Memoirs (Vieux Souvenirs) of the Prince de Joinville Part 13

Our commission did its best. It made a modest beginning 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 Cuvier, 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 everything touching the manoeuvres and tactics of ancient rowing ships and galleys.

Then from paddle-ships we pa.s.sed on to those with propellers 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 Napoleon, a name which was afterwards exchanged 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 Asnieres by M. Cave--and of the Pomone, the first frigate we built with auxiliary 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 screwship, and also because that particular mode of propulsion is of French invention.

An organ-builder at Amiens, of the name of Dallery, was 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 instrument, the result, though strictly exact, was monstrously ugly.

There was more future promise about Sauvage's work on 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 Napoleon 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 innovations than the Ministry of Marine, and her construction 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 equally 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 Napoleon on board the Pluton, used to rush on deck to watch her behaviour. M. Normand 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 formulae. The ship was commanded in first-rate style by a very efficient naval lieutenant, M. de Montaignac, who since that time has acted as Minister for Marine Affairs.

As n.o.body 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 a.s.sembling 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 ash.o.r.e.

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 always received me. We were shown both the a.r.s.enal 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 was Smith), who had invented this raft system, asked me to receive him. He came, so he told me, to offer his plan to the French navy, 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 department of affairs. Further, he offered 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 my visitor's boat and lowering apparatus in his hand, constructed on drawings I had made on my return from England.

The inventor stood as though petrified at the sight. The only word 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 workman 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 1st of June. At my house he often met an academician, as old as himself, of the name of Dupaty, 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" (epuree). The captain and two lieutenants of the flag-ship, the Cote d'Or, were guillotined, and the ship's name changed into the terrifying one of the Montagne. 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 AUTRES, Jean Bon St.

Andre, commissary of the republic with the fleet, and afterwards prefect of Mayence under Napoleon (his very name marked him out for the post!), had caused a guillotine 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 defeat, 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 French 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 a.s.serted, 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 13th Prairial. I have often heard the story attributed to Barrere, who, being obliged to give an account of the lost battle to the Convention, endeavoured thus to gild the pill. I questioned my two old sailor friends eagerly concerning this incident 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 Brunswick, the Vengeur, riddled with shot on every side, and utterly dismasted, was shipping water through her ports with every 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 a.s.sistance, and set to work, with the few of their boats which had not been smashed during the fight, to save Renaudin, her plucky captain, and his son, first of all, and then take off the crew. The Alfred took 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 only all the most seriously wounded men, but about forty unwounded sailors, who seeing death was inevitable, bravely greeted its approach with shouts of "Vive la Nation! Vive la Republique!" The story is such a splendid one as it is, that it needs no imaginary embellishments whatever.

Let me return for a moment to my excellent academician friend, M.

Dupaty, whose acquaintance I had made in the most absurd fashion. In the palmy days of the warlike enthusiasm of the Citizen Guard the worthy Dupaty was a captain in the 1st battalion of the 2nd Legion, commanded by Commandant Talabot. One evening, when he was on guard at the Palais Royal, he had been reciting some verses in my father's drawing-room, and, somewhat intoxicated perhaps by poetic enthusiasm, he begged the King to put one of his sons into his company. His Majesty 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 chic 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 perfectly enchanted. He was still more delighted when he succeeded in getting one of his works, a comic opera called Picaros et Diego given at the theatre in the Chateau of Compiegne, in honour of the marriage of my sister Louise and the King of the Belgians. But lo! at the climax of the piece, the princ.i.p.al 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 n.o.body 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!

[Footnote: 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!]

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 with 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, hospitable 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 pa.s.sed as I went 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 confirmed, that here was a nation which had known how to pa.s.s through a revolution without permitting it to encroach on its social discipline, nor allowing democratic jealousies to destroy its traditions and sow discord between the different cla.s.ses of its population.

I thought Windsor quite superb. The old castle, surrounded 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 picturesque 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 recollection, 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 Chateau 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 schoolboy, already somewhat sensitive about his personal dignity. "Oh, WHAT a bad hat you have!"

"And you, what a d.a.m.ned bad eye!"

Lord Aberdeen, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, was also on board the yacht, besides Lord Liverpool, Lord Charles Wellesley, Colonel Wylde, and the ladies-in-waiting--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 Treport 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 ash.o.r.e 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 women, all making their comments aloud, while here and there appeared a gendarme's c.o.c.ked hat, or the broad-brimmed headgear of some country cure. 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 Treport with troops; but the splendid squadrons of the 1st Cuira.s.siers, 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 chateau 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 Wellesley, 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, 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 tradition 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 Conde livery being chamois-colour, with amaranth waistcoats, the postilions must wear amaranth, and so on.

The royal waggon 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 gaily beribboned hats, started at a fairly steady 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 Opera Comique troupe, Roger, Chollet, and Anna Thillon; or else Arnot played L'Humonste with Mdme. Doche. There were Cabinet Ministers there as well. Lord Aberdeen and M. Guizot held conversations, during which they may or may not have 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 pa.s.sionately 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.

"I am very lucky, Monsieur le Marechal, 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 Marechal, 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 me tell you you asked them to dine to meet an idiot!"

And off the marshal went, leaving his unlucky interlocutor 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 n.o.body could move about or open a window without being exposed to the fire of all the opera gla.s.ses 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 Treport 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 question 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 one), and the inspection of the crew being over, the King told the minister he desired to commemorate his visit 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 a.s.sembled, 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! Ouvrez le ban!"

A silence. Then the King in a whisper: "Say something, Admiral! Tell them I am going to decorate an officer."