Memoirs (Vieux Souvenirs) of the Prince de Joinville Part 9

From Detroit we went up the St. Clair River to Lake Huron. The great river was a magnificent sight, with its banks covered with mighty forests in all the splendour of their autumnal colouring. Here and there, on the American side, stood some log cabin, an emigrant's first shelter. Then we would come on a sawmill, that first of all necessaries in such a country. On the British side now and again, we saw Indian wigwams, Huron or Chippewa. At the entrance of Lake Huron bad weather came on; it snowed, and we took shelter in a bay, where we moored the ship to the sh.o.r.e close to one of those American forts that fringe the Indian frontier. They are all alike, these forts; a battlemented wall of thick planks, with banquettes for riflemen, and loopholed for heavier guns. Within each are the barracks and the officers' quarters.

This particular fort was called Fort Gratiot. In 1688 its name was Fort St. Joseph, and it had a French garrison, commanded by Baron de Houtou.

During this stoppage we had an amusing adventure. Our only fellow pa.s.sengers on the Columbus, some five or six in number, were an American officer on his way to take command at Fort Winnepeg; a Methodist missionary and his wife, who spent the day singing hymns together, and retired to their cabin at night with all the eagerness of the most enthusiastic fondness; a young dressmaker going to join her family at Green Bay; and finally, Miss Mary, the chambermaid, a handsome, fair, freckled girl, liked by everybody on board. Tired of being on shipboard, the whole band of pa.s.sengers, male and female, and Miss Mary into the bargain, went off to walk and amuse themselves on sh.o.r.e. Suddenly the people in the fort got wind of our presence. The major commanding and his officers hastened up, asking where the prince was, and invited us all into the fort, to rest and refresh ourselves with them. It was impossible to refuse such a kind and cordial invitation. It was equally impossible to break up our party--that would have been unmannerly, and contrary to American ideas of propriety and equality alike. So we entered a drawing-room, in which the wives and daughters of the officers quartered in the fort were a.s.sembled. They seemed to falter for a moment, when they beheld our lady companions.

They scanned the Methodist and his wife, and took their measure at once But the dressmaker and Miss Mary, hanging on the arms of two of my companions, seemed to puzzle them. Anyhow they hastened towards them, took them by the hand, led them to the place of honour on the sofa, and began the conversation with "Do you speak English?" I don't recollect now how it all went off, but I know we were soon back on board, Miss Mary and all, under a salute of twenty-one guns.

Mackinaw, a small wooded island, with high sh.o.r.es, and a fort over which the stars and stripes of the Union floated, looked very picturesque as we approached it. There was a ruin on one side of the American guard-house, to which we lost no time in climbing through the woods. It was the old French fort, and our hearts swelled at the thought that the French flag was the first to float over this little Gibraltar, when, some hundred and sixty years previously, our officers took possession of this magnificent country in the name of their king.

Once more, with the eye of fancy, we saw our white-coated soldiers mounting guard on those ramparts, whence their gaze must have wandered over the confluence of the three great lakes and the immense empire they had won for France, while the Indian tribes hurried from all quarters to bend the knee to the Great Chief of the Pale Faces. It was a great and glorious epoch; and what traveller would not feel deeply stirred when he comes upon such bitter memories of the vanished grandeur of his country?

Our good ship Columbus got to Green Bay at last, and, stirring up the mud which obstructs the entrance to Fox River, bore us up that fine stream and deposited us in front of a large store, surrounded by fifty houses, there or thereabouts. This settlement was not in the United States, but on Wisconsin Territory, an embryo State, not populous enough as yet, nor sufficiently organised, to be called a State, nor have a voice in the deliberations of the American Union. The country on the left bank of the Fox River was not even a Territory; it was a No-Man's Land, where any man might settle where and how he pleased.

Like all the places I had pa.s.sed through, Green Bay, the "Baie Verte"

of our forefathers (and it still deserves its t.i.tle) was occupied in the first instance by the French. After Father Marquette's exploring journey, twenty soldiers, two sergeants, and four bandsmen, under the command of Lieutenant du Roussel, were sent thither in 1684 by M. de Beauchamptrelle, commanding the king's troops at Mackinaw. Now, as I have said, it possessed a hotel and about fifty houses, inhabited for the most part by merchants trading with the Redskins. Everybody talked French, and everybody hastened forward when the boat arrived to ask for news from the civilised world.

A few Indians, silent and motionless, wrapped in their blankets, looked on indifferently at the bustle. Squaws shod with moccasins, and the toes of their little feet turned in, pa.s.sed by without raising their heads, their papooses sitting astride on their backs. The somewhat numerous Indian tribes inhabiting the country were the Menomenis, the Winnepeg Indians, and the Iroquois, which last had emigrated from Canada to escape the English yoke. I much regretted not having time to pay a visit to their wigwams. To the very last they were our most devoted allies in our wars with the English. I had a talk with one of the chiefs sons, who told me he still had Montcalm's sword in his possession, and preserved it as a sacred relic. According to his story, during the battle of Quebec, probably just at the moment when Montcalm was mortally wounded, his sword was hung up in a tree, whence it was taken by one of his faithful Indian followers, and it has always remained with his tribe. After a great deal of difficulty we succeeded in procuring saddle horses for ourselves, and a farmer's waggon for our baggage, and we set forth for the Mississippi. The whole journey was most interesting. There were no roads--the merest track through woods interspersed with prairies--along which we went to the lake and fort of Winnepeg. Beyond that lake we knew there would be nothing but prairie, stretching far and wide, over which we must steer as though we were at sea, or else be guided by the mysterious instinct of some trapper. We met many Redskins in the woods, all busy hunting. Game was very abundant--waterfowl on the streams, flights of prairie hens (a sort of grouse), and herds of buck, which constantly crossed our line of march Here and there was a clearing or first attempt at cultivation, round a squatter's log cabin.

We were following the first skirmishing line of that army of civilisation which is overrunning in its steady advance all that wild country which was once the Indian's sole domain. When this advance guard collects at any given point, a hotel rises, and beside it the store where a trader will deal in every kind of merchandise, and especially in brandy, that most destructive of poisons to all indigenous races. After the hotel will come the bank, and then the church and school, and before long the whole will grow into a village or town, of which the United States will take possession by law. As for the original squatters, they will make over their log cabins and their bits of cultivation to new arrivals, of more sedentary tastes than their own, and will move on further, with their wives and children, to make a fresh settlement, often exchanging rifle shots with the Redskins the while, in some spot where they can find that absolute independence which they prize above all other goods. Thus does the tide of civilisation, which shall soon cover the whole American continent, move ceaselessly onward.

But on our own particular road we had got no further than the squatters, and of them, after the day's march was over, we asked a hospitality which was always cordially granted.

They were an energetic and a singular race. Here you might come on a pupil from West Point (the military and polytechnic school of the United States), a former captain in the army, who had married an Indian wife, and had to learn French to make himself understood by her and the other Indians in the neighbourhood, who could speak no other language.

A whole family of little half-breeds, more red than white, swarmed about him. There again, both father and mother would be white-skinned, witn splendid children, whom the mother rocked to sleep in the intervals of preparing an excellent dinner for us with a haunch of venison we had bought from an Indian who had just killed a buck. Their log cabin, like all the others, indeed, consisted of one large room below, with a big fireplace on which perfect tree trunks were burning, and a loft above it. In these lofts pa.s.sing travellers like ourselves slept. And they were not over warm, for the doors and windows only fitted tolerably, and the weather was frosty. In the evening the sons of the house--huge fellows who crushed your hand when they shook it, and who used their axes as well as they used their guns--would come in from work, and the evenings would be spent sitting smoking and talking round the fire.

"There are a great many Indians still," I was told, "and they are rather turbulent; they killed a white man quite lately. The squatters are very far apart too. But then we haven't to bother our heads or put ourselves out because of anybody."

At one place, called Fond du Lac, the house was somewhat less primitive than at our previous halting-places. Our host was a doctor of cultivated mind, living alone with his family, of whom two, girls, were very pretty. They made us a cranberry tart, on the memory of which my grateful palate lingers yet. The worthy doctor was armed to the teeth, for he had no white neighbours, and over two hundred Indians, so he told me, prowling around him. He lent me a gun, with which I went out shooting, and as a matter of fact I did meet a considerable number of Redskins. As long as they can find game, and here it was plentiful, they are, as a rule, tolerably inoffensive. Yet these were the remnant of warlike tribes which had never been thoroughly subjugated, and there was a hill, not very far off, called "Deadman's b.u.t.ts," in memory of a fight waged between them and the French army, backed by three thousand Chippewa Indians, which ended in a terrible ma.s.sacre. Notwithstanding the presence of such neighbours, my host had chosen the spot where he had pitched his tent right well, for I saw on a map of Wisconsin, which I chanced to look at many years later, that Fond du Lac had become a town, with railways running to and from it.

Leaving Fond du Lac, we found ourselves on the prairie, stretching wide as far as the eye could see; dry yellowish gra.s.s (it was the end of October) covered the slightly undulating plain, with here and there a scanty clump of trees. It const.i.tutes the plateau (not a very high one) which separates the Mississippi river system from that of the St.

Lawrence. Our horses cantered gaily over the frozen ground. All at once we saw a big animal running away from us at a kind of amble. We urged forward our mounts in pursuit, and got up just in time to see it enter a clump of brushwood, not fifty paces across. An Indian, who acted as our guide, went into the thicket after it, gun in hand. A dreadful roar, which terrified our horses, was followed by the appearance of the infuriated animal. It was a puma, or panther without spots, which galloped in a circle round M. de Montholon's horse, and then retreated into a larger clump of trees, where we thought it prudent to leave it, as our only arm was a single-barrelled small-bore rifle. Somewhat further on we saw a big cloud gather on the horizon and rapidly approach us. The prairie was on fire. We then took the well-known plan of setting it on fire ourselves just where we were. Within less than five minutes our fire had run a mile before the wind, going as fast as a horse can gallop, with a noise like a distant rattle of musketry. We and our horses entered the s.p.a.ce we had set on fire ourselves, while the big conflagration in the distance, finding no food in front, fled away to our right and left. I afterwards saw the same sight at night.

It was most beautiful.

As we neared the Mississippi we got into less wild country. I remember the first hotel where the host said to me, "You have come just in good time. You'll have something out of the common for dinner. We have been killing a sheep." Since leaving Green Bay we had been living exclusively on venison and prairie hens and wild duck. A sheep was a great rarity. We came upon the Mississippi at Galena in Illinois, so called on account of its lead mines. When I say mines, I use an expression which was quite inappropriate at the time of my visit, for the galena, or lead-ore, lay on the surface of the soil. You saw its metallic brightness shining out everywhere, and so rich was the ore, that it yielded seventy-five per cent. of lead, even under the most summary of processes. Added to this fact, the expense of transport being infinitesimal, as the huge artery of the Mississippi River ran a few paces from the beds, the working of them was so profitable that n.o.body took the trouble to extract the silver from it. But the result of this mineral wealth was that everything one eat and drank at Galena was impregnated with lead, so much so, indeed, that one of my companions had a fainting fit, caused by the sediment which the eau de Botot he used for his toilet deposited in his gla.s.s. He thought he had been poisoned. I had not time, when I got to the Mississippi, to go down it to New Orleans, like our soldiers and explorers, when they made their first journey across this splendid country, and by it united a French Canada with a French Louisiana. The journey I had just taken had lasted longer than I had thought for, and as my duty as a sailor recalled me imperiously to my ship, my only thought was to rejoin her as soon as possible. But means of communication in the West were few and far between--railroads were unknown, roads hardly laid out. We were fain to go down the Mississippi to where the Ohio falls into it, go up that river to Cincinnati, and thence get by mail-coach to the railroads in the older Atlantic States. This return journey was not altogether uneventful. Our boat, ran aground several times during the descent of the Upper Mississippi. On one of these occasions we were delayed for some time near the confluence of that stream with the DesMoines River, flowing through an exquisite country called Iowa, which in those days had not yet been annexed by the Union. It swarmed with game. I remember one shooting expedition I made with the ship's engineer, a young Kentuckian of colossal stature. We flushed thousands of prairie hens and other creatures, on whom we poured a hot but harmless fire. In our own justification I must add that the Kentuckian was shooting with a bullet, using a huge carbine, so heavy that it took him half a minute to aim with it, and I with a single-barrelled gun, lent me by a bar-keeper, with this information, "The barrel is all twisted. You must aim three or four yards to the right, if you want to hit anything!"

The territory of Iowa was still disputed for by squatters and Indians.

These latter, who exceeded the whites in number, belonged to a great tribe, both turbulent and warlike, the Saxes and the Foxes. They were at peace with the Government at the time I speak of, but a deputation of their chiefs, numbering thirty or forty, came on board our boat, on their way to Washington, where they desired to lay their grievances before the President. They arrived on board in full war paint, their faces painted half red and half yellow, and their heads dressed, like a cuira.s.sier's helmet, with horsehair and big feathers, their bodies naked, but hung about with baubles, their legs thrust into leather breeches, and big blankets over all. Their squaws were with them. They were ugly, but the men were splendid, with the most resolute and impa.s.sive countenances. They behaved with the greatest dignity while on board, and never showed any excitement except just as we were pa.s.sing by the confluence of the Missouri with the Mississippi. Whether it was some superst.i.tious feeling that attached itself to that spot, or the impression made on them by the grandeur of the scene, the meeting of the two great rivers forming a sort of lake, lighted up by a splendid sunset, I know not, but they all a.s.sembled in the stern of the boat, and repeated a sort of invocatory prayer. It was a perfect picture.

I did no more than pa.s.s through St. Louis, already a large town and the capital of Ohio. An accident happened to us as we were going up the Ohio ("La Belle Riviere" of our forefathers), such as does not occur nowadays, when the Federal Government has caused the engineer regiments, which add to their other functions those of our "ponts et chaussees," a simple and economical plan, worthy of general imitation, to clear the rivers of their different obstructions. We were snagged.

Herewith I explain the expression and the fact. As a consequence of inundations and falling in of banks and such like, many big trees had, from time immemorial, been carried down the American rivers. Many of these trees had ended by catching in the river beds by their roots.

Stripped of their branches, and sharpened to a point by the action of the water, and bent sloping by the current, they formed, as it were, huge invisible subaqueous chevaux de frise, on which steamers going up stream frequently impaled themselves, and this often to the destruction of the ship and great loss of life. We ran against one of these trees, somewhat sideways luckily for us, but it stood up on end, and amid a frightful noise, and a little momentary consternation, carried away one paddle box and wheel. A snag is only one of the numerous sources of accident in American river navigation. But one soon gets accustomed to the carelessness of danger which characterises the Americans, and on the whole travelling on their river steamers is very pleasant. The sleeping cabins are invariably clean and comfortable. On certain boats some are very elegant. I have seen wedding cabins, that is to say cabins decorated all over with mirrors and brilliantly lighted up, intended for couples on their wedding journey. And truth compels me to state that the strict regularity of these honeymoon couples is not too severely inquired into.

At Cincinnati, the city of porkers, I took to the stage, at Pittsburg to the ca.n.a.l. Across the Alleghanies I travelled in a coach crammed with pa.s.sengers of both s.e.xes. It was a merry journey, during which I was ceaselessly haunted by memories of the little Danaids, and Pere Lournois and his forty sons-in-law, getting out of the Auxerre coach to the sound of the chimes of Dunkirk. "Tutu ... tutu ... mon pere." At New York I found the Belle-Poule done up as good as new, thanks to the excellent care of my second in command, M. Charner. But before setting sail I had to get through a certain number of banquets, followed by toasts, and even to go to Boston for a great ball in the old town hall, called the Faneuil Hall, the cradle of American Independence. I made my entry at that ball preceded and surrounded by an army of solemn stewards, wearing huge wigs, and with rather a good-looking woman, whom n.o.body knew, on my arm. She called herself America Vespuccia, and she began to swear like any heathen when somebody spilt a gla.s.s of lemonade over her fine velvet gown.

The Belle-Poule weighed anchor at last, but before we got past Sandy Hook a snowstorm came on. We could not see a yard ahead, and in a few minutes we had a foot of snow on deck. The rest of our return voyage was to match, in other words, it was awful. We ran, during its course, one of those totally unforeseen risks of which a sailor's life is full, and which, once past, const.i.tutes one of its chief charms. Let my readers try the following experiment:--Put two small bits of paper in a basin of water, and disturb the liquid. By what learned men call capillary attraction the two sc.r.a.ps of paper draw nearer to each other and finally join together. It was this same capillary attraction which nearly lost me my frigate and another battleship, the Ca.s.sard, which was our consort. A violent south-easterly squall had come down on us, and the sea was very heavy. All at once, just as night fell, over a sky as black as ink and an angry-looking sea, the wind suddenly dropped.

The Ca.s.sard, driven by the last puff of wind, and drawn too by capillary attraction, had got very near us, and soon this nearness became alarming. We could not get about, for there was not a breath stirring. We could not launch boats in such a sea to try and tow the ships apart. Soon the frigate and her consort were tossing convulsively in the heavy sea, with only the breadth of one wave between them. In another moment they must crash into each other, and that at night, in mid-ocean, far from any succour. It was a solemn moment. Although one watch had been sent to turn in, n.o.body had cared to stay below. All were on deck, men and officers alike, with serious faces. The only sound to be heard was the noise of the sails flapping wildly against the masts and my voice as I gave the other ship's captain his orders in case a puff of wind should come from this quarter or that. Night had come on, and in our heart of hearts we were both of us beginning to despair, when the longed-for breath of wind came, and the ships drew apart. Two hours later we were at the mercy of another gale, a north-westerly one this time, with a bitter frost, which would not have left a timber of the Belle-Poule and the Ca.s.sard if they had been in collision, but which gave me occasion once more to admire our brave sailors' courage and devotion. We had to set all sail so as to catch the first puffs of wind. When the gale came on it became necessary to furl them again. But having been soaked by the rain of the south-easterly storm, they had turned under the action of the frost into perfect icicles. They cracked like gla.s.s, cutting the men's fingers and tearing out their nails. It was a frightfully difficult job to take in the maintop sail--a very heavy hempen one--which I had kept out as long as possible, and which had to be furled just when the storm was at its worst. I watched my poor fellows clinging to the yard for over half an hour, shaken by the terrible gusts, and still not able to manage it.

At midnight, when the watch changed, fearing that with limbs benumbed by the cold as theirs were, they would not be able even to continue holding on, I sent them orders to come on deck and let fresh men take their places. But no! they would not! and slowly, surely, they finished their work. Only when they got down from aloft they came on to the quarterdeck cap in hand, with bleeding, swollen hands and faces, saying, "Captain, we have taken the maintop sail in," with that indefinable but touching look that a man has who has done his duty to the very end in spite of danger.

My brave sailors, I could have kissed them! But I did what they appreciated more than that! I had good hot mulled wine ready for them, and sent them to bed on it! Some days afterwards, in another gale, between two snow-showers, I saw that rare electric phenomenon called St. Elmo's fire--jets of electric fire appearing at the points of all the ship's masts and yards. A spontaneous, unexpected, and most effective illumination.

And then we entered Toulon harbour, where we saluted the flag of Admiral Hugon, commanding the squadron to which the Belle-Poule was about to be attached.

CHAPTER IX

1842

As the squadron was to go into winter quarters at Toulon, and as the BELLE-POULE had to repair a great many damages, I went back to Paris towards the end of January, 1842, and plunged joyfully into that most precious of all possessions amidst the storms and vicissitudes of politics, my home life. This notwithstanding, the pleasures of the gay world, then a fairly brilliant one were by no means indifferent to me.

There was a numerous succession of festivities. My brother, the Duc d'Orleans, gave a magnificent fancy ball in the Pavillon Marsan. All the elegant and artistic world of Paris was there, dressed either in historical costumes, faithfully copied from pictures in the museums, or else in fantastic garments which especially set off the beauty of their feminine wearers. Mesdames de Contades, de Murat, and Place had adopted Eastern dress. Madame Thiers wore a rich moyen age costume; Madame de Plaisance headed a whole quadrille of hunters and huntresses. The Comtesse Duhesme another, in which both gentlemen and ladies wore the charming costumes brought into fashion by Giraud's picture, La Permission de Dix Heures. The beautiful Madame Liadieres shone in a quadrille of light cavalry men of the time of Louis XV, and shepherdesses dressed a la Pompadour. The foreigners and members of the diplomatic body of both s.e.xes were for the most part in dresses taken from their own national history. Among the artists, Eugene Sue, Henriquel-Dupont, Tony Johannot, and Louis Boulanger had chosen the style of Louis XIII. Eugene Delacroix wore a Moorish dress, Horace Vernet an Arab costume. Winterhalter represented a Florentine of the fourteenth century, while Amaury Duval, Jadin, Eugene Lamy, Gudin, Raffet, &c., &c., were all got up with the most studied correctness.

When we went into supper the band of my brother Aumale's regiment, the 17th Light Infantry, transformed into a posse of Arab musicians, stationed on the staircase, played a whole series of Algerian airs, which the good fellows had learnt at Mouzala and Medeah, in the olive woods, or under the blaze of the sun and the heat of the Arab fire. The guests took their seats round a table on which was the famous centrepiece, executed after Chenavard's design, by Barye, Pradier, Klagman, Moine, my sister Marie, and by Ary Scheffer and Paul Delaroche as well, who laid aside their painters' brushes for the nonce, and wielded the sculptor's point. It was an admirable piece of work, worthy of Benvenuto Cellini, broken up, alas! cast to the four winds of heaven, and lost to France, after the revolution of February.

This fete was THE FETE of that winter. One of those unique and original entertainments the memory of which lingers with one for long. But there were others besides.

The King gave a series of concerts and large and small dances every winter. At these last only a very restricted number of guests a.s.sembled, chosen exclusively among the diplomatic body, the foreigners chancing to pa.s.s through Paris, and young dancing people, especially those young ladies who ranked high for elegance and beauty. People used to crowd, at these small dances, to watch the Princess de Ligne dancing the mazurka with her incomparable Polish grace; just as at the big b.a.l.l.s, which were rather crushes, there would be a crowd, more curious than admiring, to watch the steps and capers of the Prince de Craon, the last remaining exponent of that pretentious school of dancing of which Trenis had been the leader, under the Directoire. These large crowded b.a.l.l.s used to be a great bore, especially to us, who had to take it in turn to do the honours to the very end of the evening. Yet I recollect laughing heartily one evening, when this duty had fallen to me, at seeing an officer of the National Guard, in his c.o.c.ked hat and big feather, whose vision had somewhat suffered from the supper he had just consumed, trying to insist on persuading the Suisse standing at the door of the ball-room with his cross belts and halbert, to be his partner in the dance. He made frenzied attempts to drag him away, and only interrupted them to try the seductive power of the most eccentric of dancing steps which he performed before him.

Nowadays the race known as the Grand Prix de Paris marks the close of what people are pleased to call the season. Under the July Monarchy it was the "Fete du Roi" with its firework display, and its official receptions, which were tiresome to the last degree. Revolutions may succeed each other, governments may change, but all the tiresome things go on for ever. Under the monarchy, the empire, or the republic alike, it is indispensable, so it would appear, that once in the year at least, the diplomatic body, clergy, Chambers, officers of the land and sea forces, and companies and corporations of every kind, should pa.s.s before the chief ruler, whoever he may be, and make a series of official speeches to him, expressing good wishes which are for the most part utterly lacking in sincerity, and which the unlucky recipient is obliged to acknowledge in every sort of commonplace formula. My father had quite a special talent for varying these answers of his, which he always extemporised. They were taken down in shorthand, and made over to Vatout to have a final polish put on them before being sent to the Moniteur. The witty academician abhorred this duty, which he irreverently styled "dressing the royal macaroni." For lay figures like myself, the only interest about these receptions, which were practically got up for effect, lay in watching the personages we saw pa.s.s. Two long-haired peers of France, who always were among the last of their Chamber to pa.s.s by, used to attract our attention particularly. They were Victor Hugo and Montalembert; then among the members of the Paris Munic.i.p.al Council, Victor Considerant, too, used to be pointed out to us. Then there was a member of the Inst.i.tute in a green coat and black breeches, whose advent we looked forward to with delight. This worthy gentleman used to come up with three or four deputations in succession. He would arrive with the first, bow, applaud enthusiastically after the address, and then, while his deputation was leaving by the door of exit, he was stepping backwards to the entrance door to reappear with a second and third party, coming forward each time with the same low bows and the same demonstrations of enthusiasm.

Among the general officers and diplomats out of active service who took part in these ceremonies, I used to remark two British admirals, Sir Sydney Smith and Lord Cochrane, who never failed to attend. They had each had a brilliant career. The first, with Djezzar Pasha, had defended St. Jean d'Acre against General Bonaparte's forces. The second, a tall, fine, bold-looking man, had covered himself with glory by the most gallant behaviour, both in Europe and Chili, where the tradition of his valour still survives. Both had done great service to their country, yet neither, it was said, could return to it. Wherefore?

The reception of the clergy had a quaintness all its own. The archbishop's discourse was invariably and utterly inaudible. Whether by accident, or by an unlucky coincidence, it was always drowned by the noise of the tremendous morning serenade given in the courtyard by the twelve or fifteen hundred drums of the National Guard and the Paris garrison, all beating in unison under the guidance of a single drum-major.

Finally, in the evening, we had the clou of the performance, the reception of the diplomatic body. There was a certain amount of pomp about it. The members of the corps a.s.sembled in a drawing-room near the Pavillon Marsan, where a collation was prepared. Thence the King's aides-de-camp went and fetched them, conducting them through all the galleries of the Tuileries to the Throne-room, near the Pavilion de Flore. When all these amba.s.sadors and ministers, with their suites, appeared at the door of the Throne-room, in their varied uniforms, all glistening in the candle-light, and slowly moved towards the King, with three successive bows, the scenic effect was really superb. The only shadow on the picture was the Introducer of Amba.s.sadors, who filled the part of master of the ceremonies. I never could make out why, for that very theatrical part, we had chosen a hideously ugly man with no nose!

We ought to have had some fine handsome fellow to face those representatives of all the nations in the world. When once the speeches had been made, and the King and Queen had gone round the circle, the diplomatic body retired backwards with the same three bows as on entering, and pa.s.sed out very slowly, for at the time of which I speak it was exceedingly numerous. Besides the amba.s.sadors of the Great Powers there were family amba.s.sadors. And then there were ministers from every country in the world, including those of the small German and Italian States, which have now been swallowed up in German and Italian unity. All these emba.s.sies and legations had innumerable attaches, generally young men of great families attracted by the gaieties of Paris, and glad to have a uniform and the right of admittance to all the entertainments at court, at the emba.s.sies, and in society in general. For in those days society did still exist, our divisions and revolutionary laws having not yet succeeded in destroying it.

Of all these diplomats, the most liked and the most likeable, beyond all contradiction, was the Austrian Amba.s.sador, Count Apponyi, a magnificent Hungarian magnate. The long duration of his mission, his truly high-bred kindliness, and the salon which his wife, his winning daughter, his sons, and nephews had been clever enough to make the first in Paris, had combined to render Count Apponyi most congenial to us. His English, Russian, and Prussian colleagues confined themselves exclusively to their official {{Ill.u.s.tration to the right of the text above with no caption}} duties and to the coolest politeness. It would have been hard for Lord Cowley (a Wellesley), even had he desired it, to wipe out the memory of his predecessors, Lords Granville and Stuart de Rothesay, and above all of the charming daughters of the last-named peer--beautiful, lovable, and artistic--who became Lady Waterford and Lady Canning respectively. Among the ministers I still seem to see the form of Coletti, resplendent in his Greek costume--a true patriot and a devoted friend to France--and then there was the Swedish Minister, Comte de Loevenhielm, a charming old gentleman, who had been page-in-waiting on Gustavus III. the night he was murdered. The Spanish Amba.s.sador changed with every p.r.o.nunciamiento. I do not remember the name of any one of them.

As a novelty, we had a Turkish Amba.s.sador. For centuries there had been none but temporary Ottoman missions. The first permanently appointed amba.s.sador we had, before Namick and Reschid Pashas, who both spoke French very well, was Ahmed Fethi Pasha. He did not know a single word of our language. I was present at a great dinner in his honour at the Tuileries, and this is what took place. Of course he had been placed on my mother's right hand at table, with a Foreign Office interpreter, all gold lace and decorations, on his other side. As soon as dinner began, the pasha conceived it inc.u.mbent on him to address my mother with a fine Turkish compliment, which, judging by the way he turned up his eyes, and laid his hands on his heart, and the bows he made her, must have been adorned with every flower of Oriental poetry. When his speech was finished, the pasha turned to the interpreter for him to translate it to my mother, and this he proceeded to do, the pasha accompanying and accentuating his remarks with more bows and grimacing and pressure of his hands to his heart.

Now, behold the translation, which the dragoman, who no doubt had perused the Bourgeois Gentilhomme, delivered to the Queen. "Madam, I have a daughter whom I am very anxious to get into the Maison de St.

Denis. To do that I need your Majesty's powerful support. Your Majesty will understand my seizing this unequalled chance of making my request."

And all the time the good pasha kept on making agitated bows, and my mother had to keep on smiling at him and returning them!

As regards the condition of things in general, it appeared pacific enough in that year of grace 1842. The tempest in the East was almost forgotten, a breath of peace seemed to be pa.s.sing over Europe, under the influence of which calm and prosperity reigned in France. We had a magnificent army, in which my brothers took as much interest as I did in the navy. And the head of the army was an eminent Minister of War, Marshal Soult, who, although he looked on M. Thiers as a tiresome little fidget, employed the fruits of his great experience and long service in the Ministry in bringing every branch of our land forces to perfection gradually, and in the most admirably consistent spirit. This army was waging an incessant war in Africa under a commander no less eminent than the Marshal himself, General Bugeaud, thus carrying on the conquest of our splendid Algerian colony, which would have been peerless indeed if we could have filled it with that excess of population which other nations still possess, but which has been dried up, in our case, by our revolutionary laws. Our naval forces were in good condition too, so far as they could be, on the eve of that great duel between sails and steam which was to end by revolutionising everything, in spite of all the delays of the red tape faction.

Of politics, my pet aversion, I will not speak. I had sufficient curiosity, before writing these lines, to look through the back numbers of the Moniteur for that period, and started in horror at the terrible acc.u.mulation of useless chatter I came upon. In contrast to these torrents of fairly inoffensive eloquence, the unofficial press indulged in a large amount of intemperate writing, far more dangerous, seeing that it flattered more pa.s.sions, and that the calumnies thus spread were much farther reaching. The Government, honest, useful, and enlightened as it was, consistently patriotic and far-seeing, was able as yet to thread its way amongst the obstacles cast in its path. Six more years were to elapse before it was to be completely hemmed in, and the deluded mob to dance wildly round the throne it had overturned singing the democratic creed, the chorus of every revolution we have had the last hundred years.

Demolissons Tant que nous pourrons!

Apres, nous verrons Ce que nous ferons.

But my winter in Paris slipped swiftly by, and towards the end of May Admiral Hugon's squadron prepared to go to sea, the repairs to the Belle-Poule were finished, and I started to join my ship.

At Lyons I embarked on a steamer to go to Toulon, and this vessel brought me to Arles under a lovely sunset. Nothing could be prettier than the scene on arriving at this picture of an old town, with its tall towers and the great walls of its amphitheatre, its stone houses set in the Rhone, and its port full of boats with long graceful lateen yards. It was Sunday, besides, and the promenade was crowded with pretty women. I am very fond of the little town, and am always glad to get back to it. So I lost no time about jumping on sh.o.r.e, and making over my baggage to the porter from the Hotel du Forum, I took advantage of the long twilight to see what changes three years had wrought in my old acquaintance. The women of Arles, a Greek colony, still preserve the type of countenance so much admired by the ancients, undeteriorated by their slight admixture of Catalonian blood. The magnificent monuments of the Roman city, the theatre and the arena, show the rank it held in ancient Gaul. In the present day it is a well-to-do, gay, careless town, with a lively and frivolous population, fond of pleasure, and indulging freely in it. Night overtook me during my walk, and under the splendid moonlight I could have fancied myself in some Arab town; I was in a labyrinth of lanes, where the heat of day still hung. The women sat before the doors in their pretty Sunday dresses, chattering with the young men, and no carriage nor any sound disturbed their low talk in that harmonious tongue on which the poems of the trouveres have shed such glory. It was exquisite. What a beautiful, nay, what an adorable country is France in all her varied aspects, east and west, north and south! What endless enchantments they afford, if only one can get rid of the sickening politics that break up and destroy everything they touch!

On the morrow I travelled down the Rhone, through the Camargue, with its droves of oxen and its flights of flamingos, lost in dreamy reverie as though foreseeing even then that beautiful poem of "Mireille," which Mistral and Gounod have since rendered immortal.

We sailed from Toulon, a splendid squadron, twenty strong, to manoeuvre at sea. We were under the orders of Admiral Hugon, "Le Pere la Chique,"