An Englishman In Paris Part 18

Marrast (No. 4) became Vice-Princ.i.p.al of the Lycee Corneille.

Bastide, one of the staff, became Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Vaulabelle, one of the staff, became Minister of Public Education.

Goudchaux, the banker of the _National_, became Minister of Finances.

Recurt, the chief physician to the staff, became Minister of the Interior and subsequently Minister of Public Works (President of the Board of Works).

Trelat, another physician, became Minister of Public Works.

Marie, the solicitor to the _National_, became a member of the Provisional Government, a member of the Executive Committee, and subsequently Minister of Justice.

Genin, one of the staff, became chief of the literary department at the Ministry of Public Education.

Charras, one of the staff, became Under-Secretary of State, at the Ministry for War.

Degouve-Denuncques, one of the staff, became Prefect of the Departement of the Somme.

Buchez, third physician and an occasional contributor, became Deputy Mayor of Paris and subsequently President of the a.s.sembly up to the 15th of May (when he had to make room for M. Armand Marrast himself). As will be seen, within a month of the republicans' advent to power, M. Buchez had been raised to one of the highest functions in the State, though absolutely devoid of any political or parliamentary talent, as was shown later on by his "Histoire Parlementaire de la Revolution Francaise," an utterly commonplace production.

Dussart, one of the staff, became Prefect of the Seine-Inferieure.

Adam, one of the staff, became Chief Secretary of the Prefecture of the Seine.

Sain de Bois-le Comte, one of the staff, became minister plenipotentiary at Turin.

Felicien Mallefille, one of the staff, became minister plenipotentiary at Lisbon.

Anselme Petetin, one of the staff, became minister plenipotentiary at Hanover.

Auguste Petetin (his brother), one of the staff, became Prefect of the Department of the Cote-d'Or.

Frederic Lacroix, one of the staff, became chief secretary for civil affairs in Algeria.

Hetzel, one of the staff, became chief secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Rousset, one of the staff, became Prefect of the Department of the Loire.

Duclerc, shorthand reporter, became for a little while Minister of Finances.

Pagnerre, publisher of the _National_, and bookseller, became a mayor, a member of the Provisional Government, a member of the Executive Committee, and finally Director of the Comptoir d'Escompte.

Achille Gregoire, the printer of the _National_, became Prefect of the Department of the Upper-Saone.

Clement Thomas, called the Constable of the _National_, became the Commander-in-chief of the National Guard of the Seine.

There are a few score more, friends and allies, such as Lalanne, who was made director of the national workshops; Levrault, who was sent to Naples as minister plenipotentiary; Carette, who became Civil-Chief at Constantine; Carteron, who was appointed keeper of the national archives, etc.

As a matter of course, all these adventurers had revolving around them a number of satellites, as eager as the former to reap the fruits of the situation. Most of them, like the cat of Heine's epigram, had to devour their steak raw; they did not know how to cook it. Ministers, prefects, and high dignitaries of State as they were, they felt awkward in the society of those to whom no illusion was possible with regard to their origin and that of their political fortunes.

They haunted, therefore, by preference, the less well frequented restaurants and cafes, the wings of the minor theatres, on the pretext that they were the elect of the people, and that the people were their fittest companions. Their erstwhile leader and chief scorned to stoop to such tricks. He was an educated man, with a thick veneer of the gentleman about him, which, however, did not prevent him from being one of the two most arrant sn.o.bs I have met anywhere. I advisedly say anywhere, for France herself does not produce that objectionable genus to any appreciable extent. You may find a good many cads, you will find comparatively few sn.o.bs. Compared to Armand Marrast, Eugene Sue was nowhere as a sn.o.b. He was a thickset man with a rubicund face, with a ma.s.s of grey woolly hair and a kind of stubbly, small moustache. His manners were supposed to be modelled on those of the n.o.bles of the old regime; said manners mainly consisting of swaggering impudence to those whom he considered his equals, and freezing insolence to those he deemed his inferiors. The latter, I need not say, were by far the most numerous. He who bellowed most loudly that birth should carry no privilege, never forgot to remind his hearers, by deeds, if not by words, that he was of n.o.ble descent. "Si sa famille etait n.o.ble, sa mere s'est surement endormie dans l'antichambre un jour qu'un valet-de-chambre entreprenant etait trop pres," said the Marquis d'Arragon one evening.[50] He felt greatly flattered at the caricaturists of the day representing him in the court dress of Louis XVI.'s reign, though to most people he looked like a "marquis de quatre sous."[51]

[Footnote 50: The remark was not original. The Marquise d'Espremenil said it of herself when she saw her son join the Revolution of '89.--EDITOR.]

[Footnote 51: The peripatetic vendors of songs, dressed as n.o.bles, who up till '60 were frequently singing their compositions in the street.--EDITOR.]

He professed to be very fond of antique furniture and decorations, and this fondness was the main cause of his ousting his former subaltern, Buchez, from the presidential chair of the a.s.sembly, for, shortly before the revolution of '48, the official residence of that functionary had been put in thorough repair, its magnificent furniture had been restored, etc.

The depression of business inspired M. Armand Marrast with the happy thought of giving some entertainments in the hope of reviving it. During the Third Republic, though I had ceased to live in France permanently, I have seen a good many motley gatherings at the elysee-Bourbon, and at the Hotel-de-Ville, especially in M. Grevy's time, though Mac-Mahon's presidency offered some diverting specimens also; but I have never seen anything like the social functions at the Palais-Bourbon during the months of September, October, and November, 1848. They were absolutely the festive scenes of Paul de k.o.c.k on a large scale, amidst Louis XIV.

and Louis XV. furniture, instead of the bourgeois mahogany, and with an exquisitely artistic background, instead of the commonplace paperhangings of the lower middle-cla.s.s dwellings. The corps diplomatique was virtually on the horns of a dilemma. After the February revolution, the shock of which was felt throughout the whole of Europe, and caused most of the sovereigns to shake on their thrones, it had stood by M. de Lamartine, and even by his successor at the French Foreign Office, M. Bastide, if not with enthusiasm, at least with a kind of complacency. The republic proclaimed by the former, might, after all, contain elements of vitality. The terrible disorders in June tended to shake this reluctant confidence; still, there was but little change in the amba.s.sadors' outward att.i.tude, until it became too evident that, unless a strong dictator should intervene, mob rule was dangerously nigh. Then the corps diplomatique began to hold aloof. Of course there were exceptions, such as, for instance, Mr. Richard Rush, the minister of the United States, who had been the first to congratulate the Provisional Government, and the various representatives of the South-American republics; but even the latter could scarcely refrain from expressing their astonishment at the strange company in which they found themselves. The women were perhaps the most remarkable, as women generally are when out of their element. The greater part had probably never been in a drawing-room before, and, notwithstanding M. Taine's subsequently expressed dictum about the facility with which a Parisien grisette, shopwoman, or lady's-maid may be transformed at a few moments into a semblance of a _grande dame_, these very pet.i.tes bourgeoises and their demoiselles made a very indifferent show. Perhaps the grisette, shopwoman, or lady's-maid would have acquitted herself better. Her natural taste, sharpened by constant contact with her social superiors, might have made up for the slender resources of her wardrobe; and, as the French say, "one forgives much in the way of solecism to the prettily dressed woman." As it was, the female section of M. Marrast's guests could advance no valid plea for mercy on that score. The daughters looked limp with their ch.o.r.egraphic exertions: the emblem of innocence, "la sainte mousseline," as Ambroise Thomas called it afterwards, hung in vague, undefined folds on angular figures, perhaps because the starch necessary to it had been appropriated by the matrons.

The latter were rigid to a degree, and looked daggers at their spouses and their friends at the slightest attempt to stir them to animation.

"Fais donc danser ma vieille," was the consecrated formula with which a not very eager cavalier was dragged to the seat where said "vieille"

was reposing in all the majesty of her unaccustomed finery, considerably impaired in the wearer's transit on foot from her domicile at Montrouge or Menilmontant to the banks of the Seine; for the weather that year was almost tropical, even in the autumn, and consequently the cab had been dispensed with. It would appear, from a remark I overheard, that Jehu, in the way of business, preferred as fares the partisans of and adherents to the fallen regimes, even of the latest one. Said a portly dame to her neighbour, alluding to the cabman, "Il a absolument refuse de nous prendre. Il a dit qu'il etait dans l'opposition, et qu'il ne voulait pas trahir ses principes a moins de dix francs. Dix francs, ma chere, nous aurions pu souper chez nous, et sans compter les frais de toilette et de blanchissage. Quant a l'honneur d'etre ici, ca ne compte pas pour grand'chose, vu que tout le quartier y est; nous demeurons a Batignolles, et il a fallu descendre en ville ce matin pour avoir une paire de gants blancs. Chez nous, partout la meme reponse: 'Des gants blancs, madame, nous n'en avons plus. Presque toutes les dames du quartier vont au Palais-Bourbon ce soir, et depuis hier il nous reste que des pet.i.tes pointures (sizes), des sept et des sept et demies.'"

As for the "elu du peuple souverain," when he had failed to draw his "vieille" into the mazy dance, and been snubbed for his pains in the bargain, he returned to his fellow-deputies, many of whom might be easily recognized by the golden-fringed tricolour rosette in their b.u.t.tonholes, though some had merely kept it in their pockets. The "elu du peuple" did not dance himself. Perhaps the most curious group was that of the young attaches and clerks of the Foreign Office who had come to enjoy themselves, who, even at that time, were nearly all of good birth, and who, to use a colloquial expression, looked not unlike bra.s.s knockers on a pigsty. This was the society Louis-Napoleon was to sweep away with the aid of men, some of whom I have endeavoured to sketch in subsequent notes. I would fain say a few words of a "shipwrecked one,"

of the preceding dynasty, whose acquaintance I did not make until the vessel he had steered so long had foundered, and of the self-const.i.tuted pilot of the interim regime. I am alluding to MM. Guizot and de Lamartine.

CHAPTER XII.

Guizot, Lamartine, and Beranger -- Public opinion at sea with regard to the real Guizot -- People fail to see the real man behind the politician -- Guizot regrets this false conception -- "I have not the courage to be unpopular" -- A tilt at Thiers -- My first meeting with him -- A picture and the story connected with it -- M. Guizot "at home" -- His apartment -- The company -- M. Guizot on "the Spanish marriages" -- His indictment against Lord Palmerston -- An incident in connection with Napoleon's tomb at the Invalides -- Nicolas I. and Napoleon -- My subsequent intimacy with M. Guizot -- Guizot as a father -- His correspondence with his daughters -- A story of Henry Murger and Marguerite Thuillier -- M. Guizot makes up his mind not to live in Paris any longer -- M. Guizot on "natural scenery" -- Never saw the sea until he was over fifty -- Why M. Guizot did not like the country; why M. Thiers did not like it -- Thiers the only man at whom Guizot tilted -- M. Guizot died poor -- M. de Lamartine's poverty did not inspire the same respect -- Lamartine's impecuniosity -- My only visit to Lamartine's house -- Du Jellaby dore -- With a difference -- All the stories and anecdotes about M. de Lamartine relate to his improvidence and impecuniosity -- Ten times worse in that respect than Balzac -- M. Guizot's literary productions and M. de Lamartine's -- The national subscription raised for the latter -- How he antic.i.p.ates some of the money -- Beranger -- My first acquaintance with him -- Beranger's verdict on the Second Republic -- Beranger's constant flittings -- Dislikes popularity -- The true story of Beranger and Mdlle. Judith Frere.

That sentence of Louis-Philippe to Lord ----, quoted elsewhere: "Guizot is so terribly respectable; I am afraid there is a mistake either about his nationality or his respectability, for they are badly matched,"

reflected the opinion of the majority of Frenchmen with regard to the eminent statesman. The historian who was supposed to know Cromwell and Washington as well as if he had lived with them, was credited at last with being a stern rigid Puritan in private life like the first, impatient of contradiction like the second--in short, a kind of walking copy-book moral, who never unbent, whose slightest actions were intended by him to convey a lesson to the rest of mankind. Unable to devote much time to her during the week, Guizot was in the habit of taking his mother for a stroll in the Park of St. Cloud on Sundays. The French, who are never tired of shouting, "Oh, ma mere! oh, ma mere!" resented such small attentions on the part of the son, because, they maintained, they were meant as exhibitions. Even such a philosopher as Ernest Renan failed to see that there were two dissimilar men in Guizot, the Guizot of public life and the Guizot of home life; that, behind the imperious, haughty, battlesome orator of the Chamber, with his almost marble mask, there was a tender and loving heart, capable of the most deep-seated devotion; that the cares of State once thrown off, the supercilious stare melted like ice beneath the sun of spring into a prepossessing smile, captivating every one with whom he came in contact.

Guizot regretted this erroneous conception the world had formed of his character. "But what can I do?" he asked. "In reality, I haven't the courage to be unpopular any more than other people; but neither have I the courage to prance about in my own drawing-room as if I were on wires"--this was a slight slap at M. Thiers,--"nor can I write on subjects with which I have no sympathy"--that was a second,--"and I should cut but a sorry figure on horseback"--that was a third;--"consequently people who, I am sure, wish me well, but who will not come and see me at home, hold me up as a misanthrope, while I know that I am nothing of the kind."

With this he took from his table an article by M. Renan on the first volume of his "Memoires," an article couched in the most flattering terms, but giving the most conventional portrait of the author himself.

"Why doesn't he come and see me? He would soon find that I am not the solitary, tragic, buckram figure that has already become legendary, and which, like most legendary figures, is absolutely false."

This conversation--or rather monologue, for I was careful not to interrupt him--took place in the early part of the Second Empire, in the house in the Rue de la Ville-Leveque he occupied for five and twenty years, and until 1860. The Coup d'etat had irretrievably shattered Guizot's political career. It had destroyed whatever hopes may have remained after the flight of Louis-Philippe. Consequently Guizot's proper place is among the men of that reign; the reason why I insert him here is because my acquaintance with him only began after his disappearance from public life.

It occurred in this way. One evening, after dinner at M. de Morny's, we were talking about pictures, and especially about those of the Spanish school, when our host turned to me. "Have you ever seen 'the Virgin'

belonging to M. Guizot?" he asked. I told him I had not. "Then go and see it," he said. "It is one of the finest specimens of its kind I ever saw, I might say the finest." Next day I asked permission of M. Guizot to come and see it, and, almost by return of post, I received an invitation for the following Thursday night to one of his "at homes."

Until then I had never met M. Guizot, except at one of his ministerial soirees under the preceding dynasty. The apartment offered nothing very striking: the furniture was of the ordinary kind to be found in almost every bourgeois drawing-room, with this difference--that it was considerably shabbier; for Guizot was poor all his life. The man who had said to the nation, "Enrichissez vous, enrichissez vous," had never acted upon the advice himself. I know for a fact that, while he was in power, he was asked to appoint to the post of receiver-general of the Gironde one of the richest financiers in France, who had expressed the intention to share the magnificent benefits of the appointment with him.

M. Guizot simply and steadfastly refused to do anything of the kind.

On the evening in question, a lamp with a reflector was placed in front of the picture I had come to see, probably in my honour. M. de Morny had not exaggerated the beauty of it, but it bore no signature, and M.

Guizot himself had no idea with regard to the painter. "There is a curious story connected with it," he said, "but I cannot tell it you now; come and see me one morning and I will. As an Englishman it will interest you; especially if you will take the trouble to read between the lines. I will tell you a few more, perhaps, but the one connected with the picture is 'la bonne bouche.'"

The company at M. Guizot's, on that and other occasions, mainly consisted of those who had been vanquished in the recent struggle with Louis-Napoleon, or thought they had been; for a great many were mere word-spinners, who had been quite as vehement in their denunciations of the man they were now surrounding when he was in power, as they were in their diatribes against the man who, after all, saved France for eighteen years from anarchy, and did not indulge more freely in nepotism, peculation, and kindred amenities than those who came after him. But, at the outset of these notes, I took the resolution to eschew politics, and I will endeavour to keep it as far as possible.

As a matter of course, I soon availed myself of M. Guizot's permission to call upon him in the morning, and it was then that he told me the following story connected with the picture.