Memoirs (Vieux Souvenirs) of the Prince de Joinville Part 7

Down came the houses, one after the other. Our sailors behaved splendidly. They climbed up on to the roofs and fastened ropes, to which 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 six 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 G.o.d 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. The antic.i.p.ation of the destruction of his property drove him wild. Finding n.o.body paid any attention to him, he called his women folk to his a.s.sistance. 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 pa.s.sers-by, Turks as well as the rest, setting them to work, s.n.a.t.c.hing 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 costume, 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 Judgment, Belshezzar'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 foreground 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 only 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 n.o.body 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 dest.i.tution 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 Frankish town, nor of the Emba.s.sies.

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 const.i.tution in imitation of the const.i.tutions in vogue amongst the Giaours, and the Sultan had the kindness to ask me to see one proclaimed. Concerning the const.i.tution itself, which bore the altogether Turkish name of "Hatti Schereef de Gulhane," 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 c.o.xswains would yield to the other there was an awful b.u.mp, which damaged the dignity of our att.i.tudes by knocking us down like card houses. Then we had to ride rather frisky horses in Turkish saddles, and this, what with our c.o.c.ked 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 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 pa.s.sed me. After him came the Sultan's pages, handsome young fellows, carrying halberts and wearing gilt shakos with immense plumes of peac.o.c.ks' 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, advanced to receive him. This was Kislar Aga, chief eunuch and governor of the harem.

And now everybody has come, "Let the sport begin." From my window I look out on a broad s.p.a.ce, surrounded by beautiful umbrella pines and sloping gently down to the sea. Beyond is the Asiatic sh.o.r.e of the Bosphorus and the pretty village of Kadi-Keni. This s.p.a.ce 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, wearing 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 motionless, impa.s.sive, 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, lifting his little leg very high and waving his handkerchief. At the very sight of him everybody flees, and retires humbly within bounds. Then the ma.n.u.script of the Hatti-Schereef is brought to him. He carries it respectfully to his lips and forehead, and hands it over to Reschid 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 stretching 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 pa.s.ses his hand across his eyes and beard and the troops shout "Allah" three times, with unequalled fervour and pa.s.sion. Hundreds of cannon are fired in all directions, and the beautiful sight, lighted up by the most brilliant of sunshine, has come to an end. The Sultan has departed. The Sultana Valide 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 visited 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 different stuff. To complete the whole thing, there was a pa.s.sage 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 details were given me while I was there. The Sultan had no legitimate wives except those who bear children--so the compet.i.tion 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-Medjid, who was very young at the time of my visit, had only one wife with child, but his mother, the Sultana Valide, 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 n.o.body 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 squadron, 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 Trebizond, Maxime Outrey, a charming lad, brought up and dressed a l'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 pa.s.sengers coming from every corner of Asia, the strangest medley of Circa.s.sians, Persians, and cat merchants, and one pasha. I bought a splendid Angora during the pa.s.sage, 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 outbursts 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 trifling service 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. 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 away.

I merely pa.s.sed 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 persil. I went there one day with Paul Daru, Lavalette and Cyrus Gerard, all members of the emba.s.sy 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 celebrated Marshal von Moltke; and also all I learnt about the Eastern question on my visits to the Emba.s.sies, to Therapia and Buyukdere. There I had met all the chief members of the diplomatic corps, which consisted during my stay of two French amba.s.sadors, succeeding each other, both of them instability personified--one was Admiral Roussin, a distinguished sailor, the other M. de Pontois, a professional diplomat--both of them very kind, but neither, as a result of their instability, having any real influence. Beside them two men of tenacity 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 willing alliance for the isolation and humiliation of France, 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 Napoleon 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? G.o.d grant it!

CHAPTER VII

1840-1841

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 went 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 pa.s.sage, we got to Toulon only to find ourselves put into thirty-five days of quarantine. 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 during which 400 men ate and drank and lived 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 t.i.tle of "Lazaretto" by force, and then they sold the disinfectants.

"Gentlemen," the sanitary officer would say, with his provencal 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 disinfected! The farce was over! There was a great dinner too, which the board gave 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 gla.s.s 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 nothing, or hardly anything at all. As far as exterior events go, none but the most infinitesimally small--the eternal wearying struggle between ministers in esse and in 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 principle still made itself felt, in spite of the hitch in 1830. People reckoned on the King, on his wisdom and farsighted 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 by 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 authority 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 a.s.sembly 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 cla.s.ses, and those incorrigible revolutionists who ask perpetually for the impossible, everybody 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 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 pa.s.sion. Such men were the spokesmen of that increasingly numerous cla.s.s 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 pa.s.sed into their own immaculate 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 n.o.body 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 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 overtake 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 a.r.s.enals and their naval stores. It was absolutely necessary to be able to oppose an enemy, whose means 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 daily struggle in which I bore an a.s.siduous part.

Apart from this naval question, my time was spent between my home life, my worship for the fine arts, and the theatre, and also in boar-hunting, of which I grew pa.s.sionately 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 you n.o.body 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 Compiegne, to Chantilly, and above all to Fontainebleau! My brothers and I, the two Greffuhles, Caumont, Morny, Valewski, Edgard Ney, La Rochette, Casimir Perier, d'Albufera, Wagram, the de l'Aigles; foreigners too, Bedmar, d'Ossuna--and officers--and some ladies,--amongst these the beautiful d.u.c.h.ess of Somerset, who always hunted in a mask, and was invariably escorted by the charming Prince Labanoff. There were painters too amongst the most a.s.siduous 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. n.o.body 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. n.o.body was indifferent: everybody was either for or against; each man either attacked the artist or lauded him 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 pa.s.sion?

The theatres too, the Vaudeville, Varietes, Francais, the Opera, were delightful. At the Vaudeville, which had migrated after the fire in the Rue de Chartres to the Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle, Arnal, the inimitable, quaintest and cleverest of comic actors, was playing. At the Varietes they were acting the Saltimbanques, a play every line of which has pa.s.sed 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 Theatre Francais. 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 pa.s.sions 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 antique statue, and she knew how to endue herself with the most incomparable womanly charm in all her 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, Leva.s.seur, and Mdlle. Falcon, only one, Leva.s.seur, 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 enchanting than the Diable Boiteux with its many and various tableaux and its dresses, and f.a.n.n.y Elsler dancing the "cachucha," or the Sylphide or the Revolte du Serail 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 revoltees, 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 princ.i.p.al dancers, Mcllle. 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'Orleans) was to take over the command of a division in the column which, under the orders of Marshal Vallee, was to check the rising prestige of Abd el Kader for ever at the Mouzaia Pa.s.s. 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 fell ill of a violent attack of measles. One day, as I lay in high fever, I saw my father appear followed by M. de Remusat, 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 compared the warlike campaign my brothers were on with the undertaker'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 Duc 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 instructions, both royal and ministerial, and re-took command of the Belle-Poule, a command I was to hold in many 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 pa.s.sengers 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 were Generals Bertrand and Gourgaud, M. de las Cazes, &c., &c. During the long pa.s.sages of the voyage, the conversation of these gentlemen, who had been present at so many events and followed the Emperor through so many adventures, was most deeply interesting. Every day there was a running fire of anecdote and traits of character, much closer to the truth doubtless than many a leisurely prepared history. I have often regretted we had no shorthand writer with us.

During the first days of our voyage we touched at Cadiz to get our last despatches 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 Trocadero (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 1811, some of the actors in which I had known. Coming back from Chiclana after a somewhat 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,[Footnote: This gentleman died in London as French Amba.s.sador, under the t.i.tle of Comte de Jarna] had been a.s.sociated with me.

We had hardly got out of the port of Cadiz, and cut our last communications with France, when I saw him approach me, looking very much embarra.s.sed. 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 with superior authority to mine for as long as the mission should 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 I, 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 1837. The last cone, all of crumbly pumice stone, and at a very acute angle, is tolerably tiring.

On the summit is 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 lovely 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 perplexity 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 council of war, it was decided that we should draw lots for the names of three of our party, who were to wash themselves, 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 pa.s.sage 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 coincidence. 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 a wide glade 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 instruments 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 population 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, n.o.body 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 we 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 sh.o.r.e 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 the way we were crowded into the boat, prevented our making any resistance, otherwise we should certainly have been ma.s.sacred, 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 understand, in a few words, in bad Portuguese, that I commmanded the French warships anch.o.r.ed 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 preceding 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 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-Poule, 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 sh.o.r.e alone to take signal vengeance on "those d.a.m.ned n.i.g.g.e.rs."

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 sc.r.a.p 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 country around Plantation 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 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!

When all was ready the exhumation took place, and 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 accompaniment 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 Adeste Fideles. 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 Gazes. The pick of my topmen, all in white, with c.r.a.pe 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 pa.s.sage of forty-one days. During the pa.s.sage, 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, which gave us details of the coalition apparently directed against Mehemet Ali, the Egyptian Viceroy, but aimed, in reality, at France. 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 to another world. There was, in most cases, a great destroying of souvenirs, papers, and compromising correspondence.

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 pa.s.sed 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 sometimes 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 frightful-looking boat on which a sort of hideous dais had been built, with all the frippery and plumes of the Pompes Funebres, an official catafalque worthy of Carpentras or of Brives-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 transformation, when a gentleman in evening dress advanced, and 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 decoration 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 ash.o.r.e 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 insolent, so it is your own fault. Put this gentleman ash.o.r.e." Four sailors advanced, but he gave in, and n.o.body ever heard of him again. By the following morning the transformation was complete, and the coffin 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 imaginable. The whole voyage up to Courbevoie, the point of arrival, was a mere cla.s.sic reproduction of the usual official journey--flags, authorities girt with tricolour sashes, clergy p.r.o.nouncing blessings, shaking with terror all the time, horses, gendarmes, curious crowds of holiday makers, the only thing lacking being the speeches. From Courbevoie the body was taken in procession through the Champs Elysees to the Invalides, with the usual ceremonial, which I had already witnessed in the cases of Charles X. and the d.u.c.h.esse d'Orleans, 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 efforts 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 delivered 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 concerning it. 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 Salifou and the danse du ventre. What a fall here too, compared vith the past! During the triumphal pa.s.sage of the Emperor's ashes down the Champs Elysees between two ranks of soldiers and National Guards, who kept back an immense mult.i.tude, I had constantly amid the various shouts caught one of "Down with traitors," which, at first, I did not understand. 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 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 forerunners of the Boulevard braggarts who, at a later date, in 1870, so appositely shouted "a 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, anarchists and unquiet spirits of all kind 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, Revolutionary 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 necessary measures against the danger which was constantly threatening, although for the moment it was warded off.

Among these measures was one my father pa.s.sionately desired, and which he s.n.a.t.c.hed from the Chambers by sheer tenacity--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 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'Orleans--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 G.o.d 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 Cha.s.seurs-a-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 fite, to which he invited the officers 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 s.p.a.ce 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, Cha.s.seurs d'Orleans; but what matters the name when the service remains!

My memories of the winter of 1841 are full of recollections concerning our national defence. Mingled with them, however, are some others of a less austere nature Masked b.a.l.l.s were the rage that year. They were given in all directions. I was only three-and-twenty, and thought them all delightful Just at that moment Chicard--the famous Chicard--shared the sceptre of the opera-b.a.l.l.s 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 indescribable farandoles to the sound of broken chairs and pistol shots, accompanied by Musard's orchestra, at these entertainments. There were b.a.l.l.s in the Opera House, at the Renaissance, the Salle Ventadour, the Varietes--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' 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 bal.u.s.trades, faithfully pa.s.sed 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