We had gained the Bey's friendship by promising 
 to support his power against the Porte's claim to suzer- 
 ainty over him. Still, year after year the Sultan made as 
 though he were fitting out a naval force to send to Tripoli 
 and exercise this same suzerainty by deposing the Bey ; 
 and every year our squadron used to proceed to Tunis, 
 and stay there wasting its time while the Turkish ministry 
 and those diplomats who were hostile to our influence 
 amused themselves by waving the Capitan Pasha's attack- 
 before us like a scarecrow. 
 
 This annual repetition of a sham attack by the Turkish 
 fleet and of the sudden despatch of our squadron, and its 
 subsequent spell of idleness in Tunisian waters, had degen- 
 erated into a farce in which the ridiculous part fell to our 
 share. So that when I took over the command of the 
 squadron, with the prospect of seeing it undergo the same 
 course of humbug again, I could not resist making some 
 representations on the subject to M. Guizot, a resolute 
 and large-minded man, as solicitous for his country's 
 honour as for his own. 
 
 That very year, as it happened, the Bey of Tunis had 
 had to complain of intrigues and disturbances stirred up on 
 his eastern frontier by the Turkish pasha, who was governor 
 of Tripoli. 
 
 " Instead of leaving the squadron to dance attendance 
 at Tunis," I said to M. Guizot, " send it to Tripoli. Its 
 appearance will cause surprise, for foreign powers never 
 send their squadrons there. I will pay a visit to the pasha, 
 and speak to him very plainly. The characters in the 
 play will change hands, and I fancy we shall be rid of all 
 this Turko-Diplomatic teasing about Tunis for the future."
 
 iS44— 1848] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 321 
 
 M. Guizot approved my view. I was given secret orders 
 to go to Tripoli, and we left Tunis, to the delight of the 
 whole squadron. 
 
 Long before the coast of Tripoli is in sight, its whereabouts 
 is denoted by the gloomy red reflection it casts upon the 
 sky. Soon a few clumps of date-palms seem to rise out 
 of the water, and at last a dreary strip of land appears, the 
 uniform straightness of which is broken only by the mass 
 of white houses and terraces, the minarets and fortifica- 
 tions, of the town of Tripoli. A few reefs form a far from 
 safe anchorage, fit for small craft only, and remarkable for 
 the extraordinary clearness of the water in it. The smallest 
 details of submarine life are easily followed in a depth of 
 ten to twelve fathoms. 
 
 Our ships, which all drew a great deal of water, had to 
 anchor at sea, opposite the town, tossed about on the swell 
 from a storm somewhere to the north, which did not 
 actually reach them. Our sudden, unexpected, and very 
 unusual apparition made a certain sensation both at 
 the consulates and in the pasha's palace, and all sorts of 
 people hastened on board, very civil all of them, but also 
 very anxious to know the meaning of the visit of a com- 
 plete naval squadron. The pasha's deputy presented him- 
 self with a flood of the honeyed expressions demanded by 
 Oriental politeness, accompanied by the classical diffa. 
 He did not bring us six thousand dozens of eggs, like the 
 Tunis people ; indeed they would have been hard to get, I 
 think, in that little favoured spot, but he brought a very 
 respectable contingent of cackling hens and of very sea- 
 sick sheep. Our acceptance of these creatures, an earnest of 
 our pacific intentions, gave him evident satisfaction, and I 
 caused him to be told that I should ask for an interview 
 with his master, through our consul. 
 
 I set forth as soon as the said interview had been 
 arranged, with a large number of officers. The streets 
 through which we had to pass were narrow, dirty, and 
 wretched-looking, and did not give one at all the idea of 
 belonging to a town enriched by the commerce of Fezzan 
 
 Y
 
 SOUVENIRS OF THE 
 
 [chap, xri 
 
 and of Central Africa, of which commerce TripoH is the 
 chief emporium. They were crowded, as we passed along, 
 by curious lookers on, consisting principally of the three 
 thousand idlers who formed the garrison, Albanian Arnauts 
 
 most of them, splendid fel- 
 lows, blue-eyed, with long- 
 fair moustaches, dressed in 
 the fustanella and the rest 
 of the picturesque palikare 
 costume. I will not go so 
 far as to say the glances 
 they cast at us were abso- 
 lutely friendly, but they 
 were perfectly well behaved. 
 We climbed up numerous 
 staircases to the pasha's 
 house or Kojiak, and were 
 shown into a huge apart- 
 ment that was almost like 
 the open air, with large 
 windows looking on the 
 sea, which admitted a cool 
 refreshing breeze. The pasha made me sit down beside 
 him on a wide divan, and after the usual interchange of 
 compliments, pipes, coffee, and preserves were ceremoniously 
 handed round by numerous servants. 
 
 These preliminaries over, I desired the dragoman to re- 
 quest the pasha's earnest attention to what I was about to 
 say to him. Immediately there was a general silence, all 
 our officers, who filled one half of the room, and all the 
 Turkish officers and secretaries, who filled the other half, 
 pricked up their ears. My speech was very short. 
 
 We had come to Tripoli, I said to salute the representa- 
 tive of our ancient ally, the Sultan of Turkey. But it was 
 essential, if this friendship was to be undisturbed, that no 
 act of hostility, direct or indirect, should be committed 
 against the Bey of Tunis, who was also our ally, and 
 that nothing should occur on either side to compromise
 
 i844— 1848] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 323 
 
 friendly relations. We had just been impressing this fact 
 at Tunis, and had come to do the same thing at Tripoli. 
 The perfectly amicable nature of our visit proved the value 
 we set on maintaining friendly relations between the two 
 Regencies, and therefore between France and the Sultan's 
 Government. 
 
 I said no more. When I ceased speaking, the pasha, who, 
 I need scarcely say, had preserved the most Oriental im- 
 perturbability of coimtenance during my oration, bowed to 
 me, with his hand on his breast, looking fixedly at me the 
 while. He had understood me ; and 1 thought I saw a look 
 of relief flash across his face. It may be that his conscience 
 had made him fear worse things. He sent a vessel to Malta 
 with despatches for Constantinople. I gave an account of 
 my proceedings to M, Guizot, and also informed our 
 ambassador to the Porte, M. de Bourqueney ; but we never 
 had to do sentry duty at Tunis again. 
 
 I put to sea at once with the squadron. The tiresome 
 thing about our visit to Tripoli was the quarantine it en- 
 tailed on us when we got back to civilised coasts. With 
 the object of utilising the period of our enforced sequestra- 
 tion, I requested the governor of Malta to put health officers 
 on board us, and to allow me to count the ten days I pro- 
 posed spending under their surveillance, cruising about 
 within sight of the island, as quarantine. 
 
 This arrangement was accepted by the English authori- 
 ties, with their usual friendliness and practical good sense. 
 The ten days were spent in drill and manœuvres of all 
 sorts ; and then the squadron went to seek relaxation on 
 the coasts of Sicily and Naples. 
 
 We made most agreeable stays in the ports of Syracuse, 
 Augusta, and Messina, before going to Naples. I took ad- 
 vantage of them to gratify my passion for mountaineering, 
 and made the ascent of Etna, to the description of which 
 by Alexandre Dumas I refer my readers. 
 
 When we reached the summit, during the night, we saw 
 the immense crater at our feet, several thousand yards 
 round, full of fire and smoke, out of which huge stone mono- 
 
 Y 2
 
 324 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, xii 
 
 liths towered, of every shade of colour, black and green 
 and red and yellow. Then the rising sun fell on us, 
 leaving all the horizon around us in darkness, and when at 
 last its light had spread everywhere, save on the giant 
 shadow of the mountain itself, we saw all Sicily and 
 Calabria lying at our feet like a great map, with the 
 blue sea surrounding it on every side. It was a grand and 
 striking spectacle. 
 
 We descended the mountain rapidly, ten yards at a 
 jump, down the crumbly pumice slopes of the Val de Bove, 
 to Giarre, where one of the steamers of the squadron was 
 to take us on board ; and while we waited for her we took 
 a delicious sea bath. We swam out to meet the ship, and I 
 was much tickled by the astonishment of the commander, 
 enthroned upon his bridge, when he heard himself hailed 
 out of the sea by a well-known voice, telling him to stop. 
 
 The squadron happened to be at Messina on the 15th 
 of August, the day of the Barra Festival, which takes place 
 in honour both of the Assumption of the Virgin and of 
 the entry of Count Roger into Messina, after he had de- 
 feated the Saracens. As far as concerned beauty and 
 local colour, the festival, which in those particulars yields 
 to none save that of St. Rosalia at Palermo, was most 
 interesting. But one detail there was which filled me with 
 horror — the sight of an immense car, dragged along by a 
 crowd of wild enthusiasts, laden from top to bottom with 
 saints, virgins, and angels, represented, for the nonce, by 
 young people of both sexes, the whole thing surmounted, 
 at a great height above it, by a huge sun with gilded rays. 
 So far there was nothing to complain of But when the 
 car moved along, the rays of the sun, by an ingenious 
 mechanism, turned as well ; and at the end of each of these 
 rays a poor little brat, dressed like a cherub, and crowned 
 with roses, had been hung, in a sort of fireman's belt, by 
 its barbarous parents. The tortures of the poor little 
 creatures, hanging thus by their middles, under a burning 
 sun, and shaken up by every jolt the machine gave as it 
 turned, may be imagined.
 
 iS44— 1848] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 325 
 
 By the time the abominable thing came past my win- 
 dow, amidst singing and band-playing and cheering, most 
 of the poor children were swinging unconscious from the 
 rays of the great sun, which jolted heavily at every turn 
 it made. It was a disgusting sight ; but we were the only 
 people to notice it and be shocked by it. 
 
 While at Naples, I was ordered to go to Rome to con- 
 gratulate the new Pope, Pius the Ninth, whose election 
 had just taken place, in the name of France. I started off 
 at once, by Civita Vecchia, and reached the palace of our 
 embassy at Rome at night. At dawn a great noise 
 made me hastily open my window, anxious to know the 
 reason of the uproar, and also to get a first look at the 
 Eternal City, where I was for the first time in my life. 
 It was raining, and the inhabitants of all the adjacent 
 houses, as well as the soldiers in the barracks over the way, 
 were all shouting at the top of their voices Acqtia ! 
 Acqiia ! Acqiia ! It sounded as if every cockatoo in 
 Australia had settled upon the papal city. 
 
 The rain had been long in its coming, it appears. But 
 my first impression of Rome was not a very inspiring one. 
 And, indeed, I had little opportunity of getting any others. 
 
 To mark the fact that I had come to the city solely on 
 the Pope's account, I only stayed two days, so that I saw 
 nothing except the Pope himself, or I rushed by ever}-- 
 thing else I was shown so hurriedly, that it came to the 
 same thing. During those forty-eight hours I was the sole 
 property of our embassy, and I could not have been in 
 better hands. We had representatives who were worthy 
 of the name, in those days, — real diplomats. 
 
 The ambassador was M. Rossi, my former teacher, a 
 man of generous feeling and high intelligence, who was 
 soon to be the victim of one of the most cowardly crimes 
 ever perpetrated by the revolutionary tribe. The secretary 
 to the embassy was the present Due de Broglie. By these 
 two gentlemen I was conducted into the Pope's presence. 
 Being very ignorant of the proper ceremonial to follow, I 
 asked M. Rossi what I was to call his Holiness.
 
 326 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, xii 
 
 " Très chaint Fere, ou cha Chainteté," he answered, with 
 an accent which I took good care not to imitate. 
 
 Having gone past the fine Swiss Guard, in their six- 
 teenth-century dress, and their officer in helmet and cuirass, 
 and then past the Guardia Nobile, and a huge staff of 
 ecclesiastics in violet robes, I bent low before the sovereign 
 pontiff, and kissed his ring with deep emotion. Raising 
 my eyes, I saw a handsome old man, tall in stature, with 
 a kind face, dressed all in white, to whom I delivered the 
 message of which I was the bearer. At that moment I 
 had a glimpse of a fair dream, which M. Rossi endeavoured 
 to realise at a later date. It was to make a close alliance 
 between France and a Confederation of all the Italian 
 States — our allies already by relationship between the 
 reigning families, or by community of interest of all kinds 
 — under the protectorate of the Pope, at once our devoted 
 friend and the head of the Catholic religion all over the 
 whole world. But the fair dream was never to come true. 
 Its patriotic promoter, M. Rossi, fell under the assassin's 
 hand, and every passion — revolutionary, anti-religious, and 
 anti-French — joined hands to make it fail. In its place 
 we have Italian unity and a dethroned Pope. 
 
 After a pleasant evening at the embassy, with Cardinal 
 Gizzi, Monsignore de Falloux, the Princes and Princesses 
 of the Massimo family, and a very charming young lady. 
 Princess Rospigliosi, sister to a naval cadet attached to 
 my staff, named Champagny, who afterwards became the 
 Due de Cadore, I returned to Naples by the Pontine 
 Marshes and Terracina, where the strains of Auber's Fra 
 Diavolo kept springing to my lips. 
 
 The squadron remained in Neapolitan waters until the 
 festival of Pie di Grotta, on which occasion the King took 
 me with him to a great review he held — a very noisy and 
 lively scene it was — in the Toledo, the great artery of the 
 town, with its picturesque vistas on to Vesuvius. The 
 National Guard was of modern growth, and lamentable 
 at that. Then came the regular army, and especially 
 four Swiss regiments with their artillery, a magnificent
 
 i844— 1S4S] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 337 
 
 division of troops. As long as they are here, I said to 
 myself, there need be no fear of revolutions. But just 
 because their valour and fidelity promised a reception 
 little to the taste of the sedition-mongers, those prudent 
 modern condottieri were waving their warlike pens, 
 and loudly demanding the disembodiment of these 
 very regiments. It pained me to notice the icy reception 
 given to the brave fellows as they marched past, and I 
 could not help feeling a gloomy foreboding. 
 
 That sheet anchor of the Neapolitan Monarchy was 
 destroyed before long by one of those compromises with 
 rebellion so frequent in these days — disastrous proceedings, 
 which inevitably lead the way by their evil and demoral- 
 ising example, to other compromises, infinitely more 
 lamentable, alas ! — I mean compromise with a foreign 
 enemy. 
 
 At the time when I bore the King company at that 
 review it was not his Swiss regiments alone who were 
 the object of the agitators' fury, but his government and 
 his own person as well, A sort of general conspiracy 
 against them was brewing, fomented for the most part by 
 foreign agents, some of them actually diplomats, who thus 
 openly abused the immunity their functions gave them ; and 
 it was propagated by means of the secret societies which 
 are an endemic plague in Italian countries. King and 
 Government alike fought as best they could against the 
 current of revolution, and they did so rightly, in the general 
 interest, for revolution brings nothing but ruin in its train. 
 
 But beside the adventurers who shrank from no crime, 
 and who preached assassination and plunder, there stood 
 many honourable and enlightened Neapolitans, who desired 
 the reform of abuses (and God knows there were plenty of 
 them !) and the progressive amelioration of the moral and 
 material conditions of existence. Unhappily it was on 
 these men, whose sole offence lay in their opinions, that 
 the brutality, and I might add the horrors, of the repressive 
 measures adopted seemed by preference to fall. The 
 prisons of those days, in which they were confined, were
 
 328 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, xii 
 
 perfect dens, and I greatly fear they are much the 
 same all over Italy even now. I doubt, for instance, that 
 the convict prison at Pescara would }'ield in the matter of 
 abominations to the convict prison at Nisida, some fort}' 
 years ago. 
 
 When peoples who have long lived in a state of back- 
 wardness, have a sudden fit of cleanliness, in imitation of 
 more advanced nations, they are apt to clean the outside 
 walls only, and to leave all their accustomed filth hidden 
 behind them. I mention these terrible prisons because, 
 during the visit of the squadron to Naples, I was guilty of 
 snatching two distinguished men, both much sought after 
 by the police on account of the offensive opinions I have 
 already spoken of, from their clutches. M, Lutteroth, the 
 secretary to our embass}^, went and fetched them at night 
 from their hiding-place, and I put them on board one of my 
 ships, which was sailing at once for Tunis. I have no 
 recollection of their names. And indeed that was not the 
 only instance in which we saved people compromised in 
 Italian politics, out of sheer humanity. Long after the 
 incident of which I speak, a Piedmontese officer, who 
 performed brilliant services in our African army, side by 
 side with my brothers, begged Aumale to put him into 
 communication with our mother. He then conjured her, 
 as a woman and a Neapolitan, to save a prisoner, who was 
 seriously compromised (whether his relative or his friend 
 I no longer recollect), from the gallows, and my mother 
 wrote a most pressing letter to King Ferdinand at his 
 request. The King, who had always preserved the ten- 
 derest and most respectful affection for his aunt, and glad 
 also, I make no doubt (for he was a kind man), to have 
 an opportunity of setting mercy above arguments of 
 state, granted my mother the pardon she craved. The 
 name of the man thus spared was Nicotera. 
 
 This taken for granted, as they say in mathematics, I hie 
 me back to my squadron at Spezzia, a splendid bay, which 
 at that time we were the only people to use as an anchorage, 
 but in which the Italians have now established a sfreat
 
 i844— 1848] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 329 
 
 naval arsenal. The bay is very safe and convenient for 
 drill and practice. But I have one fault to find with it. 
 I never took my ships there without an epidemic of in- 
 fluenza colds breaking out, and affecting three or four 
 hundred men in each crew. These outbreaks are due, in 
 my opinion, to the high wooded mountains which shadow 
 the bay on the western side, and to its sudden transitions 
 from the most scorching sunshine to very cool shade. Our 
 ships attracted several tourists, and one morning I saw a 
 party appear on board, consisting, amongst other people, 
 of the Marquis de Boissy, a witty and restless French peer, 
 married to the Comtesse Giuccioli, of Byronian memory, 
 and of the Marquis Oldoini, accompanied by an exquisite 
 young lady, his daughter, who afterwards became that 
 superb beauty, the Comtesse de Castiglionc. 
 
 M. de Boissy tried to talk politics to me and to reiterate 
 the famous phrase " Be strong." But whenever anybody 
 began to talk to me about questions of home politics, 
 with which I had nothing to do, my partial deafness always 
 became complete. 
 
 More cruising and manoeuvring carried the squadron 
 over to Algiers, which it reached in June, 1847, just when 
 Marshal Bugeaud was giving up his position as gover- 
 nor-general of the colony. We rendered him viceregal 
 honours at his departure, and I can still see his grand 
 white head, as he stood uncovered on the bridge of the ship 
 which bore him away, and passed slowly between the lines 
 of warships, with their cannon thundering, drums rolling, 
 bands playing the Marseillaise, and crews cheering 
 wildly. He left that Algerian territory, which he had so 
 largely contributed to acquire to France, with a sad heart, 
 and for ever. But the European horizon was darkening, 
 serious events were evidently pending, and if war was to 
 result from them, France would have had, in the person of 
 the soldier we were thus saluting, a general whom all, 
 without exception, would have served with equal devo- 
 tion and absolute confidence. To us Frenchmen, this 
 confidence in our leader, which "emboldens every one, and
 
 330 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, xu 
 
 suppresses all doubt and hesitation, is half the battle. It 
 was possessed, and completely, not by Bugeaud himself 
 alone — all his lieutenants had acquired it. During 
 fifteen years of fighting and of detached expeditions, 
 in which they had all, turn about, held independent 
 commands, both officers and soldiers had been able to 
 gauge their valour, their intelligence, and that capacity for 
 bearing the weight of undivided responsibility, which is 
 the great test of a commander-in-chief. The advantage 
 thus gained was immense. But are we sure the country 
 got the benefit of all the services which this band of 
 soldiers, consecrated already by the opinion of their 
 military compeers, might have rendered her .-* Was it not 
 rather scattered to the winds by the ruinous action of 
 political forces .'' 
 
 I took advantage of the squadron's visit to Algiers to 
 make an excursion to Boghar, on the desert frontier. 
 This expedition was both interesting and amusing. My 
 first day's stage took me to Blidah, into which place I 
 made the quaintest entry, surrounded by all the authorities, 
 who had come out as far as the monument to Sergeant 
 Blandan to meet me. I had not travelled a hundred paces 
 among these gentlemen before the frankest cordiality be- 
 gan to exist between me and them. Colonel Claparède, on 
 my right, with whom this meeting was my first, was asking 
 me if I had ever been fool enough to fall in love ; Colonel 
 Bâville, of the Chasseurs d'Afrique, on my left, whose face 
 was also a new one to me, was inquiring whether I did not 
 agree with him that children were born with extraordinary 
 rapidity in the African climate, while Bourbaki, the 
 secretary of the Arab office, was performing the wildest 
 fantasia in front of us at the head of the Hadjout 
 Goum. 
 
 At Medeah, whither I went by the Mouzaïa Pass, so as 
 to see the scene of the fights in which my brothers had 
 played such a noble part, I had another reception, and 
 another fantasia was performed (but this time it was 
 on foot), by the Coulouglis and the Beni Mzab, wearing
 
 iS44— 1S4S] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 331 
 
 great hats with ostrich feathers in them. Then came a 
 grotesque imitation of the fantasia, performed by the 
 colonial militia, all drunk, who fired their pistols off under 
 my nose and blackened my face with powder. General 
 Marey, commanding at Medeah, owned the Romanée 
 vintage in Burgundy, and gave us some to drink at dinner, 
 which did not diminish the general cordiality. Ah, well ! a 
 glass of good French wine, drunk far from home and the 
 dissensions of the mother country, among comrades ready 
 to give their lives for her at any moment, is a thing worth 
 remembering ! 
 
 Boghar, hideous and scorchingly hot as it is, would be 
 downright uninhabitable if it were not washed by the 
 waters of the Cheliff. The necessities arising from our 
 conquest of the country had made it a revictualling post 
 for our columns, and a trial had just been made there 
 of a new sort of provision, described as rations maigres. 
 These consisted of biscuit and dried cod, and not having 
 been issued within the period reckoned for, they were 
 beginning to go bad. To avoid financial loss, a pretty 
 numerous garrison had been at once despatched to Boghar 
 to perform the far from pleasant duty of consuming them. 
 Thanks to the exertions of the officer in command, M. de 
 Monet, who afterwards attained the rank of general, and 
 lost both his arms in the Crimea, the spirit of his men was 
 admirable, but their sanitary condition was quite deplor- 
 able. And when I received the officers, one of them, a 
 captain of Engineers, with the tacit assent of his chief, 
 acted as the mouthpiece of the rest in begging me to raise 
 my voice to put an end to their cruel sufferings. He 
 represented to me that the unhealthiness of the place was 
 aggravated by a process of poisoning. The troops had 
 been sent up simply to eat damaged biscuit and stinking 
 cod. There was no other food issued for the men, and as 
 the neighbourhood produced nothing whatever, it was 
 impossible to vary it in any way. Everybody was more 
 or less ill in consequence, and if this state of things went 
 on they must all die. A distinguished officer, M. de Cissey,
 
 332 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, xii 
 
 who had been detailed as my aide-de-camp during my trip, 
 took the poor fellows' case in hand, and undertook to lay 
 their complaint before the general. 
 
 I saw something else at Boghar which was not so 
 depressing — another fantasia, a huge one, performed by 
 thousands of Arabs, who had hastened in from all quarters. 
 At the very height of the show, another tribe, the most 
 picturesque of them all, the Ouled-Nails, arrived on the 
 scene, having travelled thirty leagues to do homage to mc 
 as the "son of the Sultan." There were 1,500 horsemen 
 and their wives, who were carried by something like a 
 hundred camels in a kind of palanquin, covered with 
 gaudy stuffs, which they call " atatich." When they 
 arrived, the excitement of the fantasia rose to madness. 
 The horsemen from the south, in their splendid dresses, 
 showed off all their skill, and whenever one of them per- 
 formed any specially brilliant feat, the deafening " you- 
 you " of the women rose from the circle of palanquins as 
 from the benches of a circus. 
 
 The background of this eminently picturesque scene, 
 under the blazing eastern sun, was the wide horizon of the 
 mountains of Bou Cada and Taguin, amongst which my 
 brother Aumale captured Abd-el-Kadir's smalah. 
 
 On m)^ way back from Boghar I paid a visit to the 
 military works at the Chiffa Gorge, where the 33rd 
 Regiment of the Line was building a wonderful road, 
 under circumstances of the utmost danger and difficulty ; 
 and 1 returned from my tour in Africa feeling deeper 
 admiration and respect than ever for our soldiers, who are 
 as patient under hardship, and as plucky when they have to 
 work in dangerous places, as they are brave in actual battle. 
 
 Leaving Algiers, the squadron continued its cruise. We 
 were a great deal at sea, much more than is feasible 
 nowadays, when it costs something considerable in fuel to 
 go the smallest distance. We anchored one evening in 
 a Sardinian bay, where nobody ever stopped by any chance, 
 but which offered a pleasant resting-place for the night at 
 that fine season.
 
 i844— 1S48] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 333 
 
 After dinner, I gave the officers leave to go ashore. They 
 found a perfect desert, and any houses they came upon 
 barricaded ; but though human inhabitants were lacking, 
 there was an incredible amount of game. Hares swarmed 
 upon the ground. At last one inhabitant turned up, and 
 then some others, and friendly relations were established. 
 
 The population, it appeared, had fled at our approach, 
 taking us (I am not joking, truly) for Barbary Moors, 
 coming to make a raid for slaves. Information travels 
 slowly in those parts. 
 
 We went to Cagliari, Palermo, Leghorn, Spezzia, and 
 Genoa in succession, and then the squadron returned to 
 winter at Toulon. The period of my command had run 
 out save for these winter months. Being much over- 
 worked, and far from well, I applied to be relieved of my 
 functions, and on the 26th November I made them 
 over to Admiral Tréhouard, who had commanded 
 one of the divisions under my orders. Tréhouard was 
 a brave Breton, who had performed a splendid feat 
 during an action at Obligado in La Plata, where he 
 commanded the French portion of an Anglo-French 
 flotilla, sent to force its way up the river, which was blocked 
 by a boom and defended by a number of forts. The little 
 fleet met with an energetic and obstinate resistance. 
 Several ships had been put Jiors de combat, including 
 Tréhouard's own, which was disabled and had half her 
 crew on shore. The struggle lasted on still, and threatened 
 to end in our defeat, when Captain Hope, commanding 
 the English contingent, ordered out his boats, and went and 
 cut through the boom under a hail of bullets, while 
 Tréhouard boarded the last ship he had that was able 
 to move, and ordered her commander, M. de Miniac, who 
 lost his leg at St. Juan d'Ulloa, to run her ashore close to 
 the enemy's principal battery. 
 
 After a momentary struggle, and in spite of the 
 Argentine officers' shouts of " Fuego al pelo bianco ! " (Fire 
 at the white head ! ), (Tréhouard was prematurely gray), 
 on the quarterdeck ; the moral and physical result of the
 
 334 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, xii 
 
 hand-to-hand struggle ended in a complete rout of the 
 enemy. Trchouard was made a rear-admiral, and no man 
 ever deserved his step better. 
 
 A young officer was killed beside him that day whose 
 name was Hello. His father, a friend of mine, had put him 
 under my wing when he left the Naval College, and I had 
 watched over his career with sincere affection for several 
 years. Every time I pass one of the commonplace 
 statues placed in our public squares in memory of political 
 chatterers who have died quietly in their beds, I think of 
 all those brave fellows who have died obscurely for their 
 country, with no funeral oration but the tears of their 
 broken-hearted families, but who have carried away to 
 their eternal dwelling-place the proud consolation of duty 
 performed. 
 
 I returned to Paris. What a state of things was there ! 
 Politics had overwhelmed everything else. To the lovers 
 of order, who had already found their condition oppressive, 
 the state of affairs was soon to become fatal. The 
 makers of sedition, on the other hand, found it most blessed. 
 But to the country at large, as events have too surely 
 proved, it was disastrous. 
 
 I will not dwell too long on this sad period, my personal 
 recollections of which are mingled with the events of a 
 well-known page of our national history. 
 
 Towards the beginning of the winter of 1848 the doctors 
 ordered my wife, who was in very delicate health, to go 
 and spend the cold months in a southern climate, and I 
 started with her and my children for Algiers, where I joined 
 my brother Aumalc,who had become governor-general of the 
 colony. I arrived, weighed down with gloomy forebodings, 
 feeling convinced that by dint of trying to respect those 
 so-called legal restraints which paralyse a government, but 
 which do so little to hinder any revolutionary section in its 
 action, we should end by being overwhelmed, and by 
 hearing the fatal hour strike, the " too late " that comes 
 with every revolution. Yet I did not believe that hour so 
 close at hand as it was. For I had hardly settled down at
 
 iS44— 1S48] PRINCE UE J0IN\'1LLE 335 
 
 Algiers, when one fine morning the announcement of the 
 February revolution and the proclamation of the republic 
 came upon us like the bursting of a shell. The news 
 arrived in the shape of vague rumours, uncertain inform- 
 ation, reports of various kinds, brought over from Mar- 
 seilles. As to the amount of authenticity they possessed 
 — whether the movement was a general one or confined 
 to Paris only, whether a stand was being made against it 
 anywhere — on all these points the earliest rumours were 
 mute, and they were just as silent as to what had befallen 
 the King and the rest of our family, in the confusion. We 
 were reduced to the wildest conjectures, and were wonder- 
 ing whether we ought not to start for France at once, when 
 a steam corvette from Toulon brought me the following 
 despatch : — 
 
 The Minister for Naval Affairs to ÔMonsieur le Prince de 
 Joinville. 
 
 28/// Fclruary^ 1S48, 8. 30 p.m. 
 
 Prince, 
 
 The well-being of the country demands that you should make 
 no attempt to dissuade the crews or soldiers of the navy from their 
 obedience to the Provisional Government. It is important that you 
 should not attempt to set foot on French soil, nor communicate with 
 any vessel in the French fleet, till further orders. 
 
 Prince, your patriotic instinct will enable you to resign yourself to 
 this sacrifice, and to perform it unflinchingly. Such is the confident 
 hope of the Provisional Government. Arago. 
 
 The signatory of this despatch had taught me in my 
 youth, and I had kept up affectionate intercourse with him 
 since. But the coolness with which the man (a great 
 savant, no doubt, but who up to this had never done any- 
 thing but make calculations and handle telescopes) invested 
 himself with supreme authority amazed me. Exasperated 
 as I was by his summons " to make no attempt to dissuade 
 the sailors and soldiers of the navy from their obedience" 
 to his hour-old government, in other words, from the viola- 
 tion of their oath which he was about to ask of all the 
 brave fellows, I forgot both my former relations with the 
 man and the courteous form of his despatch ; and I was
 
 336 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, xii 
 
 in a transport of rage as I handed the missive to 
 Changarnier, commanding the troops, and M. Vaïsse, 
 the civil secretary-general, who were both of them present, 
 in my brother's study. 
 
 " That is a summons from the enemy," I said ; " we must 
 do the very contrary." 
 
 But M. Vaïsse was silent, and Changarnier shook his 
 head. I bethought me then, alas ! that in this day of 
 progress of ours the religion of a man's oath is but 
 an empty word — and 1 recovered my self-possession. 
 
 My aide-de-camp, Commander Touchard, had com.e 
 from Paris by the same corvette that had brought me the 
 despatch. He had seen the crash, had been present when 
 the National Guard, upon whom my brother Nemours had 
 called to resist the rioters, had overwhelmed him with abuse, 
 had witnessed the abdication, the scenes in the Chamber, 
 and the King's final departure. All the way across France, 
 too, except at Toulon, where the strong hand of the navy 
 made itself felt, Touchard had watched the eager specula- 
 tions of the majority on the accomplished fact, and the 
 struggle as to who should first offer his services to the 
 Provisional Government, before the corpse of Constitutional 
 Monarchy was cold — for dead it was, without having struck 
 a blow in its own defence. 
 
 There was no doubt about the King's personal courage. 
 He had proved it on many battle-fields — at "V^almy, 
 Jemmapes, and Nerwinde — and under the frequent at- 
 tempts made on him by w^ould-be assassins. With 
 courage of a rarer kind, he had never hesitated to brave 
 unpopularity, when his doing so was clearly to the country's 
 interest. But he had striven, being honest as well as brave, 
 to be faithful to the institutions he had sworn to maintain, 
 although those who opposed him had long ceased to respect 
 the fiction of the constitution, and had become a frankly 
 revolutionist body, which no longer directed its attack 
 against the ministry of the day, but against the King's own 
 person, and all that edifice on the summit of which the 
 throne was placed.
 
 i844— 1848] PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 337 
 
 Had he chosen to take the initiative, in order to prevent 
 what ultimately happened, he would not have failed for \vant 
 of means. When the army and the administration arc in a 
 man's hands, he can do very much as he chooses. Successive 
 revolutions have destroyed all respect among us, except 
 respect for main force ; and it is a true saying that if 
 strength begets respect, respect in its turn begets affection. 
 But the King, who was the most moderate of men, would 
 not go beyond legal limits except as a last resource. And 
 this characteristic of his was well and universally known to 
 all, both to friends and foes. While it discouraged the former, 
 it to some extent encouraged the latter, and so the signal 
 for recourse to force came from below, the pretorians of 
 the street rose in rebellion, and the defenders of the law 
 were everywhere overcome. In a few moments the con- 
 fusion became general, and the revolution was an accom- 
 plished fact. 
 
 And yet, even so late in the day, in other countries than 
 our own indeed, generals, and others invested with the 
 chief command of the national troops, have been known to 
 draw their swords and save their sovereigns and their 
 governments almost in spite of their own selves. They 
 have been known to maintain the tutelar}- and inviolable 
 principle of a traditional monarchy — a principle which is 
 both ancient and absolute, tracing the line of duty for all 
 men, clear and indisputable, without any possibility of 
 hesitation or compromise — against and in the face of all 
 comers. And this principle is one which calls forth the 
 proudest devotion, seeing it is impersonal, for the king is 
 not the elected leader of conquerors, oppressing the 
 conquered, but a living flag, the national rallying-point 
 for all the defenders of the mother country against her 
 enemies, whether within or without her borders. 
 
 This saving process, whether the saved ones would or no, 
 has been seen, as I say, in other countries, which thus were 
 preserved from that discord, disorganisation, and disaster of 
 every kind, which are the inevitable consequence of internal 
 convulsion and revolution. 
 
 z
 
 338 SOUVENIRS OF THE [chap, xii 
 
 But the July Monarchy was unhappily very far from 
 representing the traditional hereditary principle. Born of 
 one insurrection, it was overthrown by another. Set up 
 on the electoral principle, it fell, as though in mockery, 
 with a full electoral majority behind it. Two-and-twenty 
 years later the empire too fell, on the very morrow of a 
 triumphant plébiscite. Partial and universal suffrage 
 alike have proved their impotence to defend a government 
 which has ceased to give satisfaction against the assaults of 
 that army shouting " Get out of that and let me take }-our 
 place ! " the members of which alwa}'s make themselves 
 up as austere patriots. And I cannot help, in this place, 
 looking sadly back at the fatal consequences which this 
 impotence of the elective, as compared with the monarchical 
 regime^ has had for us. Why did the Emperor refuse to 
 treat with M. de Bismarck in the name of France, when he 
 met him, on the evening of Sedan, and asked him to do so .-' 
 Why did the unfortunate prince not do the same as two 
 sovereigns in possession of hereditary rights and duties, 
 Victor Emmanuel after Novara, and Francis Joseph after 
 Sadowa, who both of them safeguarded their territory and 
 the honour of their armies .'' Because he w^as a bastard 
 sovereign — and dared not reappear before his electors once 
 he was beaten. 
 
 But to return to my story, to which I have but a few 
 lines to add. The revolution might have been foreseen 
 and the days of the government of 1830 might have been 
 prolonged. Once it was overthrown, and the dyke which 
 stemmed the torrent of democracy carried away, its rule, 
 which was one of chance convenience and not of right, had 
 no further reason for existence. 
 
 That being so, what was I to do .'' The re-establishment 
 of the legitimate family on the throne was out of the 
 question. The disasters of our first revolutionary period 
 had not as yet been renewed in their terrible logical 
 sequence. We had not yet had our second Waterloo at 
 Sedan, and very few people thought at that moment of 
 coming back to the principle the proof of whose title lies in
 
 iS44— 184S] PRINCE UE JOINVILLE 339 
 
 the centuries of unity and greatness assured by it to France 
 — the one and only principle capable of checking her on 
 her descent into the abyss of dismemberment, depopulation, 
 and social destruction, down which she is gliding. 
 
 It was clear that another elective regime was about to 
 succeed the one which had just collapsed — one of those 
 modern edifices, all, whatever may be the name with which 
 they are decorated, tainted with the same original weakness— 
 " What the majority has made, the majority has the right 
 to unmake." In fact— as somebody said in a speech — a per- 
 petually provisional arrangement. Under these ephemeral 
 forms of rule, our national inferiority in face of other stable 
 and far-sighted governments is flagrantly evident. The 
 sense of duty wears away, devoted service is never given 
 without a mental reservation touching the morrow — that 
 unknown morrow, which checkmates the boldest plans. 
 Thus constituted, such rcghnes are all alike, and it was 
 not for the princes of the House of France to draw their 
 swords to impose one form of national humiliation rather 
 than another on their countr}'. 
 
 When once my father's rule had disappeared, and with 
 it the unvarying line of duty traced by my absolute filial 
 devotion to him, I watched the establishment of a repub- 
 lican form of government without annoyance, for I pre- 
 ferred its clear distinctness to the complicated combina- 
 tions which pretended to reconcile two opposite principles 
 by putting handcuffs on them both. 
 
 Like many others, too, I did not doubt that the shock 
 of revolution would soon bring on a general war. Under 
 such circumstances, it would have been crime to add the 
 pangs of civil strife to the dangers threatening our country. 
 
 Thenceforward, my duty lay clear before me. My 
 country first of all ! That watchword still exists, thank 
 God, to guide those who yet can love their country whatever 
 may befall them. When once my first fit of indignation 
 was over, then, I did not think of returning from Africa, 
 sword in hand, to set up the throne again. I contented 
 myself with sending a very commonplace despatch to
 
 340 SOUVENIRS OF PRINCE DE JOINVILLE [chap, xil 
 
 Arago, and then I utilised the last days I was to spend on 
 French soil in studying the defensive works ordered by 
 my brother in view of that war, imminent perhaps, during 
 which, soldiers before all as we were, we expected, in the 
 illusive hopes of our youth, to be allowed to keep our place 
 as fighting men. 
 
 The moment came at last when our presence at Algiers 
 became incompatible with the existence of a revolutionary 
 government in Paris, and we had to rejoin our family in 
 their foreign exile. We decided, Aumale and I, to embark 
 for England on board the despatch-boat So/ou, Commander 
 Jaurès. It was with heavy hearts, though proud ones, that 
 we went down the Rue de la Marine, under the salutes of 
 the forts, and accompanied to the last by the whole body 
 of officers, both naval and military, so many of them our 
 old friends and faithful comrades. 
 
 Thirty years of my life had been spent in France. In 
 spite of the gnawing worm of revolution, my family left 
 her intact, prosperous, respected, with magnificent armies, 
 both land and sea, and a no less magnificent colony. I 
 was not to see my country again for two-and-twenty years, 
 and then in all the horror of invasion and dismemberment 
 and the terror of the Commune. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 RICHARD CLAV AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BUNGAY.
 
 Snnloeks, London, 
 
 21 Bedford Street, w.c. 
 
 October iSg^. 
 
 A LIST OF 
 
 Mr WILLIAM HEINEMANN'S 
 
 Publications 
 
 AND 
 
 Forthcoming Works 
 
 TJie Books vientioned in iJiis List can 
 be obtained to order by any Book- 
 seller i/jtai ill stock, 07- ivillbe sent 
 by the Pnblislierpostjrce en recci/'t 
 ef the published price.
 
 
 JnOer or au t hors. 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Alexander 
 
 . 20 
 
 Gray (Maxwell) 
 
 ■ 17 
 
 Ogilvie 
 
 • 23 
 
 Anstey 
 
 14 
 
 Griffiths . 
 
 • ^4 
 
 Oliphant . 
 
 • M 
 
 Arbuthnot 
 
 ■ J5 
 
 
 
 Ouida 
 
 ■ 17 
 
 Atherton 
 
 21 
 
 Hall . 
 
 . 22 
 
 
 
 
 
 Hanus 
 
 . II 
 
 Palacio-Valdos . 
 
 • 19 
 
 Baddeley . 
 
 '5. 22 
 
 Harland . 
 
 . 22 
 
 Pearce 
 
 . iS 
 
 Balestier . 8 
 
 , 18, 22 
 
 Harris . 
 
 . 8 
 
 Tendered . 
 
 S, 13 
 
 Barrett 
 
 17, 21 
 
 Hauptmann 
 
 . 7 
 
 Pennell . 
 
 • 14 
 
 Battershall 
 
 . 8 
 
 Heine 
 
 12, 13 
 
 Phelps 
 
 . 21 
 
 Behrs 
 
 • 13 
 
 Heinemann 
 
 • 7 
 
 Philips 
 
 . 22 
 
 Bendall . 
 
 . 22 
 
 Henderson 
 
 . 22 
 
 Pinero 
 
 7, 23 
 
 Bjornson . 
 Bowen 
 
 9. 19 
 II 
 
 Heussey . 
 Holdsworth 
 
 • 13 
 ■ 9 
 
 Raimond . 
 
 • 9 
 
 Boyesen . 
 Briscoe 
 
 1 3 
 
 Howard . 
 
 . 6 
 
 Rawnsley . 
 
 . 16 
 
 
 Hughes 
 
 II 
 
 Rembrandt 
 
 3 
 
 Brown 
 
 '. Ve 
 
 Hungerford 
 
 1 8, 20 
 
 Renan 
 
 • 15 
 
 Brown and Oriffit 
 Buchansn . 15, 2 
 Burnand . 
 Butler 
 
 IS . 24 
 . 22, 23 
 
 7 
 
 Hyne 
 
 Ibsen 
 Ingersoll . 
 
 . iS 
 
 '. '16 
 
 Richter . 
 Riddell . 
 Rives 
 Roberts (A. von 
 
 • 15 
 
 . 21 
 
 . 21 
 ) . 19 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 Irving 
 
 • 23 
 
 Roberts (C. G. 
 
 ).) . 16 
 
 Caine{Hair S. 16,1 
 Caine (R.). ' . 
 
 7,20,21 
 . 22 
 
 Jœger 
 
 • 13 
 
 Robinson . 
 Saintsbury 
 
 . 3 
 . 6 
 
 Cambridge 
 
 . 20 
 
 Keary 
 
 4 
 
 Salaman (J. S.) 
 
 • 15 
 
 Chester 
 
 • 14 
 
 Keeling . 
 
 ■ 17 
 
 Salaman (M. C 
 
 ) . M 
 
 Clarke 
 
 . 18 
 
 Kennedy . 
 
 2[ 
 
 Sarcey 
 
 13 
 
 Coleridge - 
 
 5 
 
 Kimball . 
 
 • 24 
 
 Scidmore . 
 
 . 16 
 
 Colmore . 
 
 2T 
 
 Kipling 
 
 . 18 
 
 Scudamore 
 
 • 15 
 
 Colomb 
 
 • 15 
 
 Knight 
 
 • 14 
 
 Serao 
 
 • 19 
 
 Compayré 
 
 11 
 
 Kraszewski 
 
 • 19 
 
 Sergeant . 
 
 8, 20 
 
 Coppée 
 
 . 22 
 
 Kroeker . 
 
 • 7 
 
 Steel . 
 
 8, 17 
 
 Couperus . 
 
 • 19 
 
 
 
 Stevenson . 
 
 . 8 
 
 Cowen 
 
 . 18 
 
 Lanza 
 
 . 21 
 
 Street 
 
 . 8 
 
 Crackanthorpe . 
 
 22 
 
 Lawson 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 
 Le Caron . 
 
 • 15 
 
 Tadema . 
 
 9 
 
 Davidson . 
 
 II 
 
 Lee (Vernon) . 
 
 . 18 
 
 Tallentyre 
 
 • 14 
 
 Dawson . 
 
 . 22 
 
 Leland 
 
 10 
 
 Tasma 
 
 . 20 
 
 De Concourt . 
 
 5 
 
 Leroy-Beaulieu 
 
 . 6 
 
 Terry 
 
 5 
 
 De Joinville 
 
 • 5 
 
 Lie . 
 
 • 19 
 
 Thompson 
 
 . 16 
 
 De Quinccy 
 
 13 
 
 Linton 
 
 . 8 
 
 Thurston . 
 
 . 24 
 
 Dixon 
 
 • 17 
 
 Locke 
 
 . 8 
 
 Tolstoy . 13, 
 
 15, 19. 23 
 
 Dowson 
 
 • 17 
 
 Lowe 
 
 13. 15 
 
 Tree . 
 
 • 23 
 
 Eeden 
 
 . 6 
 
 Lowry 
 
 . 21 
 
 Turgenev . 
 
 ■ 9 
 
 Ellwan^er . 
 
 ■ 14 
 
 Lynch 
 
 . 20 
 
 Valera . 
 
 ■ 19 
 
 Ely . 
 
 • 15 
 
 Maartens . 
 
 . 21 
 
 Vazoff . 
 
 ■ 19 
 
 Farrar 
 
 • 15 
 
 Macnab . 
 
 • 17 
 
 Wagner . 
 
 . 6 
 
 Fitch 
 
 . 11 
 
 Maeterlinck 
 
 • 23 
 
 Waliszewski 
 
 5, 10 
 
 Forbes 
 
 • 15 
 
 Malot 
 
 8 
 
 Ward 
 
 . 21 
 
 Fothergill . 
 
 . 20 
 
 Masson 
 
 5 
 
 Warden 
 
 . 22 
 
 Franzes 
 
 ■ 19 
 
 Maude 
 
 ■ 15 
 
 Waugh 
 
 . 6 
 
 Frederic . i 
 
 5, 20, 21 
 
 Maupassant 
 
 ■ 19 
 
 Weitemeyer 
 
 . 16 
 
 Furtwangler 
 
 4 
 
 Maurice . 
 
 • '5 
 
 West 
 
 II 
 
 
 
 Merriman . 
 
 ■ 14 
 
 Whistler . 
 
 4, 14 
 
 Garner 
 
 • 15 
 
 Michel . 
 
 3 
 
 White 
 
 21 
 
 Garnett . 
 
 • 4 
 
 Mitford . 
 
 . 20 
 
 Whitman . 
 
 . 16 
 
 Gaulot 
 
 10 
 
 Monk 
 
 9 
 
 Williams . 
 
 15 
 
 Gilchrist . 
 
 . 18 
 
 Moore 
 
 • 17 
 
 Wood 
 
 14, a8 
 
 Gontcharoff 
 
 • 19 
 
 Murray 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 Gore 
 
 • 24 
 
 
 
 Zangwill . 
 
 . 18 
 
 Gosse . 7, I 
 
 4i iS> 23 
 
 Nordau 
 
 . 6 
 
 Zola . 
 
 6, 22 
 
 Grand 
 
 • 17 
 
 Norris 
 
 3, iS 
 
 Z. Z. 
 
 . 8
 
 MR. WILLIAM HEINEMANN'S LIST. 3 
 
 fforthcomiitô Morï^s. 
 REMBRANDT: 
 
 SEVENTEEN OF HIS MASTERPIECES 
 
 FROM THE COLLECTION OF HIS PICTURES IN THE 
 
 CASSEL GALLERY. 
 
 Reproduced in Photogravure by the Berlin Photographic Company. 
 
 With an Essay 
 
 By FREDERICK WEDMORE. 
 
 In large portfolio 27^ inches x 20 inches. 
 
 The Collection 0/ Rc7ithrandis in ihc Cassel Gallery enjoys the distinction 
 oj" consisting of a group 0/ unsurpassed tnasterpieces, and of the twenty-one 
 Pictures now in ihc Musenm, seventee'i have been selected for reprodiiction ; 
 these will be printed on the finest Japanese paper. 
 
 The first tiventyfive impressions of each plate are numbered and signed, 
 and of these o?ily fourteen are for sale in England at the net price «j/" Twenty 
 Guineas the set. The /.rice of the inipressiotis after the first tiventyfive is 
 Twelve Guineas net, per set. 
 
 REMBRANDT: 
 
 HIS LIFE, HIS WORK, AND HIS TIME. 
 
 BY 
 
 EMILE MICHEL, 
 
 .MH.MBEK 01- THE INSTITUTE OF F !i A N CK. 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 FLORENCE SIMMONDS. 
 
 EDITED AND PKEFACElJ BY 
 
 FREDERICK WEDMORE. 
 
 A re-issue in Monthly Parts, price 2s. 6d. net, per Part. 
 
 *^ A few copies of the First Edition are still on sale, price £2 2s. 
 net ; also of the Edition de Luxe (printed on Japanese vellum 
 with India proof duplicates of the photogravures), price ^12 12s. 
 net. 
 
 The TIMES. — " This very sumptuous and beautiful book has 
 long been expected by all students of Rembrandt, for M. Emile 
 Michel, the chief French authority on the Dutch School of Paint- 
 ing, has been known to be engaged upon it for many years. .... 
 Merely to look through the reproductions in M. Michel's book is 
 enough to explain the passionate eagerness with which modern 
 collectors carry on their search after Rembrandt's drawings, and 
 the great prices which are paid for them."
 
 4 MR. WILLIAM HEINEMANN'S LIST 
 
 .ifortïiroming ^"S^Qxi.^— continued. 
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 LIFE OF HEINRICH HEINE. 
 
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 MR. WILLIAM HEINEMANN'S LIST. 5 
 
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 Russia. By K. Waliszewski. Translated from the French. Second 
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 The Times. — " This book is based on the confessions of the Empress her- 
 self; it gives striking pictures of the condition of the contemporary Russia 
 which she did so much to mould as well as to expand. . . . Few stories in 
 history are more romantic than that of Catherine II. of Russia, with its 
 mysterious incidents and thrilling episodes ; few characters present more curious 
 problems." 
 
 A FRIEND OF THE QUEEN. Marie Antoinette and 
 
 Count Fersen. By Paul Gaulot. Translated from the French by 
 Mrs. Cashel Hoey. In Two Volumes, Svo, With Two Portraits. 
 Price 24J. 
 
 The Times. — " M. Gaulot's work tells, with new and authentic details, the 
 romantic story of Count Fersen's devotion to Marie Antoinette, of his share in 
 the celebrated Flight to Varennes and in many other well-known episodes of 
 the unhappy Queen's life."
 
 MR. WILLIAM HEINEMANN'S LIST. 
 
 ïïbe (5rcat lÊ^ucatoiu 
 
 A Series of Volumes by Eminent Writets^ presenting in their 
 entirety "^ Biographical History of Edtccation^'' 
 
 The Times.—" A Series of Monographs on ' The Great Educators ' should 
 prove of service to all who concern themselves with the history, theory, and 
 practice of education." 
 
 The Speaker. — "There is a promising sound about the title of Mr. Heine- 
 mann's new series, ' The Great Educators.' It should help to allay the hunger 
 and thirst for knowledge and culture of the vast multitude of young men and 
 maidens which our educational system turns out yearly, provided at least with 
 an appetite for instruction." 
 
 Each subject will form a complete volume, crown 8vo, ^s. 
 
 Noiv ready, 
 
 ARISTOTLE, and the Ancient Educational Ideals. By 
 Thomas Davidson, M.A., LL.D. 
 The Times. — "A very readable sketch of a very interesting subject." 
 
 LOYOLA, and the Educational System of the Jesuits. By 
 Rev. Thomas Hughes, S.J. 
 Saturday Revie^v. — " Full of valuable information If a school- 
 master would learn how the education of the young can be carried on so as to 
 confer real dignity on those engaged in it, we recommend him to read Mr, 
 Hughes' bouk." 
 
 ALCUIN, and the Rise of the Christian Schools. By 
 
 Professor Andkew F. West, Ph.D. 
 
 FROEBEL, and Education by Self- Activity. By H. Court- 
 
 HOl-E BOWEN, M.A. 
 
 ABELARD, and the Origin and Early History of Uni- 
 versities. By Jules Gabriel Co.Mi'AVRii, Professor in the Faculty of 
 Toulouse. 
 
 In preparation. 
 
 ROUSSEAU ; and, Education according to Nature. By 
 
 Paul H. Hanus. 
 
 HORACE MANN, and Public Education in the United 
 States. By Nicholas Murray Butler, Ph.D. 
 
 THOMAS and MATTHEW ARNOLD, and their In- 
 fluence on Education. By J. G. Fitch, LL.D., Her Majesty's 
 Inspector of Schools. 
 
 Volumes on Herbart, and Modern German Education ; and Pestalozzi 
 or, the Friend and Student of Children, to follow.
 
 12 MR. WILLIAM HEIN EM ANN' S LIST. 
 
 THE PROSE WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 HEINRICH HEINE. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND, M.A., F.R.L.S. 
 (hans breitmann). 
 
 In Eight J'olnincs. 
 
 The Library Edition, in crown 8vo, cloth, at $s. per vohimc. Each volume of 
 this edition is sold separately. The Cabintit Edition, in special binding, 
 boxed, price £1 10s. the set. The Large Paper Edition, limited to 100 
 Numbered Copies, price i$s. per volume net, will only be supplied to 
 subscribers for the Complete Work. 
 
 I. FLORENTINE NIGHTS, SCIINABELEWOPSKI. 
 THE RABBI OF BACHARACH, and SHAKE- 
 SPEARE'S MAIDENS AND WOMEN, 
 
 II., III. PICTURES OF TRAVEL. 1823 -1828. In Two 
 
 Volumes. 
 
 IV, THE SALON. Letters on Art, Music, Popular Life, 
 and Politics. 
 
 v., VI. GERMANY. In Two Volumes. 
 
 VIL, VIIL FRENCH AFFAIRS. Letters from Paris 1832, 
 and Lutetia. In Two Vols. 
 
 Times. — " We can recommend no better medium for maknig acquaintance 
 at first hand with 'the German Aristophanes' than the works of Heinrich 
 Heine, translated by Charles Godfrey Leland. Mr. Leland manages pretty 
 successfully to preserve the easy grace of the original." 
 
 Sauirctay Revieiu. — "Verily Heinrich Heine and not Jean Paul is de> 
 Einzige among Germans : and great is the venture of translating him which 
 Mr. Leland has so boldly undertaken, and in which he has for the most part 
 quitted himself so well." 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette. — "It i? a brilliant performance, both for the quality o( 
 the translation of each page and the sustained effort of rendering so many of 
 them. There is really hardly any need to learn German now to appreciate 
 Heine's prose. English literature of this country does not contain much prose 
 more striking, more entertaining, and more thought provoking than these now- 
 placed before English readers." 
 
 Daily Telegraph. — "Mr. Leland has done his translation in able and scho- 
 larly fashion." 
 
 To he /ollcnued by 
 
 THE POETIC WORKS OF HEINRICH HEINE.
 
 MR. WILLIAM HEINEMANN'S LIST. 13 
 
 VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM: His Life and Works. 
 From the French of Vicomte Robert du Pontavice de Heussev. 
 By Lady Mary Lovd. With Portrait and Facsimile. Crown 8vo, cloth, 
 
 IDS-. 61/. 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF MIDDLE LIFE. By Francisque 
 
 Sarcey. Translated by E. L. Carey. In One Volume, 3vo. With 
 Portrait. lo^. 6ii. 
 
 PRINCE BISMARCK. An Historical Biography. By 
 Charles Lowe, JNl.A. With Portraits. Crown 8vo, 6s. 
 
 THE FAMILY LIFE OF HEINRICH HEINE. Illus- 
 trated by one hundred and twenty-two hitherto unpublished letters ad- 
 dressed by him to different members of his family. Edited by his nephew. 
 Baron Ludwig von Embden, and translated by Charles Godfrey 
 Leland. In One Volume, 8vo, with 4 Portraits. I2i-. 6ii. 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF COUNT LEO TOLSTOY. 
 
 Togetlier with a Letter to the Women of France on the " Kreutze 
 Sonata." By C. A. Behrs. Translated from the Russian by C. E. 
 Turner, English Lecturer in the University of St. Petersburg. In One 
 Volume, 8vo. With Portrait, los. 61^. 
 
 THE LIFE OF HENRIK IBSEN. By Henrik J^ger. 
 
 Translated by Clara Bell. With the Verse done into English from the 
 Norwegian Original by Edmund Gosse. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s. 
 
 A COMMENTARY ON THE WORKS OF HENRIK 
 
 IBSEN. By Hjalmar Hjokth Bovesen, Author of "Goethe and 
 Schiller," " Essays on German Literature," &c. Crown 8vo, cloth, 
 ys. 6d. net. 
 
 DE QUINCEY MEMORIALS, Being Letters and other 
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 F.R.S.E. In two volumes, demy 8vo, cloth, with Portraits, 30^. net. 
 
 THE POSTHUMOUS WORKS OF THOMAS DE 
 
 QUINCEY. Edited with Introduction and Notes from the Author's 
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 I. SUSPIRIA DE PROFUNDIS. With other Essays. 
 
 II. CONVERSATION AND COLERIDGE. With other 
 
 Essays.
 
 14 MR. WILLIAM HEINEMANN'S LIST. 
 
 MR. PUNCH'S POCKET IBSEN. A Collection of some 
 of the AFaster's best known Dramas, condensed, revised, and slightly re- 
 arranged for the benefit of the Earnest Student. By F. Anstev, Author 
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 STORIES OF GOLF. Collected bv William Knight and 
 
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 GOSSIP IN A LIBRARY. By Edmund Gosse, Author of 
 
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 *t* A Limited Edition on Large Paper, 2^s. net. 
 
 THE ROSE: A Treatise on the Cultivation, History, Family 
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 THE GENTLE ART OF MAKING ENEMIES. As 
 
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 and unseemliness, while overcome by an undue sense of right. By 
 J, M'Neill Whistler. A New Edition. Pott 4to, half-cloth, loj. 6d. 
 
 THE JEW AT HOME. Impressions of a Summer and 
 Autumn Spent with Him in Austria and Russia. By Joseph Pennell. 
 With Illustrations by the Author. 4to, cloth, 51.
 
 MR. WILLIAM HEINEMANN'S LIST. 15 
 
 QUEEN JOANNA I. OF NAPLES, SICILY, AND 
 
 JERUSALEM ; Countess of Provence, Forcalquier, and Piedmont. An 
 Essay on her Times. By St. Clair Baddeley. Imperial 8vo. With 
 Numerous Illustrations. i6s. 
 
 CHARLES III. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VI.; also 
 
 CECCO D'ASCOLI, Poet, Astrologer. Physican. Two Historical Essays. 
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 THE NEW EXODUS. A Study of Israel in Russia. By 
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 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS IN THE SECRET SERVICE. 
 
 The Recollections of a Spy. By Major Henri le Caron. With New 
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 THE GREAT WAR OF 189—. A Forecast. By Rear- 
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 In One Volume, large 8vo. With numerous Illustrations, 12^. 6d. 
 
 STUDIES OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY. By Ernest 
 
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 THE ARBITRATOR'S MANUAL. Under the London 
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 THE COMING TERROR. And other Essays and Letters. 
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 ARABIC AUTHORS: A Manual of Arabian History and 
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 THE LABOUR MOVEMENT IN AMERICA. By 
 
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 THE SPEECH OF MONKEYS. By Professor R. L. 
 
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 THE HOURS OF RAPHAEL, IN OUTLINE. 
 
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 THE PASSION PLAY AT OBERAMMERGAU, 1890. 
 
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 THE WORD OF THE LORD UPON THE WATERS. 
 
 Sermons read by His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Germany, wliile 
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 THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS WITHIN YOU. 
 
 Christianity not as a Mystic Religion but as a New Theory of Life. By 
 Count Leo Tolstoy. Translated from the Russian by Constance 
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 Popular Edition in One Volume, cloth, 2.f. td.
 
 l6 MR. WILLIAM HEINEMANN'S LIST. 
 
 THE LITTLE MANX NATION. (Lectures delivered at 
 the Royal Institution, 1891.) By Hall Caine, Author of "The Bond- 
 man," " The Scapegoat," &c. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3^. 6d.\ paper, 2s. td. 
 
 NOTES FOR THE NILE. Together with a Metrical 
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 DENMARK: its History, Topography, Language, Literature 
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 *,* Dedicated, by J>er)nission, to H.R.IT. the Princess of Wales. 
 
 THE REALM OF THE HABSBURGS. By Sidney 
 
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 IMPERIAL GERMANY. A Critical Study of Fact and 
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 THE CANADIAN GUIDE-BOOK. Part L The Tourist's 
 
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 Places, &c., in Eastern Ontario, The Muskoka District, The St. Lawrence 
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 Crown 8vo, limp clolh, 6^. 
 
 Part IL WESTERN CANADA. Including the Peninsula 
 
 and Northern Regions of Ontario, the Canadian Shores of the Great 
 
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 THE GUIDE-BOOK TO ALASKA AND THE NORTH- 
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 THE GENESIS OF THE UNITED STATES. A 
 
 Narrative of the Movement in England, 1605-1616, which resulted in the 
 Plantation of North America by Englishmen, disclosing the Contest 
 between England and Spain for the Possession of the Soil now occupied 
 by the United States of America ; set forth through a series of Historical 
 Manuscripts now first printed, together with a Re-issue of Rare Contem- 
 poraneous Tracts, accompanied by Bibliographical Memoranda, Notes, 
 and Brief Biographies. Collected, Ai ranged, and Edited by Alexander 
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 Royal Svo, buckram, £j, 13J. 6d. 
 
 IN THE TRACK OF THE SUN. Readings from the Diary 
 
 of a Globe-Trotter. By Frederick Diodati Thompson. With many 
 Illustrations by Mr Harry Fenn and from Photographs. In one volume, 
 4to, 25r.
 
 MR. WILLIAM HEINEMANN'S LIST. 17 
 
 popular 65. 1Rov>els. 
 
 THE EBB-TIDE. By Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd 
 
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 THE MANXMAN. By Hall Caine. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s. 
 THE HEAVENLY TWINS. By Sarah Grand, Author 
 
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 THE STORY OF A MODERN WOMAN. By Ella 
 
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 A COMEDY OF MASKS By Ernest Dowson and 
 
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 THE JUSTIFICATION OF ANDREW LEBRUN. By 
 
 F. Barrett. Crown Svo, 6s. 
 
 THE LAST SENTENCE. By Maxwell Gray, Author of 
 
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 APPASSIONATA : A Musician's Story. By Elsa D'Esterre- 
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 FROM THE FIVE RIVERS. By Flora Annie Steel, 
 
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 RELICS. Frag.nents of a Life. By Frances Macnab. Crown 
 
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 THE TOWER OF TADDEO. By Ouida, Author of " Two 
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 trated. 6.f.
 
 i8 MR. WILLIAM HEINEMANN'S LIST. 
 
 CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO. By I. Zangwii.i., 
 
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 THE PREMIER AND THE PAINTER. A Fantastic 
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 THE NAULAHKA. A Tale of West and East. By Rudyard 
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 AVENGED ON SOCIETY. By H. F. Wood, Author of 
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 THE O'CONNORS OF BALLINAHINCH. By Mrs. 
 
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 PASSION THE PLAYTHING. A Novel. By R. Murray 
 
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 Five .Shilling Volumes. 
 
 THE SECRET OF NARCISSE. By Edmund Gosse. 
 
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 INCONSEQUENT LIVES. A Village Chronicle. By J. H. 
 
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 Crown Svo, cloth, 5.t. 
 
 Two Shillings and Si-xpence. 
 
 THE DOMINANT SEVENTH: A Musical Story. By 
 
 Kate Elizabeth Clarke. Crown Svo, cloth, 2s. 6d.
 
 MR. WILLIAM HEINEMANN'S LIST. 19 
 
 1I:eineinaniVs international Xibrarç. 
 
 Edited by EDMUND GOSSE. 
 
 JVi?w Review. — " If you have any pernicious remnants of literary chauvinism 
 I hope it will not survive the series of foreign classics of which Mr. William 
 Heinemann, aided by Mr. Edmund Gosse, is publishing translations to the great 
 contentment of all lovers of literature." 
 
 Each Vohime Jins an Introdiictio7i specially ivritten by the Editor. 
 Price, in paper covers, ■2S. 6d. each, or cloth, -^s. 6d. 
 
 IN GOD'S WAY. From the Norwegian of Bjornstjerne 
 
 BjORNSON. 
 
 PIERRE AND JEAN. From the French of Guy de Mau- 
 passant. 
 
 THE CHIEF JUSTICE. From the German of Karl Emil 
 Franzos, Author of " For the Right," &c. 
 
 WORK WHILE YE HAVE THE LIGHT. From tht- 
 Russian of Count Leo Tolstoy. 
 
 FANTASY. From the Italian of Matilde Serao. 
 
 FROTH. From the Spanish of Don Armando Palacic- 
 
 Valdés. 
 
 FOOTSTEPS OF FATE. From the Dutch of Louis 
 
 COUPERUS. 
 
 PEPITA JIMENEZ. From the Spanish of Juan Valera. 
 
 THE COMMODORE'S DAUGHTERS. From the Nor- 
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 THE HERITAGE OF THE KURTS. From the Norwegian 
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 LOU. From the German of Baron Alexander von Roberts. 
 
 DONA LUZ. From the Spanish of Juan Valera. 
 
 THE JEW. From the Polish of Joseph Ignatius Kraszewski. 
 
 UNDER THE YOKE. From the Bulgarian of Ivan Vazoff. 
 
 FAREWELL LOVE ! From the Italian of Matilde Serao. 
 
 THE GRANDEE. From the Spanish of Don Armando 
 
 Palacio-Valdés. 
 
 A COMMON STORY. From the Russian of Gontcharoff. 
 In preparation. 
 
 NIOBE. From the Norwegian of Jonas Lie.
 
 20 MR. WILLIAM HEINEMANN'S LIST. 
 
 Ipopulac 35. 6&. IRovels. 
 
 THE SCAPEGOAT. By Hall Caine, Author of "The 
 
 Bondman," &c. Nineteenth Thousand. 
 
 THE BONDMAN. A New Saga. By Hall Caine 
 
 Twenty-fifth Thousand. 
 
 A MARKED MAN: Some Episodes in his Life. By Ada 
 Cambridge, Author of "A Little Minx," "The Three Miss Kings," 
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 THE THREE MISS KINGS. By Ada Cambridge. 
 
 A LITTLE MINX. By Ada Cambridge. 
 
 NOT ALL IN VAIN. By Ada Cambridge. 
 
 A KNIGHT OF THE WHITE FEATHER. By Tasma, 
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 UNCLE PIPER OF PIPER'S HILL. By Tasma. 
 THE PENANCE OF PORTIA JAMES. By Tasma. 
 THE RETURN OF THE O'MAHONY. By Harold 
 
 Frederic, Author of " In the Valley," &c. With Illustrations. 
 
 IN THE VALLEY. By Harold Frederic, Author of 
 
 " The Lawton Girl," "Seth's Brother's Wife," &c. With Illustrations. 
 
 THE STORY OF A PENITENT SOUL. Being the 
 
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 County of Lincoln. By Adeline Sergeant, Author of " No Saint," &c. 
 
 NOR WIFE, NOR MAID. By Mrs. Hungerford, Author 
 
 of "Molly Bawn," &c. 
 
 THE HOYDEN. By Mrs. Hungerford. 
 
 MAMMON. A Novel. By Mrs. Alexander, Author of "The 
 
 Wooing O't," &c. 
 
 DAUGHTERS OF MEN. By Hannah Lynch, Author of 
 
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 AROMANCE OF THE CAPE FRONTIER. By Bertram 
 
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 TWEEN SNOW AND FIRE. A Tale of the Kafir War of 
 1877. By Bertram Mitford. 
 
 ORIOLE'S DAUGHTER. By Jessie Fothergill, Author 
 
 of "The First Violin," &c.
 
 MR. WILLIAM HEINEMANN'S LIST. 21 
 
 THE MASTER OF THE MAGICIANS. By Elizabeth 
 
 Stuart Phelps and Herbkkt D. Ward. 
 THE HEAD OF THE FIRM. By Mis. Riddell, Author 
 
 of " George Geith," " Maxwell Drewett," &c. 
 
 A CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE. By G. Colmore, 
 Author of "A Daughter of Music," &c. 
 
 A DAUGHTER OF MUSIC. By G. Colmore, Author of 
 
 "A Conspiracy of Silence." 
 
 ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN. By Amélie Rives, Author 
 
 of " The Quick or the Dead." 
 
 KITTY'S FATHER. By Frank Barrett, Author of 
 
 "The Admirable Lady Biddy Fane," &c. 
 
 MR. BAILEY-MARTIN. By Percy White. 
 
 A QUESTION OF TASTE. By Maarten Maartens, 
 
 Author of "An Old Maid's Love," &c. 
 
 COME LIVE WITH ME AND BE MY LOVE. By 
 
 Robert Buchanan, Author of "The Moment After," "The Coming 
 Terror," &c. 
 
 DONALD MARCY. By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, 
 
 Author of " The Gates Ajar," &c. 
 
 IN THE DWELLINGS OF SILENCE. A Romance 
 of Russia. By Walker Kennedy. 
 
 LOS CERRITOS. A Romance of the Modern Time. By 
 Gertrude Franklin Atherton, Author of " Hermia Suydam," and 
 " What Dreams may Come." 
 
 A MODERN MARRIAGE. By the Marquise Clara Lanza. 
 
 Sbort Stones in ©ne Dolume. 
 
 Three Shillings and Sixpence each. 
 
 THE COPPERHEAD ; and other Stories of the North 
 during the American War. By Harold Frederic, Author of " The 
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 CAPT'N DAVY'S HONEYMOON, The Bhnd Mother, 
 and The Last Confession. By Hall Caine, Author of " The Bondman," 
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 WRECKERS AND METHODISTS. Cornish Stories. By 
 H. D. LuWRY.
 
 22 MR. WILLIAM HEINEMANN'S LIST. 
 
 WRECKAGE, and other Stories. By Hubert Crackan- 
 
 THORPE. Second Edition. 
 
 MADEMOISELLE MISS, and other Stories. By Henry 
 
 Harland, Author of " Mea Culpa," &c. 
 
 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL, and other Sketches 
 of War. By Emile Zola. With an Essay on the short stories of M. 
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 THE AVERAGE WOMAN. By Wolcott Balestier. 
 
 With an Introduction by Henry James. 
 
 PERCHANCE TO DREAM, and other Stories. By Mar- 
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 BLESSED ARE THE POOR. By François Coppée. 
 With an Introduction by T. P. O'Connor. 
 
 popular SbiUinQ 3Booïîs. 
 
 PRETTY MISS SMITH. By Florence Warden, Author 
 
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