The Memoirs of Victor Hugo Part 38

"'Impossible!'

"'Well,' exclaimed M. Odilon Barrot, 'it's funny that this door should be closed to the Emperor's nephew!'

"The porter started and threw his cap on the ground. He was an old soldier, to whom the post had been granted as a pension.

"'The Emperor's nephew!' he cried. 'Oh! Sire, enter!'

"He wanted to kiss my clothes.

"We visited the chateau. Everything is still about in its place. I recognised nearly everything, the First Consul's study, the chamber of his mother, my own. The furniture in several rooms has not been changed.

I found a little armchair I had when I was a child."

I said to the Prince: "You see, thrones disappear, arm-chairs remain."

While we were talking a few persons came, among others M. Duclerc, the ex-Minister of Finance of the Executive Committee, an old woman in black velvet whom I did not know, and Lord Normanby, the English Amba.s.sador, whom the President quickly took into an adjoining salon. I saw Lord Normanby taken aside in the same way by Louis Philippe.

The President in his salon had an air of timidity and did not appear at home. He came and went from group to group more like an embarra.s.sed stranger than the master of the house. However, his remarks are _a propos_ and sometimes witty.

He endeavoured to get my opinion anent his Ministry, but in vain. I would say nothing either good or bad about it.

Besides, the Ministry is only a mask, or, more properly speaking, a screen that hides a baboon. Thiers is behind it. This is beginning to bother Louis Bonaparte. He has to contend against eight Ministers, all of whom seek to belittle him. Each is pulling his own way. Among these Ministers some are his avowed enemies. Nominations, promotions, and lists arrive all made out from the Place Saint Georges. They have to be accepted, signed and endorsed.

Yesterday Louis Bonaparte complained about it to the Prince de la Moskowa, remarking wittily: "They want to make of me a Prince Albert of the Republic."

Odilon Barrot appeared mournful and discouraged. To-day he left the council with a crushed air. M. de la Moskowa encountered him.

"h.e.l.lo!" said he, "how goes it?"

"Pray for us!" replied Odilon Barrot.

"Whew!" said Moskowa, "this is tragical!"

"What are we to do?" went on Odilon Barrot. "How are we to rebuild this old society in which everything is collapsing? Efforts to prop it up only help to bring it down. If you touch it, it topples over. Ah! pray for us!"

And he raised his eyes skywards.

I quitted the Elysee about 10 o'clock. As I was going the President said to me: "Wait a minute." Then he went into an adjoining room and came out again a moment later with some papers which he placed in my hand, saying: "For Madame Victor Hugo."

They were tickets of admission to the gallery of the Garde-Meuble for the review that is to be held to-day.

And as I went home I thought a good deal. I thought about this abrupt moving in, this trial of etiquette, this bourgeois-republican-imperial mixture, this surface of a deep, unfathomed quant.i.ty that to-day is called the President of the Republic, his entourage, the whole circ.u.mstances of his position. This man who can be, and is, addressed at one and the same time and from all sides at once as: prince, highness, monsieur, monseigneur and citizen, is not one of the least curious and characteristic factors of the situation.

Everything that is happening at this moment stamps its mark upon this personage who sticks at nothing to attain his ends.

IV. THE FIRST MONTH. January. 1849.

The first month of Louis Bonaparte's presidency is drawing to a close.

This is how we stand at present:

Old-time Bonapartists are cropping up. MM. Jules Favre, Billault and Carteret are paying court--politically Speaking--to the Princess Mathilde Demidoff. The d.u.c.h.ess d'Orleans is residing with her two children in a little house at Ems, where she lives modestly yet royally.

All the ideas of February are brought up one after the other; 1849, disappointed, is turning its back on 1848. The generals want amnesty, the wise want disarmament. The Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly's term is expiring and the a.s.sembly is in savage mood in consequence. M. Guizot is publishing his book _On Democracy in France_. Louis Philippe is in London, Pius IX. is at Gaete, M. Barrot is in power; the bourgeoisie has lost Paris, Catholicism has lost Rome. The sky is rainy and gloomy, with a ray of sunshine now and then. Mlle. Ozy shows herself quite naked in the role of Eve at the Porte Saint Martin; Frederick Lemaitre is playing "L'Auberge des Adrets" there. Five per cents are at 74, potatoes cost 8 cents the bushel, at the market a pike can be bought for 20 sous.

M. Ledru-Rollin is trying to force the country into war, M. Prudhon is trying to force it into bankruptcy. General Cavaignac takes part in the sessions of the a.s.sembly in a grey waist-coat, and pa.s.ses his time gazing at the women in the galleries through big ivory opera-gla.s.ses. M.

de Lamartine gets 25,000 francs for his "Toussaint L'Ouverture." Louis Bonaparte gives grand dinners to M. Thiers, who had him captured, and to M. Mole, who had him condemned. Vienna, Milan, and Berlin are becoming calmer. Revolutionary fires are paling and seem to be dying out everywhere on the surface, but the peoples are still deeply stirred.

The King of Prussia is getting ready to seize his sceptre again and the Emperor of Russia to draw his sword. There has been an earthquake at Havre, the cholera is at Fecamp; Arnal is leaving the Gymnase, and the Academy is nominating the Duke de Noailles as Chateaubriand's successor.

V. FEELING HIS WAY. January, 1849.

At Odilon Barrot's ball on January 28 M. Thiers went up to M. Leon Faucher and said: "Make So-and-So a prefect." M. Leon Faucher made a grimace, which is an easy thing for him to do, and said: "Monsieur Thiers, there are objections." "That's funny!" retorted Thiers, "it is precisely the answer the President of the Republic gave to me the day I said: 'Make M. Faucher a Minister!'"

At this ball it was remarked that Louis Bonaparte sought Berryer's company, attached himself to him and led him into quiet corners. The Prince looked as though he were following Berryer, and Berryer as though he were trying to avoid the Prince.

At 11 o'clock the President said to Berryer: "Come with me to the Opera."

Berryer excused himself. "Prince," said he, "it would give rise to gossip. People would believe I am engaged in a love affair!"

"Pish!" replied Louis Bonaparte laughingly, "Representatives are inviolable!"

The Prince went away alone, and the following quatrain was circulated:

_En vain l'empire met du fard, On baisse ses yeux et sa robe.

Et Berryer-Joseph so derobe A Napoleon-Putiphar_.

February, 1849.

Although he is animated with the best intentions in the world and has a very visible quant.i.ty of intelligence and apt.i.tude, I fear that Louis Bonaparte will find his task too much for him. To him, France, the century, the new spirit, the instincts peculiar to the soil and the period are so many closed books. He looks without understanding them at minds that are working, Paris, events, men, things and ideas. He belongs to that cla.s.s of ignorant persons who are called princes and to that category of foreigners who are called _emigres_. To those who examine him closely he has the air of a patient rather than of a governing man.

There is nothing of the Bonapartes about him, either in his face or manner. He probably is not a Bonaparte. The free and easy ways of Queen Hortense are remembered. "He is a memento of Holland!" said Alexis de Saint Priest to me yesterday. Louis Bonaparte certainly possesses the cold manner of the Dutch.

Louis Bonaparte knows so little about Paris that the first time I saw him he said to me:

"I have been hunting for you. I went to your former residence. What is this Place des Vosges?"

"It is the Place Royale," I said.

"Ah!" he continued, "is it an old place?"