Part 3 (1/2)

Although I was on sh.o.r.e, I was still devoted to my profession. I used to see almost all the naval officers who pa.s.sed through Paris, and tried to push forward those whom the general body of the profession singled out as being likely commanding officers. These matters of promotion, as well as any others that affected naval interests, brought me into daily touch with the ministers, and my relations with M Theirs date from that time. Yet, oddly enough, it was riding on horseback that brought us together! During the King's stays at Camping and Fontainebleau, and his country trips to Versailles, St. Cloud, and Raunchy, when he used to invite foreign visitors and his ministers, and great personages in general, to join in his excursions, M. Thiers was as much bored as I was at having to go in the carriages and chars a bancs which drove in a long line one behind the other. We much preferred accompanying them on horseback, and nothing delighted the little minister more than to let his mount tear along full gallop with a loose rein. He had a very firm seat, and was very plucky, especially on a horse of ours called ”Le Vendome,” which in his southern accent he p.r.o.nounced ”Le Vanndomme.” I remember one day, at Fontaineblean, as he was galloping along beside me on that same ”Vanndomme,” we pa.s.sed by a young f.a.got-gatherer, bending under her load. She straightened herself at the noise; it was very hot, her jacket had come unb.u.t.toned, 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, ma.s.sed at the foot of the column. We arrived in state by the Rue Castiglione, so that the column surmounted by the statue, covered by a veil that was to drop at a given signal, faced us just as we came out upon the square M. Thiers, in full uniform, with his minister's hat and feathers, and again riding ”Vanndomme,” struck in his spurs, left the procession at full gallop, and pa.s.sed before my father, shouting at the very top of his falsetto voice, ”I take your Majesty's pleasure” the words being accompanied by a wave of his hat which ill-natured people might have said was copied from General Rapp's gesture in Gerard's picture of the Battle of Austerlitz at the Louvre. On this signal the drums beat, the bands played, the statue was unveiled--but M. Thiers had lost control of ”Vanndomme,” who, wild with enthusiasm, bolted head down, overthrowing drums and drum-major, while the little minister clung to his back like a monkey in a circus. It was a comical sight! But far from laughable under this same ministry of M. Thiers were the perpetual attempts upon my father's life. The speculators in revolution, who had been encouraged by their easy success in 1830, grew discouraged after several like essays at risings had been severely put down. They then fell back on a.s.sa.s.sination. 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 a.s.sembled in the drawing-room at the Tuileries, next to the Throne Room, when the Minister of the Interior, M. Thiers, burst in like a whirlwind, and, beckoning to my two brothers and me, led us into the embrasure of a window. ”My dear princes,” said he, looking at us over his spectacles, ”it is more than likely there will be an attempt on the life of the King, your father, to-day. We have been warned from several quarters. They say there will be an infernal machine somewhere near the Ambigu Theatre. It is very vague, but there must be something at the bottom of it all. We have had all the houses near the Ambigu searched this morning to no purpose. Should the King be warned? Should the review be put off?”

We answered unanimously that the King must be warned but that, brave as he was well known to be, he would never consent to having the review put off. So it turned out.

”Look well after your father,” repeated M. Thiers, and we mounted our horses. The review went on well enough, except that we all remarked the presence of a large number of insolent-looking individuals, with red carnations in their b.u.t.ton-holes--the members, evidently, of the secret societies, who had not been warned of what was going to happen, but to be ready for anything that might happen We had not been able to take any precautions, beyond dividing the care of watching over the King's person between my brothers and myself and the aides-de-camp on duty One of us with an aide-de-camp, was to take it in turn to keep just behind his horse, with our eye on the troops and the crowd, so as to interpose if we noticed any suspicious gesture. My turn had come to take the post of watcher, with General Heymes, aide-de-camp in waiting, on my right.

On my left I had Lieutenant-Colonel Rieussec, commanding the legion of the National Guard before which we were pa.s.sing. Close to the Ambigu, not the present theatre--the neighbourhood of which had been searched--but a former Ambigu, which had been shut up, opposite the Jardin Turc cafe, we heard a sort of platoon firing like the discharge of a mitrailleuse, and raising my eyes at the noise I saw smoke coming from a window which was half closed by an outside shutter.

I had no time to notice more, and at the moment I did not perceive that my left-hand neighbour, Colonel Rieussec, was killed, that Heymes'

clothes were riddled with bullets and his nose carried away, nor that my own horse was wounded. All I saw was my father holding his left arm, and saying to me over his shoulder, ”I'm hit!” And so he was: one bullet had grazed his forehead, another spent one had given him the blow of which he complained, and a third had pa.s.sed through his horse's neck. But that we only knew afterwards, and it was only afterwards too that we learnt the instrument of the crime had been an infernal machine. Our first thought was that the firing would go on, so I struck spurs into my horse, and seizing my father's by the bridle, while my two brothers struck it behind with their swords, we led him swiftly through the scene of immense confusion that ensued--horses riderless, or bearing wounded men, swaying in their seats, broken ranks, and people in blouses, who rushed upon the King, to touch him or his horse, with frantic shouts of ”Long live the King!” As we retired, I just saw the taking by a.s.sault of the house whence the discharge had come. The young aides-de-camp had dismounted, leaving their horses loose, and with the Munic.i.p.al Guards and the police they scaled the house and the one next door (the Cafe Barfetti), climbing on to the verandah and smas.h.i.+ng 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 G.o.d!'”

We reckoned ourselves up as we went along. Forty-two dead or wounded: dead--Marshal Mortier, General Lacha.s.se de Verigny, Colonels Raffet and Rieussec, Captain Willatte, aide-de-camp to the Minister of War, seven others, and two women; wounded--Generals Heymes, Comte de Colbert, Pelet, Blin, and many more. The Due de Broglie was. .h.i.t full in the chest by a bullet that flattened out on his star of the Legion of Honour.

It was not far from the scene of the crime to the farthest end of the line of troops, so the procession soon retraced its steps. The roadway where the blow had been struck was nothing but a pool of blood. The wounded and almost all the dead had been carried away, and I only saw one corpse, flat on its face in the mud, among the dead horses, but all the blood about frightened our horses so that we had hard work to get on.

On the square of the Chateau d'Eau a huge and furious crowd surging round the station house, which was protected by numerous Munic.i.p.al Guards, showed us the a.s.sa.s.sin, or one of them, had been arrested. The review was concluded, and my father's self-control was sorely tried by the unanimity and fervour of the acclamations of which he was the object from all sides, from soldiers and civilians alike. It is unnecessary to add that we did not see any more red carnations.

The march past was to take place in the Place Vendome, and the chancellor's offices were full of ladies of the official world, gathered round my mother. We dismounted for a moment to go and speak to them, and here again a moving scene took place. We had been able to send on an aide-de-camp to a.s.sure my mother and aunt and my sisters that we were safe and sound, but our messenger had not had time to learn the names of all the victims. So when we mounted the stairs of the chancellor's offices, some of us all bespattered with blood, all these women, their brilliant dresses contrasting sadly with their terrified eyes, rushed upon us to see whether those they loved were amongst us. Some of them were never to see their dear ones again!

Shortly after this b.l.o.o.d.y episode in our national history I joined the Didon frigate, Captain de Pa.r.s.eval, as enseigne de vaisseau. My new commanding officer, who had joined the navy at a very early age, had served as a mids.h.i.+pman on board Villeneuve's vessel, the Bucentaure, at Trafalgar. He was in command of the mizzentop, and saw Nelson's s.h.i.+p, the Victory, pa.s.s slowly astern of the Bucentaure--so close that her yards caught the other's ensign--while the fifty guns of the British s.h.i.+p 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 Pa.r.s.eval had spent his whole life in fighting and adventure. He had been in three s.h.i.+pwrecks, 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 ash.o.r.e 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 s.h.i.+p 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 cla.s.ses again, and gave myself up in particular to my pa.s.sion for the fine arts. This taste of mine was the cause of a terrible blowing up I got from my father. The jury of the Salon of 1836 refused a picture of Marilhat's--I think it was his first. Some of the artists who had seen the young painter's work thought this decision unjust. They grumbled, and their grumbling got as far as the newspapers. I was curious enough to go and see the picture at Durand-Ruel's. It was a view of Rome by twilight, seen between great umbrella pines, I thought it a splendid picture, and spurred somewhat, I confess, by a spirit of contradiction, I was seized with an eager desire to acquire it. But I had not a halfpenny of my own, there was my difficulty! To overcome it, I laid siege to my aunt Adelaide, who doted on her brother's children as if they had been her own, and who never (and well the rogues knew it!) could resist their wheedling. I succeeded, as I had hoped, and Marilhat's picture became my property. But certain of the jury went and complained to the King, and I was greeted with, ”Oho! so you are going to set yourself up in opposition! I've trouble enough already with those artists! It's the Civil List (that means it's me) that takes them in at the Louvre. I can't be the only judge as to what is accepted and what isn't. I have to have a jury, the Inst.i.tute is good enough to undertake the job--all its members are dying of fright, and I s.h.i.+eld them under my own responsibility, just as I do my ministers, although it's contrary to the letter of the law--and it's you, one of my own sons, who comes and sets an example of insubordination! Much obliged to you, sir!”

My picture was inspected all the same I need hardly say the grand-parents p.r.o.nounced it frightful, a regular daub. I hung my head under this double-barrelled censure, and drooped my ears like a whipped spaniel, but I stuck to my opinion, and likewise to my Marilhat. I think it was shortly after this little adventure that I added another ”daub” to my ”gallery.” One morning as I was busy modelling (for I dabbled in sculpture too) in my sister Marie's studio, Ary Scheffer came in, and began telling me about an unknown artist he had met, quite young, a man of undoubted talent, who was in a terribly poverty-stricken condition. Six hundred francs would take him out of his difficulties, and he would give two small pictures, pendants, which he had just finished, in exchange.

”What do they represent?” I inquired.

”They are both landscapes, connected with episodes in Walter Scott's novels. One represents the charge of Claverhouse in the Covenanters, and the other the Army of Charles the Bold crossing the Alps. Come!”

added Scheffer, turning to me. ”Be good-natured. If you have six hundred francs, give them to me!”

I chanced to have the money, and gave it him. ”What's your protege's name?” asked I.

”Theodore Rousseau.” Fancy that great artist selling his pictures in pairs, as furniture, in fact--for bread!

In 1836, too, on February 28, I was present at the first performance of Les Huguenots, an opera which enchanted me. The action, the music, the stage setting, the interpretation, made an ensemble that was unique, a work of art that defied comparison. Nothing on the stage to my mind, has ever surpa.s.sed the duet in the fourth act as created and sung by Nourrit and Mlle. Falcon. Inspired by the musical and dramatic situation, these two artists were completely carried away, and their emotion was as infectious as it was apparent. Mlle. Falcon had a way of interrupting her singing, to speak the words, ”Raoul, ils te tueront!”

with an expression into which her whole soul was thrown, which was the very embodiment of pa.s.sion. Ah! Pa.s.sion indeed! Pa.s.sion it is that thrills in every page of that admirable book of Merimee's, La Chronique de Charles IX., which has given birth in succession to those two masterpieces, Le Pre aux Clercs and Les Huguenots. And what indeed would life be without pa.s.sion? 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 pa.s.sed 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 Pa.r.s.eval, had taken command, as full lieutenant, and we started for the Levant station. The recollection of a very extraordinary accident which occurred during this cruise remains with me. We were in the Archipelago, off the Island of Andros. I had just come off the first night watch, at midnight, and had got into bed, when I heard somebody say our consort, a twenty-gun brig, the Ducouedic, Commander Bruat, was making signals of distress, I got back on deck without delay. The brig's lights had disappeared. Nothing could be seen of her. It was blowing great guns, with a heavy sea. We continued in a state of great anxiety till morning. At last, by the first rays of daylight, we saw our consort dismasted. She signalled to us for a tow, which was quite impracticable in the state of the sea. All we could do was to stand by her, while she tried to get to Syra with her foresail, the only one left her. This she succeeded in doing. But the extraordinary thing is that what dismasted her was the contrary action of a tremendous roll, and a heavy squall, which came just at midnight, when the whole crew was mustered on deck, to change the watch, and that the mainmast with all its spars and gear and the maintopmast as well, fell on to the deck without hurting anybody.

Except for this one accident, all the interest of this fresh cruise of mine lay on the side of the picturesque. Greece with her mythological, poetic, and historical memories, and the great severe outlines of her landscapes, struck me with admiration. But this was quickly overshadowed by the impression made upon me by my first glimpse of Asia--the Mussulman East, which Lamartine's Voyage and Decamps'

pictures had made me long so eagerly to know. My joy, therefore, may be conceived, when I saw, as I landed at Smyrna, the living image of Decamps' masterpiece, La Patrouille de Smyrne, now at Rotterdam, pa.s.sing by me--the very same police officer trotting along on his hunched-up Turcoman horse, surrounded by his policemen, regular bandits, running beside him, covered with brilliant rags and glistening weapons. This worthy police agent, whose name was Hadgy-Bey (which we promptly turned into ”Quat'Gibets”), very soon became our ally. I did his likeness. He was all smiles whenever we met, and he winked at all our young mids.h.i.+pmen's pranks One they played was rather too strong, and roused the fury of the Turks. Smyrna was at that time the most Eastern of Eastern towns, full of tortuous bazaars, and narrow alleys winding in and out, in which circulation, difficult enough at all times, sometimes became impossible for hours, when long strings of camels, fastened together with ropes, were going along them. Nothing could have been more vexatious than these blocks, which man and beast alike seemed to take pleasure in prolonging, whenever the Giaours seemed annoyed by them.