1830-1833

[Illustration: Boy waving flag and shooting a gun.]

The Revolution of 1830 broke out during my schooldays. I was twelve years old—too young therefore, by far, to estimate its character, political or social, correctly. I only remember that it filled me with the deepest astonishment. Never having witnessed any kind of disturbance, I had not the faintest notion what a revolution might be like. I had always seen the King and the Royal Family treated with a respect which, indeed, they have never forfeited, and I was a hundred miles from the thought that they could possibly be banished. It is a fact, nevertheless, that the beginning of 1830 differed from other years, and that something seemed to be brewing. Strange remarks were made at school, over and over again, even among us little ones; our tutors, all of them connected with the press, were what was called in those days "dans le mouvement"—abreast of the times, and they never stopped talking politics. Where were they not talked, indeed? It was a downright disease. The speech of M. de Salvandy, on the occasion of the fete given by my father at the Palais-Royal in May, that year, in honour of the King of Naples, my uncle and godfather, may be called to mind. "A real Neapolitan fete indeed, Sire!—for we are dancing on a volcano."

And a truly Neapolitan fete it was, not only on account of the presence of the sovereigns of the two Sicilies, and of the ideal beauty of the night, but also by reason of the tarantella, a sort of ballet, which was danced in the middle of the evening, by Madame la Duchesse de Berri and thirty of the most beautiful young ladies of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, in Neapolitan costume, among whom I think I still see, compact of grace and elegance, the lovely Denise du Roure, soon to become Comtesse d'Hulst. The tarantella was followed by a polonaise, led by Comte Rodolphe Appony and the Duchesse de Rauzan, resplendent in blue and gold. A more sedate dance, this, performed by noble lords and ladies, all in Hungarian costume, and escorted by pages, bearing their respective banners. It would have been hard to say which of the ladies taking part in these two dances bore off the palm for aristocratic beauty. They were worthy representatives of their race.

The Royal Family, headed by Charles X., was present at this fete, whereat pre-eminence of every kind was gathered together and every class represented, and where cordiality seemed universal. After the entrance of the two sets of dancers in costume, the King went out to walk on the terrace which runs along the top of the Galerie d'Orleans. The night was so warm and lovely that the ladies were walking about in their low gowns, and the dazzling illuminations made it as bright as day. The courtyard of the Palais-Royal was closed, but an immense crowd filled the gardens, trying to see as much as possible of the gay doings. I was running in front of Charles X. as he walked along, and I saw his tall form advance to the parapet of the terrace on the garden side, with that truly royal air he had about him. He waved his hand several times in greeting to the crowd, which at that short distance, and under that brilliant light, must have recognized him perfectly, not by his features only, but by his full uniform of Colonel-General of the Guard, and also by the retinue that followed him. But there was no shout of "Vive le Roi!" nor any hostile one either. The surging crowd only seemed to be rather more stirred, and the same uproar rose from it as one may hear on a firework night, when some fine set-piece is set alight. One last wave of the hand, with a "Bonjour, mon peuple!" which the King spoke half in jest and half in earnest, and Charles X. departed. I was never to see him again. Immediately afterwards, or nearly so, the crowd laid hands on the chairs in the garden, piled them up on the grass plots where the midday gun stood, and set them on fire. The troops had to be called out to clear the garden, and that first scene of public not, so new to me, filled me with astonishment and rage as well.

Shortly after this fete came the taking of Algiers—a Proof of the national strength, of political courage and foresight—a brilliant military exploit, performed under the "drapeau blanc," which might well have roused the enthusiasm of the nation, tightened the bond between France and her king, and reconciled the people to their ancient flag. It did nothing of the kind. The taking of Algiers was received like an ordinary piece of news, and the tricolour flag was regretted as deeply as ever. For the platform and the press—but especially the press, the mightiest instrument of destruction of modern times—had done their work. The days of the Government of the Restoration were numbered. Not that it had been blameworthy. Both at home and abroad it had certainly been the best of all the administrations that had succeeded each other since 1789. But it had endeavoured to govern like a patriarch, for the present good and the future greatness of France, and to withstand the assaults of those unprincipled individuals who looked on their country simply as a farm to make money out of. So bit by bit it had been demolished, just as everything has been demolished these past hundred years, in the name of laws and principles which dissolve every kind of government, and which will soon make it absolutely impossible for society to exist. The hour when the words, "Get out of that, and let me take your place," the real and only object of our successive revolutions, should resound, was on the very stroke.

On the 25th of July we had all been dining at Saint-Leu with M. le Duc de Bourbon, an old cousin of ours, who never meddled with politics, and led a leisured and delightful life between Chantilly and Saint-Leu, never coming to Paris except to pass through it, although the beautiful palace there which bears his name, the Palais Bourbon, belonged to him. His great passion was for sport, in which he excelled; and my father had made a friend of him by giving him the hunting in all his forests. There was another reason too, and perhaps after all it was the chief one, for this cordiality, that my parents had consented to receive the Baronne de Feucheres, who held great sway over the Duke, but who had never been admitted to Court. I can see the handsome old man yet, laconic in speech, his profile of the most strongly marked Bourbon type, his hair and pigtail white, with his tightly buttoned blue coat, from which a lace frill escaped, and his trousers, which were always much too short, showing his white stockings underneath. On the evening I speak of there had been a great gathering at Saint-Leu—a big dinner, then a drawing-room play, acted by Madame de Feucheres and the Duke's gentlemen. In the audience were many officers of the Royal Guard, and numerous other persons, whose names were known to me from having heard them quoted as being amongst those ardent Conservatives called at that time the "Ultras." One of them, a M. de Vitrolles, attracted my attention by holding a long conversation with my father in one of the intervals between the acts. He has since related this conversation in his Memoirs, and also the conviction it gave him of the horror with which the idea of a fresh revolution filled my father. Their only disagreement was as to the means to avert it. Which of the two was in the right?

That evening we went back to Neuilly, and the next morning, 26th of July, as we were just getting ready, Nemours and I, to start for school, somebody opened the door and launched the remark to our tutors: "The coup d'Etat is in the Moniteur!" "What!" "Yes! The Decrees." Whereupon the tutors rushed to the family drawing-room, whither we followed them. There sat my father, thunderstruck, the Moniteur in his hand. When he saw the tutors come in, he threw up his arms in despair, and let them fall again. After a silence on his Part, during which my mother rapidly acquainted the gentlemen with the state of affairs, my father said: "They are mad!" That was all, and after another silence, a long one—"They will get themselves banished again. Oh! for my part, I have been exiled twice already. I will not bear it again: I stay in France!"

I heard no more, for it was schooltime, and we had to get into the carriage; but those words and that first impression remain graven on my memory.

That day at school was just like any other, but the next, the 27th, as we came back from the College Henri IV, it was easy to see that there was a great stir in Paris Deligny's swimming school, at the corner of the Quai d'Orsay, where we went after school, according to custom, to take our bath, was full of young men discussing and holding forth, and relating incidents, true or not, which had occurred during the day. The Place Louis XV., now the Place de la Concorde, was occupied by the troops. There was a regiment of Foot Guards, a battalion of the Swiss Guard, the Lancers of the Guard, the Artillery of the Military School—magnificent troops all of them, the finest I have seen in any country, and of which the English Foot Guards alone in these days give any idea. Officers inspired in the highest possible degree with esprit de corps and chivalrous devotion, old non-commissioned officers, many of whom had seen the wars of the Empire, commanding seasoned soldiers, young in years but old in discipline and instruction, and all proud of the splendid uniform they wore—such was the Royal Guard. And what shall I say of the superb Swiss battalions, acknowledged by ancient tradition to be the finest infantry in the world? These splendid troops, which might have rendered such great service to France on the battlefield were to disappear within two days. Upon them too I had looked my last. Close to the Porte Maillot we met the Duchesse de Berri, riding amongst a numerous group of equerries. We exchanged friendly greetings. No doubt her instinct as a woman and a mother led her to try to keep in touch with passing events.

The next morning, the 28th, we knew Paris to be in open revolt. Cannon boomed, the great bell of Notre-Dame sounded the tocsin, and naturally we did not go to school. But the masters who gave my sisters lessons came out to Neuilly, and from them, in turn, we learnt what was going on within the capital—barricades in all the streets—the troops on the defensive—the tricolour hoisted everywhere.

On the 29th, the struggle grew closer to us. A bullet fell whistling in the park. According to the fugitives from Paris, the insurrection had triumphed, the troops of the line were fraternizing with the rebels, and the Guard was retiring on Saint-Cloud to gather round the King. I pass over all the rumours and false reports accompanying this news, which was all too true. And what were we doing during these anxious hours? We obeyed various impulses. The first, a fervent sympathy with our soldiers, who were engaged in the struggle—ces pauvres soldats, the real France, the real PEOPLE, obeying the noblest motives—honour—duty opposing the POPULACE, whose envy and evil instincts had been let loose by a handful of ambitious men. And we knew no rest till the whole staff of the household had repaired to the various gates of the park, to open them to the soldiers, separated, dispersed, threatened with massacre as they were. They were brought in and fed, and given caps and blouses instead of their uniforms, and put across to the other side of the Seine in boats. And with all that, so full is the heart of man, and yet more that of the child, of contradiction, that we followed the current and made tricolour cockades, my sisters and I, and all of us! There is no doubt the fascination of the tricolour flag had a good deal to do with the rapidity with which the Revolutionary powder-train took fire.

As there must always be a laughable side, even to the grimmest events, the comic element was supplied in this case by our professors of languages, drawing, and so forth, who had not dared to go back into Paris after leaving it on the 28th, on account of the fighting. When they had made up their minds to return on the 29th, we persuaded those of them who wore moustaches that they would run very great risks, and even be taken for soldiers in disguise. Whereupon the schoolroom was at once turned into a barber's shop, where a general shaving was performed, with the inevitable change of appearance resulting there-from, which increased the alarm of the individuals operated upon tenfold.

While our professors were shaving off their moustaches, our father was disappearing from Neuilly. His movements were rigorously concealed from us, and I never learnt what they really were even in later days. So I will not attempt to speak of them. We were soon aware of the bare fact that he was in Paris, exercising public functions which were somewhat ill-defined as yet; and on the evening of the 31st my mother informed us that we were going to join him at the Palais-Royal. [Footnote: It is not for me to pass judgment on my father's conduct in accepting the crown in 1830. There is no doubt the July Revolution was a great misfortune. It gave a fresh blow to the monarchical principle, and it unfortunately encouraged those who speculate in insurrection. But I know as a fact that my father never desired it, and indeed watched its approach with the deepest sorrow. When the throne of Charles X. collapsed without his being able to defend it in any way, he certainly felt the most passionate desire to escape the common exile and to continue living a life which was to him the happiest of lives in France. The struggle one over, and the country in revolt from end to end, he realized that the only way in which he could escape exile was to associate himself with the movement, and at the outset he certainly did it solely in the hope of bringing back Henri V. to the throne. When this hope failed him, he yielded to the entreaties of those persons who implored him as the only person in a position to do it, to check France on that fateful descent which must bring her from the Republic to a Dictatorship, and so on to invasion, and to mutilation. He delayed that disastrous succession of events for eighteen years, at the risk of his own life, which was incessantly threatened, and history will do him honour for it in spite of the injustice of human nature.]

We started about eight o'clock at night, my mother, my aunt Adelaide, and we children, in an omnibus, so as not to attract notice. We began to come to barricades at the Barriere de l'Etoile, but openings had been made in them already, large enough for carriages to pass through, all which openings were watched by guards of armed people—I beg their pardons, I was mistaken—armed CITIZENS, playing at soldiers and police, who stopped and cross-questioned everybody in the most childish fashion. The omnibus could not get beyond the Place Louis XV., so many obstacles did we find in the way. We got out, and my mother divided us into twos, and told us to scatter and meet again at the Palais-Royal.

Paris was a curious sight that night, lighted up everywhere with lamps, and tricolour flags at every window. How people found time to make up so many emblems in those two days is a mystery! The streets were all torn up, and the paving-stones piled into the barricades, mixed up with overturned carriages, casks, and rubbish of all kinds. Behind these barriers were extemporized guardians, passers-by, people walking about with guns and firing them off every minute, and everybody, man, woman, and child, wore huge tricolour cockades in hats and caps or bonnets, or in their hair.

In the centre of a great crowd on the Place du Palais-Royal there was one of the Laffitte et Caillard diligences, which had been used as a barricade, and set up again. It was full of people inside, and they clustered on the roof like bees, all of them singing in chorus. Between the choruses, sharp volleys of musketry rang out, and the vehicle, drawn by three or four hundred people holding on to ropes, tore round the square, amid a concert of varied yells. Though it was very late when we reached the palace, it was all lighted up, and every door stood open. Anybody who chose could go in, and when we went up the stairs we found many people already settled on the steps, prepared to spend the night there. We saw my father in his study, and then we were sent to bed, or rather to camp out in the rooms we usually slept in. The next day the firing slackened, but the general idleness continued; everybody was walking about. Soon the question of food began to press, for all supplies and trade were stopped by the universal barricades. Everybody asked everybody else what was going on, a subject upon which every one except the leaders was profoundly ignorant. The multitude was just like an immense flock of sheep, whose shepherds had been driven away, and who seemed to wonder why the new dogs who were to herd them did not make their appearance. There was no bad feeling; now and then there would be a panic, everybody taking to their heels, nobody knew why, and then stopping again and bursting out laughing. Sometimes a noise arose, and swelled as it drew nearer. It was some popular leader going to the Hotel de Ville or the Palais-Royal, with two or three claqueurs before him, to stir up an enthusiasm in which everybody shared, without having a notion of the name of the hero they were acclaiming, yet glad to be able thus to show off their civic rights. Then there would be a fit of general tenderness. Everybody kissed everybody else vehemently. In some cases a transport of patriotism thus calmed itself; in others perhaps it was the effect of the extreme heat, and the consequent thirst, which had not gone unquenched, and in others, again, it was merely the relaxation of morals an era of universal brotherhood brought with it. The hero of this general and infectious kissing match was Lafayette. Everybody wanted to kiss him. A great rattle of drums having announced his arrival at the Palais-Royal one day, he had to take his stand in one of the drawing-rooms, in front of me, and be kissed by thousands of persons of all ages. I did it, like all the others, but I saw people I knew come up again many times over to be kissed by the illustrious veteran, and each time their agitation seemed to increase.

Every one went in and out of the Palais-Royal as they chose. It was a strange march past, of people of all sorts, who came to take notes, see how the wind blew, and give in an adhesion which might be more or less disinterested. Some of them, inspired by real devotion, came to try if they might even yet serve a cause that was so dear to them. Thus I saw M. de Chateaubriand led into my mother's drawing-room by Anatole de Montesquiou. And, on the other hand, I saw Savary, Duc de Rovigo, notorious in connection with the Duc d'Enghien, in full uniform, booted and spurred, leave the study, whither he had gone to offer my father his services.

One evening, as we were all gathered together, we heard a great noise coming from the staircase. We hurried towards it. A crowd of armed men, with lighted torches, were coming up, shouting loudly and waving flags. At their head came five or six pupils of the Ecole Polytechnique, with their three-cornered hats cocked and swords drawn. Behind them a woman in man's attire, red belt and close-fitting pantaloons, was being borne in triumph. She was a heroine of the barricades, whom the yelling crowd desired to introduce to my father, and he had to receive her. This scene filled me with disgust, and it was soon followed by another, no less painful. The leaders of the Revolution had sent an army of volunteers to dislodge the old King and his Guard from Rambouillet. They did not turn him out, first of all because the King himself had decided to disband his guard and retire to Cherbourg with no escort but four companies of his bodyguard; and, secondly, because these same volunteers, numerous as they were on leaving Paris, melted away rapidly on the road, and above all things took good care not to venture within range of the Guard's fire. Nevertheless, they returned in triumph from Rambouillet, bringing back the royal horses and carriages, which they had seized without striking a blow. I was horrified to see the great carriages, with six or eight horses, still driven by the wretched coachmen and postilions, in their state liveries, enter the Place du Palais-Royal—believing as I did that they were bringing back the King and his family as prisoners, into the very jaws of the Revolution. But, happily, this was not the case. The only people in the carriages were some young blackguards, dressed up in extraordinary garments, dressing-gowns and cotton caps, and I know not what other masquerading trash, intended to call forth the ribald jokes of the multitude. It was a disgusting scene. The days passed on, and by degrees Paris returned to its ordinary life. The streets were repaired, vehicles began to circulate again. Soldiers, gendarmes, policemen, were to be seen once more, and a certain sense of security revived. At all events the eternal struggle of order against disorder began afresh. Those who formed the most turbulent element of the Revolutionary party were induced, by degrees, to engage in the army, and were drafted off to Algiers, under the title of "Regiments de la Charte." It was less easy to get rid of a Guard of Honour, numbering some two or three hundred men, which had formed itself on its own responsibility, nominally for the protection of my father and of the Palais-Royal. This guard was always in the vestibule and on the staircase, night and day alike. It was an omnium gatherum of vagabonds, prowling ruffians of the vilest kind, ragged scamps, all carrying arms, stolen from every sort of place, among others from the Musee d'Artillerie, whence some had gone so far as to borrow cuirasses and helmets that had belonged to the warriors of the League. Of course they all had to be fed and paid. The chief of the band was a midshipman in the navy, on leave in Paris at the time the Revolution broke out, of the name of Damiguet de Vernon, who died afterwards with the rank of general in the army. Whenever my father went out, to go to the Chamber of Deputies or elsewhere, this rabble turned out and saluted after a fashion of its own, with drums beating and trumpets blowing. It was a scene quite worthy of Callot's pencil. To get rid of this worthy set, the midshipman was at once given a lieutenant's commission in the mounted Municipal Guard, under pretext of a reward from the nation, and clothes were bestowed on his band, wherewith they hastened to decamp on the first sign of the introduction of anything like discipline into their ranks.

Our regular routine began again too. After over a week's holiday, I was put back to school, where we immediately made a revolution of our own, by insisting that the bell which rang for class and mealtimes should be replaced by a drum. If, as I went into school with my folding desk under my arm, I came across the column of big boys coming down from their class-rooms, I used to get many a cuff to the tune of "Take that, your young Majesty!" or the slang saying of the day, "Have you seen Leontine?"—this last from the name of Leontine Fay, a favourite actress with young people. But, apart from that, my life was as monotonous as ever it had been. The riots and attempts at insurrection which succeeded each other with something very like regularity seemed to diversify it but very little. Yet I did feel a certain excitement the first time I witnessed one of these attempts at sedition. Our evening was just over at the Palais-Royal, and I had gone up to my room, when loud shouts, and an ejaculation of "Oh, good gracious!" from my valet, made me run to the window. The Court of the Palais-Royal was closed, but all the galleries were filled with a surging, yelling crowd, the more violent of whom were battering at the staircase door facing Chevet's shop. "They are going to break it in and come upstairs: they'll be here in another moment," we said to ourselves. "What is to be done?"

Amidst the general shouting, yells of "Death to Louis Philippe!" were to be heard. Then, all at once, in the gaslight, I saw the policemen's swords twinkle, pinking people in all directions. Soon the troops came hurrying up with fixed bayonets, and the rabble took to their heels at the sight of them. This crowd had just come back from Vincennes, whither it had gone to demand the heads of Charles X.'s ministers, who were shut up in the fortress, from General Daumesnil, "the man with the wooden leg," and having failed in that attempt it wanted to have my father's instead.

So that affair ended; but fresh opportunities for creating disturbances soon occurred, and were as eagerly seized upon. One was during a great diplomatic dinner given by my father in the dining-room of the Palais-Royal, which looks out on the Cour des Fontaines. I was sitting by Lord Granville's daughter, and doing my best to make myself pleasant, when the uproar of the riot burst upon us suddenly and interrupted all the talk. Everybody looked at everybody else, and then down at their own plate, and everybody looked very sorry to be where he was at that moment. Then the noise of a great trampling of hoofs on the pavement revealed the fact that the cavalry was charging, whereupon the sky cleared, and conversation began again, though not without some appearance of effort.

Another time, again, matters became more serious. The riot—I don't remember which it was now, there were so many of them!—became very threatening at one moment. I see my father still, taking Casimir Perier by the arm, and shouting in his ear, "Tell them to serve out ball cartridge, ball cartridge, do you hear?" Casimir Perier, as excited as himself, was rushing away, when he was stopped by an officer, who said, "There are three students of the Ecole Polytechnique, sent to parley, waiting below."

"Parley for whom? For the rioters? For the insurrection? Lay hands on them! Lock them up in prison."

"But, sir," said the officer, himself a former student at the Ecole Polytechnique, "I can't: I've given them my word!" But Casimir Perier was not there to listen even just then I observed a man of woebegone appearance, sitting in a corner of the drawing-room in which the foregoing scene had taken place. One of my eldest brother's aides-de-camp, General Marbot, was walking up and down in front of him, never taking his eyes off him. "What are you doing there?" I asked the general.

"I'm keeping my eye on that gentleman you see there."

"Who is he?"

"The Prefect of Police."

"Really?"

"They say he is playing us false"

And there you see a specimen of the plight you find yourself in on the morrow of a revolution, when order needs restoring not only in the open streets but in the highest quarters in the State.

For my own part, I was always delighted to hear the drums call the National Guard—and consequently all our masters, tutors, and professors, who served in it—to arms, at each fresh outbreak of disturbance.

It meant interrupted studies, and, above all, interrupted attendance at school, where, however, luckily for me, I was not to stay much longer. Seeing that I did no good there whatever, my father decided, in the spring of 1831, to remove me altogether, and as my taste for a naval career was growing stronger and stronger, he resolved to make a sailor of me But before I seriously entered the profession he wished me to make a sea-voyage. So I was sent to Toulon, to be shipped as volunteer pilot's apprentice, on board the Arthemise frigate, commander Latreyte. I was barely thirteen I could not have begun at a better age.

After bidding the tenderest farewell to my father and mother, my aunt, and my brothers and sisters, from whom I had never been parted before, I was packed into a post-chaise with Monsieur Trognon, and off we started.

As far as Lyons our journey was uneventful, but when we got there M. Paulze d'Ivoy, the prefet, and M. Vitet, author of Barricades des Etats de Blois, took possession of me, nominally to show me the town—in reality to make me the pretext for certain demonstrations in favour of the new order of things. I was driven about, to Fourvieres, to La Croix-Rousse, and so forth, and had the best of receptions from their sturdy inhabitants. Thirteen-year-old lad as I was, I had to receive the officers of the National Guard—very military indeed they were, with their uniform with its white facings, copied from that of the Imperial Guard. And these receptions and official entertainments, which were not at all to my personal taste, were repeated all along the road till we got to Toulon, marked by increasing animation and fervour as we got farther south, and as the population through which we passed became more and more divided by political passions. At Valence I found an enormous crowd of people, and the garrison and National Guard both under arms, while a tall lieutenant-colonel, of the 49th Regiment of the Line, insisted on my inspecting the troops in person.

He took my hand with one of his, with the other he waved his sword, and led the plaudits. His name was Magnan, and he was a Marshal of France before he died. At Mornas, the native place of the famous Baron des Adrets, the reception took a very original shape. As we drove up to the posting-house, I saw a great crowd, and the National Guard drawn up in two ranks, on the right and left of the postilions who were to take us on. The carriage pulled up between the ranks, and I fancied I saw a sort of suppressed smile on the countenances of the National Guard. It did not last long, for the commandant in the wildest excitement rapidly gave the words of command: "Present arms—Fire!" And they were followed by the most abominable noise, every man having presented arms with his finger on the trigger of his musket. The crowd cheered tremendously, the horses plunged and reared, and there was a terrible disturbance, which seemed to afford the keenest joy to the officer in command. There was nothing very striking at Orange, nor at Avignon. Speeches by the authorities, visits to the public buildings, very much the same routine as that which official receptions have nowadays made so familiar to everybody. But at Orgon, between Avignon and Aix, it was a very different matter. An immense and excited crowd awaited our arrival, shouting all manner of things. Then the carriage was seized upon by people who looked drunk, but who were drunk with political passion alone. It seems the town of Orgon was not reckoned to favour the regime of 1830. So from every side I was greeted with shouts of "We are Cavaillon's men! … We've come down from the mountains so that you may tell your papa there are no Carlists in Provence." And then they sang the Marseillaise The horses were taken out of the carriage, the crowd surrounded it, climbing on the steps, the wheels, the fore-carriage, the roof. I was like a prisoner in a cage; all I could see out of the window was the boots of the people who were sitting on the top. They sang all the verses of the Marseillaise, and bawled between them. A gentleman contrived to slip up to the carriage door, gave himself out to be the mayor, and tried to rescue us, calling out: "Gentlemen, this really is not decent behaviour." All he got for his pains was a shout of "What the devil do we care about a mayor like you?" I don't know how long it would have gone on, if a detachment of the battalion of Government workmen quartered at Orgon, which had been sent for, had not come to our rescue.

Between Orgon and Marseilles we met the "Regiment de la Charte" marching from Paris on their way to Algiers, and their passage through the country did not a little to excite the inhabitants. At Marseilles the National Guard lined the Allees de Meillan, each man with a bouquet stuck into the muzzle of his rifle, which he took out and threw into the barouche in which I sat with General Gazan, so that I was soon fairly buried, with nothing but my head sticking out, while the crowd shouted at the top of its voice: "Vive le Prinnche!—Long live the Prince!" and I heard women's voices adding, "Que sis poulid! Qui est si joli!"

I had hardly reached Toulon, ere the frigate I had joined put to sea, my apprenticeship began, and I soon made myself at home among our sailors, who all of them, officers, petty officers, and seamen alike, not only showed me an affection which won my heart from the very outset, but took every pains to make my stay amongst them a pleasant one, while each in his own special sphere initiated me into all the details of my duty.

The Arthemise was a fine sailing frigate, of fifty-two guns, with huge spars—one of the most elegant types of the old-fashioned ships, but an old-fashioned ship she was indeed. We even had hempen cables instead of chain ones! The crew, drawn almost exclusively from the lists of registered seamen, was active and bold on the rigging, but somewhat insubordinate. The words of command were given amidst volleys of oaths, and carried out under a hail of blows dealt by the petty officers. The superior officers, who had all belonged to the old Imperial Navy, clung to that detestable habit, which has cost us so many reverses, of completely neglecting the military side of the ship's drill. The only thing they looked to was navigation. There was indeed a routine of regulation practice carried out, but it was utterly ridiculous. The ne plus ultra of perfection in artillery drill, for instance, was supposed to be when at the word "Ram" all the thirteen rammers of the ship's battery struck the bore of the guns with irreproachable simultaneity! Now and then there was a rehearsal of the drill book, but it was always done amidst universal sleepiness and inattention. There never was one day's practice, nor even one shot fired, during the whole cruise.

The commander gave me boatswains and sailors to teach me the various details of my duty, and I soon learnt to give things their right names, to tie knots, and to climb about the rigging too, though I did not manage that, the first time, without being horribly frightened. I remember, when I got as far as the topgallant crosstrees, clinging on, and not daring to come down till I was driven to it by the jeers of the on-lookers. But I learnt most of all by observation, and from the outset I had that indescribable thing that nobody can teach another, the seafaring instinct. Our cruise was a pleasant one, and our stays in port were interesting. At Ajaccio I came upon more public functions, and was the hero of a Bonapartist demonstration. I was borne as though in triumph to the house where Napoleon was born, where I was received by a very old Signor Ramolino, brother to Madame Letitia. In common with my sisters, who drew pictures of Napoleon all over the place, I professed the greatest admiration for the great warrior. So I asked his uncle for some souvenir of him, and he presented me with a red armchair, out of the room in which he was born.

After a visit to the Dey of Algiers, the last representative of those Barbary Moors who were the "Terror of the Seas," as the Muette de Portici has it, I received at Leghorn an invitation from the Grand Duke of Tuscany to come to Florence, and was taken thither by the French Minister, M. de Ganay, a charming man. There was nothing that excellent good Grand Duke and his family did not do for me while I staid at the Pitti Palace, and the only acknowledgment I could make of it all was to turn my schoolboy talents to constructing a jointed jumping jack, that turned head over heels, for one of the young princesses whom we used to call the Archduchess Mimi, and who afterwards married Prince Luitpold of Bavaria. I returned on board the Arthemise full of gratitude for my reception, and of admiration for the monuments and artistic marvels I had seen at Florence and Pisa and Pistoja, and in which, in spite of my youth, I had taken the deepest interest.

At Naples I found fresh delights in the midst of my mother's family and my young cousins, of both sexes, one of whom, Antonietta, an admirably beautiful girl, later became Grand Duchess of Tuscany in her turn. Nothing indeed could have been more charming than the Naples of those days. I do not speak of that wondrous setting which will last to all eternity, but of the Naples of the Neapolitans, gay, noisy, and teeming with wit, as it was before the plague of politics fell on it, bringing divisions and gloom, and despoiling it of all its charm of originality; Naples, with its lazzaroni and its macaroni, and its "corricoli" tearing along with tinkling bells, crammed with monks and women in their costumes—the Naples, in fine, of Pulcinella and of Leopold Robert.

After Naples came Palermo, and then Malta, where we found the magnificent British squadron, and received the most hospitable of welcomes from General and Lady Emily Ponsonby, the governor and his charming wife.

Our stay at Malta ended with a disagreeable incident, hardly conceivable in these days, when naval discipline may be held up as a model to every one. On the evening of the day before that on which we were to weigh anchor, our whole crew deserted in a body. In spite of the efforts of the officer of the watch, and some others of inferior rank, who were present, over 300 men seized the boats and dories that lay alongside of us, and took "French leave" on shore. The next day we could not start, for we had no crew. We had to apply to the police and the English garrison, who sent out pickets, collected our rovers, and brought almost all of them back in the course of the evening, and we started somewhat humiliated at having given the English such a sad specimen of the insubordination which always follows on revolutions. The English have had their revolution too, but they have taken good care to have no more than the one, and above all not to make laws which render a periodical recurrence of revolution inevitable. As we had over 300 delinquents, it was impossible to punish them. The men felt this, and, with the evident intention of setting their officers at defiance, they spent the next few evenings singing revolutionary songs, some verses of which they came and yelled on their knees on the quarterdeck. The firmness of the commanding officers got the better of these saturnalia, by degrees.

Storms delayed us in the Maltese waters, and we only just missed being on the spot on the very day when an eruption threw up an island and a volcano from the depths of the sea, to which they have now returned. After a long passage, the frigate anchored at Algiers, which in 1831 was still the city of the Deys. Not a street had been widened, nor a European house built. It was still inhabited by a numerous native population. The Rue de la Marine, which was like a narrow winding staircase, was crowded with negro women street sellers, the cafes filled with Moors wearing huge turbans. To increase the picturesqueness of the situation, there was fighting going on at the city gates. Berthezene, the Governor-General, had just been forced to beat a retreat from Medeah. I could see the firing on the slopes of Kouba from the frigate, and a column had to be sent out to revictual the Maison-Carree! Under these circumstances, the Governor bethought himself that it would be a good thing to show "the King's son" to the troops, and settled to hold a review the next day. The troops were to be withdrawn for the moment from the line of defense, and the review was to be held at Mustapha. I had ventured to suggest that I might go and see the soldiers in their own lines, hoping thus to get near the firing, a natural desire enough, seeing I wore a volunteer uniform in spite of my thirteen years, but nobody listened to me, and to Mustapha I was taken, mounted on the ex-Dey's white mule, which an artilleryman persisted in leading by the bridle, in spite of all my indignant protests.

A real downright review that was! The men had been fighting all the morning, and Zouaves and linesmen alike looked fierce indeed, with tanned faces, eyes reddened by the smoke, and a black mark at the corner of every mouth, from biting off the ends of the cartridges. The Zouaves had only just been raised, and were not a bit like the Zouaves of the present day. The ranks consisted mostly of Arabs, who wore almost the same uniform as the present one, only with bare legs and slippers on their feet, mingled with Parisian roughs, drafted out of the "Regiments de la Charte," most of them wearing blouses and caps. Many of the non-commissioned officers had come from the Royal Guard, and still wore their blue cloaks. The excessively whimsical get-up of the officers put the finishing touch to this motley show. Most of them had adopted the Mameluke dress—white turbans, huge trousers, yellow boots, a sun embroidered on their backs, and a scimitar. After the Zouaves I saw the squadron of "Chasseurs Algeriens," the nucleus of the future "Chasseurs d'Afrique," march past. They wore Turkish dress and turbans too, all but their commanding officer, a big bearded artillery captain, who wore a burnous and Arab pistols over his uniform. His name was Marey-Monge, and he was a general of division when he died.

After the review I was taken back to my ship. The frigate sailed for Port Mahon, where we underwent a long quarantine, and thence to Toulon, where we arrived just as the squadron which had forced the mouth of the Tagus, under the orders of Admiral Roussin, returned, I went over those fine ships, and especially the Algesiras, with many a regret that the Arthemise had had no share in the fray. The commander of the Algesiras, M. Moulac, a tall, strongly built, grey-headed man, the bravest of the brave, who had fought boldly in all our naval struggles with England, told me a story which impressed me deeply, and which I here transcribe just as it remains fixed in my memory:—

"It has been blowing great guns, as you know, all the last few days. The ship was running under easy sail when I heard a shout of 'Man overboard!' The lifebuoy was thrown, and, looking astern, I saw the man had caught it. But it was a raging sea—I saw and felt that to try and lower a boat to save the poor wretch must expose the men who manned it to the greatest danger. The crew read in my face the fearful struggle going on within me, and twenty, thirty, perhaps forty volunteers, headed by officers and midshipmen, crowded round me, beseeching me almost on their knees: 'Let us save our comrade, sir! we can't desert him!' I was weak enough to yield. By unexpected good luck, we managed to lower a boat without accident, and she started manned by a dozen men. We saw her, by still greater good fortune, get to the poor fellow and save him, and I was steering about so as to make it easier for her to get back, when a huge wave broke over her. A shout of horror went up from her, and then silence. In another minute I saw my boat capsized, on the crest of a wave, with two or three men, one of them a midshipman, clinging to the keel. To shorten their agony, I made as though I was going ahead. The middy understood that I was forced to abandon them, for he waved a farewell and let himself go. I had been weak, but I was cruelly punished. Thirteen men drowned instead of one, and by my fault!"

I shall never forget the severe expression that came over the commander's face as he added, laying his hand on my shoulder, "Some day, boy, you may be in command. May the thought of me remind you always that duty is inexorable!"

After this final episode in my first cruise I went ashore, but I went ashore a sailor to the core, and my one idea, when I got back to Paris, was to acquire the technical information needed for my profession. To this the years 1832 and 1833 were devoted. M. Guerard, a charming fellow, universally liked and an incomparable instructor, was my mathematical teacher. A lieutenant in the navy, M. Hernoux, put me through the course of study of the Naval School. At the same time I set assiduously to work to learn drawing. My first master in this line was M. Barbier, the father of Jules Barbier, the poet and librettist, who, with Emile Augier, was a class-mate of my young brothers. I did watercolours too, under an Englishman, William Callow, and oils in Gudin's studio. But my real master, who taught me to draw, and led and guided me, and gave me my taste for things artistic, was Ary Scheffer, with whom I remained on terms of the closest intimacy until his death.

It was somewhere about this time that a French army entered Belgium, and besieged and took the citadel of Antwerp, and during this campaign my elder brothers first had the honour of leading our soldiers under fire. Antwerp once taken, the French Government, content with having given a proof of activity to Europe, and shown everybody what our legions could do, at once recalled the army, and my father went to review it in the cantonments on the frontier where it lay. I made this journey with him. The troops were splendid, full of zeal and confidence. I was shown one infantry brigade, which at the time of mobilization had done marches of sixty to seventy kilometres, so as to reach the given point at the hour fixed upon. It was an interesting journey, though a very trying one. Every day there was an entry into some town, and a partial review, in Siberian cold. And every evening there was a banquet, and every night a ball. The chief review was held at Valenciennes. The troops looked magnificent, drawn up on the snow, and, though it was so terribly cold, a brilliant sun lighted up the splendid military scene. It was enlivened by a little incident. The commandant of the fortress of Valenciennes was an old colonel, who had re-engaged in 1830, after having dabbled somewhat in conspiracy, under the Restoration. His name was M. de la Huberdiere, and he had had himself a hat made exactly like Napoleon's, and wore it just after the same fashion.

During the march past, either from sheer keenness or because he wanted to attract attention to himself, he edged himself gradually in front of the staff, on the side where the troops advanced, till at last he was abreast of the King, so that the troops appeared to be marching past him. This provoked one of my father's aides-de-camp, Heymes, who went up to him, and said, saluting, "It seems to me, Colonel, you would be better placed still if you were on the King's horse!" The shriek of laughter which greeted this remark may be imagined.

This same Heymes, one of the few survivors of General Leclerc's expedition to St. Domingo, had, on leaving that charnel-house, become aide-de-camp to Marshal Ney. He it was who, during the famous retreat from Russia, was sent to ask the general who was blowing up the Beresina bridges to suspend the work of destruction, so as to allow of the passage of the column with the wounded, who must otherwise be doomed to death. It was worth seeing the expression of his face, severe enough already, when he repeated the answer the general in question gave him, with the most southern of accents, "What, my dear fellow! The wounded! The Emperor has decided to sacrifice them!"

The worthy Heymes did my father a great service a short time after the review which has led me to mention him. It was at the moment of the insurrection in June 1832. We were at St. Cloud. It was well known that the agitators of every description intended to make a demonstration on the occasion of General Lamarque's funeral, but the demonstration was not expected to be of any importance. However, at about five in the evening, we beheld Heymes, in plain clothes, gallop into the courtyard, on a dragoon's charger, covered with foam. He had just come from the demonstration, and had witnessed that ordinary prologue to revolutions, pillage and massacre—pillage of gunsmiths' shops, and massacre of the officers of the 6th Dragoons, shot down with pistols, without any provocation whatever, at the head of their squadrons in line.

"You must come to Paris, Sire," he said, as he dismounted. My father did not wait for him to say it twice, and an hour later he was at the Tuileries, thence giving the impulse which nipped the revolutionary attempt in the bud. The next morning he was on horseback amidst the troops and the National Guard, which hemmed the rioters into the ward of St. Merri. An incident occurred there which was highly characteristic of that Parisian population, in whom a generous chord will always thrill, even in its maddest moments. The King, with my brother Nemours and his staff, had gone down the Rue des Arcis, at the end of which lively firing was heard. The troops who were massed in the street greeted the sovereign with cheers, and he, going forward, reached a square in which the fighting was actually going on. The cheering ran from one to another, the soldiers who were engaged ceasing their fire to join in. This change in the music struck the insurgents also at last. They stopped firing too, and were to be seen appearing at the windows, rifle in hand, taking off their caps to the plucky King, whom they would not have hesitated to shoot at a minute before.

I need not say that as soon as the King and his escort disappeared down a side street the fight began again, merrier than ever, and the 42nd Regiment of the line carried the monastery of St. Merri. An historic regiment that 42nd! After having fought against the "White" insurrection in the Vendee and the republican insurrection at the St. Merri monastery, caused the breakdown of Prince Napoleon's Boulogne adventure, occupied the Chamber of Deputies on the 2nd of December, and heroically lost its whole strength twice over in the siege of Paris, it has had the good fortune of being almost the only one of our regiments to keep its arms and its colours amidst all our mishaps.

There was no further interruption to the course of my studies, except a journey of the King's to Normandy, on which I accompanied him. The official object of this journey was to hold a review, at Cherbourg, of the squadron which had operated, in concert with an English one, in the North Sea, during the arrangement of the Belgian question. But its chief end was to go through the Departments in Normandy and enter into relations with the honest folk who populated them.

The trip was fruitful in incident. The first happened at Bernay, the native town of the virtuous Dupont de l'Eure, one of those virtuous individuals who would virtuously have your head cut off sooner than drop the smallest iota of their vulgar and utopian ideas. The prefect, M. Passy, had warned the King that amongst the addresses that would be read to him on his arrival there would be one which would give him a lecture. Thus warned, we arrived, and having mounted a platform in the open air, with a verdant dome above it, the reception and the addresses began. There was nothing very particular at first; at last a "President de Tribunal" advanced, and the way he made his bow with his prim look, and the curiosity which stretched every neck, told me at once that the King was to get the promised lecture. It came, indeed, very studied, and very impertinent too. Everybody listened in silence. It was all about courtiers, the danger of listening to flatterers, and so forth. As it ended, the heads of the president and his friends all came up with a "Take that, my fine fellow" look.

Then the King replied with the utmost politeness, thanking M. le President for the advice he had been good enough to give him. "Flatterers and courtiers," he said, "have indeed done much mischief, and, sad to say, the race is not yet extinct, for nowadays there are courtiers who are far more dangerous than the flatterers of princes and of kings—those courtiers and flatterers of the people, who to buy a vain and contemptible popularity suggest to them dreams which are unrealizable and which bring them to misfortune," &c. On this head my father bestowed a well-directed hiding on the president, which was constantly interrupted by a running fire of applause, so that the worthy gentleman ended by not knowing which way to look. Amongst other eminently French qualities, my father possessed the gift of repartee to the highest degree. He always knew how to use it, though with a politeness and good nature which softened whatever might be too sharp about its sting. This time the blow went home. Our journey, thus begun, was continued amid constantly increasing cordiality and success. It was a somewhat tiring manner of life. We went by short stages, from one reception to another. Everywhere the National Guard and the troops were under arms. When they were in considerable numbers, we mounted horses, either lent or requisitioned beforehand. In the evening, wherever we slept, there would be a great banquet, and generally a ball as well. It was the duty of us young folk to lead the dancing—a pleasant task enough, if we could have chosen our partners among the pretty women whom I was beginning to notice, in spite of my being only fourteen, and of whom there were many, especially at Grandville and St. Lo. But our partners were given to us officially, and were chosen from the families of the authorities. We exerted ourselves to be pleasant in spite of that. I do not know whether I was succeeding too much or too little at a ball one night, but I saw the husband's head suddenly appear between my partner and myself, with the observation, "Well, my wife's not bad-looking, is she?" and he smacked his lips like a man who has eaten a good thing.

Falaise was the culminating point in our journey as far as incidents went. We were to make a halt there, and, as fifteen battalions of the National Guard were collected, the aide-de-camp, who did duty as quartermaster too, had seen to getting suitable mounts for the King, for us, and for Marshals Soult and Gerard, who accompanied us. The famous fair at Guibray, near Falaise, was just over, and a circus which had come to enliven it was still there. The circus horses were laid hands on, and when we arrived we were agreeably surprised to find fine white horses awaiting us instead of the ordinary nags and troop-horses we generally had to ride. So we got into the saddle, and the review began. Just as the King reached the right flank of the line, the band began to play, and then an unforeseen event occurred Our proud coursers, thinking that they were at a performance, set each of them to do his own particular duty. The King, Marshal Soult, and two others of our party were riding the horses who did that trick called the "Grand-Ecart," in which all four horses draw together at the same moment. When their riders pulled at their bridles, the four horses, feeling themselves reined up, instantly fell into the usual circus canter. Another horse kept wheeling round and round, and confusion became general, nobody guessing what had happened until the aide-de-camp smote his brow, and stopped the band.

The trouble did not end there. The National Guard was in proud possession of one gun, which it had horsed somehow or other. A jolt broke the axle-tree, just as it was going past. Then there was a half-squadron of cavalry mounted on stallions or geldings. But the trumpeter was on a mare, which fact brought difficulty on poor Rosinante during the march past. In the evening there was a great ball in a huge temporary shed, with tiers of seats all round it. All of a sudden half the tiers collapsed, like cards, and all the ladies were to be seen, though almost unhurt, on their backs with their legs in the air, amidst a most awful dust! I must confess we ungallantly seized the opportunity of the confusion to go off to our beds. The King, too, did the same, thus escaping from the persecutions of the Polish refugees, interned at Falaise, who had come to the ball in lancer uniforms worthy of the merry-andrews at the opera balls, to pester him with their petitions.